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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and
+Sketches, by Maurice Baring
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches
+
+Author: Maurice Baring
+
+Release Date: April 3, 2006 [EBook #2492]
+Last Updated: October 31, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ORPHEUS IN MAYFAIR AND OTHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; Emma Dudding; John Bickers
+
+
+
+
+
+ORPHEUS IN MAYFAIR AND OTHER STORIES AND SKETCHES
+
+BY
+
+MAURICE BARING
+
+
+
+TO ETHEL SMYTH
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+Most of the stories and sketches in this book have appeared in the
+_Morning Post_. One of them was published in the _Westminster Gazette_.
+I have to thank the editors and proprietors concerned for their kindness
+in allowing me to republish them.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     Orpheus in Mayfair
+     The Cricket Match
+     The Shadow of a Midnight
+     Jean Francois
+     The Flute of Chang Liang
+     “What is Truth?”
+      A Luncheon-Party
+     Fete Galante
+     The Garland
+     The Spider’s Web
+     Edward II. At Berkeley Castle
+     The Island
+     The Man Who Gave Good Advice
+     Russalka
+     The Old Woman
+     Dr. Faust’s Last Day
+     The Flute-Player’s Story
+     A Chinaman on Oxford
+     Venus
+     The Fire
+     The Conqueror
+     The Ikon
+     The Thief
+     The Star
+     Chun Wa
+
+
+
+
+ORPHEUS IN MAYFAIR
+
+Heraclius Themistocles Margaritis was a professional musician. He was a
+singer and a composer of songs; he wrote poetry in Romaic, and composed
+tunes to suit rhymes. But it was not thus that he earned his daily
+bread, and he was poor, very poor. To earn his livelihood he gave
+lessons, music lessons during the day, and in the evening lessons in
+Greek, ancient and modern, to such people (and these were rare) who
+wished to learn these languages. He was a young man, only twenty-four,
+and he had married, before he came of age, an Italian girl called Tina.
+They had come to England in order to make their fortune. They lived in
+apartments in the Hereford Road, Bayswater.
+
+They had two children, a little girl and a little boy; they were very
+much in love with each other, as happy as birds, and as poor as church
+mice. For Heraclius Themistocles got but few pupils, and although he
+had sung in public at one or two concerts, and had not been received
+unfavourably, he failed to obtain engagements to sing in private houses,
+which was his ambition. He hoped by this means to become well known, and
+then to be able to give recitals of his own where he would reveal to the
+world those tunes in which he knew the spirit of Hellas breathed. The
+whole desire of his life was to bring back and to give to the world
+the forgotten but undying Song of Greece. In spite of this, the modest
+advertisement which was to be found at concert agencies announcing that
+Mr. Heraclius Themistocles Margaritis was willing to attend evening
+parties and to give an exhibition of Greek music, ancient and modern,
+had as yet met with no response. After he had been a year in England
+the only steps towards making a fortune were two public performances
+at charity matinees, one or two pupils in pianoforte playing, and an
+occasional but rare engagement for stray pupils at a school of modern
+languages.
+
+It was in the middle of the second summer after his arrival that an
+incident occurred which proved to be the turning point of his career. A
+London hostess was giving a party in honour of a foreign Personage.
+It had been intimated that some kind of music would be expected.
+The hostess had neither the means nor the desire to secure for her
+entertainment stars of the first magnitude, but she gathered together
+some lesser lights--a violinist, a pianist, and a singer of French
+drawing-room melodies. On the morning of the day on which her concert
+was to be given, the hostess received a telegram from the singer of
+French drawing-room melodies to say that she had got a bad cold, and
+could not possibly sing that night. The hostess was in despair, but a
+musical friend of hers came to the rescue, and promised to obtain for
+her an excellent substitute, a man who sang Greek songs.
+
+* * * * *
+
+When Margaritis received the telegram from Arkwright’s Agency that
+he was to sing that night at A---- House, he was overjoyed, and could
+scarcely believe his eyes. He at once communicated the news to Tina, and
+they spent hours in discussing what songs he should sing, who the good
+fairy could have been who recommended him, and in building castles in
+the air with regard to the result of this engagement. He would become
+famous; they would have enough money to go to Italy for a holiday; he
+would give concerts; he would reveal to the modern world the music of
+Hellas.
+
+About half-past four in the afternoon Margaritis went out to buy
+himself some respectable evening studs from a large emporium in the
+neighbourhood. When he returned, singing and whistling on the stairs for
+joy, he was met by Tina, who to his astonishment was quite pale, and he
+saw at a glance that something had happened.
+
+“They’ve put me off!” he said. “Or it was a mistake. I knew it was too
+good to be true.”
+
+“It’s not that,” said Tina, “it’s Carlo!” Carlo was their little boy,
+who was nearly four years old.
+
+“What?” said Margaritis.
+
+Tina dragged him into their little sitting-room. “He is ill,” she said,
+“very ill, and I don’t know what’s the matter with him.”
+
+Margaritis turned pale. “Let me see him,” he said. “We must get a
+doctor.”
+
+“The doctor is coming: I went for him at once,” she said. And then they
+walked on tiptoe into the bedroom where Carlo was lying in his cot,
+tossing about, and evidently in a raging fever. Half an hour later
+the doctor came. Margaritis and Tina waited, silent and trembling with
+anxiety, while he examined the child. At last he came from the bedroom
+with a grave face. He said that the child was very seriously ill, but
+that if he got through the night he would very probably recover.
+
+“I must send a telegram,” said Margaritis to Tina. “I cannot possibly
+go.” Tina squeezed his hand, and then with a brave smile she went back
+to the sick-room.
+
+Margaritis took a telegraph form out of a shabby leather portfolio, sat
+down before the dining-table on which the cloth had been laid for tea
+(for the sitting-room was the dining-room also), and wrote out the
+telegram. And as he wrote his tears fell on the writing and smudged it.
+His grief overcame him, and he buried his face in his hands and sobbed.
+“What the Fates give with one hand,” he thought to himself, “they take
+away with another!” Then he heard himself, he knew not why, invoking the
+gods of Greece, the ancient gods of Olympus, to help him. And at that
+moment the whole room seemed to be filled with a strange light, and
+he saw the wonderful figure of a man with a shining face and eyes that
+seemed infinitely sad and at the same time infinitely luminous. The
+figure held a lyre, and said to him in Greek:--
+
+“It is well. All will be well. I will take your place at the concert!”
+
+When the vision had vanished, the half written telegram on his table had
+disappeared also.
+
+* * * * *
+
+The party at A---- House that night was brilliant rather than large. In
+one of the drawing-rooms there was a piano, in front of which were six
+or seven rows of gilt chairs. The other rooms were filled with shifting
+groups of beautiful women, and men wearing orders and medals. There was
+a continuous buzz of conversation, except in the room where the music
+was going on; and even there in the background there was a subdued
+whispering. The violinist was playing some elaborate nothings, and
+displaying astounding facility, but the audience did not seem to be much
+interested, for when he stopped, after some faint applause, conversation
+broke loose like a torrent.
+
+“I do hope,” said some one to the lady next him, “that the music will be
+over soon. One gets wedged in here, one doesn’t dare move, and one had
+to put up with having one’s conversation spoilt and interrupted.”
+
+“It’s an extraordinary thing,” answered the lady, “that nobody dares
+give a party in London without some kind of entertainment. It _is_ such
+a mistake!”
+
+At that moment the fourth and last item on the programme began, which
+was called “Greek Songs by Heraclius Themistocles Margaritis.”
+
+“He certainly looks like a Greek,” said the lady who had been talking;
+“in fact if his hair was cut he would be quite good-looking.”
+
+“It’s not my idea of a Greek,” whispered her neighbour. “He is too fair.
+I thought Greeks were dark.”
+
+“Hush!” said the lady, and the first song began. It was a strange thread
+of sound that came upon the ears of the listeners, rather high and
+piercing, and the accompaniment (Margaritis accompanied himself) was
+twanging and monotonous like the sound of an Indian tom-tom. The same
+phrase was repeated two or three times over, the melody seemed to
+consist of only a very few notes, and to come over and over again with
+extraordinary persistence. Then the music rose into a high shrill call
+and ended abruptly.
+
+“What has happened?” asked the lady. “Has he forgotten the words?”
+
+“I think the song is over,” said the man. “That’s one comfort at any
+rate. I hate songs which I can’t understand.”
+
+But their comments were stopped by the beginning of another song. The
+second song was soft and very low, and seemed to be almost entirely on
+one note. It was still shorter than the first one, and ended still more
+abruptly.
+
+“I don’t believe he’s a Greek at all,” said the man. “His songs are just
+like the noise of bagpipes.”
+
+“I daresay he’s a Scotch,” said the lady. “Scotchmen are very clever.
+But I must say his songs are short.”
+
+An indignant “Hush!” from a musician with long hair who was sitting not
+far off heralded the beginning of the third song. It began on a high
+note, clear and loud, so that the audience was startled, and for a
+moment or two there was not a whisper to be heard in the drawing-room.
+Then it died away in a piteous wail like the scream of a sea-bird, and
+the high insistent note came back once more, and this process seemed
+to be repeated several times till the sad scream prevailed, and stopped
+suddenly. A little desultory clapping was heard, but it was instantly
+suppressed when the audience became aware that the song was not over.
+
+“He’s going on again,” whispered the man. A low, long note was heard
+like the drone of a bee, which went on, sometimes rising and sometimes
+getting lower, like a strange throbbing sob; and then once more it
+ceased. The audience hesitated a moment, being not quite certain whether
+the music was really finished or not. Then when they saw Margaritis rise
+from the piano, some meagre well-bred applause was heard, and an immense
+sigh of relief. The people streamed into the other rooms, and the
+conversation became loud and general.
+
+The lady who had talked went quickly into the next room to find out what
+was the right thing to say about the music, and if possible to get the
+opinion of a musician.
+
+Sir Anthony Holdsworth, who had translated Pindar, was talking to Ralph
+Enderby, who had written a book on “Modern Greek Folk Lore.”
+
+“It hurts me,” said Sir Anthony, “to hear ancient Greek pronounced like
+that. It is impossible to distinguish the words; besides which its wrong
+to pronounce ancient Greek like modern Greek. Did you understand it?”
+
+“No,” said Ralph Enderby, “I did not. If it is modern Greek it was
+certainly wrongly pronounced. I think the man must be singing some kind
+of Asiatic dialect--unless he’s a fraud.”
+
+Hard by there was another group discussing the music: Blythe, the
+musical critic, and Lawson, who had the reputation of being a great
+connoisseur.
+
+“He’s distinctly clever,” Blythe was saying; “the songs are amusing
+‘pastiches’ of Eastern folk song.”
+
+“Yes, I think he’s clever,” said Lawson, “but there’s nothing original
+in it, and besides, as I expect you noticed, two of the songs were gross
+plagiarisms of De Bussy.”
+
+“Clever, but not original,” said the lady to herself. “That’s it.” And
+two hostesses who had overheard this conversation made up their minds
+to get Margaritis for their parties, for they scented the fact that he
+would ultimately be talked about. But most of the people did not discuss
+the music at all.
+
+As soon as the music had stopped, James Reddaway, who was a Member of
+Parliament, left the house and went home. He was engrossed in politics,
+and had little time at his disposal for anything else. As soon as he got
+home he went up to his wife’s bedroom; she had not been able to go to
+the party owing to a sudden attack of neuralgia. She asked him to tell
+her all about it.
+
+“Well,” he said, “there were the usual people there, and there was some
+music: some violin and piano playing, to which I didn’t listen. After
+that a man sang some Greek songs, and a curious thing happened to me.
+When it began I felt my head swimming, and then I entirely lost account
+of my surroundings. I forgot the party, the drawing-room and the people,
+and I seemed to be sitting on the rocks of a cliff near a small bay; in
+front of me was the sea: it was a kind of blue green, but far more blue
+or at least of quite a different kind of blue than any I have seen. It
+was transparent, and the sky above it was like a turquoise. Behind
+me the cliff merged into a hill which was covered with red and white
+flowers, as bright as a Persian carpet. On the beach in front, a tall
+man was standing, wading in the water, little bright waves sparkling
+round his feet. He was tall and dark, and he was spearing a lot of
+little silver fish which were lying on the sand with a small wooden
+trident; and somewhere behind me a voice was singing. I could not see
+where it came from, but it was wonderfully soft and delicious, and a
+lot of wild bees came swarming over the flowers, and a green lizard came
+right up close to me, and the air was burning hot, and there was a
+smell of thyme and mint in it. And then the song stopped, and I came
+to myself, and I was back again in the drawing-room. Then when the man
+began to sing again, I again lost consciousness, and I seemed to be in
+a dark orchard on a breathless summer night. And somewhere near me there
+was a low white house with an opening which might have been a window,
+shrouded by creepers and growing things. And in it there was a faint
+light. And from the house came the sound of a sad love-song; and
+although I had never heard the song before I understood it, and it was
+about the moon and the Pleiads having set, and the hour passing, and
+the voice sang, ‘But I sleep alone!’ And this was repeated over and over
+again, and it was the saddest and most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
+And again it stopped, and I was back again in the drawing-room. Then
+when the singer began his third song I felt cold all over, and at the
+same time half suffocated, as people say they feel when they are nearly
+drowning. I realised that I was in a huge, dark, empty space, and round
+me and far off in front of me were vague shadowy forms; and in the
+distance there was something which looked like two tall thrones,
+pillared and dim. And on one of the thrones there was the dark form of
+a man, and on the other a woman like a queen, pale as marble, and unreal
+as a ghost, with great grey eyes that shone like moons. In front of them
+was another form, and he was singing a song, and the song was so sad and
+so beautiful that tears rolled down the shadowy cheeks of the ghosts
+in front of me. And all at once the singer gave a great cry of joy, and
+something white and blinding flashed past me and disappeared, and he
+with it. But I remained in the same place with the dark ghosts far off
+in front of me. And I seemed to be there an eternity till I heard a cry
+of desperate pain and anguish, and the white form flashed past me once
+more, and vanished, and with it the whole thing, and I was back again in
+the drawing-room, and I felt faint and giddy, and could not stay there
+any longer.”
+
+
+
+
+THE CRICKET MATCH AN INCIDENT AT A PRIVATE SCHOOL
+
+To Winston Churchill
+
+It was a Saturday afternoon in June. St. James’s School was playing a
+cricket match against Chippenfield’s. The whole school, which consisted
+of forty boys, with the exception of the eleven who were playing in the
+match, were gathered together near the pavilion on the steep, grassy
+bank which faced the cricket ground. It was a swelteringly hot day. One
+of the masters was scoring in the pavilion; two of the boys sat under
+the post and board where the score was recorded in big white figures
+painted on the black squares. Most of the boys were sitting on the grass
+in front of the pavilion.
+
+St. James’s won the toss and went in first. After scoring 5 for the
+first wicket they collapsed; in an hour and five minutes their last
+wicket fell. They had only made 27 runs. Fortune was against St. James’s
+that day. Hitchens, their captain, in whom the school confidently
+trusted, was caught out in his first over. And Wormald and Bell minor,
+their two best men, both failed to score.
+
+Then Chippenfield’s went in. St. James’s fast bowlers, Blundell and
+Anderson minor, seemed unable to do anything against the Chippenfield’s
+batsmen. The first wicket went down at 70.
+
+The boys who were looking on grew listless: three of them, Gordon,
+Smith, and Hart minor, wandered off from the pavilion further up the
+slope of the hill, where there was a kind of wooden scaffolding raised
+for letting off fireworks on the 5th of November. The headmaster, who
+was a fanatical Conservative, used to burn on that anniversary effigies
+of Liberal politicians such as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Chamberlain,
+who was at that time a Radical; while the boys whose politics were
+Conservative, and who formed the vast majority, cheered, and kicked the
+Liberals, of whom there were only eight.
+
+Smith, Gordon, and Hart minor, three little boys aged about eleven, were
+in the third division of the school. They were not in the eleven, nor
+had they any hopes of ever attaining that glory, which conferred the
+privilege of wearing white flannel instead of grey flannel trousers, and
+a white flannel cap with a red Maltese cross on it. To tell the truth,
+the spectacle of this seemingly endless game, in which they did not
+have even the satisfaction of seeing their own side victorious, began to
+weigh on their spirits.
+
+They climbed up on to the wooden scaffolding and organised a game of
+their own, an utterly childish game, which consisted of one boy throwing
+some dried horse chestnuts from the top of the scaffolding into the
+mouth of the boy at the bottom. They soon became engrossed in their
+occupation, and were thoroughly enjoying themselves, when one of the
+masters, Mr. Whitehead by name, came towards them with a face like
+thunder, biting his knuckles, a thing which he did when he was very
+angry.
+
+“Go indoors at once,” he said. “Go up to the third division school-room
+and do two hours’ work. You can copy out the Greek irregular verbs.”
+
+The boys, taken completely by surprise, but accepting this decree as
+they accepted everything else, because it never occurred to them
+it could be otherwise, trotted off, not very disconsolate, to the
+school-room. It was very hot out of doors; it was cool in the third
+division school-room.
+
+They got out their steel pens, their double-lined copy books, and began
+mechanically copying out the Greek irregular verbs, with which they were
+so superficially familiar, and from which they were so fundamentally
+divorced.
+
+“Whitey,” said Gordon, “was in an awful wax!”
+
+“I don’t care,” said Smith. “I’d just as soon sit here as look on at
+that beastly match.”
+
+“But why,” said Hart, “have we got to do two hours’ work?”
+
+“Oh,” said Gordon, “he’s just in a wax, that’s all.”
+
+And the matter was not further discussed. At six o’clock the boys
+had tea. The cricket match had, of course, resulted in a crushing and
+overwhelming defeat for St. James’s. The rival eleven had been asked to
+tea; there were cherries for tea in their honour.
+
+When Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor entered the dining-room they at once
+perceived that an atmosphere of gloom and menacing storm was overhanging
+the school. Their spirits had hitherto been unflagging; they sat next to
+each other at the tea-table, but no sooner had they sat down than they
+were seized by that terrible, uncomfortable feeling so familiar to
+schoolboys, that something unpleasant was impending, some crime, some
+accusation; some doom, the nature of which they could not guess,
+was lying in ambush. This was written on the headmaster’s face. The
+headmaster sat at a square table in the centre of the dining-room. The
+boys sat round on the further side of three tables which formed the
+three sides of the square room.
+
+The meal passed in gloomy silence. Gordon, Smith and Hart began a fitful
+conversation, but a message was immediately passed up to them from Mr.
+Whitehead, who sat at the bottom of one of the tables, to stop talking.
+At the end of tea the guests filed out of the room.
+
+The headmaster stood up and rapped on his table with a knife.
+
+“The whole school,” he said, “will come to the library in ten minutes’
+time.”
+
+The boys left the dining-room. They began to whisper to one another with
+bated breath. “What’s the matter?” And the boys of the second division
+shook their heads ominously, and pointing to Gordon, Smith, and Hart,
+said: “You’re in for it this time!” The boys of the first division were
+too important to take any notice of the rest of the school, and retired
+to the first division school-room in dignified silence.
+
+Ten minutes later the whole school was assembled in the library, from
+which one flight of stairs led to the upper storeys. The staircase was
+shrouded from view by a dark curtain hanging from a Gothic arch; it was
+through this curtain that the headmaster used dramatically to appear on
+important occasions, and it was up this staircase that boys guilty of
+cardinal offences were led off to corporal punishment.
+
+The boys waited in breathless silence. Acute suspense was felt by the
+whole school, but by none so keenly as by Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor.
+These three little boys felt perfectly sick with fear of the unknown and
+the terror of having in some unknown way made themselves responsible for
+the calamity which would perhaps vitally affect the whole school.
+
+Presently a rustle was heard, and the headmaster swept down the
+staircase and through the curtain, robed in the black silk gown of an
+LL.D. He stood at a high desk which was placed opposite the staircase in
+front of the boys, who sat, in the order of their divisions, on rows of
+chairs. The three assistant masters walked in from a side door, also in
+their gowns, and took seats to the right and left of the headmaster’s
+desk. There was a breathless silence.
+
+The headmaster began to speak in grave and icily cold tones; his face
+was contracted by a permanent frown.
+
+“I had thought,” he said, “that there were in this school some boys
+who had a notion of gentlemanly behaviour, manly conduct, and common
+decency. I see that I was mistaken. The behaviour of certain of you
+to-day--I will not mention them because of their exceeding shame, but
+you will all know whom I mean. . . .” At this moment all the boys turned
+round and looked hard at Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor, who blushed
+scarlet, and whose eyes filled with tears. . . . “The less said about
+the matter the better,” continued the headmaster, “but I confess that it
+is difficult for me to understand how any one, however young, can be so
+hardened and so wanton as to behave in the callous and indecent way in
+which certain of you--I need not mention who--have behaved to-day. You
+have disgraced the school in the eyes of strangers; you have violated
+the laws of hospitality and courtesy; you have shown that in St. James’s
+there is not a gleam of patriotism, not a spark of interest in the
+school, not a touch of that ordinary common English manliness, that
+sense for the interests of the school and the community which makes
+Englishmen what they are. The boys who have been most guilty in this
+matter have already been punished, and I do not propose to punish them
+further; but I had intended to take the whole school for an expedition
+to the New Forest next week. That expedition will be put off: in fact
+it will never take place. Only the eleven shall go, and I trust that
+another time the miserable idlers and loafers who have brought this
+shame, this disgrace on the school, who have no self-respect and no
+self-control, who do not know how to behave like gentlemen, who are
+idle, vulgar and depraved, will learn by this lesson to mend their ways
+and to behave better in the future. But I am sorry to say that it is
+not only the chief offenders, who, as I have already said, have been
+punished, who are guilty in the matter. Many of the other boys, although
+they did not descend to the depths of vulgar behaviour reached by the
+culprits I have mentioned, showed a considerable lack of patriotism by
+their apathy and their lack of attention while the cricket match was
+proceeding this afternoon. I can only hope this may be a lesson to
+you all; but while I trust the chief offenders will feel specially
+uncomfortable, I wish to impress upon you that you are all, with the
+exception of the eleven, in a sense guilty.”
+
+With these words the headmaster swept out of the room.
+
+The boys dispersed in whispering groups. Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor,
+when they attempted to speak, were met with stony silence; they were
+boycotted and cut by the remaining boys.
+
+Gordon and Smith slept in two adjoining cubicles, and in a third
+adjoining cubicle was an upper division boy called Worthing. That night,
+after they had gone to bed, Gordon asked Worthing whether, among all the
+guilty, one just man had not been found.
+
+“Surely,” he said, “Campbell minor, who put up the score during the
+cricket match, was attentive right through the game, and wouldn’t he be
+allowed to go to the New Forest with the eleven?”
+
+“No,” said Worthing, “he whistled twice.”
+
+“Oh!” said Gordon, “I didn’t know that. Of course, he can’t go!”
+
+
+
+
+THE SHADOW OF A MIDNIGHT A GHOST STORY
+
+It was nine o’clock in the evening. Sasha, the maid, had brought in the
+samovar and placed it at the head of the long table. Marie Nikolaevna,
+our hostess, poured out the tea. Her husband was playing Vindt with his
+daughter, the doctor, and his son-in-law in another corner of the room.
+And Jameson, who had just finished his Russian lesson--he was working
+for the Civil Service examination--was reading the last number of the
+_Rouskoe Slovo_.
+
+“Have you found anything interesting, Frantz Frantzovitch?” said Marie
+Nikolaevna to Jameson, as she handed him a glass of tea.
+
+“Yes, I have,” answered the Englishman, looking up. His eyes had a
+clear dreaminess about them, which generally belongs only to fanatics or
+visionaries, and I had no reason to believe that Jameson, who seemed to
+be common sense personified, was either one or the other. “At least,” he
+continued, “it interests me. And it’s odd--very odd.”
+
+“What is it?” asked Marie Nikolaevna.
+
+“Well, to tell you what it is would mean a long story which you wouldn’t
+believe,” said Jameson; “only it’s odd--very odd.”
+
+“Tell us the story,” I said.
+
+“As you won’t believe a word of it,” Jameson repeated, “it’s not much
+use my telling it.”
+
+We insisted on hearing the story, so Jameson lit a cigarette, and
+began:--
+
+“Two years ago,” he said, “I was at Heidelberg, at the University, and I
+made friends with a young fellow called Braun. His parents were German,
+but he had lived five or six years in America, and he was practically an
+American. I made his acquaintance by chance at a lecture, when I first
+arrived, and he helped me in a number of ways. He was an energetic and
+kind-hearted fellow, and we became great friends. He was a student, but
+he did not belong to any _Korps_ or _Bursenschaft_, he was working hard
+then. Afterwards he became an engineer. When the summer _Semester_ came
+to an end, we both stayed on at Heidelberg. One day Braun suggested that
+we should go for a walking tour and explore the country. I was only
+too pleased, and we started. It was glorious weather, and we enjoyed
+ourselves hugely. On the third night after we had started we arrived at
+a village called Salzheim. It was a picturesque little place, and there
+was a curious old church in it with some interesting tombs and relics of
+the Thirty Years War. But the inn where we put up for the night was even
+more picturesque than the church. It had been a convent for nuns, only
+the greater part of it had been burnt, and only a quaint gabled house,
+and a kind of tower covered with ivy, which I suppose had once been the
+belfry, remained. We had an excellent supper and went to bed early. We
+had been given two bedrooms, which were airy and clean, and altogether
+we were satisfied. My bedroom opened into Braun’s, which was beyond it,
+and had no other door of its own. It was a hot night in July, and Braun
+asked me to leave the door open. I did--we opened both the windows.
+Braun went to bed and fell asleep almost directly, for very soon I heard
+his snores.
+
+“I had imagined that I was longing for sleep, but no sooner had I got
+into bed than all my sleepiness left me. This was odd, because we had
+walked a good many miles, and it had been a blazing hot day, and up till
+then I had slept like a log the moment I got into bed. I lit a candle
+and began reading a small volume of Heine I carried with me. I heard the
+clock strike ten, and then eleven, and still I felt that sleep was out
+of the question. I said to myself: ‘I will read till twelve and then I
+will stop.’ My watch was on a chair by my bedside, and when the clock
+struck eleven I noticed that it was five minutes slow, and set it right.
+I could see the church tower from my window, and every time the clock
+struck--and it struck the quarters--the noise boomed through the room.
+
+“When the clock struck a quarter to twelve I yawned for the first time,
+and I felt thankful that sleep seemed at last to be coming to me. I left
+off reading, and taking my watch in my hand I waited for midnight to
+strike. This quarter of an hour seemed an eternity. At last the hands
+of my watch showed that it was one minute to twelve. I put out my candle
+and began counting sixty, waiting for the clock to strike. I had counted
+a hundred and sixty, and still the clock had not struck. I counted up to
+four hundred; then I thought I must have made a mistake. I lit my candle
+again, and looked at my watch: it was two minutes past twelve. And still
+the clock had not struck!
+
+“A curious uncomfortable feeling came over me, and I sat up in bed
+with my watch in my hand and longed to call Braun, who was peacefully
+snoring, but I did not like to. I sat like this till a quarter past
+twelve; the clock struck the quarter as usual. I made up my mind that
+the clock must have struck twelve, and that I must have slept for
+a minute--at the same time I knew I had not slept--and I put out my
+candle. I must have fallen asleep almost directly.
+
+“The next thing I remember was waking with a start. It seemed to me that
+some one had shut the door between my room and Braun’s. I felt for
+the matches. The match-box was empty. Up to that moment--I cannot tell
+why--something--an unaccountable dread--had prevented me looking at the
+door. I made an effort and looked. It was shut, and through the cracks
+and through the keyhole I saw the glimmer of a light. Braun had lit his
+candle. I called him, not very loudly: there was no answer. I called
+again more loudly: there was still no answer.
+
+“Then I got out of bed and walked to the door. As I went, it was gently
+and slightly opened, just enough to show me a thin streak of light.
+At that moment I felt that some one was looking at me. Then it was
+instantly shut once more, as softly as it had been opened. There was not
+a sound to be heard. I walked on tiptoe towards the door, but it seemed
+to me that I had taken a hundred years to cross the room. And when
+at last I reached the door I felt I could not open it. I was simply
+paralysed with fear. And still I saw the glimmer through the key-hole
+and the cracks.
+
+“Suddenly, as I was standing transfixed with fright in front of the
+door, I heard sounds coming from Braun’s room, a shuffle of footsteps,
+and voices talking low but distinctly in a language I could not
+understand. It was not Italian, Spanish, nor French. The voices grew all
+at once louder; I heard the noise of a struggle and a cry which ended
+in a stifled groan, very painful and horrible to hear. Then, whether
+I regained my self-control, or whether it was excess of fright which
+prompted me, I don’t know, but I flew to the door and tried to open it.
+Some one or something was pressing with all its might against it. Then
+I screamed at the top of my voice, and as I screamed I heard the cock
+crow.
+
+“The door gave, and I almost fell into Braun’s room. It was quite dark.
+But Braun was waked by my screams and quietly lit a match. He asked me
+gently what on earth was the matter. The room was empty and everything
+was in its place. Outside the first greyness of dawn was in the sky.
+
+“I said I had had a nightmare, and asked him if he had not had one as
+well; but Braun said he had never slept better in his life.
+
+“The next day we went on with our walking tour, and when we got back to
+Heidelberg Braun sailed for America. I never saw him again, although
+we corresponded frequently, and only last week I had a letter from him,
+dated Nijni Novgorod, saying he would be at Moscow before the end of the
+month.
+
+“And now I suppose you are all wondering what this can have to do with
+anything that’s in the newspaper. Well, listen,” and he read out the
+following paragraph from the _Rouskoe Slovo_:--
+
+     “Samara, II, ix. In the centre of the town, in the Hotel --,
+     a band of armed swindlers attacked a German engineer
+     named Braun and demanded money. On his refusal one of the
+     robbers stabbed Braun with a knife. The robbers, taking the
+     money which was on him, amounting to 500 roubles, got away.
+     Braun called for assistance, but died of his wounds in the
+     night. It appears that he had met the swindlers at a
+     restaurant.”
+
+“Since I have been in Russia,” Jameson added, “I have often thought that
+I knew what language it was that was talked behind the door that night
+in the inn at Salzheim, but now I know it was Russian.”
+
+
+
+
+JEAN FRANCOIS
+
+Jean Francois was a vagabond by nature, a balladmonger by profession.
+Like many poets in many times, he found that the business of writing
+verse was more amusing than lucrative; and he was constrained to
+supplement the earnings of his pen and his guitar by other and more
+profitable work. He had run away from what had been his home at the age
+of seven (he was a foundling, and his adopted father was a shoe-maker),
+without having learnt a trade. When the necessity arose he decided
+to supplement the art of balladmongering by that of stealing. He was
+skilful in both arts: he wrote verse, sang ballads, picked pockets (in
+the city), and stole horses (in the country) with equal facility and
+success. Some of his verse has reached posterity, for instance the
+“Ballads du Paradis Peint,” which he wrote on white vellum, and
+illustrated himself with illuminations in red, blue and gold, for the
+Dauphin. It ends thus in the English version of a Balliol scholar:--
+
+     Prince, do not let your nose, your Royal nose,
+     Your large Imperial nose get out of joint;
+     Forbear to criticise my perfect prose--
+     Painting on vellum is my weakest point.
+
+Again, the _ballade_ of which the “Envoi” runs:--
+
+     Prince, when you light your pipe with radium spills,
+     Especially invented for the King--
+     Remember this, the worst of human ills:
+     Life without matches is a dismal thing,
+
+is, in reality, only a feeble adaptation of his “Priez pour feu le vrai
+tresor de vie.”
+
+But although Jean Francois was not unknown during his lifetime, and
+although, as his verse testifies, he knew his name would live among
+those of the enduring poets after his death, his life was one of rough
+hardship, brief pleasures, long anxieties, and constant uncertainty.
+Sometimes for a few days at a time he would live in riotous luxury,
+but these rare epochs would immediately be succeeded by periods of want
+bordering on starvation. Besides which he was nearly always in peril
+of his life; the shadow of the gallows darkened his merriment, and the
+thought of the wheel made bitter his joy. Yet in spite of this hazardous
+and harassing life, in spite of the sharp and sudden transitions in his
+career, in spite of the menace of doom, the hint of the wheel and the
+gallows, his fund of joy remained undiminished, and this we see in
+his verse, which reflects with equal vividness his alternate moods of
+infinite enjoyment and unmitigated despair. For instance, the only two
+triolets which have survived from his “Trente deux Triolets joyeux and
+tristes” are an example of his twofold temperament. They run thus in the
+literal and exact translations of them made by an eminent official:--
+
+     I wish I was dead,
+     And lay deep in the grave.
+     I’ve a pain in my head,
+     I wish I was dead.
+     In a coffin of lead--
+     With the Wise and the Brave--
+     I wish I was dead,
+     And lay deep in the grave.
+
+This passionate utterance immediately preceded, in the original text,
+the following verses in which his buoyant spirits rise once more to the
+surface:--
+
+     Thank God I’m alive
+     In the light of the Sun!
+     It’s a quarter to five;
+     Thank God I’m alive!
+     Now the hum of the hive
+     Of the world has begun,
+     Thank God I’m alive
+     In the light of the Sun!
+
+A more plaintive, in fact a positively wistful note, which is almost
+incongruous amongst the definite and sharply defined moods of Jean
+Francois, is struck in the sonnet of which only the first line has
+reached us: “I wish I had a hundred thousand pounds.” (“Voulentiers
+serais pauvre avec dix mille escus.”) But in nearly all his verse,
+whether joyous as in the “Chant de vin et vie,” or gloomy as in the
+“Ballade des Treize Pendus,” there is a curious recurrent aspiration
+towards a warm fire, a sure and plentiful supper, a clean bed, and a
+long, long sleep. Whether Jean Francois moped or made merry, and in
+spite of the fact that he enjoyed his roving career and would not have
+exchanged it for the throne of an Emperor or the money-bags of Croesus,
+there is no doubt that he experienced the burden of an immense fatigue.
+He was never quite warm enough; always a little hungry; and never got
+as much sleep as he desired. A place where he could sleep his fill
+represented the highest joys of Heaven to him; and he looked forward
+to Death as a traveller looks forward to a warm inn where (its terrible
+threshold once passed), a man can sleep the clock round. Witness the
+sonnet which ends (the translation is mine):--
+
+     For thou has never turned
+     A stranger from thy gates or hast denied,
+     O hospitable Death, a place to rest.
+
+And it is of his death and not of his life or works which I wish to
+tell, for it was singular. He died on Christmas Eve, 1432. The winter
+that year in the north of France was, as is well known, terrible for its
+severe cold. The rich stayed at home, the poor died, and the unfortunate
+third estate of gipsies, balladmongers, tinkers, tumblers, and thieves
+had no chance of displaying their dexterity. In fact, they starved. Ever
+since the 1st of December Jean Francois had been unable to make a silver
+penny either by his song or his sleight of hand. Christmas was drawing
+near, and he was starving; and this was especially bitter to him, as it
+was his custom (for he was not only a lover of good cheer, but a good
+Catholic and a strict observer of fasts and feasts) to keep the great
+day of Christendom fittingly. This year he had nothing to keep it with.
+Luck seemed to be against him; for three days before Christmas he met in
+a dark side street of the town the rich and stingy Sieur de Ranquet. He
+picked the pocket of that nobleman, but owing to the extreme cold his
+fingers faltered, and he was discovered. He ran like a hare and managed
+easily enough to outstrip the miser, and to conceal himself in a den
+where he was well known. But unfortunately the matter did not end there.
+The Sieur de Ranquet was influential at Court; he was implacable as well
+as avaricious, and his disposition positively forbade him to forgive any
+one who had nearly picked his pocket. Besides which he knew that
+Jean had often stolen his horses. He made a formal complaint at high
+quarters, and a warrant was issued against Jean, offering a large sum in
+silver coin to the man who should bring him, alive or dead, to justice.
+
+Now the police were keenly anxious to make an end of Jean. They knew
+he was guilty of a hundred thefts, but such was his skill that they had
+never been able to convict him; he had often been put in prison, but he
+had always been released for want of evidence. This time no mistake was
+possible. So Jean, aware of the danger, fled from the city and sought a
+gipsy encampment in a neighbouring forest, where he had friends. These
+gipsy friends of his were robbers, outlaws, murderers and horse-stealers
+all of them, and hardened criminals; they called themselves gipsies, but
+it was merely a courtesy title.
+
+On Christmas Eve--it was snowing hard--Jean was walking through the
+forest towards the town, ready for a desperate venture, for in the
+camp they were starving, and he was sick almost to death of his hunted,
+miserable life. As he plunged through the snow he heard a moan, and he
+saw a child sitting at the roots of a tall tree crying. He asked
+what was the matter. The child--it was a little boy about five years
+old--said that it had run away from home because its nurse had beaten
+it, and had lost its way.
+
+“Where do you live?” asked Jean.
+
+“My father is the Sieur de Ranquet,” said the child.
+
+At that moment Jean heard the shouts of his companions in the distance.
+
+“I want to go home,” said the little boy quietly. “You must take me
+home,” and he put his hand into Jean’s hand and looked up at him and
+smiled.
+
+Jean thought for a moment. The boy was richly dressed; he had a large
+ruby cross hanging from a golden collar worth many hundred gold pieces.
+Jean knew well what would happen if his gipsy companions came across the
+child. They would kill it instantly.
+
+“All right,” said Jean, “climb on my back.”
+
+The little boy climbed on to his back, and Jean trudged through the
+snow. In an hour’s time they reached the Sieur de Ranquet’s castle; the
+place was alive with bustling men and flaring torches, for the Sieur’s
+heir had been missed.
+
+The Sieur looked at Jean and recognised him immediately. Jean was a
+public character, and especially well known to the Sieur de Ranquet.
+A few words were whispered. The child was sent to bed, and the archers
+civilly lead Jean to his dungeon. Jean was tired and sleepy. He fell
+asleep at once on the straw. They told him he would have to get up early
+the next morning, in time for a long, cold journey. The gallows, they
+added, would be ready.
+
+But in the night Jean dreamed a dream: he saw a child in glittering
+clothes and with a shining face who came into the dungeon and broke the
+bars.
+
+The child said: “I am little St. Nicholas, the children’s friend, and I
+think you are tired, so I’m going to take you to a quiet place.”
+
+Jean followed the child, who led him by the hand till they came to a
+nice inn, very high up on the top of huge mountains. There was a blazing
+log fire in the room, a clean warm bed, and the windows opened on a
+range of snowy mountains, bright as diamonds. And the stars twinkled in
+the sky like the candles of a Christmas tree.
+
+“You can go to bed here,” said St. Nicholas, “nobody will disturb you,
+and when you do wake you will be quite happy and rested. Good-night,
+Jean.” And he went away.
+
+* * * * *
+
+The next day in the dawn, when the archers came to fetch Jean, they
+found he was fast asleep. They thought it was almost a pity to wake him,
+because he looked so happy and contented in his sleep; but when they
+tried they found it was impossible.
+
+
+
+
+THE FLUTE OF CHANG LIANG
+
+To P. Kershaw
+
+The village was called Moe-tung. It was on the edge of the big main road
+which leads from Liao-yang to Ta-shi-chiao. It consisted of a few baked
+mud-houses, a dilapidated temple, a wall, a clump of willows, and a
+pond. One of the houses I knew well; in its square open yard, in which
+the rude furniture of toil lay strewn about, I had halted more than once
+for my midday meal, when riding from Liao-yang to the South. I had been
+entertained there by the owner of the house, a brawny husbandman and his
+fat brown children, and they had given me eggs and Indian corn. Now it
+was empty; the house was deserted; the owner, his wife and his children,
+had all gone, to the city probably, to seek shelter. We occupied the
+house; and the Cossacks at once made a fire with the front door and any
+fragments of wood they could find. The house was converted into a stable
+and a kitchen, and the officers’ quarters were established in another
+smaller building across the road, on the edge of a great plain, which
+was bright green with the standing giant millet.
+
+This smaller cottage had an uncultivated garden in front of it, and
+a kind of natural summer-house made by the twining of a pumpkin plant
+which spread its broad leaves over some stakes. We lay down to rest
+in this garden. About five miles to the north of us was the town of
+Liao-yang; to the east in the distance was a range of pale blue hills,
+and immediately in front of us to the south, and scarcely a mile off,
+was the big hill of Sho-shantze. It was five o’clock in the afternoon,
+and we had been on the move since two o’clock in the morning. The
+Cossacks brought us tea and pancakes, and presently news came from the
+town that the big battle would be fought the next day: the big battle;
+the real battle, which had been expected for so long and which had
+been constantly put off. There was a complete stillness everywhere. The
+officers unpacked their valises and their camp-beds. Every one arranged
+his bed and his goods in his chosen place, and it seemed as if we had
+merely begun once more to settle down for a further period of siesta in
+the long picnic which had been going on for the last two months. Nobody
+was convinced in spite of the authentic news which we had received, that
+the Japanese would attack the next day.
+
+The sunset faded into a twilight of delicious summer calm.
+
+From the hills in the east came the noise of a few shots fired by
+the batteries there, and a captive balloon soared slowly, like a
+soap-bubble, into the eastern sky. I walked into the village; here
+and there fires were burning, and I was attracted by the sight of the
+deserted temple in which the wooden painted gods were grinning, bereft
+of their priest and of their accustomed dues. I sat down on the mossy
+steps of the little wooden temple, and somewhere, either from one of the
+knolls hard by or from one of the houses, came the sound of a flute, or
+rather of some primitive wooden pipe, which repeated over and over again
+a monotonous and piercingly sad little tune. I wondered whether it was
+one of the soldiers playing, but I decided this could not be the case,
+as the tune was more eastern than any Russian tune. On the other hand,
+it seemed strange that any Chinaman should be about. The tune continued
+to break the perfect stillness with its iterated sadness, and a vague
+recollection came into my mind of a Chinese legend or poem I had read
+long ago in London, about a flute-player called Chang Liang. But I could
+not bring my memory to work; its tired wheels all seemed to be buzzing
+feebly in different directions, and my thoughts came like thistledown
+and seemed to elude all efforts of concentration. And so I capitulated
+utterly to my drowsiness, and fell asleep as I sat on the steps of the
+temple.
+
+I thought I had been sleeping for a long time and had woken before the
+dawn: the earth was misty, although the moon was shining; and I was no
+longer in the temple, but back once more at the edge of the plain. “They
+must have fetched me back while I slept,” I thought to myself. But when
+I looked round I saw no trace of the officers, nor of the Cossacks, nor
+of the small house and the garden, and, stranger still, the millet had
+been reaped and the plain was covered with low stubble, and on it
+were pitched some curiously-shaped tents, which I saw were guarded by
+soldiers. But these soldiers were Chinamen, and yet unlike any Chinamen
+I had ever seen; for some of them carried halberds, the double-armed
+halberds of the period of Charles I., and others, halberds with a
+crescent on one side, like those which were used in the days of Henry
+VII. And I then noticed that a whole multitude of soldiers were lying
+asleep on the ground, armed with two-edged swords and bows and arrows.
+And their clothes seemed unfamiliar and brighter than the clothes which
+Chinese soldiers wear nowadays.
+
+As I wondered what all this meant, a note of music came stealing through
+the night, and at first it seemed to be the same tune as I heard in the
+temple before I dropped off to sleep; but presently I was sure that this
+was a mistake, for the sound was richer and more mellow, and like that
+of a bell, only of an enchanted bell, such as that which is fabled to
+sound beneath the ocean. And the music seemed to rise and fall, to grow
+clear and full, and just as it was floating nearer and nearer, it died
+away in a sigh: but as it did so the distant hills seemed to catch it
+and to send it back in the company of a thousand echoes, till the whole
+night was filled and trembling with an unearthly chorus. The sleeping
+soldiers gradually stirred and sat listening spellbound to the music.
+And in the eyes of the sentries, who were standing as motionless as
+bronze statues in front of the tents, I could see the tears glistening.
+And the whole of the sleeping army awoke from its slumber and listened
+to the strange sound. From the tents came men in glittering silks (the
+Generals, I supposed) and listened also. The soldiers looked at each
+other and said no word. And then all at once, as though obeying some
+silent word of command given by some unseen captain, one by one they
+walked away over the plain, leaving their tents behind them. They all
+marched off into the east, as if they were following the music into
+the heart of the hills, and soon, of all that great army which had been
+gathered together on the plain, not one man was left. Then the music
+changed and seemed to grow different and more familiar, and with a
+start I became aware that I had been asleep and dreaming, and that I was
+sitting on the temple steps once more in the twilight, and that not far
+off, round a fire, some soldiers were singing. It was a dream, and my
+sleep could not have been a long one, for it was still twilight and the
+darkness had not yet come.
+
+Fully awake now, I remembered clearly the old legend which had haunted
+me, and had taken shape in my dream. It was that of an army which on
+the night before the battle had heard the flute of Chang Liang. By his
+playing he had brought before the rude soldiers the far-off scenes of
+their childhood, which they had not looked upon for years--the sights
+and sounds of their homes, the faces and the spots which were familiar
+to them and dear. And they, as they heard this music, and felt these
+memories well up in their hearts, were seized with a longing and a
+desire for home so potent and so imperative that one by one they left
+the battlefield in silence, and when the enemy came at the dawn, they
+found the plain deserted and empty, for in one minute the flute of Chang
+Liang had stolen the hearts of eight thousand men.
+
+And I felt certain that I had heard the flute of Chang Liang this night
+and that the soldiers had heard it too; for now round a fire a group of
+them were listening to the song of one of their comrades, a man from the
+south, who was singing of the quiet waters of the Don, and of a Cossack
+who had come back to his native land after many days and found his true
+love wedded to another. I felt it was the flute of Chang Liang which had
+prompted the southerner to sing, and without doubt the men saw before
+them the great moon shining over the broad village street in the dark
+July and August nights, and heard the noise of dancing and song and the
+cheerful rhythmic accompaniment of the concertina. Or (if they came from
+the south) they saw the smiling thatched farms, whitewashed, or painted
+in light green distemper, with vines growing on their walls; or again,
+they felt the smell of the beanfields in June, and saw in their minds’
+eye the panorama of the melting snows, when at a fairy touch the long
+winter is defeated, the meadows are flooded, and the trees seem to float
+about in the shining water like shapes invoked by a wizard. They saw
+these things and yearned towards them with all their hearts, here in
+this uncouth country where they were to fight a strange people for some
+unaccountable reason. But Chang Liang had played his flute to them in
+vain. It was in vain that he had tried to lure them back to their homes,
+and in vain that he had melted their hearts with the memories of their
+childhood. For the battle began at dawn the next morning, and when the
+enemy attacked they found an army there to meet them; and the battle
+lasted for two days on this very spot; and many of the men to whom Chang
+Liang had brought back through his flute the sights and the sounds of
+their childhood, were fated never to hear again those familiar sounds,
+nor to see the land and the faces which they loved.
+
+
+
+
+“WHAT IS TRUTH?”
+
+To E. I. Huber
+
+Sitting opposite me in the second-class carriage of the express train
+which was crawling at a leisurely pace from Moscow to the south was a
+little girl who looked as if she were about twelve years old, with her
+mother. The mother was a large fair-haired person, with a good-natured
+expression. They had a dog with them, and the little girl, whose whole
+face twitched every now and then from St. Vitus’ dance, got out at
+nearly every station to buy food for the dog. On the same side of the
+carriage, in the opposite corner, another lady (thin, fair, and wearing
+a pince-nez) was reading the newspaper. She and the mother of the child
+soon made friends over the dog. That is to say, the dog made friends
+with the strange lady and was reproved by its mistress, and the strange
+lady said: “Please don’t scold him. He is not in the least in my way,
+and I like dogs.” They then began to talk.
+
+The large lady was going to the country. She and her daughter had been
+ordered to go there by the doctor. She had spent six weeks in Moscow
+under medical treatment, and they had now been told to finish this cure
+with a thorough rest in the country air. The thin lady asked her the
+name of her doctor, and before ascertaining what was the disease in
+question, recommended another doctor who had cured a friend of hers,
+almost as though by miracle, of heart disease. The large lady seemed
+interested and wrote down the direction of the marvellous physician.
+She was herself suffering, she said, from a nervous illness, and her
+daughter had St. Vitus’ dance. They were so far quite satisfied with
+their doctor. They talked for some time exclusively about medical
+matters, comparing notes about doctors, diseases, and remedies. The thin
+lady said she had been cured of all her ills by aspirin and cinnamon.
+
+In the course of the conversation the stout lady mentioned her husband,
+who, it turned out, was the head of the gendarmerie in a town in
+Siberia, not far from Irkutsk. This seemed to interest the thin lady
+immensely. She at once asked what were his political views, and what she
+herself thought about politics.
+
+The large lady seemed to be reluctant to talk politics and evaded the
+questions for some time, but after much desultory conversation, which
+always came back to the same point, she said:--
+
+“My husband is a Conservative; they call him a ‘Black Hundred,’ but it’s
+most unfair and untrue, because he is a very good man and very just.
+He has his own opinions and he is sincere. He does not believe in the
+revolution or in the revolutionaries. He took the oath to serve the
+Emperor when everything went quietly and well, and now, although I have
+often begged him to leave the Service, he says it would be very wrong
+to leave just because it is dangerous. ‘I have taken the oath,’ he says,
+‘and I must keep it.’”
+
+Here she stopped, but after some further questions on the part of the
+thin lady, she said: “I never had time or leisure to think of these
+questions. I was married when I was sixteen. I have had eight children,
+and they all died one after the other except this one, who was the
+eldest. I used to see political exiles and prisoners, and I used to
+feel sympathy for them. I used to hear about people being sent here and
+there, and sometimes I used to go down on my knees to my husband to
+do what he could for them, but I never thought about there being any
+particular idea at the back of all this.” Then after a short pause she
+added: “It first dawned on me at Moscow. It was after the big strike,
+and I was on my way home. I had been staying with some friends in the
+country, and I happened by chance to see the funeral of that man Bauman,
+the doctor, who was killed. I was very much impressed when I saw that
+huge procession go past, all the men singing the funeral march, and
+I understood that Bauman himself had nothing to do with it. Who cared
+about Bauman? But I understood that he was a symbol. I saw that there
+must be a big idea which moves all these people to give up everything,
+to go to prison, to kill, and be killed. I understood this for the first
+time at that funeral. I cried when the crowd went past. I understood
+there was a big idea, a great cause behind it all. Then I went home.
+
+“There were disorders in Siberia: you know in Siberia we are much freer
+than you are. There is only one society. The officials, the political
+people, revolutionaries, exiles, everybody, in fact, all meet
+constantly. I used to go to political meetings, and to see and talk with
+the Liberal and revolutionary leaders. Then I began to be disappointed
+because what had always struck me as unjust was that one man, just
+because he happened to be, say, Ivan Pavlovitch, should be able to rule
+over another man who happened to be, say, Ivan Ivanovitch. And now
+that these Republics were being made, it seemed that the same thing was
+beginning all over again--that all the places of authority were being
+seized and dealt out amongst another lot of people who were behaving
+exactly like those who had authority before. The arbitrary authority was
+there just the same, only it had changed hands, and this puzzled me very
+much, and I began to ask myself, ‘Where is the truth?’”
+
+“What did your husband think?” asked the thin lady.
+
+“My husband did not like to talk about these things,” she answered. “He
+says, ‘I am in the Service, and I have to serve. It is not my business
+to have opinions.’”
+
+“But all those Republics didn’t last very long,” rejoined the thin lady.
+
+“No,” continued the other; “we never had a Republic, and after a time
+they arrested the chief agitator, who was the soul of the revolutionary
+movement in our town, a wonderful orator. I had heard him speak several
+times and been carried away. When he was arrested I saw him taken to
+prison, and he said ‘Good-bye’ to the people, and bowed to them in the
+street in such an exaggerated theatrical way that I was astonished and
+felt uncomfortable. Here, I thought, is a man who can sacrifice himself
+for an idea, and who seemed to be thoroughly sincere, and yet he behaves
+theatrically and poses as if he were not sincere. I felt more puzzled
+than ever, and I asked my husband to let me go and see him in prison. I
+thought that perhaps after talking to him I could solve the riddle, and
+find out once for all who was right and who was wrong. My husband let me
+go, and I was admitted into his cell.
+
+“‘You know who I am,’ I said, ‘since I am here, and I am admitted
+inside these locked doors?’ He nodded. Then I asked him whether I could
+be of any use to him. He said that he had all that he wanted; and like
+this the ice was broken, and I asked him presently if he believed in
+the whole movement. He said that until the 17th of October, when the
+Manifesto had been issued, he had believed with all his soul in it; but
+the events of the last months had caused him to change his mind. He now
+thought that the work of his party, and, in fact, the whole movement,
+which had been going on for over fifty years, had really been in vain.
+‘We shall have,’ he said, ‘to begin again from the very beginning,
+because the Russian people are not ready for us yet, and probably
+another fifty years will have to go by before they are ready.’
+
+“I left him very much perplexed. He was set free not long afterwards, in
+virtue of some manifesto, and because there had been no disorders in our
+town and he had not been the cause of any bloodshed. Soon after he came
+out of prison my husband met him, and he said to my husband: ‘I suppose
+you will not shake hands with me?’ And my husband replied: ‘Because
+our views are different there is no reason why both of us should not be
+honest men,’ and he shook hands with him.”
+
+The conversation now became a discussion about the various ideals of
+various people and parties holding different political views. The large
+lady kept on expressing the puzzled state of mind in which she was.
+
+The whole conversation, of which I have given a very condensed report,
+was spread over a long time, and often interrupted. Later they reached
+the subject of political assassination, and the large lady said:--
+
+“About two months after I came home that year, one day when I was out
+driving with my daughter in a sledge the revolutionaries fired six shots
+at us from revolvers. We were not hit, but one bullet went through the
+coachman’s cap. Ever since then I have had nervous fits and my daughter
+has had St. Vitus’ dance. We have to go to Moscow every year to be
+treated. And it is so difficult. I don’t know how to manage. When I am
+at home I feel as if I ought to go, and when I am away I never have a
+moment’s peace, because I cannot help thinking the whole time that my
+husband is in danger. A few weeks after they shot at us I met some of
+the revolutionary party at a meeting, and I asked them why they had shot
+at myself and my daughter. I could have understood it if they had shot
+at my husband. But why at us? He said: ‘When the wood is cut down, the
+chips fly about.’[*] And now I don’t know what to think about it all.
+
+     [*] A Russian proverb.
+
+“Sometimes I think it is all a mistake, and I feel that the
+revolutionaries are posing and playing a part, and that so soon as they
+get the upper hand they will be as bad as what we have now; and then
+I say to myself, all the same they are acting in a cause, and it is a
+great cause, and they are working for liberty and for the people. And,
+then, would the people be better off if they had their way? The more I
+think of it the more puzzled I am. Who is right? Is my husband right?
+Are they right? Is it a great cause? How can they be wrong if they are
+imprisoned and killed for what they believe? Where is the truth, and
+what is truth?”
+
+
+
+
+A LUNCHEON-PARTY
+
+I
+
+Mrs. Bergmann was a widow. She was American by birth and marriage, and
+English by education and habits. She was a fair, beautiful woman, with
+large eyes and a white complexion. Her weak point was ambition, and
+ambition with her took the form of luncheon-parties.
+
+It was one summer afternoon that she was seized with the great idea of
+her life. It consisted in giving a luncheon-party which should be more
+original and amusing than any other which had ever been given in London.
+The idea became a mania. It left her no peace. It possessed her like
+venom or like madness. She could think of nothing else. She racked her
+brains in imagining how it could be done. But the more she was harassed
+by this aim the further off its realisation appeared to her to be. At
+last it began to weigh upon her. She lost her spirits and her appetite;
+her friends began to remark with anxiety on the change in her behaviour
+and in her looks. She herself felt that the situation was intolerable,
+and that success or suicide lay before her.
+
+One evening towards the end of June, as she was sitting in her lovely
+drawing-room in her house in Mayfair, in front of her tea-table,
+on which the tea stood untasted, brooding over the question which
+unceasingly tormented her, she cried out, half aloud:--
+
+“I’d sell my soul to the devil if he would give me what I wish.”
+
+At that moment the footman entered the room and said there was a
+gentleman downstairs who wished to speak with her.
+
+“What is his name?” asked Mrs. Bergmann.
+
+The footman said he had not caught the gentleman’s name, and he handed
+her a card on a tray.
+
+She took the card. On it was written:--
+
+     MR. NICHOLAS L. SATAN,
+     I, Pandemonium Terrace,
+     BURNING MARLE, HELL.
+     Telephone, No. I Central.
+
+“Show him up,” said Mrs. Bergmann, quite naturally, as though she had
+been expecting the visitor. She wondered at her own behaviour, and
+seemed to herself to be acting inevitably, as one does in dreams.
+
+Mr. Satan was shown in. He had a professional air about him, but not
+of the kind that suggests needy or even learned professionalism. He was
+dark; his features were sharp and regular, his eyes keen, his complexion
+pale, his mouth vigorous, and his chin prominent. He was well dressed in
+a frock coat, black tie, and patent leather boots. He would never have
+been taken for a conjurer or a shop-walker, but he might have been taken
+for a slightly depraved Art-photographer who had known better days. He
+sat down near the tea-table opposite Mrs. Bergmann, holding his top hat,
+which had a slight mourning band round it, in his hand.
+
+“I understand, madam,” he spoke with an even American intonation,
+“you wish to be supplied with a guest who will make all other
+luncheon-parties look, so to speak, like thirty cents.”
+
+“Yes, that is just what I want,” answered Mrs. Bergmann, who continued
+to be surprised at herself.
+
+“Well, I reckon there’s no one living who’d suit,” said Mr. Satan, “and
+I’d better supply you with a celebrity of _a_ former generation.” He
+then took out a small pocket-book from his coat pocket, and quickly
+turning over its leaves he asked in a monotonous tone: “Would you like a
+Philosopher? Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Aurelius, M.?”
+
+“Oh! no,” answered Mrs. Bergmann with decision, “they would ruin any
+luncheon.”
+
+“A Saint?” suggested Mr. Satan, “Antony, Ditto of Padua, Athanasius,
+Augustine, Anselm?”
+
+“Good heavens, no,” said Mrs. Bergmann.
+
+“A Theologian, good arguer?” asked Mr. Satan, “Aquinas, T?”
+
+“No,” interrupted Mrs. Bergmann, “for heaven’s sake don’t always give
+me the A’s, or we shall never get on to anything. You’ll be offering me
+Adam and Abel next.”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Satan, “Latimer, Laud--Historic Interest,
+Church and Politics combined,” he added quickly.
+
+“I don’t want a clergyman,” said Mrs. Bergmann.
+
+“Artist?” said Mr. Satan, “Andrea del Sarto, Angelo, M., Apelles?”
+
+“You’re going back to the A’s,” interrupted Mrs. Bergmann.
+
+“Bellini, Benvenuto Cellini, Botticelli?” he continued imperturbably.
+
+“What’s the use of them when I can get Sargent every day?” asked Mrs.
+Bergmann.
+
+“A man of action, perhaps? Alexander, Bonaparte, Caesar, J., Cromwell,
+O., Hannibal?”
+
+“Too heavy for luncheon,” she answered, “they would do for _dinner_.”
+
+“Plain statesman? Bismarck, Count; Chatham, Lord; Franklin, B;
+Richelieu, Cardinal.”
+
+“That would make the members of the Cabinet feel uncomfortable,” she
+said.
+
+“A Monarch? Alfred; beg pardon, he’s an A. Richard III., Peter the
+Great, Louis XI., Nero?”
+
+“No,” said Mrs. Bergmann. “I can’t have a Royalty. It would make it too
+stiff.”
+
+“I have it,” said Mr. Satan, “a highwayman: Dick Turpin; or a
+housebreaker: Jack Sheppard or Charles Peace?”
+
+“Oh! no,” said Mrs. Bergmann, “they might steal the Sevres.”
+
+“A musician? Bach or Beethoven?” he suggested.
+
+“He’s getting into the B’s now,” thought Mrs. Bergmann. “No,” she added
+aloud, “we should have to ask him to play, and he can’t play Wagner, I
+suppose, and musicians are so touchy.”
+
+“I think I have it,” said Mr. Satan, “a wit: Dr. Johnson, Sheridan,
+Sidney Smith?”
+
+“We should probably find their jokes dull _now_,” said Mrs. Bergmann,
+thoughtfully.
+
+“Miscellaneous?” inquired Mr. Satan, and turning over several leaves of
+his notebook, he rattled out the following names: “Alcibiades, kind
+of statesman; Beau Brummel, fop; Cagliostro, conjurer; Robespierre,
+politician; Charles Stuart, Pretender; Warwick, King-maker; Borgia, A.,
+Pope; Ditto, C., toxicologist; Wallenstein, mercenary; Bacon, Roger,
+man of science; Ditto, F., dishonest official; Tell, W., patriot; Jones,
+Paul, pirate; Lucullus, glutton; Simon Stylites, eccentric; Casanova,
+loose liver; Casabianca, cabin-boy; Chicot, jester; Sayers, T.,
+prize-fighter; Cook, Captain, tourist; Nebuchadnezzar, food-faddist;
+Juan, D., lover; Froissart, war correspondent; Julian, apostate?”
+
+“Don’t you see,” said Mrs. Bergmann, “we must have some one everybody
+has heard of?”
+
+“David Garrick, actor and wit?” suggested Mr. Satan.
+
+“It’s no good having an actor nobody has seen act,” said Mrs. Bergmann.
+
+“What about a poet?” asked Mr. Satan, “Homer, Virgil, Dante, Byron,
+Shakespeare?”
+
+“Shakespeare!” she cried out, “the very thing. Everybody has heard of
+Shakespeare, more or less, and I expect he’d get on with everybody, and
+wouldn’t feel offended if I asked Alfred Austin or some other poet to
+meet him. Can you get me Shakespeare?”
+
+“Certainly,” said Mr. Satan, “day and date?”
+
+“It must be Thursday fortnight,” said Mrs. Bergmann. “And what,
+ah--er--your terms?”
+
+“The usual terms,” he answered. “In return for supernatural service
+rendered you during your lifetime, your soul reverts to me at your
+death.”
+
+Mrs. Bergmann’s brain began to work quickly. She was above all things a
+practical woman, and she immediately felt she was being defrauded.
+
+“I cannot consent to such terms,” she said. “Surely you recognise the
+fundamental difference between this proposed contract and those which
+you concluded with others--with Faust, for instance? They sold the full
+control of their soul after death on condition of your putting yourself
+at their entire disposal during the whole of their lifetime, whereas
+you ask me to do the same thing in return for a few hours’ service. The
+proposal is preposterous.”
+
+Mr. Satan rose from his chair. “In that case, madam,” he said, “I have
+the honour to wish you a good afternoon.”
+
+“Stop a moment,” said Mrs. Bergmann, “I don’t see why we shouldn’t
+arrive at a compromise. I am perfectly willing that you should have the
+control over my soul for a limited number of years--I believe there are
+precedents for such a course--let us say a million years.”
+
+“Ten million,” said Mr. Satan, quietly but firmly.
+
+“In that case,” answered Mrs. Bergmann, “we will take no notice of leap
+year, and we will count 365 days in every year.”
+
+“Certainly,” said Mr. Satan, with an expression of somewhat ruffled
+dignity, “we always allow leap year, but, of course, thirteen years will
+count as twelve.”
+
+“Of course,” said Mrs. Bergmann with equal dignity.
+
+“Then perhaps you will not mind signing the contract at once,” said Mr.
+Satan, drawing from his pocket a type-written page.
+
+Mrs. Bergmann walked to the writing-table and took the paper from his
+hand.
+
+“Over the stamp, please,” said Mr. Satan.
+
+“Must I--er--sign it in blood?” asked Mrs. Bergmann, hesitatingly.
+
+“You can if you like,” said Mr. Satan, “but I prefer red ink; it is
+quicker and more convenient.”
+
+He handed her a stylograph pen.
+
+“Must it be witnessed?” she asked.
+
+“No,” he replied, “these kind of documents don’t need a witness.”
+
+In a firm, bold handwriting Mrs. Bergmann signed her name in red ink
+across the sixpenny stamp. She half expected to hear a clap of thunder
+and to see Mr. Satan disappear, but nothing of the kind occurred. Mr.
+Satan took the document, folded it, placed it in his pocket-book, took
+up his hat and gloves, and said:
+
+“Mr. William Shakespeare will call to luncheon on Thursday week. At what
+hour is the luncheon to be?”
+
+“One-thirty,” said Mrs. Bergmann.
+
+“He may be a few minutes late,” answered Mr. Satan. “Good afternoon,
+madam,” and he bowed and withdrew.
+
+Mrs. Bergmann chuckled to herself when she was alone. “I have done
+him,” she thought to herself, “because ten million years in eternity
+is nothing. He might just as well have said one second as ten million
+years, since anything less than eternity in eternity is nothing. It is
+curious how stupid the devil is in spite of all his experience. Now I
+must think about my invitations.”
+
+
+
+II
+
+The morning of Mrs. Bergmann’s luncheon had arrived. She had asked
+thirteen men and nine women.
+
+But an hour before luncheon an incident happened which nearly drove Mrs.
+Bergmann distracted. One of her guests, who was also one of her most
+intimate friends, Mrs. Lockton, telephoned to her saying she had quite
+forgotten, but she had asked on that day a man to luncheon whom she did
+not know, and who had been sent to her by Walford, the famous professor.
+She ended the message by saying she would bring the stranger with her.
+
+“What is his name?” asked Mrs. Bergmann, not without intense irritation,
+meaning to put a veto on the suggestion.
+
+“His name is----” and at that moment the telephone communication was
+interrupted, and in spite of desperate efforts Mrs. Bergmann was unable
+to get on to Mrs. Lockton again. She reflected that it was quite useless
+for her to send a message saying that she had no room at her table,
+because Angela Lockton would probably bring the stranger all the same.
+Then she further reflected that in the excitement caused by the presence
+of Shakespeare it would not really much matter whether there was a
+stranger there or not. A little before half-past one the guests began to
+arrive. Lord Pantry of Assouan, the famous soldier, was the first
+comer. He was soon followed by Professor Morgan, an authority on Greek
+literature; Mr. Peebles, the ex-Prime Minister; Mrs. Hubert Baldwin, the
+immensely popular novelist; the fascinating Mrs. Rupert Duncan, who was
+lending her genius to one of Ibsen’s heroines at that moment; Miss
+Medea Tring, one of the latest American beauties; Corporal, the
+portrait-painter; Richard Giles, critic and man of letters; Hereward
+Blenheim, a young and rising politician, who before the age of thirty
+had already risen higher than most men of sixty; Sir Horace Silvester,
+K.C.M.G., the brilliant financier, with his beautiful wife Lady Irene;
+Professor Leo Newcastle, the eminent man of science; Lady Hyacinth
+Gloucester, and Mrs. Milden, who were well known for their beauty and
+charm; Osmond Hall, the paradoxical playwright; Monsieur Faubourg, the
+psychological novelist; Count Sciarra, an Italian nobleman, about fifty
+years old, who had written a history of the Popes, and who was now
+staying in London; Lady Herman, the beauty of a former generation, still
+extremely handsome; and Willmott, the successful actor-manager. They
+were all assembled in the drawing-room upstairs, talking in knots
+and groups, and pervaded by a feeling of pleasurable excitement and
+expectation, so much so that conversation was intermittent, and nearly
+everybody was talking about the weather. The Right Hon. John Lockton,
+the eminent lawyer, was the last guest to arrive.
+
+“Angela will be here in a moment,” he explained; “she asked me to come
+on first.”
+
+Mrs. Bergmann grew restless. It was half-past one, and no Shakespeare.
+She tried to make her guests talk, with indifferent success. The
+expectation was too great. Everybody was absorbed by the thought of what
+was going to happen next. Ten minutes passed thus, and Mrs. Bergmann
+grew more and more anxious.
+
+At last the bell rang, and soon Mrs. Lockton walked upstairs, leading
+with her a quite insignificant, ordinary-looking, middle-aged, rather
+portly man with shiny black hair, bald on the top of his head, and a
+blank, good-natured expression.
+
+“I’m so sorry to be so late, Louise, dear,” she said. “Let me introduce
+Mr. ---- to you.” And whether she had forgotten the name or not, Mrs.
+Bergmann did not know or care at the time, but it was mumbled in such
+a manner that it was impossible to catch it. Mrs. Bergmann shook hands
+with him absent-mindedly, and, looking at the clock, saw that it was ten
+minutes to two.
+
+“I have been deceived,” she thought to herself, and anger rose in her
+breast like a wave. At the same time she felt the one thing necessary
+was not to lose her head, or let anything damp the spirits of her
+guests.
+
+“We’ll go down to luncheon directly,” she said. “I’m expecting some
+one else, but he probably won’t come till later.” She led the way
+and everybody trooped downstairs to the dining-room, feeling that
+disappointment was in store for them. Mrs. Bergmann left the place on
+her right vacant; she did not dare fill it up, because in her heart of
+hearts she felt certain Shakespeare would arrive, and she looked forward
+to a _coup de theatre_, which would be quite spoilt if his place was
+occupied. On her left sat Count Sciarra; the unknown friend of Angela
+Lockton sat at the end of the table next to Willmott.
+
+The luncheon started haltingly. Angela Lockton’s friend was heard saying
+in a clear voice that the dust in London was very trying.
+
+“Have you come from the country?” asked M. Faubourg. “I myself am just
+returned from Oxford, where I once more admired your admirable English
+lawns--_vos pelouses seculaires_.”
+
+“Yes,” said the stranger, “I only came up to town to-day, because it
+seems indeed a waste and a pity to spend the finest time of the year in
+London.”
+
+Count Sciarra, who had not uttered a word since he had entered the
+house, turned to his hostess and asked her whom she considered, after
+herself, to be the most beautiful woman in the room, Lady Irene, Lady
+Hyacinth, or Mrs. Milden?
+
+“Mrs. Milden,” he went on, “has the smile of La Gioconda, and hands and
+hair for Leonardo to paint. Lady Gloucester,” he continued, leaving
+out the Christian name, “is English, like one of Shakespeare’s women,
+Desdemona or Imogen; and Lady Irene has no nationality, she belongs to
+the dream worlds of Shelley and D’Annunzio: she is the guardian Lady of
+Shelley’s ‘Sensitiva,’ the vision of the lily. ‘Quale un vaso liturgico
+d’argento.’ And you, madame, you take away all my sense of criticism.
+‘Vous me troublez trop pour que je definisse votre genre de beaute.’”
+
+Mrs. Milden was soon engaged in a deep tete-a-tete with Mr. Peebles,
+who was heard every now and then to say, “Quite, quite,” Miss Tring was
+holding forth to Silvester on French sculpture, and Silvester now and
+again said: “Oh! really!” in the tone of intense interest which his
+friends knew indicated that he was being acutely bored. Lady Hyacinth
+was discussing Socialism with Osmond Hall, Lady Herman was discussing
+the theory of evolution with Professor Newcastle, Mrs. Lockton,
+the question of the French Church, with Faubourg; and Blenheim was
+discharging molten fragments of embryo exordiums and perorations on the
+subject of the stage to Willmott; in fact, there was a general buzz of
+conversation.
+
+“Have you been to see Antony and Cleopatra?” asked Willmott of the
+stranger.
+
+“Yes,” said the neighbour, “I went last night; many authors have
+treated the subject, and the version I saw last night was very pretty. I
+couldn’t get a programme so I didn’t see who----”
+
+“I think my version,” interrupted Willmott, with pride, “is admitted to
+be the best.”
+
+“Ah! it is your version!” said the stranger. “I beg your pardon, I think
+you treated the subject very well.”
+
+“Yes,” said Willmott, “it is ungrateful material, but I think I made
+something fine of it.”
+
+“No doubt, no doubt,” said the stranger.
+
+“Do tell us,” Mrs. Baldwin was heard to ask M. Faubourg across the
+table, “what the young generation are doing in France? Who are the young
+novelists?”
+
+“There are no young novelists worth mentioning,” answered M. Faubourg.
+
+Miss Tring broke in and said she considered “Le Visage Emerveille,” by
+the Comtesse de Noailles, to be the most beautiful book of the century,
+with the exception, perhaps, of the “Tagebuch einer Verlorenen.”
+
+But from the end of the table Blenheim’s utterance was heard
+preponderating over that of his neighbours. He was making a fine
+speech on the modern stage, comparing an actor-manager to Napoleon, and
+commenting on the campaigns of the latter in detail.
+
+Quite heedless of this Mr. Willmott was carrying on an equally
+impassioned but much slower monologue on his conception of the character
+of Cyrano de Bergerac, which he said he intended to produce. “Cyrano,”
+ he said, “has been maligned by Coquelin. Coquelin is a great artist,
+but he did not understand Cyrano. Cyrano is a dreamer, a poet; he is a
+martyr of thought like Tolstoi, a sacrifice to wasted, useless action,
+like Hamlet; he is a Moliere come too soon, a Bayard come too late, a
+John the Baptist of the stage, calling out in vain in the wilderness--of
+bricks and mortar; he is misunderstood;--an enigma, an anachronism, a
+premature herald, a false dawn.”
+
+Count Sciarra was engaged in a third monologue at the head of the table.
+He was talking at the same time to Mrs. Bergmann, Lady Irene, and Lady
+Hyacinth about the devil. “Ah que j’aime le diable!” he was saying in
+low, tender tones. “The devil who creates your beauty to lure us to
+destruction, the devil who puts honey into the voice of the siren, the
+dolce sirena--
+
+“Che i marinari in mezzo il mar dismaga”
+
+(and he hummed this line in a sing-song two or three times over)--“the
+devil who makes us dream and doubt, and who made life interesting by
+persuading Eve to eat the silver apple--what would life have been if
+she had not eaten the apple? We should all be in the silly trees of the
+Garden of Eden, and I should be sitting next to you” (he said to Mrs.
+Bergmann), “without knowing that you were beautiful; que vous etes belle
+et que vous etes desirable; que vous etes puissante et caline, que je
+fais naufrage dans une mer d’amour--e il naufragio m’e dolce in questo
+mare--en un mot, que je vous aime.”
+
+“Life outside the garden of Eden has many drawbacks,” said Mrs.
+Bergmann, who, although she was inwardly pleased by Count Sciarra’s
+remarks, saw by Lady Irene’s expression that she thought he was mad.
+
+“Aucun ‘drawback,’” answered Sciarra, “n’egalerait celui de comtempler
+les divins contours feminins sans un frisson. Pensez donc si Madame
+Bergmann----”
+
+“Count Sciarra,” interrupted Mrs. Bergmann, terrified of what was coming
+next, “do tell me about the book you are writing on Venice.”
+
+Mrs. Lockton was at that moment discussing portraiture in novels with M.
+Faubourg, and during a pause Miss Tring was heard to make the following
+remark: “And is it true M. Faubourg, that ‘Cecile’ in ‘La Mauvaise
+Bonte’ is a portrait of some one you once loved and who treated you very
+badly?”
+
+M. Faubourg, a little embarrassed, said that a creative artist made a
+character out of many originals.
+
+Then, seeing that nobody was saying a word to his neighbour, he turned
+round and asked him if he had been to the Academy.
+
+“Yes,” answered the stranger; “it gets worse every year doesn’t it?”
+
+“But Mr. Corporal’s pictures are always worth seeing,” said Faubourg.
+
+“I think he paints men better than women,” said the stranger; “he
+doesn’t flatter people, but of course his pictures are very clever.”
+
+At this moment the attention of the whole table was monopolised by
+Osmond Hall, who began to discuss the scenario of a new play he was
+writing. “My play,” he began, “is going to be called ‘The King of the
+North Pole.’ I have never been to the North Pole, and I don’t mean to
+go there. It’s not necessary to have first-hand knowledge of technical
+subjects in order to write a play. People say that Shakespeare must
+have studied the law, because his allusions to the law are frequent and
+accurate. That does not prove that he knew law any more than the fact
+that he put a sea in Bohemia proves that he did not know geography.
+It proves he was a dramatist. He wanted a sea in Bohemia. He wanted
+lawyer’s ‘shop.’ I should do just the same thing myself. I wrote a play
+about doctors, knowing nothing about medicine: I asked a friend to give
+me the necessary information. Shakespeare, I expect, asked his friends
+to give him the legal information he required.”
+
+Every allusion to Shakespeare was a stab to Mrs. Bergmann.
+
+“Shakespeare’s knowledge of the law is very thorough,” broke in Lockton.
+
+“Not so thorough as the knowledge of medicine which is revealed in my
+play,” said Hall.
+
+“Shakespeare knew law by intuition,” murmured Willmott, “but he did not
+guess what the modern stage would make of his plays.”
+
+“Let us hope not,” said Giles.
+
+“Shakespeare,” said Faubourg, “was a psychologue; he had the power, I
+cannot say it in English, de deviner ce qu’il ne savait pas en puisant
+dans le fond et le trefond de son ame.”
+
+“Gammon!” said Hall; “he had the power of asking his friends for the
+information he required.”
+
+“Do you really think,” asked Giles, “that before he wrote ‘Time delves
+the parallel on beauty’s brow,’ he consulted his lawyer as to a legal
+metaphor suitable for a sonnet?”
+
+“And do you think,” asked Mrs. Duncan, “that he asked his female
+relations what it would feel like to be jealous of Octavia if one
+happened to be Cleopatra?”
+
+“Shakespeare was a married man,” said Hall, “and if his wife found the
+MSS. of his sonnets lying about he must have known a jealous woman.”
+
+“Shakespeare evidently didn’t trouble his friends for information on
+natural history, not for a playwright,” said Hall. “I myself should not
+mind what liberty I took with the cuckoo, the bee, or even the basilisk.
+I should not trouble you for accurate information on the subject; I
+should not even mind saying the cuckoo lays eggs in its own nest if it
+suited the dramatic situation.”
+
+The whole of this conversation was torture to Mrs. Bergmann.
+
+“Shakespeare,” said Lady Hyacinth, “had a universal nature; one can’t
+help thinking he was almost like God.”
+
+“That’s what people will say of me a hundred years hence,” said Hall;
+“only it is to be hoped they’ll leave out the ‘almost.’”
+
+“Shakespeare understood love,” said Lady Herman, in a loud voice; “he
+knew how a man makes love to a woman. If Richard III. had made love to
+me as Shakespeare describes him doing it, I’m not sure that I could have
+resisted him. But the finest of all Shakespeare’s men is Othello. That’s
+a real man. Desdemona was a fool. It’s not wonderful that Othello didn’t
+see through Iago; but Desdemona ought to have seen through him. The
+stupidest woman can see through a clever man like him; but, of course,
+Othello was a fool too.”
+
+“Yes,” broke in Mrs. Lockton, “if Napoleon had married Desdemona he
+would have made Iago marry one of his sisters.”
+
+“I think Desdemona is the most pathetic of Shakespeare’s heroines,” said
+Lady Hyacinth; “don’t you think so, Mr. Hall?”
+
+“It’s easy enough to make a figure pathetic, who is strangled by a
+nigger,” answered Hall. “Now if Desdemona had been a negress Shakespeare
+would have started fair.”
+
+“If only Shakespeare had lived later,” sighed Willmott, “and understood
+the condition of the modern stage, he would have written quite
+differently.”
+
+“If Shakespeare had lived now he would have written novels,” said
+Faubourg.
+
+“Yes,” said Mrs. Baldwin, “I feel sure you are right there.”
+
+“If Shakespeare had lived now,” said Sciarra to Mrs. Bergmann, “we
+shouldn’t notice his existence; he would be just un monsieur comme tout
+le monde--like that monsieur sitting next to Faubourg,” he added in a
+low voice.
+
+“The problem about Shakespeare,” broke in Hall, “is not how he wrote
+his plays. I could teach a poodle to do that in half an hour. But the
+problem is--What made him leave off writing just when he was beginning
+to know how to do it? It is as if I had left off writing plays ten years
+ago.”
+
+“Perhaps,” said the stranger, hesitatingly and modestly, “he had made
+enough money by writing plays to retire on his earnings and live in the
+country.”
+
+Nobody took any notice of this remark.
+
+“If Bacon was really the playwright,” said Lockton, “the problem is a
+very different one.”
+
+“If Bacon had written Shakespeare’s plays,” said Silvester, “they
+wouldn’t have been so bad.”
+
+“There seems to me to be only one argument,” said Professor Morgan, “in
+favour of the Bacon theory, and that is that the range of mind displayed
+in Shakespeare’s plays is so great that it would have been child’s play
+for the man who wrote Shakespeare’s plays to have written the works of
+Bacon.”
+
+“Yes,” said Hall, “but because it would be child’s play for the man
+who wrote my plays to have written your works and those of Professor
+Newcastle--which it would--it doesn’t prove that you wrote my plays.”
+
+“Bacon was a philosopher,” said Willmott, “and Shakespeare was a poet--a
+dramatic poet; but Shakespeare was also an actor, an actor-manager, and
+only an actor-manager could have written the plays.”
+
+“What do you think of the Bacon theory?” asked Faubourg of the stranger.
+
+“I think,” said the stranger, “that we shall soon have to say eggs and
+Shakespeare instead of eggs and Bacon.”
+
+This remark caused a slight shudder to pass through all the guests, and
+Mrs. Bergmann felt sorry that she had not taken decisive measures to
+prevent the stranger’s intrusion.
+
+“Shakespeare wrote his own plays,” said Sciarra, “and I don’t know if he
+knew law, but he knew _le coeur de la femme_. Cleopatra bids her slave
+find out the colour of Octavia’s hair; that is just what my wife, my
+Angelica, would do if I were to marry some one in London while she was
+at Rome.”
+
+“Mr. Gladstone used to say,” broke in Lockton, “that Dante was inferior
+to Shakespeare, because he was too great an optimist.”
+
+“Dante was not an optimist,” said Sciarra, “about the future life of
+politicians. But I think they were both of them pessimists about man and
+both optimists about God.”
+
+“Shakespeare,” began Blenheim; but he was interrupted by Mrs. Duncan who
+cried out:--
+
+“I wish he were alive now and would write me a part, a real woman’s
+part. The women have so little to do in Shakespeare’s plays. There’s
+Juliet; but one can’t play Juliet till one’s forty, and then one’s too
+old to look fourteen. There’s Lady Macbeth; but she’s got nothing to
+do except walk in her sleep and say, ‘Out, damned spot!’ There were not
+actresses in his days, and of course it was no use writing a woman’s
+part for a boy.”
+
+“You should have been born in France,” said Faubourg, “Racine’s women
+are created for you to play.”
+
+“Ah! you’ve got Sarah,” said Mrs. Duncan, “you don’t want anyone else.”
+
+“I think Racine’s boring,” said Mrs. Lockton, “he’s so artificial.”
+
+“Oh! don’t say that,” said Giles, “Racine is the most exquisite of
+poets, so sensitive, so acute, and so harmonious.”
+
+“I like Rostand better,” said Mrs. Lockton.
+
+“Rostand!” exclaimed Miss Tring, in disgust, “he writes such bad
+verses--du caoutchouc--he’s so vulgar.”
+
+“It is true,” said Willmott, “he’s an amateur. He has never written
+professionally for his bread but only for his pleasure.”
+
+“But in that sense,” said Giles, “God is an amateur.”
+
+“I confess,” said Peebles, “that I cannot appreciate French poetry.
+I can read Rousseau with pleasure, and Bossuet; but I cannot admire
+Corneille and Racine.”
+
+“Everybody writes plays now,” said Faubourg, with a sigh.
+
+“I have never written a play,” said Lord Pantry.
+
+“Nor I,” said Lockton.
+
+“But nearly everyone at this table has,” said Faubourg. “Mrs. Baldwin
+has written ‘Matilda,’ Mr. Giles has written a tragedy called ‘Queen
+Swaflod,’ I wrote a play in my youth, my ‘Le Menetrier de Parme’;
+I’m sure Corporal has written a play. Count Sciarra must have written
+several; have you ever written a play?” he said, turning to his
+neighbour, the stranger.
+
+“Yes,” answered the stranger, “I once wrote a play called ‘Hamlet.’”
+
+“You were courageous with such an original before you,” said Faubourg,
+severely.
+
+“Yes,” said the stranger, “the original was very good, but I think,” he
+added modestly, “that I improved upon it.”
+
+“Encore un faiseur de paradoxes!” murmured Faubourg to himself in
+disgust.
+
+In the meantime Willmott was giving Professor Morgan the benefit of
+his views on Greek art, punctuated with allusions to Tariff Reform and
+devolution for the benefit of Blenheim.
+
+Luncheon was over and cigarettes were lighted. Mrs. Bergmann had quite
+made up her mind that she had been cheated, and there was only one thing
+for which she consoled herself, and that was that she had not waited for
+luncheon but had gone down immediately, since so far all her guests had
+kept up a continuous stream of conversation, which had every now and
+then become general, though they still every now and then glanced at
+the empty chair and wondered what the coming attraction was going to be.
+Mrs. Milden had carried on two almost interrupted tete-a-tetes, first
+with one of her neighbours, then with the other. In fact everybody had
+talked, except the stranger, who had hardly spoken, and since Faubourg
+had turned away from him in disgust, nobody had taken any further notice
+of him.
+
+Mrs. Baldwin, remarking this, good-naturedly leant across the table and
+asked him if he had come to London for the Wagner cycle.
+
+“No,” he answered, “I came for the Horse Show at Olympia.”
+
+At this moment Count Sciarra, having finished his third cigarette,
+turned to his hostess and thanked her for having allowed him to meet the
+most beautiful women of London in the most beautiful house in London,
+and in the house of the most beautiful hostess in London.
+
+“J’ai vu chez vous,” he said, “le lys argente et la rose blanche, mais
+vous etes la rose ecarlate, la rose d’amour dont le parfum vivra dans
+mon coeur comme un poison dore (and here he hummed in a sing-song):--
+
+‘Io son, cantava, Io son, dolce sirena’ Addio, dolce sirena.”
+
+Then he suddenly and abruptly got up, kissed his hostess’s hand
+vehemently three times, and said he was very sorry, but he must hasten
+to keep a pressing engagement. He then left the room.
+
+Mrs. Bergmann got up and said, “Let us go upstairs.” But the men had
+most of them to go, some to the House of Commons, others to fulfil
+various engagements.
+
+The stranger thanked Mrs. Bergmann for her kind hospitality and left.
+And the remaining guests, seeing that it was obvious that no further
+attraction was to be expected, now took their leave reluctantly and
+went, feeling that they had been cheated.
+
+Angela Lockton stayed a moment.
+
+“Who were you expecting, Louise, dear?” she asked.
+
+“Only an old friend,” said Mrs. Bergmann, “whom you would all have
+been very glad to see. Only as he doesn’t want anybody to know he’s in
+London, I couldn’t tell you all who he was.”
+
+“But tell me now,” said Mrs. Lockton; “you know how discreet I am.”
+
+“I promised not to, dearest Angela,” she answered; “and, by the way,
+what was the name of the man you brought with you?”
+
+“Didn’t I tell you? How stupid of me!” said Mrs. Lockton. “It’s a very
+easy name to remember: Shakespeare, William Shakespeare.”
+
+
+
+
+FETE GALANTE
+
+To Cecilia Fisher
+
+“The King said that nobody had ever danced as I danced to-night,” said
+Columbine. “He said it was more than dancing, it was magic.”
+
+“It is true,” said Harlequin, “you never danced like that before.”
+
+But Pierrot paid no heed to their remarks, and stared vacantly at the
+sky. They were sitting on the deserted stage of the grass amphitheatre
+where they had been playing. Behind them were the clumps of cypress
+trees which framed a vista of endless wooden garden and formed their
+drop scene. They were sitting immediately beneath the wooden framework
+made of two upright beams and one horizontal, which formed the primitive
+proscenium, and from which little coloured lights had hung during the
+performance. The King and Queen and their lords and ladies who had
+looked on at the living puppet show had all left the amphitheatre; they
+had put on their masks and their dominoes, and were now dancing on the
+lawns, whispering in the alleys and the avenues, or sitting in groups
+under the tall dark trees. Some of them were in boats on the lake, and
+everywhere one went, from the dark boscages, came sounds of music, thin,
+tinkling tunes played on guitars by skilled hands, and the bird-like
+twittering and whistling of flageolets.
+
+“The King said I looked like a moon fairy,” said Columbine to Pierrot.
+Pierrot only stared at the sky and laughed inanely. “If you persist in
+slighting me like this,” she whispered in his ear, in a whisper which
+was like a hiss, “I will abandon you for ever. I will give my heart to
+Harlequin, and you shall never see me again.” But Pierrot continued to
+stare at the sky, and laughed once more inanely. Then Columbine got up,
+her eyes flashing with rage; taking Harlequin by the arm she dragged
+him swiftly away. They danced across the grass semi-circle of the
+amphitheatre and up the steps away into the alleys. Pierrot was left
+alone with Pantaloon, who was asleep, for he was old and clowning
+fatigued him. Then Pierrot left the amphitheatre also, and putting
+a black mask on his face he joined the revellers who were everywhere
+dancing, whispering, talking, and making music in subdued tones. He
+sought out a long lonely avenue, in one side of which there nestled,
+almost entirely concealed by bushes and undergrowth, a round open Greek
+temple. Right at the end of the avenue a foaming waterfall splashed down
+into a large marble basin, from which a tall fountain rose, white and
+ghostly, and made a sobbing noise. Pierrot went towards the temple, then
+he turned back and walked right into the undergrowth through the bushes,
+and lay down on the grass, and listened to the singing of the night-jar.
+The whole garden that night seemed to be sighing and whispering;
+there was a soft warm wind, and a smell of mown hay in the air, and an
+intoxicating sweetness came from the bushes of syringa. Columbine and
+Harlequin also joined the revellers. They passed from group to group,
+with aimless curiosity, pausing sometimes by the artificial ponds and
+sometimes by the dainty groups of dancers, whose satin and whose pearls
+glimmered faintly in the shifting moonlight, for the night was cloudy.
+At last they too were tired of the revel, they wandered towards a more
+secluded place and made for the avenue which Pierrot had sought. On
+their way they passed through a narrow grass walk between two rows of
+closely cropped yew hedges. There on a marble seat a tall man in a black
+domino was sitting, his head resting on his hands; and between the loose
+folds of his satin cloak, one caught the glint of precious stones. When
+they had passed him Columbine whispered to Harlequin: “That is the King.
+I caught sight of his jewelled collar.” They presently found themselves
+in the long avenue at the end of which were the waterfall and the
+fountain. They wandered on till they reached the Greek temple, and there
+suddenly Columbine put her finger on her lips. Then she led Harlequin
+back a little way and took him round through the undergrowth to the back
+of the temple, and, crouching down in the bushes, bade him look. In the
+middle of the temple there was a statue of Eros holding a torch in his
+hands. Standing close beside the statue were two figures, a man dressed
+as a Pierrot, and a beautiful lady who wore a grey satin domino. She
+had taken off her mask and pushed back the hood from her hair, which was
+encircled by a diadem made of something shining and silvery, and a ray
+of moonlight fell on her face, which was as delicate as the petal of a
+flower. Pierrot was masked; he was holding her hand and looking into her
+eyes, which were turned upwards towards his.
+
+“It is the Queen!” whispered Columbine to Harlequin. And once more
+putting her finger on her lips, she deftly led him by the hand and
+noiselessly threaded her way through the bushes and back into the
+avenue, and without saying a word ran swiftly with him to the place
+where they had seen the King. He was still there, alone, his head
+resting upon his hands.
+
+* * * * *
+
+In the temple the Queen was upbraiding her lover for his temerity
+in having crossed the frontier into the land from which he had been
+banished for ever, and for having dared to appear at the court revel
+disguised as Pierrot. “Remember,” she was saying, “the enemies that
+surround us, the dreadful peril, and the doom that awaits us.” And her
+lover said: “What is doom, and what is death? You whispered to the night
+and I heard. You sighed and I am here!” He tore the mask from his face,
+and the Queen looked at him and smiled. At that moment a rustle
+was heard in the undergrowth, and the Queen started back from him,
+whispering: “We are betrayed! Fly!” And her lover put on his mask and
+darted through the undergrowth, following a path which he and no one
+else knew, till he came to an open space where his squire awaited him
+with horses, and they galloped away safe from all pursuit.
+
+Then the King walked into the temple and led the Queen back to the
+palace without saying a word; but the whole avenue was full of dark
+men bearing torches and armed with swords, who were searching the
+undergrowth. And presently they found Pierrot who, ignorant of all that
+had happened, had been listening all night to the song of the night-jar.
+He was dragged to the palace and cast into a dungeon, and the King
+was told. But the revel did not cease, and the dancing and the music
+continued softly as before. The King sent for Columbine and told her she
+should have speech with Pierrot in his prison, for haply he might
+have something to confess to her. And Columbine was taken to Pierrot’s
+dungeon, and the King followed her without her knowing it, and concealed
+himself behind the door, which he set ajar.
+
+Columbine upbraided Pierrot and said: “All this was my work. I have
+always known that you loved the Queen. And yet for the sake of past
+days, tell me the truth. Was it love or a joke, such as those you love
+to play?”
+
+Pierrot laughed inanely. “It was a joke,” he said. “It is my trade to
+make jokes. What else can I do?”
+
+“You love the Queen nevertheless,” said Columbine, “of that I am sure,
+and for that I have had my revenge.”
+
+“It was a joke,” said Pierrot, and he laughed again.
+
+And though she talked and raved and wept, she could get no other answer
+from him. Then she left him, and the King entered the dungeon.
+
+“I have heard what you said,” said the King, “but to me you must tell
+the truth. I do not believe it was you who met the Queen in the temple;
+tell me the truth, and your life shall be spared.”
+
+“It was a joke,” said Pierrot, and he laughed. Then the King grew fierce
+and stormed and threatened. But his rage and threats were in vain! for
+Pierrot only laughed. Then the King appealed to him as man to man and
+implored him to tell him the truth; for he would have given his kingdom
+to believe that it was the real Pierrot who had met the Queen and that
+the adventure had been a joke. Pierrot only repeated what he had said,
+and laughed and giggled inanely.
+
+At dawn the prison door was opened and three masked men led Pierrot out
+through the courtyard into the garden. The revellers had gone home, but
+here and there lights still twinkled and flickered and a stray note or
+two of music was still heard. Some of the latest of the revellers were
+going home. The dawn was grey and chilly; they led Pierrot through the
+alleys to the grass amphitheatre, and they hanged him on the horizontal
+beam which formed part of the primitive proscenium where he and
+Columbine had danced so wildly in the night. They hanged him and his
+white figure dangled from the beam as though he were still dancing;
+and the new Pierrot, who was appointed the next day, was told that such
+would be the fate of all mummers who went too far, and whose jokes and
+pranks overstepped the limits of decency and good breeding.
+
+
+
+
+THE GARLAND
+
+The _Referendarius_ had three junior clerks to carry on the business of
+his department, and they in their turn were assisted by two scribes, who
+did most of the copying and kept the records. The work of the Department
+consisted in filing and annotating the petitions and cases which
+were referred from the lower Courts, through the channel of the
+_Referendarius_, to the Emperor.
+
+The three clerks and their two scribes occupied a high marble room in
+the spacious office. It was as yet early in April, but, nevertheless,
+the sun out of doors was almost fierce. The high marble rooms of the
+office were cool and stuffy at the same time, and the spring sunshine
+without, the soft breeze from the sea, the call of the flower-sellers in
+the street, and the lazy murmur of the town had, in these shaded, musty,
+and parchment-smelling halls, diffused an atmosphere of laziness which
+inspired the clerks in question with an overwhelming desire to do
+nothing.
+
+There was, indeed, no pressing work on hand. Only from time to time the
+_Referendarius_, who occupied a room to himself next door to theirs,
+would communicate with them through a hole in the wall, demanding
+information on some point or asking to be supplied with certain
+documents. Then the clerks would make a momentary pretence of being
+busy, and ultimately the scribes would find either the documents or the
+information which were required.
+
+As it was, the clerks were all of them engaged in occupations which were
+remote from official work. The eldest of them, Cephalus by name--a man
+who was distinguished from the others by a certain refined sobriety both
+in his dark dress and in his quiet demeanour--was reading a treatise on
+algebra; the second, Theophilus, a musician, whose tunic was as bright
+as his flaming hair, was mending a small organ; and the third, Rufinus,
+a rather pale, short-sighted, and untidy youth, was scribbling on a
+tablet. The scribes were busy sorting old records and putting them away
+in their permanent places.
+
+Presently an official strolled in from another department. He was a
+middle-aged, corpulent, and cheerful-looking man, dressed in gaudy
+coloured tissue, on which all manner of strange birds were depicted. He
+was bursting with news.
+
+“Phocas is going to win,” he said. “It is certain.”
+
+Cephalus looked vaguely up from his book and said: “Oh!”
+
+Theophilus and Rufinus paid no attention to the remark.
+
+“Well,” continued the new-comer cheerfully, “Who will come to the races
+with me?”
+
+As soon as he heard the word races, Rufinus looked up from his
+scribbling. “I will come,” he said, “if I can get leave.”
+
+“I did not know you cared for that sort of thing,” said Cephalus.
+
+Rufinus blushed and murmured something about going every now and then.
+He walked out of the room, and sought the _Referendarius_ in the next
+room. This official was reading a document. He did not look up when
+Rufinus entered, but went on with his reading. At last, after a
+prolonged interval, he turned round and said: “What is it?”
+
+“May I go to the races?” asked Rufinus.
+
+“Well,” said the high official, “what about your work?”
+
+“We’ve finished everything,” said the clerk.
+
+The Head of the Department assumed an air of mystery and coughed.
+
+“I don’t think I can very well see my way to letting you go,” he said.
+“I am very sorry,” he added quickly, “and if it depended on me you
+should go at once. But He,” he added--he always alluded to the Head of
+the Office as He--“does not like it. He may come in at any moment and
+find you gone. No; I’m afraid I can’t let you go to-day. Now, if it had
+been yesterday you could have gone.”
+
+“I should only be away an hour,” said Rufinus, tentatively.
+
+“He might choose just that hour to come round. If it depended only on me
+you should go at once,” and he laughed and slapped Rufinus on the back,
+jocularly.
+
+The clerk did not press the point further.
+
+“You’d better get on with that index,” said the high official as Rufinus
+withdrew.
+
+He told the result of his interview to his sporting friend, who started
+out by himself to the Hippodrome.
+
+Rufinus settled down to his index. But he soon fell into a mood of
+abstraction. The races and the games did not interest him in the least.
+It was something else which attracted him. And, as he sat musing, the
+vision of the Hippodrome as he had last seen it rose clearly before him.
+He saw the seaweed-coloured marble; the glistening porticoes,
+adorned with the masterpieces of Greece, crowded with women in gemmed
+embroideries and men in white tunics hemmed with broad purple; he saw
+the Generals with their barbaric officers--Bulgarians, Persians, Arabs,
+Slavs--the long line of savage-looking prisoners in their chains, and
+the golden breastplates of the standard-bearers. He saw the immense silk
+_velum_ floating in the azure air over that rippling sea of men, those
+hundreds of thousands who swarmed on the marble steps of the Hippodrome.
+He saw the Emperor in his high-pillared box, on his circular throne of
+dull gold, surrounded by slaves fanning him with jewel-coloured plumes,
+and fenced round with golden swords.
+
+And opposite him, on the other side of the Stadium, the Empress, mantled
+in a stiff pontifical robe, laden with heavy embroidered stuffs,
+her little head framed like a portrait in a square crown of gold and
+diamonds, whence chains of emeralds hung down to her breast; motionless
+as an idol, impassive as a gilded mummy.
+
+He saw the crowd of gorgeous women, grouped like Eastern flowers around
+her: he saw one woman. He saw one form as fresh as a lily of the valley,
+all white amidst that hard metallic splendour; frail as a dewy anemone,
+slender as the moist narcissus. He saw one face like the chalice of a
+rose, and amidst all those fiery jewels two large eyes as soft as dark
+violets. And the sumptuous Court, the plumes, the swords, the standards,
+the hot, vari-coloured crowd melted away and disappeared, so that when
+the Emperor rose and made the sign of the Cross over his people, first
+to the right, and then to the left, and thirdly over the half-circle
+behind him, and the singers of Saint Sofia and the Church of the Holy
+Apostles mingled their bass chant with the shrill trebles of the chorus
+of the Hippodrome, to the sound of silver organs, he thought that the
+great hymn of praise was rising to her and to her alone; and that men
+had come from the uttermost parts of the earth to pay homage to her,
+to sing her praise, to kneel to her--to her, the wondrous, the very
+beautiful: peerless, radiant, perfect.
+
+A voice, followed by a cough, called from the hole in the wall; but
+Rufinus paid no heed, so deeply sunk was he in his vision.
+
+“Rufinus, the Chief is calling you,” said Cephalus.
+
+Rufinus started, and hurried to the hole in the wall. The Head of the
+Department gave him a message for an official in another department.
+
+Rufinus hurried with the message downstairs and delivered it. On his way
+back he passed the main portico on the ground floor. He walked out into
+the street: it was empty. Everybody was at the games.
+
+A dark-skinned country girl passed him singing a song about the swallow
+and the spring. She was bearing a basket full of anemones, violets,
+narcissi, wild roses, and lilies of the valley.
+
+“Will you sell me your flowers?” he asked, and he held out a silver
+coin.
+
+“You are welcome to them,” said the girl. “I do not need your money.”
+
+He took the flowers and returned to the room upstairs. The flowers
+filled the stuffy place with an unwonted and wonderful fragrance.
+
+Then he sat down and appeared to be once more busily engrossed in his
+index. But side by side with the index he had a small tablet, and on
+this, every now and then, he added or erased a word to a short poem. The
+sense of it was something like this:--
+
+     Rhodocleia, flowers of spring
+     I have woven in a ring;
+     Take this wreath, my offering, Rhodocleia.
+
+     Here’s the lily, here the rose
+     Her full chalice shall disclose;
+     Here’s narcissus wet with dew,
+     Windflower and the violet blue.
+     Wear the garland I have made;
+     Crowned with it, put pride away;
+     For the wreath that blooms must fade;
+     Thou thyself must fade some day, Rhodocleia.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPIDER’S WEB
+
+To K. L.
+
+He heard the bell of the Badia sound hour after hour, and still sleep
+refused its solace. He got up and looked through the narrow window. The
+sky in the East was soft with that luminous intensity, as of a melted
+sapphire, that comes just before the dawn. One large star was shining
+next to the paling moon. He watched the sky as it grew more and more
+transparent, and a fresh breeze blew from the hills. It was the second
+night that he had spent without sleeping, but the weariness of his body
+was as nothing compared with the aching emptiness which possessed his
+spirit. Only three days ago the world had seemed to him starred and
+gemmed like the Celestial City--an enchanted kingdom, waiting like a
+sleeping Princess for the kiss of the adventurous conqueror; and now the
+colours had faded, the dream had vanished, the sun seemed to be deprived
+of his glory, and the summer had lost its sweetness.
+
+His eye fell upon some papers which were lying loose upon his table.
+There was an unfinished sonnet which he had begun three days ago. The
+octet was finished and the first two lines of the sestet. He would never
+finish it now. It had no longer any reason to be; for it was a cry
+to ears which were now deaf, a question, an appeal, which demanded an
+answering smile, a consenting echo; and the lips, the only lips which
+could frame that answer, were dumb. He remembered that Casella, the
+musician, had asked him a week ago for the text of a _canzone_ which
+he had repeated to him one day. He had promised to let him have it.
+The promise had entirely gone out of his mind. Then he reflected that
+because the ship of his hopes and dreams had been wrecked there was no
+reason why he should neglect his obligations to his fellow-travellers on
+the uncertain sea.
+
+He sat down and transcribed by the light of the dawn in his exquisite
+handwriting the stanzas which had been the fruit of a brighter day. And
+the memory of this dead joy was exceedingly bitter to him, so that he
+sat musing for some time on the unutterable sadness which the ghosts of
+perished joys bring to man in his misery, and a line of Virgil buzzed
+in his brain; but not, as of yore, did it afford him the luxury of
+causeless melancholy, but like a cruel finger it touched his open wound.
+The ancients, he thought, knew how to bear misfortune.
+
+     Levius fit patientia
+     Quidquid corrigere est nefas.
+
+As the words occurred to him he thought how much better equipped he was
+for the bitter trial, since had he not the certain hope of another life,
+and of meeting his beloved in the spaces of endless felicity? Surely
+then he should be able to bear his sorrow with as great a fortitude as
+the pagan poets, who looked forward to nothing but the dust; to whom the
+fabled dim country beyond the Styx was a cheerless dream, and to whom a
+living dog upon the earth was more worthy of envy than the King of all
+Elysium. He must learn of the ancients.
+
+The magic of the lemon-coloured dawn had vanished now before the swift
+daylight. Many bells were ringing in the city, and the first signs of
+life were stirring in the streets. He searched for a little book,
+and read of the consolation which Cicero gave to Laelius in the _De
+Amicitia_. But he had not read many lines before he closed the book. His
+wound was too fresh for the balm of reason and philosophy.
+
+“Later,” he thought, “this will strengthen and help me, but not
+to-day; to-day my wound must bleed and be allowed to bleed, for all the
+philosophy in the world cannot lessen the fact that yesterday she was
+and to-day she is not.”
+
+He felt a desire to escape from his room, which had been the chapel of
+such holy prayers, the shrine where so many fervent tapers of hope had
+burnt, where so sweet an incense of dream had risen. He left his room
+and hurried down the narrow stone stairs into the street. As he left
+the house he turned to his right and walked on till he reached Or San
+Michele; there he turned to his right again and walked straight on till
+he reached the churches of Santa Reparata and San Giovanni. He entered
+San Giovanni and said a brief prayer; then he took the nearest street,
+east of Santa Reparata, to the Porta a ballo, and found himself beyond
+the walls of the city. He walked towards Fiesole.
+
+The glory of the sunrise was still in the sky, the fragrance of the
+dawning summer (it was the 11th of June) was in the air. He walked
+towards the East. The corn on the hills was green, and pink wild roses
+fringed every plot of wheat. The grass was wet with dew. The city
+glittered in the plain beneath, clean and fresh in the dazzling air;
+it seemed a part of the pageant of summer, an unreal piece of imagery,
+distinct and clear-cut, yet miraculous, like a mirage seen in mid-ocean.
+“Truly,” he thought, “this is the city of the flower, and the lily is
+its fitting emblem.”
+
+But while his heart went out towards his native town he felt a sharp
+pang as he remembered that the flower of flowers, the queen of the
+lilies, had been mowed down by the scythe, and the city which to him had
+heretofore been an altar was now a tomb. The lovely Virgilian dirge,
+
+     Manibus date lilia plenis . . .
+     His saltem accumulem donis et fungar inani
+     Munere,
+
+rang in his ears, and he thought that he too must bring a gift and
+scatter lilies on her grave; handfuls of lilies; but they must be
+unfading flowers, wet with immortal tears. He pondered on this gift.
+It must be a gift of song, a temple built in verse. But he was still
+unsatisfied. No dirge, however tender and solemn; no elegy, however soft
+and majestic; no song, however piteous, could be a sufficient offering
+for the glorious being who had died in her youth and beauty. But what
+could he fashion or build? He thought with envy of Arnolfo and of
+Giotto: the one with his bricks could have built a tomb which would
+prove to be one of the wonders of the world, and the other with his
+brush could have fixed her features for ever, for the wonder of future
+generations. And yet was not his instrument the most potent of all, his
+vehicle the most enduring? Stones decayed, and colours faded, but verse
+remained, outliving bronze and marble. Yes, his monument should be more
+lasting than all the masterpieces of Giotto, than all the proud designs
+of Arnolfo; but how should it be?
+
+He had reached a narrow lane at the foot of a steep hill covered with
+corn and dotted with olives. He lay down under a hedge in the shade.
+The sun was shining on two large bramble bushes which grew on the hedge
+opposite him. Above him, on his right, was a tall cypress tree standing
+by itself, and the corn plots stretched up behind him till they reached
+the rocky summits tufted with firs. Between the two bramble bushes
+a spider had spun a large web, and he was sitting in the midst of it
+awaiting his prey. But the bramble and the web were still wet with the
+morning dew, whose little drops glistened in the sunshine like diamonds.
+Every tiny thread and filament of the web was dewy and lit by the
+newly-awakened sun. He lay on his back in the shade and pondered on the
+shape and nature of his gift of song, and on the deathless flowers that
+he must grow and gather and lay upon her tomb.
+
+The spider’s web caught his eye, and from where he lay the sight was
+marvellous. The spider seemed like a small globe of fire in the midst of
+a number of concentric silvery lines studded with dewy gems; it was like
+a miniature sun in the midst of a system of gleaming stars. The delicate
+web with its shining films and dewdrops seemed to him as he lay there
+to be a vision of the whole universe, with all its worlds and stars
+revolving around the central orb of light. It was as though a veil had
+been torn away and he were looking on the naked glory of the spheres,
+the heart of Heaven, the very home of God.
+
+He looked and looked, his whole spirit filled with ineffable awe and
+breathless humility. He lay gazing on the chance miracle of nature till
+a passing cloud obscured the sun, and the spider’s web wore once more
+its ordinary appearance. Then he arose with tears in his eyes and gave a
+great sigh of thankfulness.
+
+“I have found it,” he thought, “I will say of her what has never yet
+been said of any woman. I will paint all Hell, all Purgatory, and all
+that is in them, to make more glorious the glory of her abode, and I
+will reveal to man that glory. I will show her in the circle of spotless
+flame, among the rivers and rings of eternal light, which revolve around
+the inmost heart, the fiery rose, and move obedient to the Love which
+moves the sun.” And his thought shaped itself into verse and he murmured
+to himself:
+
+     L’amor che muove il sole e l’altre stelle.
+
+
+
+
+
+EDWARD II. AT BERKELEY CASTLE BY AN EYE-WITNESS (With apologies to Mr.
+H. Belloc)
+
+The King had not slept for three nights. He looked at his face in the
+muddy pool of water which had settled in the worn flagstones of his
+prison floor, and noticed that his beard was of a week’s growth. Beads
+of sweat stood on his forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot. In the room
+next door, which was the canteen, the soldiers were playing on a drum.
+Over the tall hills the dawn was ruffling the clouds. There was a faint
+glimmer on the waters of the river. The footsteps of the gaolers were
+heard on the outer rampart. At seven o’clock they brought the King a
+good dinner: they allowed him burgundy from France, and yellow mead, and
+white bread baked in the ovens of the Abbey, although he was constrained
+to drink out of pewter, and plates were forbidden him. Eustace, his
+page, timidly offered him music. The King bade him sing the “Lay of the
+Sussex Lass,” which begins thus:
+
+     Triumphant, oh! triumphant now she stands,
+     Above my Sussex, and above my sea!
+     She stretches out her thin ulterior hands
+     Across the morning . . .
+
+But the King, to whom memories were portentous, called for another song
+and Eustace sang a stave of that ballad which was made on the Pyrenees,
+and which is still unfinished (for the modern world has no need of
+these things), telling of how Lord Raymond drank in a little tent with
+Charlemagne:
+
+     Enormous through the morning the tall battalions run:
+     The men who fought with Charlemagne are very dearly done;
+     The wine is dark beneath the night, the stars are in the sky,
+     The hammer’s in the blacksmith’s hand in case he wants to try.
+     We’ll ride to Fontarabia, we’ll storm the stubborn wall,
+     And I call.
+
+     And Uriel and his Seraphim are hammering a shield;
+     And twice along the valley has the horn of Roland pealed;
+     And Cleopatra on the Nile, Iseult in Brittany,
+     And Lancelot in Camelot, and Drake upon the sea;
+     And behind the young Republic are the fellows with the flag,
+     And I brag!
+
+The King listlessly opened his eyes and said that he had no stomach for
+such song, and from the next door came the mutter of the drums. For on
+that night--which was Candlemas--Thursday, or as we should now call it
+“Friday”--the gaolers were keeping holiday, and drinking English beer
+brewed in Sussex; for the beer of West England was not to their liking,
+as any one who has walked down the old Roman Road through Daglingworth,
+Brimpsfield, and Birdlip towards Cardigan on a warm summer’s day can
+know. For a man may tramp that road and stop and ask for drink at an
+inn, and receive nothing but Imperialist whisky, and drinks that annoy
+rather than satisfy the great thirst of a Christian.
+
+Outside, a little breeze had crept out of the West. The morning star was
+paling over the Quantock Hills, and the King was mortally weary. “This
+day three years ago,” he thought, “I was spurred and harnessed for the
+lists in a tunic of mail, with an emerald on my shoulder-strap, and I
+was tilting with my lord of Cleremont before Queen Isabella of France.
+The birds were singing in Touraine, and the sun was beating on the
+lists; and the minstrels of Val-es-Dunes were chanting the song of the
+men who died for the Faith when they stormed Jerusalem. What is the lilt
+of that song,” said the King, “which the singers of Val-es-Dunes sang?”
+ And Eustace pondered, for his memory was weak and he was overwrought by
+nights of watching and days of vigilance; but presently he touched his
+strings and sang:
+
+     The captains came from Normandy
+     In clamorous ships across the sea;
+     And from the trees in Gascony
+     The masts were cloven, tall and free.
+     And Turpin swung the helm and sang;
+     And stars like all the bells at Brie
+     From cloudy steeples rang.
+
+     The rotten leaves are whirling down
+     Dishevelled from September’s crown;
+     The Emperors have left the town;
+     The Weald of Sussex, burnt and brown,
+     Is trampled by the kings.
+     And Harmuth gallops up the Down,
+     And, as he rides, he sings.
+
+     He sings of battles and of wine,
+     Of boats that leap the bellowing brine,
+     Of April eyes that smile and shine,
+     Of Raymond and Lord Catiline
+     And Carthage by the sea,
+     Of saints, and of the Muses Nine
+     That dwell in Gascony.
+
+And to the King, as he heard this stave, came visions of his youth; of
+how he had galloped from Woodstock to Stonesfield on a night of June
+within eleven hours, with a company of minstrels, and of how during that
+long feast at Arundel he made a song in the vernacular in praise of St.
+Anselm. And he remembered that he owed a candle to that saint. For
+he had vowed that if the wife of Westermain should meet him after the
+tournament he would burn a tall candle at Canterbury before Michaelmas.
+But this had escaped his mind, for it had been tossed hither and thither
+during days of conflict which had come later, and he was not loth to
+believe that the neglect of this service and the idle vow had been
+corner-stone of his misfortunes, and had helped to bring about his
+miserable plight.
+
+While these threads of memory glimmered in his mind the small tallow
+rush-light which lit the dungeon flickered and went out. The chapel
+clock struck six. The King made a gesture which meant that the time of
+music was over, and Eustace went back to the canteen, where the men of
+the guard were playing at dice by the light of smoky rush-lights. The
+King lay down on his wooden pallet, whose linen was delicate and of
+lawn, embroidered with his own cipher and crown. The pillow, which was
+stuffed with scented rushes, was delicious to the cheek, and yielding.
+
+* * * * *
+
+All that night in London Queen Isabella had been waiting for the news
+from France. A storm was blowing across the Channel, and the ships
+(their pilots were Germans, and bungled in reading the stars) making for
+the port turned back towards Dunquerque. It was a storm such as, if you
+are in a small boat, turns you back from Broughty Ferry to the Goodwin
+Sands. The Queen, who took counsel of no one, was in two minds as to her
+daring deed, and her hostage trembled in an uncertain grasp. In Saxony
+the banished favourites talked wildly, cursing the counsels of London;
+but Saxony was heedless and unmoved. And Piers Gaveston spoke heated
+words in vain.
+
+The King, who was in that lethargic state of slumber, between sleep and
+waking, heard a shuffle of steps beyond the door; a cold sweat broke
+once more on his forehead, and he waved his left hand listlessly.
+Outside the sun had risen, and a broad daylight flooded the wet meadows
+and the brimming tide of the Severn, catching the sails of the boats
+that were heeling and trembling on the ripple of the water, which was
+stirred by the South wind. The King looked towards the window with
+weariness, expecting, as far as his lethargy allowed, the advent of
+another monotonous day.
+
+The door opened. The faces he saw by the gaoler’s torch were not
+those he expected. The King, I say, looked towards them, and his hands
+trembled, and the moisture on them glistened. They were dark, and one of
+them was concealed by a silken mask.
+
+Three men entered the dungeon. In the hands of the foremost of the three
+glowed a red-hot iron, which was to be the manner of his doom.
+
+
+
+
+THE ISLAND
+
+“Perhaps we had better not land after all,” said Lewis as he was
+stepping into the boat; “we can explore this island on our way home.”
+
+“We had much better land now,” said Stewart; “we shall get to Teneriffe
+to-morrow in any case. Besides, an island that’s not on the chart is too
+exciting a thing to wait for.”
+
+Lewis gave in to his younger companion, and the two ornithologists, who
+were on their way to the Canary Islands in search of eggs, were rowed to
+shore.
+
+“They had better fetch us at sunset,” said Lewis as they landed.
+
+“Perhaps we shall stay the night,” responded Stewart.
+
+“I don’t think so,” said Lewis; but after a pause he told the sailors
+that if they should be more than half an hour late they were not to
+wait, but to come back in the morning at ten. Lewis and Stewart walked
+from the sandy bay up a steep basaltic cliff which sloped right down to
+the beach.
+
+“The island is volcanic,” said Stewart.
+
+“All the islands about here are volcanic,” said Lewis. “We shan’t be
+able to climb much in this heat,” he added.
+
+“It will be all right when we get to the trees,” said Stewart. Presently
+they reached the top of the cliff. The basaltic rock ceased and an open
+grassy incline was before them covered with myrtle and cactus bushes;
+and further off a thick wood, to the east of which rose a hill sparsely
+dotted with olive trees. They sat down on the grass, panting. The sun
+beat down on the dry rock; there was not a cloud in the sky nor a ripple
+on the emerald sea. In the air there was a strange aromatic scent; and
+the stillness was heavy.
+
+“I don’t think it can be inhabited,” said Lewis.
+
+“Perhaps it’s merely a volcanic island cast up by a sea disturbance,”
+ suggested Stewart.
+
+“Look at those trees,” said Lewis, pointing to the wood in the distance.
+
+“What about them?” asked Stewart.
+
+“They are oak trees,” said Lewis. “Do you know why I didn’t want to
+land?” he asked abruptly. “I am not superstitious, you know, but as I
+got into the boat I distinctly heard a voice calling out: ‘Don’t land!’”
+
+Stewart laughed. “I think it was a good thing to land,” he said. “Let’s
+go on now.”
+
+They walked towards the wood, and the nearer they got to it the more
+their surprise increased. It was a thick wood of large oak trees which
+must certainly have been a hundred years old. When they had got quite
+close to it they paused.
+
+“Before we explore the wood,” said Lewis, “let us climb the hill and see
+if we can get a general view of the island.”
+
+Stewart agreed, and they climbed the hill in silence. When they reached
+the top they found it was not the highest point of the island, but only
+one of several hills, so that they obtained only a limited view. The
+valleys seemed to be densely wooded, and the oak wood was larger than
+they had imagined. They laid down and rested and lit their pipes.
+
+“No birds,” remarked Lewis gloomily.
+
+“I haven’t seen one--the island is extraordinarily still,” said Stewart.
+The further they had penetrated inland the more oppressive and sultry
+the air had become; and the pungent aroma they had noticed directly
+was stronger. It was like that of mint, and yet it was not mint; and
+although sweet it was not agreeable. The heat seemed to weigh even on
+Stewart’s buoyant spirits, for he sat smoking in silence, and no longer
+urged Lewis to continue their exploration.
+
+“I think the island is inhabited,” said Lewis, “and that the houses
+are on the other side. There are some sheep and some goats on that hill
+opposite. Do you see?”
+
+“Yes,” said Stewart, “I think they are mouflon, but I don’t think the
+island is inhabited all the same.” No sooner were the words out of his
+mouth than he started, and rising to his feet, cried: “Look there!” and
+he pointed to a thin wreath of smoke which was rising from the wood.
+Their languor seemed to leave them, and they ran down the hill and
+reached the wood once more. Just as they were about to enter it Lewis
+stooped and pointed to a small plant with white flowers and three
+oval-shaped leaves rising from the root.
+
+“What’s that?” he asked Stewart, who was the better botanist of the two.
+The flowers were quite white, and each had six pointed petals.
+
+“It’s a kind of garlic, I think,” said Stewart. Lewis bent down over it.
+“It doesn’t smell,” he said. “It’s not unlike moly (_Allium flavum_),
+only it’s white instead of yellow, and the flowers are larger. I’m going
+to take it with me.” He began scooping away the earth with a knife so as
+to take out the plant by the roots. After he had been working for some
+minutes he exclaimed: “This is the toughest plant I’ve ever seen; I
+can’t get it out.” He was at last successful, but as he pulled the root
+he gave a cry of surprise.
+
+“There’s no bulb,” he said. “Look! Only a black root.”
+
+Stewart examined the plant. “I can’t make it out,” he said.
+
+Lewis wrapped the plant in his handkerchief and put it in his pocket.
+They entered the wood. The air was still more sultry here than outside,
+and the stillness even more oppressive. There were no birds and not a
+vestige of bird life.
+
+“This exploration is evidently a waste of time as far as birds are
+concerned,” remarked Lewis. At that moment there was a rustle in the
+undergrowth, and five pigs crossed their path and disappeared, grunting.
+Lewis started, and for some reason he could not account for, shuddered;
+he looked at Stewart, who appeared unconcerned.
+
+“They are not wild,” said Stewart. They walked on in silence. The place
+and its heavy atmosphere had again affected their spirits. When they
+spoke it was almost in a whisper. Lewis wished they had not landed, but
+he could give no reason to himself for his wish. After they had been
+walking for about twenty minutes they suddenly came on an open space and
+a low white house. They stopped and looked at each other.
+
+“It’s got no chimney!” cried Lewis, who was the first to speak. It was
+a one-storeyed building, with large windows (which had no glass in them)
+reaching to the ground, wider at the bottom than at the top. The house
+was overgrown with creepers; the roof was flat. They entered in silence
+by the large open doorway and found themselves in a low hall. There was
+no furniture and the floor was mossy.
+
+“It’s rather like an Egyptian tomb,” said Stewart, and he shivered. The
+hall led into a further room, which was open in the centre to the sky,
+like the _impluvium_ of a Roman house. It also contained a square basin
+of water, which was filled by water bubbling from a lion’s mouth carved
+in stone. Beyond the _impluvium_ there were two smaller rooms, in one
+of which there was a kind of raised stone platform. The house was
+completely deserted and empty. Lewis and Stewart said little; they
+examined the house in silent amazement.
+
+“Look,” said Lewis, pointing to one of the walls. Stewart examined
+the wall and noticed that there were traces on it of a faded painted
+decoration.
+
+“It’s like the wall paintings at Pompeii,” he said.
+
+“I think the house is modern,” remarked Lewis. “It was probably built by
+some eccentric at the beginning of the nineteenth century, who did it up
+in Empire style.”
+
+“Do you know what time it is?” said Stewart, suddenly. “The sun has set
+and it’s growing dark.”
+
+“We must go at once,” said Lewis, “we’ll come back here to-morrow.” They
+walked on in silence. The wood was dim in the twilight, a fitful breeze
+made the trees rustle now and again, but the air was just as sultry as
+ever. The shapes of the trees seemed fantastic and almost threatening in
+the dimness, and the rustle of the leaves was like a human moan. Once or
+twice they seemed to hear the grunting of pigs in the undergrowth and to
+catch sight of bristly backs.
+
+“We don’t seem to be getting any nearer the end,” said Stewart after
+a time. “I think we’ve taken the wrong path.” They stopped. “I remember
+that tree,” said Stewart, pointing to a twisted oak; “we must go
+straight on from there to the left.” They walked on and in ten minutes’
+time found themselves once more at the back of the house. It was now
+quite dark.
+
+“We shall never find the way now,” said Lewis. “We had better sleep in
+the house.” They walked through the house into one of the furthest rooms
+and settled themselves on the mossy platform. The night was warm and
+starry, the house deathly still except for the splashing of the water in
+the basin.
+
+“We shan’t get any food,” Lewis said.
+
+“I’m not hungry,” said Stewart, and Lewis knew that he could not have
+eaten anything to save his life. He felt utterly exhausted and yet not
+at all sleepy. Stewart, on the other hand, was overcome with drowsiness.
+He lay down on the mossy platform and fell asleep almost instantly.
+Lewis lit a pipe; the vague forebodings he had felt in the morning
+had returned to him, only increased tenfold. He felt an unaccountable
+physical discomfort, an inexplicable sensation of uneasiness. Then he
+realised what it was. He felt there was someone in the house besides
+themselves, someone or something that was always behind him, moving when
+he moved and watching him. He walked into the _impluvium_, but heard
+nothing and saw nothing. There were none of the thousand little sounds,
+such as the barking of a dog, or the hoot of a night-bird, which
+generally complete the silence of a summer night. Everything was
+uncannily still. He returned to the room. He would have given anything
+to be back on the yacht, for besides the physical sensation of
+discomfort and of the something watching him he also felt the
+unmistakable feeling of impending danger that had been with him nearly
+all day.
+
+He lay down and at last fell into a doze. As he dozed he heard a subdued
+noise, a kind of buzzing, such as is made by a spinning wheel or a
+shuttle on a loom, and more strongly than ever he felt that he was being
+watched. Then all at once his body seemed to grow stiff with fright. He
+saw someone enter the room from the _impluvium_. It was a dim, veiled
+figure, the figure of a woman. He could not distinguish her features,
+but he had the impression that she was strangely beautiful; she was
+bearing a cup in her hands, and she walked towards Stewart and bent over
+him, offering him the cup.
+
+Something in Lewis prompted him to cry out with all his might: “Don’t
+drink! Don’t drink!” He heard the words echoing in the air, just as he
+had heard the voice in the boat; he felt that it was imperative to call
+out, and yet he could not: he was paralysed; the words would not come.
+He formed them with his lips, but no sound came. He tried with all his
+might to rise and scream, and he could not move. Then a sudden cold
+faintness came upon him, and he remembered no more till he woke and
+found the sun shining brightly. Stewart was lying with his eyes closed,
+moaning loudly in his sleep.
+
+Lewis tried to wake him. He opened his eyes and stared with a fixed,
+meaningless stare. Lewis tried to lift him from the platform, and then a
+horrible thing happened. Stewart struggled violently and made a snarling
+noise, which froze the blood in Lewis’s veins. He ran out of the house
+with cold beads of sweat on his forehead. He ran through the wood to
+the shore, and there he found the boat. He rowed back to the yacht and
+fetched some quinine. Then, together with the skipper, the steward,
+and some other sailors, he returned to the ominous house. They found it
+empty. There was no trace of Stewart. They shouted in the wood till they
+were hoarse, but no answer broke the heavy stillness.
+
+Then sending for the rest of the crew, Lewis organised a regular search
+over the whole island. This lasted till sunset, and they returned in the
+evening without having found any trace of Stewart or of any other human
+being. In the night a high wind rose, which soon became a gale; they
+were obliged to weigh anchor so as not to be dashed against the island,
+and for twenty-four hours they underwent a terrific tossing. Then the
+storm subsided as quickly as it had come.
+
+They made for the island once more and reached the spot where they had
+anchored three days before. There was no trace of the island. It had
+completely disappeared.
+
+When they reached Teneriffe the next day they found that everybody was
+talking of the great tidal wave which had caused such great damage and
+destruction in the islands.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN WHO GAVE GOOD ADVICE
+
+To Henry Cust
+
+When he was a child his baby brother came to him one day and said that
+their elder brother, who was grown up, had got a beautiful small ship in
+his room. Should he ask him for it? The child who gave good advice said:
+“No, if you ask him for it he will say you are a spoilt child; but go
+and play in his room with it before he gets up in the morning, and he
+will give it to you.” The baby brother followed this advice, and sure
+enough two days afterwards he appeared triumphant in the nursery with
+the ship in his hands, saying: “He said I might choose, the ship or
+the picture-book.” Now the picture-book was a coloured edition of Baron
+Munchausen’s adventures; the boy who gave good advice had seen it and
+hankered for it. As the baby brother had refused it there could be no
+harm in asking for it, so the next time his elder brother sent him on an
+errand (it was to fetch a pin-cushion from his room) judging the moment
+to be propitious, he said to him: “May I have the picture-book that baby
+wouldn’t have?” “I don’t like little boys who ask,” answered the big
+brother, and there the matter ended.
+
+The child who gave good advice went to school. There was a rage for stag
+beetles at the school; the boys painted them and made them run races on
+a chessboard. They imagined--rightly or wrongly--that some stag beetles
+were much faster than others. A little boy called Bell possessed the
+stag beetle which was the favourite for the coming races. Another boy
+called Mason was consumed with longing for this stag beetle; and Bell
+had said he would give it to him in exchange for Mason’s catapult, which
+was famous in the school for the unique straightness of its two prongs.
+Mason went to the boy who gave good advice and asked him for his
+opinion. “Don’t swap it for your catty,” said the boy who gave good
+advice, “because Bell’s stag beetle may not win after all; and even if
+it does stag beetles won’t be the rage for very long; but a catty is
+always a catty, and yours is the best in the school.” Mason took the
+advice. When the races came off, the stag beetles were so erratic that
+no prize was awarded, and they immediately ceased to be the rage. The
+rage for stag beetles was succeeded by a rage for secret alphabets. One
+boy invented a secret alphabet made of simple hieroglyphics, which
+was imparted only to a select few, who spent their spare time in
+corresponding with each other by these cryptic signs. The boy who gave
+good advice was not of those initiated into the mystery of the cypher,
+and he longed to be. He made several overtures, but they were all
+rejected, the reason being that boys of the second division could not
+let a “third division squit” into their secret. At last the boy who
+gave good advice offered to one of the initiated the whole of his stamp
+collection in return for the secret of the alphabet. This offer was
+accepted. The boy took the stamp collection, but the boy who gave
+good advice received in return not the true alphabet but a sham
+one especially manufactured for him. This he found out later; but
+recriminations were useless; besides which the rage for secret alphabets
+soon died out and was replaced by a rage for aquariums, newts, and
+natterjack toads.
+
+The boy went to a public school. He was a fag. His fag-master had two
+fags. One morning the other fag came to the boy who gave good advice and
+said: “Clarke (he was the fag-master) told me three days ago to clean
+his football boots. He’s been ‘staying out’ and hasn’t used them, and
+I forgot. He’ll want them to-day, and now there isn’t time. I shall
+pretend I did clean them.”
+
+“No, don’t do that,” said the boy who gave good advice, “because if
+you say you have cleaned them he will lick you twice as much for having
+cleaned them badly--say you forgot.” The advice was taken, and the
+fag-master merely said: “Don’t forget again.” A little later the
+fag-master had some friends to tea, and told the boy who gave good
+advice to boil him six eggs for not more than three minutes and a half.
+The boy who gave good advice, while they were on the fire, took part in
+a rag that which was going on in the passage; the result was that the
+eggs remained seven minutes in boiling water. They were hard. When the
+fag-master pointed this out and asked his fag what he meant by it, the
+boy who gave good advice persisted in his statement that they had been
+exactly three minutes and a half in the saucepan, and that he had timed
+them by his watch. So the fag-master caned him for telling lies.
+
+The boy who gave good advice grew into a man and went to the university.
+There he made friends with a man called Crawley, who went to a
+neighbouring race meeting one day and lost two or three hundred pounds.
+
+“I must raise the money from a money-lender somehow,” said Crawley to
+the man who gave good advice, “and on no account must the Master hear of
+it or he would send me down; or write home, which would be worse.”
+
+“On the contrary,” said the man who gave good advice, “you must go
+straight to the Master and tell him all about it. He will like you twice
+as much for ever afterwards; he never minds people getting into scrapes
+when he happens to like them, and he likes you and believes you have a
+great career before you.”
+
+Crawley went to the Master of the college and made a clean breast of it.
+The Master told him he had been foolish--very foolish; but he arranged
+the whole matter in such a manner that it never came to the ears of
+Crawley’s extremely violent-tempered and puritanical father.
+
+The man who gave good advice got a “First” in Mods, and everyone felt
+confident he would get a first in Greats; he did brilliantly in nearly
+all his papers; but during the Latin unseen a temporary and sudden lapse
+of memory came over him and he forgot the English for _manubioe_, which
+the day before he had known quite well means prize-money. In fact the
+word was written on the first page of his note-book. The word was in his
+brain, but a small shutter had closed on it for the moment and he could
+not recall it. He looked over his neighbour’s shoulder. His neighbour
+had translated it “booty.” He copied the word mechanically, knowing
+it was wrong. As he did so he was detected and accused of cribbing.
+He denied the charge, the matter was investigated, the papers were
+compared, and the man who gave good advice was disqualified. In all his
+other papers he had done incomparably better than anyone else.
+
+When he left Oxford the man who gave good advice went into a Government
+office. He had not been in it long before he perceived that by certain
+simple reforms the work of the office could be done twice as effectually
+and half as expensively. He embodied these reforms in a memorandum and
+they were not long afterwards adopted. He became private secretary to
+Snipe, a rising politician and persuaded him to change his party and his
+politics. Snipe, owing to this advice, became a Cabinet Minister, and
+the man who gave good advice, having inherited some money, stood for
+Parliament himself. He stood as a Conservative at a General Election and
+spoke eloquently to enthusiastic meetings. The wire-pullers prophecied
+an overwhelming majority, when shortly before the poll, at one of his
+meetings, he suddenly declared himself to be an Independent, and made a
+speech violently in favour of Home Rule and conscription. The result was
+that the Liberal Imperialist got in by a huge majority, and the man who
+gave good advice was pelted with rotten eggs.
+
+After this the man who gave good advice abandoned politics and took to
+finance; in this branch of human affairs he made the fortune of several
+of his friends, preventing some from putting their money in alluring
+South African schemes, and advising others to risk theirs on events
+which seemed to him certain, such as the election of a President or
+the short-lived nature of a revolution; events which he foresaw with
+intuition amounting to second-sight. At the same time he lost nearly
+all his own money by investing it in a company which professed to
+have discovered a manner--cheap and rapid--of transforming copper
+into platinum. He made the fortune of a publisher by insisting on the
+publication of a novel which six intelligent men had declared to be
+unreadable. It was called “The Conscience of John Digby,” and when
+published it sold by thousands and tens of thousands. But he lost the
+handsome reward he received for this service by publishing at his own
+expense, on magnificent paper, an edition of Rabelais’ works in their
+original tongue. He frequently spotted winners for his friends and for
+himself, but any money that he won at a race meeting he invariably lost
+coming home in the train on the Three Card Trick.
+
+Nor did he lose touch with politicians, and this brought about the final
+catastrophe. A great friend of his, the eminent John Brooke, had the
+chance of becoming Prime Minister. Parties were at that time in a state
+of confusion. The question was, should his friend ally himself with or
+sever himself for ever from Mr. Capax Nissy, the leader of the Liberal
+Aristocracy Party, who seemed to have a large following? His friend,
+John Brooke, gave a small dinner to his most intimate friends in order
+to talk over the matter. The man who gave good advice was so eloquent,
+so cogent in his reasoning, so acute in his perception, that he
+persuaded Brooke to sever himself for ever from Capax Nissy. He
+persuaded all who were present, with the exception of Mr. Short-Sight,
+a pig-headed man who reasoned falsely. So annoyed did the man who gave
+good advice become with Short-Sight, and so excited in his vexation,
+that he finally lost his self-control, and hit him as hard as he could
+on the head--after Short-Sight had repeated a groundless assertion for
+the seventh time--with the poker.
+
+Short-Sight died, and the man who gave good advice was convicted of
+wilful murder. He gave admirable advice to his counsel, but threw away
+his own case as soon as he entered the box himself, which he insisted
+on doing. He was hanged in gaol at Reading. Many people whom he had
+benefited in various ways visited him in prison, among others John
+Brooke, the Prime Minister. It is said that he would certainly have been
+reprieved but for the intemperate and inexcusable letters he wrote to
+the Home Secretary from prison.
+
+“It’s a great tragedy--he was a clever man,” said Brooke after dinner
+when they were discussing the misfortune at Downing Street; “a very
+clever man, but he had no judgment.”
+
+“No,” said Snipe, the man whose private secretary the man who gave
+good advice had been, “That’s it. It’s an awful thing--but he had no
+judgment.”
+
+
+
+
+RUSSALKA
+
+Peter, or Petrushka, which was the name he was known by, was the
+carpenter’s mate; his hair was like light straw, and his eyes were mild
+and blue. He was good at his trade; a quiet and sober youth; thoughtful,
+too, for he knew how to read and had read several books when he was
+still a boy. A translation of “Monte Cristo” once fell into his hands,
+and this story had kindled his imagination and stirred in him the desire
+to travel, to see new countries and strange people. He had made up his
+mind to leave the village and to try his luck in one of the big towns,
+when, before he was eighteen, something happened to him which entirely
+changed the colour of his thoughts and the range of his desires. It was
+an ordinary experience enough: he fell in love. He fell in love with
+Tatiana, who worked in the starch factory. Tatiana’s eyes were grey, her
+complexion was white, her features small and delicate, and her hair
+a beautiful dark brown with gold lights and black shadows in it; her
+movements were quick and her glance keen; she was like a swallow.
+
+It happened when the snows melted and the meadows were flooded; the
+first fine day in April. The larks were singing over the plains, which
+were beginning to show themselves once more under the melting snow; the
+sun shone on the large patches of water, and turned the flooded meadows
+in the valley into a fantastic vision. It was on a Sunday after church
+that this new thing happened. He had often seen Tatiana before: that day
+she was different and new to him. It was as if a bandage had been taken
+from his eyes, and at the same moment he realised that Tatiana was a new
+Tatiana. He also knew that the old world in which he had lived hitherto
+had crumbled to pieces; and that a new world, far brighter and more
+wonderful, had been created for him. As for Tatiana, she loved him at
+once. There was no delay, no hesitation, no misunderstandings, no doubt:
+and at the first not much speech; but first love came to them straight
+and swift, with the first sunshine of the spring, as it does to the
+birds.
+
+All the spring and summer they kept company and walked out together in
+the evenings. When the snows entirely melted and the true spring came,
+it came with a rush; in a fortnight’s time all the trees except the ash
+were green, and the bees boomed round the thick clusters of pear-blossom
+and apple-blossom, which shone like snow against the bright azure.
+During that time Petrushka and Tatiana walked in the apple orchard
+in the evening and they talked to each other in the divinest of all
+languages, the language of first love, which is no language at all but a
+confused medley and murmur of broken phrases, whisperings, twitterings,
+pauses, and silences--a language so wonderful that it cannot be put
+down into speech or words, although Shakespeare and the very great poets
+translate the spirit of it into music, and the great musicians catch the
+echo of it in their song. Then a fortnight later, when the woods were
+carpeted and thick with lilies of the valley, Petrushka and Tatiana
+walked in the woods and picked the last white violets, and later again
+they sought the alleys of the landlord’s property, where the lilac
+bushes were a mass of blossom and fragrance, and there they listened to
+the nightingale, the bird of spring. Then came the summer, the fragrance
+of the beanfields, and the ripening of corn and the wonderful long
+twilights, and July, when the corn, ripe and tall and stiff, changed the
+plains into a vast rippling ocean of gold.
+
+After the harvest, at the very beginning of autumn, they were to be
+married. There had been a slight difficulty about money. Tatiana’s
+father had insisted that Petrushka should produce a certain not very
+large sum; but the difficulty had been overcome and the money had been
+found. There were no more obstacles, everything was smooth and settled.
+Petrushka no longer thought of travels in foreign lands; he had
+forgotten the old dreams which “Monte Cristo” had once kindled in him.
+
+It was in the middle of August that the carpenter received instructions
+from the landowner to make some wooden steps and a small raft and to fix
+them up on the banks of the river for the convenience of bathers. It did
+not take the carpenter and Petrushka long to make these things, and one
+afternoon Petrushka drove down to the river to fix them in their place.
+The river was broad, the banks were wooded with willow trees, and the
+undergrowth was thick, for the woods reached to the river bank, which
+was flat, but which ended sheer above the water over a slope of mud and
+roots, so that a bather needed steps or a raft or a springboard, so as
+to dive or to enter and leave the water with comfort.
+
+Petrushka put the steps in their place--which was where the wood
+ended--and made fast the floating raft to them. Not far from the bank
+the ground was marshy and the spot was suspected by some people of being
+haunted by malaria. It was a still, sultry day. The river was like oil,
+the sky clouded but not entirely overclouded, and among the high banks
+of grey cloud there were patches of blue.
+
+When Petrushka had finished the job, he sat on the wooden steps, and
+rolling some tobacco into a primitive cigarette, contemplated the
+grey, oily water and the willow trees. It was too late in the year, he
+thought, to make a bathing place. He dipped his hand in the water: it
+was cold, but not too cold. Yet in a fortnight’s time it would not be
+pleasant to bathe. However, people had their whims, and he mused on the
+scheme of the universe which ordained that certain people should have
+whims, and that others should humour those whims whether they liked it
+or not. Many people--many of his fellow-workers--talked of the day
+when the universal levelling would take place and when all men could be
+equal. Petrushka did not much believe in the advent of that day; he was
+not quite sure whether he ardently desired it; in any case, he was very
+happy as he was.
+
+At that moment he heard two sharp short sounds, less musical than a pipe
+and not so loud or harsh as a scream. He looked up. A kingfisher had
+flown across the oily water. Petrushka shouted; and the kingfisher
+skimmed over the water once more and disappeared in the trees on the
+other side of the river. Petrushka rolled and lit another cigarette.
+Presently he heard the two sharp sounds once more, and the kingfisher
+darted again across the water: a bit of fish was in its beak. It
+disappeared into the bank of the river on the same side on which
+Petrushka was sitting, only lower down.
+
+“Its nest must be there,” thought Petrushka, and he remembered that
+he had heard it said that no one had ever been able to carry off a
+kingfisher’s nest intact. Why should he not be the first person to do
+so? He was skilful with his fingers, his touch was sure and light. It
+was evidently a carpenter’s job, and few carpenters had the leisure or
+opportunity to look for kingfishers’ nests. What a rare present it would
+be for Tatiana--a whole kingfisher’s nest with every bone in it intact.
+
+He walked stealthily through the bushes down the bank of the river,
+making as little noise as possible. He thought he had marked the
+spot where the kingfisher had dived into the bank. As he walked, the
+undergrowth grew thicker and the path darker, for he had reached the
+wood, on the outskirts and end of which was the spot where he had
+made the steps. He walked on and on without thinking, oblivious of
+his surroundings, until he suddenly realised that he had gone too far.
+Moreover, he must have been walking for some time, for it was getting
+dark, or was it a thunder-shower? The air, too, was unbearably sultry;
+he stopped and wiped his forehead with a big print handkerchief. It was
+impossible to reach the bank from the place where he now stood, as he
+was separated from it by a wide ditch of stagnant water. He therefore
+retraced his footsteps through the wood. It grew darker and darker; it
+must be, he thought, the evening deepening and no storm.
+
+All at once he started; he had heard a sound, a high pipe. Was it the
+kingfisher? He paused and listened. Distinctly, and not far off in the
+undergrowth, he heard a laugh, a woman’s laugh. It flashed across his
+mind that it might be Tatiana, but it was not her laugh. Something
+rustled in the bushes to the left of him; he followed the rustling and
+it led him through the bushes--he had now passed the ditch--to the river
+bank. The sun had set behind the woods from which he had just emerged;
+the sky was as grey as the water, and there was no reflection of the
+sunset in the east. Except the water and the trees he saw nothing; there
+was not a sound to be heard, not a ripple on the river, not a whisper
+from the woods.
+
+Then all at once the stillness was broken again by quick rippling laughs
+immediately behind him. He turned sharply round, and saw a woman in the
+bushes: her eyes were large and green and sad; her hair straggling and
+dishevelled; she was dressed in reeds and leaves; she was very pale. She
+stared at him fixedly, and smiled, showing gleaming teeth, and when she
+smiled there was no light nor laughter in her eyes, which remained sad
+and green and glazed like those of a drowned person. She laughed again
+and ran into the bushes. Petrushka ran after her, but although he was
+quite close to her he lost all trace of her immediately. It was as if
+she had vanished under the earth or into the air.
+
+“It’s a Russalka,” thought Petrushka, and he shivered. Then he added
+to himself, with the pride of the new scepticism he had learnt from
+the factory hands: “There is no such thing; only women believe in such
+things. It was some drunken woman.”
+
+Petrushka walked quickly back to the edge of the wood, where he had left
+his cart, and drove home. The next day was Sunday, and Tatiana noticed
+that he was different--moody, melancholy, and absent-minded. She asked
+him what was the matter; he said his head ached. Towards five o’clock he
+told her--they were standing outside her cottage--that he was obliged to
+go to the river to work.
+
+“To-day is holiday,” she said quietly.
+
+“I left something there yesterday: one of my tools. I must fetch it,” he
+explained.
+
+Tatiana looked at him, and her intuition told her, firstly, that this
+was not true, and, secondly, that it was not well for Petrushka to go to
+the river. She begged him not to go. Petrushka laughed and said he would
+be back quickly. Tatiana cried, and implored him on her knees not to go.
+Then Petrushka grew irritable and almost rough, and told her not to vex
+him with foolishness. Reluctantly and sadly she gave in at last.
+
+Petrushka went to the river, and Tatiana watched him go with a heavy
+heart. She felt quite certain some disaster was about to happen.
+
+At seven o’clock Petrushka had not yet returned, and he did not return
+that night. The next morning the carpenter and two others went to
+the river to look for him. They found his body in the shallow water,
+entangled in the ropes of the raft he had made. He had been drowned, no
+doubt, in setting the raft straight.
+
+During all that Sunday night, Tatiana had said no word, nor had she
+moved from her doorstep: it was only when they brought back the dripping
+body to the village that she stirred, and when she saw it she laughed
+a dreadful laugh, and the spirit went from her eyes, leaving a fixed
+stare.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD WOMAN
+
+The old woman was spinning at her wheel near a fire of myrtle boughs
+which burnt fragrantly in the open yard. Through the stone columns the
+sea was visible, smooth, dark, and blue; the low sun bathed the brown
+hills of the coast in a golden mist. It was December. The shepherds were
+driving home their flocks, the work of the day was done, and a noise of
+light laughter and rippling talk came from the Slaves’ quarter.
+
+In the middle of the stone-flagged yard two little boys were playing at
+quoits. Their eyes and hair were as dark as their brown skin, which had
+been tanned by the sun. In one of the corners of the yard a fair-haired,
+blue-eyed girl was nursing a kitten and singing it to sleep. The old
+woman was singing too, or rather humming a tune to herself as she turned
+her wheel. She was very old: her hair was white and silvery, and her
+face was furrowed by a hundred wrinkles. Her eyes were blue as the sky,
+and perhaps they had once been full of fire and laughter, but all that
+had been quenched and washed out long ago, and Time, with his noiseless
+chisel, had sharpened her delicate features and hollowed out her cheeks,
+which were as white as ivory. But her hands as they twisted the wood
+were the hands of a young woman, and seemed as though they had been
+fashioned by a rare craftsman, so perfect were they in shape and
+proportion, as firm as carved marble, as delicate as flowers.
+
+The sun sank behind the hills of the coast, and a flood of scarlet light
+spread along the West just above them, melting higher up into orange,
+and still higher into a luminous blue, which turned to green later as
+the evening deepened. The air was cool and sharp, and the little boys,
+who had finished their game, drew near to the fire.
+
+“Tell us a story,” said the elder of the two boys, as they curled
+themselves up at the feet of the old woman.
+
+“You know all my stories,” she said.
+
+“That doesn’t matter,” said the boy. “You can tell us an old one.”
+
+“Well,” said the old woman, “I suppose I must. There was once upon a
+time a King and a Queen who had three sons and one daughter.” At the
+sound of these words the little girl ran up and nestled in the folds of
+the old woman’s long cloak.
+
+“No, not that one,” one of the little boys interrupted, “tell us about
+the Queen without a heart.” So the old woman began and said:--
+
+“There was once upon a time a King and a Queen who had one daughter, and
+they invited all the gods and goddesses to the feast which they gave in
+honour of the birth of their child. The gods and goddesses came and
+gave the child every gift they could think of; she was to be the most
+beautiful woman in the whole world, she was to dance like the West wind,
+to laugh like the stream, and to sing like the lark. Her hair should be
+made of sunshine, and her eyes should be as the sea in midsummer. She
+should excel in all things, in knowledge, in wit, and in skill; she
+should be fleet of foot, a cunning harp-player, adept at all manner of
+woman-like crafts, and deft with the needle and the spinning-wheel, and
+at the loom. Zeus himself gave her stateliness and majesty, the Lord
+of the Sun gave a voice as of a golden flute; Poseidon gave her the
+laughter of all the waves of the sea, the King of the Underworld gave
+her a red ruby to wear on her breast more precious than all the gems
+of the world. Artemis gave her swiftness and radiance, Persephone the
+fragrance and the freshness of all the flowers of spring; Pallas Athene
+gave her curious knowledge and pleasant speech; and, lastly, the Seaborn
+Goddess breathed upon her and gave her the beauty of the rose, the
+pearl, the dew, and the shells and the foam of the sea. But, alas! the
+King and Queen had forgotten to ask one guest. The Goddess of Envy and
+Discord had been left out, and she came unbidden, and when all the gods
+and goddesses had given their gifts, she said: ‘I too have a gift to
+give, a gift that will be more precious to her than any. I will give
+her a heart that shall be proof against all the onsets of the world.’
+So saying the Goddess of Envy took away the child’s heart and put in its
+place a heart of stone, hard as adamant, bright and glittering as a gem.
+And the Goddess of Envy went her way mocking. The King and Queen were
+greatly concerned, and they asked the gods and goddesses whether their
+daughter would ever recover her human heart. They were told that the
+Goddess of Envy would be obliged to give back the child’s heart to the
+man who loved her enough to seek and to find it, and this would surely
+happen; but when and how it was forbidden to them to reveal.
+
+“The child grew up and became the wonder of the world. She was married
+to a powerful King, and they lived in peace and plenty until the Goddess
+of Envy once more troubled the child’s life. For owing to her subtle
+planning a Prince was promised for wife the fairest woman in the world,
+and he took the wife of the powerful King and carried her away to Asia
+to the six-gated city. The King prepared a host of ships and armed men
+and sailed to Asia to win back his wife. And he and his army fought for
+ten years until the six-gated city was taken, and he brought his wife
+home once more. Now during all the time the war lasted, although the
+whole world was filled with the fame of the King’s wife and of her
+beauty, there was not found one man who was willing to seek for her
+heart and to find it, for some gave no credence to the tale, and others,
+believing it, reasoned that the quest might last a life-time, and that
+by the time they accomplished it the King’s wife would be an old woman,
+and there would be fairer women in the world. Others, again, could not
+believe that in so perfect a woman there could be any fault; they vowed
+her heart must be one with her matchless beauty, and they said that even
+if the tale were true, they preferred to worship her as she was, and
+they would not have her be otherwise or changed by a hair’s breadth for
+all the world. Some, indeed, did set out upon the quest, but abandoned
+it soon from weariness and returned to bask in the beauty of the great
+Queen.
+
+“The years went by. The Queen journeyed to Egypt, to the mountains of
+the South, and the cities of the desert; to the Pillars of Hercules and
+to the islands of the West. Wherever she went her fame spread like fire,
+and men fought and died for a glimpse of her marvellous beauty; and
+wherever she passed she left behind her strife and sorrow like a burning
+trail. After many voyages she returned home and lived prosperously.
+The King her husband died, her children grew up and married and bore
+children themselves, and she continued to live peacefully in her palace.
+Her fame and her glory brought her neither joy nor sorrow, nor did she
+heed the spell that she cast on the hearts of men.
+
+“One day a harp-player came to her palace and sang and played before
+her; he made music so ravishing and so sad that all who heard him wept
+save the Queen, who listened and smiled, listless and indifferent. But
+her smile filled him with such a passion of wonder and worship that he
+resolved to rest no more until he had found her heart, for he knew the
+tale. So he sought the whole world over in vain; and for years and years
+he roamed the world fruitlessly. At last one day in a far country he
+found a little bird in a trap and he set it free, and in return the bird
+promised him that he should find the Queen’s heart. All he had to do was
+to go home and to seek the Queen’s palace. So the harper went home to
+the Queen’s palace, and when he reached it he found the Queen had grown
+old; her hair was grey and there were lines on her cheek. But she smiled
+on him, and he knelt down before her, for he loved her more than ever,
+and to him she was as beautiful as ever she had been. At that moment,
+for the first time in her life the Queen’s eyes filled with tears, for
+her heart had been given back to her. And that is all the story.”
+
+“And what happened to the harper?” asked one of the little boys.
+
+“He lived in the palace and played to the Queen till he died.”
+
+“And is the story true?” asked the other little boy.
+
+“Yes,” said the old woman, “quite true.”
+
+The boys jumped up and kissed the old woman, and the elder of them,
+growing pensive, said:--
+
+“Grandmother, were you ever young yourself?”
+
+“Yes, my child,” said the old woman, smiling, “I was once young--a very
+long time ago.”
+
+She got up, for the twilight had come and it was almost dark. She walked
+into the house, and as she rose she was neither bowed nor bent, but
+she trod the ground with a straightness which was not stiff but full
+of grace, and she moved royally like a goddess. As she walked past the
+smoking flames the children noticed that large tears were welling from
+her eyes and trickling down her faded cheek.
+
+
+
+
+DR. FAUST’S LAST DAY
+
+The Doctor got up at dawn, as was his wont, and as soon as he was
+dressed he sat down at his desk in his library overlooking the sea,
+and immersed himself in the studies which were the lodestar of his
+existence. His hours were mapped out with rigid regularity like those of
+a school-boy, and his methodical life worked as though by clockwork. He
+rose at dawn and read without interruption until eight o’clock. He then
+partook of some light food (he was a strict vegetarian), after which he
+walked in the garden of his house, overlooking the Bay of Naples, until
+ten. From ten to twelve he received sick people, peasants from the
+village, or any visitors that needed his advice or his company. At
+twelve he ate a frugal meal. From one o’clock until three he enjoyed
+a siesta. At three he resumed his studies, which continued without
+interruption until six when he partook of a second meal. At seven he
+took another stroll in the village or by the seashore and remained out
+of doors until nine. He then withdrew into his study, and at midnight
+went to bed.
+
+It was, perhaps, the extreme regularity of his life, combined with the
+strict diet which he observed, that accounted for his good health. This
+day was his seventieth birthday, and his body was as vigorous and his
+mind as alert as they had been in his fortieth year. His thick hair and
+beard were scarcely grey, and the wrinkles on his white, thoughtful
+face were rare. Yet the Doctor, when questioned as to the secret of his
+youthfulness, being like many learned men fond of a paradox, used to
+reply that diet and regularity had nothing to do with it, and that
+the Southern sun and the climate of the Neapolitan coast, which he had
+chosen among all places to be the abode of his old age, were in reality
+responsible for his excellent health.
+
+“I lead a regular life,” he used to say, “not in order to keep well,
+but in order to get through my work. Unless my hours were mapped out
+regularly I should be the prey of every idler in the place and I should
+never get any work done at all.”
+
+On this day, as it was his seventieth birthday, the Doctor had asked
+a few friends to share his mid-day meal, and when he returned from
+his morning stroll he sent for his housekeeper to give her a few final
+instructions. The housekeeper, who was a voluble Italian peasant-woman,
+after receiving his orders, handed him a piece of paper on which a few
+words were scrawled in reddish-brown ink, saying it had been left by a
+Signore.
+
+“What Signore?” asked the Doctor, as he perused the document, which
+consisted of words in the German tongue to the effect that the writer
+regretted his absence from the Doctor’s feast, but would call at
+midnight. It was not signed.
+
+“He was a Signore, like all Signores,” said the housekeeper; “he just
+left the letter and went away.”
+
+The Doctor was puzzled, and in spite of much cross-examination he was
+unable to extract anything more beyond the fact that he was a “Signore.”
+
+“Shall I lay one place less?” asked the housekeeper.
+
+“Certainly not,” said the Doctor. “All my guests will be present.” And
+he threw the piece of paper on the table.
+
+The housekeeper left the room, but she had not been gone many minutes
+before she returned and said that Maria, the wife of the late Giovanni,
+the baker, wished to speak to him. The Doctor nodded, and Maria burst
+into the room, sobbing.
+
+When her tears had somewhat subsided she told her story in broken
+sentences. Her daughter, Margherita, who was seventeen years old, had
+been allowed to spend the summer at Sorrento with her late father’s
+sister. There, it appeared, she had met a “Signore,” who had given her
+jewels, made love to her, promised her marriage, and held clandestine
+meetings with her. Her aunt professed now to have been unaware of this;
+but Maria assured the Doctor that her sister-in-law, who had the
+evil eye and had more than once trafficked with Satan, must have had
+knowledge of the business, even if she were not directly responsible,
+which was highly probable. In the meantime Margherita’s brother Anselmo
+had returned from the wars in the North, and, discovering the truth, had
+sworn to kill the Signore unless he married Margherita.
+
+“And what do you wish me to do?” asked the Doctor, after he had listened
+to the story.
+
+“Anything, anything,” she answered, “only calm my son Anselmo or else
+there will be a disaster.”
+
+“Who is the Signore?” asked the Doctor.
+
+“The Conte Guido da Siena,” she answered.
+
+The Doctor reflected a moment, and then said: “I will see what can be
+done. The matter can be arranged. Send your son to me later.” And then,
+after scolding Maria for not having taken proper care of her daughter,
+he sent her away.
+
+As he did so he caught sight of the dirty piece of paper on his table.
+For one second he had the impression that the letters on it were written
+in blood, and he shivered, but the momentary hallucination and sense of
+discomfort passed immediately.
+
+At mid-day the guests arrived. They consisted of Dr. Cornelius, Vienna’s
+most learned scholar; Taddeo Mainardi, the painter; a Danish student
+from the University of Wittenberg; a young English nobleman, who was
+travelling in Italy; and Guido da Siena, philosopher and poet, who was
+said to be the handsomest man in Italy. The Doctor set before his guests
+a precious wine from Cyprus, in which he toasted them, although as
+a rule he drank only water. The meal was served in the cool loggia
+overlooking the bay, and the talk, which was of the men and books of
+many climes, flowed like a rippling stream on which the sunshine of
+laughter lightly played.
+
+The student asked the Doctor whether in Italy men of taste took any
+interest in the recent experiments of a French Huguenot, who professed
+to be able to send people into a trance. Moreover, the patient when in
+the trance, so it was alleged, was able to act as a bridge between the
+material and the spiritual worlds, and the dead could be summoned and
+made to speak through the unconscious patient.
+
+“We take no thought of such things here,” said the Doctor. “In my youth,
+when I studied in the North, experiments of that nature exercised a
+powerful sway over my mind. I dabbled in alchemy; I tried and indeed
+considered that I succeeded in raising spirits and visions; but two
+things are necessary for such a study: youth, and the mists of the
+Northern country. Here the generous sun kills such phantasies. There are
+no phantoms here. Moreover, I am convinced that in all such experiments
+success depends on the state of mind of the inquirer, which not only
+persuades, but indeed compels itself by a strange magnetic quality to
+see the vision it desires. In my youth I considered that I had evoked
+visions of Satan and Helen of Troy, and what not--such things are fit
+for the young. We greybeards have more serious things to occupy us, and
+when a man has one foot in the grave, he has no time to waste.”
+
+“To my mind,” said the painter, “this world has sufficient beauty and
+mystery to satisfy the most ardent inquirer.”
+
+“But,” said the Englishman, “is not this world a phantom and a dream as
+insubstantial as the visions of the ardent mind?”
+
+“Men and women are the only study fit for a man,” interrupted Guido,
+“and as for the philosopher’s stone I have found it. I found it some
+months ago in a garden at Sorrento. It is a pearl radiant with all the
+hues of the rainbow.”
+
+“With regard to that matter,” said the Doctor, “we will have some talk
+later. The wench’s brother has returned from the war. We must find her a
+husband.”
+
+“You misunderstand me,” said Guido. “You do not think I am going to
+throw my precious pearl to the swine? I have sworn to wed Margherita,
+and wed her I shall, and that swiftly.”
+
+“Such an act of folly would only lead,” said the Doctor, “to your
+unhappiness and to hers. It is the selfish act of a fool. You must not
+think of it.”
+
+“Ah!” said Guido, “you are young at seventy, Doctor, but you were old at
+twenty-five, and you cannot know what these things mean.”
+
+“I was young in my day,” said the Doctor, “and I found many such pearls;
+believe me, they are all very well in their native shell. To move them
+is to destroy their beauty.”
+
+“You do not understand,” said Guido. “I have loved countless times; but
+she is different. You never felt the revelation of the real, true thing
+that is different from all the rest and transforms a man’s life.”
+
+“No,” said the Doctor, “I confess that to me it was always the same
+thing.” And for the second time that day the Doctor shivered, he knew
+not why.
+
+Soon after the meal was over the guests departed, and although the
+Doctor detained Guido and endeavoured to persuade him to listen to the
+voice of reason and commonsense, his efforts were in vain. Guido had
+determined to wed Margherita.
+
+“Besides which, if I left her now, I should bring shame and ruin on
+her,” he said.
+
+The Doctor started--a familiar voice seemed to whisper in his ear: “She
+is not the first one.” A strange shudder passed through him, and he
+distinctly heard a mocking voice laughing. “Go your way,” he said, “but
+do not come and complain to me if you bring unhappiness on yourself and
+her.”
+
+Guido departed and the Doctor retired to enjoy his siesta.
+
+For the first time during all the years he had lived at Naples the
+Doctor was not able to sleep. “This and the hallucinations I have
+suffered from to-day come from drinking that Cyprus wine,” he said to
+himself.
+
+He lay in the darkened room tossing uneasily on his bed and sleep would
+not come to him. Stranger still, before his eyes fiery letters seemed
+to dance before him in the air. At seven o’clock he went out into the
+garden. Never had he beheld a more glorious evening. He strolled down
+towards the seashore and watched the sunset. Mount Vesuvius seemed
+to have dissolved into a rosy haze; the waves of the sea were
+phosphorescent. A fisherman was singing in his boat. The sky was an
+apocalypse of glory and peace.
+
+The Doctor sighed and watched the pageant of light until it faded and
+the stars lit up the magical blue darkness. Then out of the night came
+another song--a song which seemed familiar to the Doctor, although for
+the moment he could not place it, about a King in the Northern Country
+who was faithful to the grave and to whom his dying mistress a golden
+beaker gave.
+
+“Strange,” thought the Doctor, “it must come from some Northern fishing
+smack,” and he went home.
+
+He sat reading in his study until midnight, and for the first time in
+thirty years he could not fix his mind on his book. For the vision
+of the sunset and the song of the Northern fisherman, which in some
+unaccountable way brought back to him the days of his youth, kept on
+surging up in his mind.
+
+Twelve o’clock struck. He rose to go to bed, and as he did so he heard a
+loud knock at the door.
+
+“Come in,” said the Doctor, but his voice faltered (“the Cyprus wine
+again!” he thought), and his heart beat loudly.
+
+The door opened and an icy draught blew into the room. The visitor
+beckoned, but spoke no word, and Doctor Faust rose and followed him into
+the outer darkness.
+
+
+
+
+THE FLUTE-PLAYER’S STORY
+
+There is a village in the South of England not far from the sea, which
+possesses a curious inn called “The Green Tower.” Why it is called thus,
+nobody knows. This inn must in days gone by have been the dwelling
+of some well-to-do squire, but nothing now remains of its former
+prosperity, except the square grey tower, partially covered with ivy,
+from which it takes its name. The inn stands on the roadside, on the
+brow of a hill, and at the top of the tower there is a room with four
+large windows, whence you can see all over the wooded country. The
+ex-Prime Minister of a foreign state, who had been driven from office
+and home by a revolution, happening to pass the night in the inn and
+being of an eccentric disposition, was so much struck with this room
+that he secured it, together with two bedrooms, permanently for himself.
+He determined to spend the rest of his life here, and as he was within
+certain limits not unsociable, he invited his friends to come and stay
+with him on any Saturday they pleased, without giving him notice.
+
+Thus it happened that of a Saturday and Sunday there was nearly always
+a mixed gathering of men at “The Green Tower”, and after they had dined
+they would sit in the tower room and drink old Southern wines from the
+ex-Prime Minister’s country, and talk, or tell each other stories. But
+the ex-Prime Minister made it a stringent rule that at least one guest
+should tell one story during his stay, for while he had been Prime
+Minister a Court official had been in his service whose only duty it
+was to tell him a story every evening, and this was the only thing he
+regretted of all his former privileges.
+
+On this particular Sunday, besides myself, the clerk, the flute-player,
+the wine merchant (the friends of the ex-Prime Minister were exceedingly
+various), and the scholar were present. They were smoking in the tower
+room. It was summer, and the windows were wide open. Every inch of wall
+which was not occupied by the windows was crowded with books. The clerk
+was turning over the leaves of the ex-Prime Minister’s stamp collection
+(which was magnificent), the flute-player was reading the score of
+Handel’s flute sonatas (which was rare), the scholar was reading a
+translation in Latin hexameters of the “Ring and the Book” (which
+the ex-Prime Minister has written in his spare moments), and the wine
+merchant was drinking generously of a curious red wine, which was very
+old.
+
+“I think,” said the ex-Prime Minister, “that the flute-player has never
+yet told us a story.”
+
+The guests knew that this hint was imperative, and so putting away the
+score, the flute-player said: “My story is called, ‘The Fiddler.’” And
+he began:--
+
+“This happened a long time ago in one of the German-speaking countries
+of the Holy Roman Empire. There was a Count who lived in a large castle.
+He was rich, powerful, and the owner of large lands. He had a wife, and
+one daughter, who was dazzlingly beautiful, and she was betrothed to the
+eldest son of a neighbouring lord. When I say betrothed, I mean that
+her parents had arranged the marriage. She herself--her name was
+Elisinde--had had no voice in the matter, and she disliked, or rather
+loathed, her future husband, who was boorish, sullen, and ill-tempered;
+he cared for nothing except hunting and deep drinking, and had nothing
+to recommend him but his ducats and his land. But it was quite useless
+for Elisinde to cry or protest. Her parents had settled the marriage and
+it was to be. She understood this herself very well.
+
+“All the necessary preparations for the wedding, which was to be held on
+a splendid scale, were made. There was to be a whole week of feasting;
+and tumblers and musicians came from distant parts of the country to
+take part in the festivities and merry-making. In the village, which was
+close to the castle, a fair was held, and the musicians, tumblers, and
+mountebanks, who had thronged to it, performed in front of the castle
+walls for the amusement of the Count’s guests.
+
+“Among these strolling vagabonds was a fiddler who far excelled all the
+others in skill. He drew the most ravishing tones from his instrument,
+which seemed to speak in trills as liquid as those of the nightingale,
+and in accents as plaintive as those of a human voice. And one of the
+inmates of the castle was so much struck by the performance of this
+fiddler that he told the Count of it, and the fiddler was commanded to
+come and play at the Castle, after the banquet which was to be held
+on the eve of the wedding. The banquet took place in great pomp and
+solemnity, and lasted for many hours. When it was over the fiddler
+was summoned to the large hall and bidden to play before the Lords and
+Ladies.
+
+“The fiddler was a strange looking, tall fellow with unkempt fair hair,
+and eyes that glittered like gold; but as he was dressed in tattered
+uncouth rags (and they were his best too) he cut an extraordinary and
+almost ridiculous figure amongst that splendid jewelled gathering. The
+guests tittered when they saw him. But as soon as he began to play,
+their tittering ceased, for never had they heard such music.
+
+“He played--in view of the festive occasion--a joyous melody. And, as he
+played, the air seemed full of sunlight, and the smell of wine vats and
+the hum of bees round ripe fruit. The guests could not keep still in
+their places, and at last the Count gave orders for a general dance. The
+hall was cleared, and soon all the guests were breathlessly dancing to
+the divine lilt of the fiddler’s melody. All except Elisinde who, when
+her betrothed came forward to lead her to the dance, pleaded fatigue,
+and remained seated in her chair, pale and distraught, and staring at
+the fiddler. This did not, to tell the truth, displease her betrothed,
+who was a clumsy dancer and had no ear for music. Breathless at last
+with exhaustion the guests begged the untiring fiddler to pause while
+they rested for a moment to get their breath.
+
+“And while they were resting the fiddler played another tune. This time
+it was a sad tune: a low, soft tune, liquid and lovely as a human voice.
+A great hush came on the company. It seemed as if after the heat and
+splendour of a summer’s day the calm of evening had fallen; the quiet
+of the dusk, when the moon rises in the sky, still faintly yellow in the
+west with the ebb of sunset, and pours on the stiff cornfields its cool,
+silvery frost; and the trees quiver, as though they felt the freshness
+and were relieved, and a breeze comes, almost imperceptible and not
+strong enough to shake the boughs, from the sea; and a bird, hidden
+somewhere in the leaves, sings a throbbing song.
+
+“Everyone was spellbound, but none so much as Elisinde. The music seemed
+to be speaking straight to her, to pierce the very core of her heart. It
+was an inarticulate language which she understood better than any words.
+She heard a lonely spirit crying out to her, that it understood her
+sorrow and shared her pain. And large tears poured down her cheeks.
+
+“The fiddler stopped playing, and for a moment or two no one spoke. At
+last Elisinde’s betrothed gave a great yawn, and the spell was broken.
+
+“‘You play very well--very well, indeed,’ said the Count.
+
+“‘But that sad music is, I think, rather out of place to-day,’ said the
+Countess.
+
+“‘Yes, let us have another cheerful tune,’ said the Count.
+
+“The fiddler struck up once more and played another dance. This time
+there was an almost elfish magic in his melody. It took you captive; it
+was irresistible; it called and commanded and compelled; you longed to
+follow, follow, anywhere, over the hills, over the sea, to the end of
+the world.
+
+“Elisinde rose from her chair as though the spirit of the music beckoned
+her, but looking round she saw no partner to her taste. She sat down
+again and stared at the fiddler. His eyes were fixed on her, and as she
+looked at him his squalor and rags seemed to fade away and his blue eyes
+that glittered like gold seemed to grow larger, and his hair to grow
+brighter till it shone like fire. And he seemed to be caught in a rosy
+cloud of light: tall, splendid, young, and glowing like a god.
+
+“After this dance was over the Count rose, and he and his guests retired
+to rest. The fiddler was given a purse full of money, and the Count gave
+orders that he should be served refreshment in the kitchen.
+
+“Elisinde went up to her bedroom, which overlooked the garden. She threw
+the window wide open and looked out into the starry darkness. It was a
+breathless summer night. The air was full of warm scents. Lights
+still twinkled in the village; now and again a dog barked, otherwise
+everything was still. She leant out of the window, and cried bitterly
+because her lot was loathsome to her, and she had not a friend in the
+world to whom she could confide her sorrow.
+
+“While she was thus sobbing she heard a rustling in the bushes beneath;
+she looked down and she saw a face looking up towards her, a beautiful
+face, glistening in the moonlight. It was the fiddler.
+
+“‘Elisinde,’ he called to her in a low voice, ‘if you want to escape I
+have the means. Come with me; I love you, and I will save you from your
+doom.’
+
+“‘I would come with you to the end of the world,’ she said, ‘but how
+can I get away from this castle?’
+
+“He threw a rope ladder up to her. ‘Make it fast to the bar,’ he said,
+‘and let yourself down.’
+
+“She let herself down into the garden. ‘We can easily climb the wall
+with this,’ he said; ‘but before you come I must tell you that if you
+will be my bride your life will be hard and full of misery. Think before
+you come.’
+
+“‘Rather all the misery in the world,’ she said, ‘than the awful doom
+that awaits me here. Besides which I love you, and we shall be very
+happy.’
+
+“They scaled the wall, and on the other side of it the fiddler had two
+horses, waiting tied to the gate. They galloped through many villages,
+and by the dawn they had reached a village far beyond the Count’s lands.
+Here they stopped at an inn, and they were married by the priest that
+day. But they did not stop in this village; they sought a further
+country, beyond reach of all pursuit. They settled in a village, and
+the fiddler earned his bread by his fiddling, and Elisinde kept their
+cottage neat and clean. For awhile they were as happy as the day was
+long; the fiddler found favour everywhere by his fiddling, and Elisinde
+ingratiated herself by her gentle ways. But one day when Elisinde was
+lying in bed and the fiddler had lulled her to sleep with his music,
+some neighbours, attracted by the sound, passed the cottage and looked
+in at the window. And to their astonishment they saw the fiddler sitting
+by a bed on which lay what seemed to them to be a sleeping princess;
+and the whole cottage was full of dazzling light, and the fiddler’s face
+shone, and his hair and his eyes glittered like gold. They went away
+much frightened, and told the whole village the news.
+
+“Now there were already not a few of the villagers who looked askance
+on the fiddler; and this incident set all the evil and envious tongues
+wagging. When the fiddler went to play the next day at the inn men
+turned away from him, and a child in the street threw a stone at him.
+Presently he was warned that he had better swiftly fly or else he would
+be drowned as a sorcerer.
+
+“So he and Elisinde fled in the night to a neighbouring village. But
+soon the dark rumours followed them, and they were forced to flee once
+more. This happened again and again, till at last in the whole country
+there was not a village which would receive them, and one night they
+were obliged to take refuge in a barn, for Elisinde was expecting the
+birth of her child. That night their child was born, a beautiful little
+boy, and an hour afterwards Elisinde smiled and died.
+
+“All that night the villagers heard from afar a piteous wailing music,
+infinitely sad and beautiful, and those that heard it shuddered and
+crossed themselves.
+
+“The next day the villagers sought the barn, for they had resolved to
+drown the sorcerer; but he was not there. All they found was the dead
+body of Elisinde, and a little baby lying on some straw. The body
+of Elisinde was covered with roses. And this was strange, for it was
+midwinter. The fiddler had disappeared and was never heard of again, and
+an old wood-cutter, who was too old to know any better, took charge of
+the baby.
+
+“I will tell you what happened to it another day.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+“We wish to hear the end of your story,” said the ex-Prime Minister to
+the flute-player.
+
+“Yes,” said the scholar, “and I want to know who the fiddler was.”
+
+This conversation took place at the Green Tower two weeks after the
+gathering I have already described. The same people were present;
+but there was another guest, namely, the musician, who, unlike the
+flute-player, was not an amateur.
+
+“The child of Elisinde and the fiddler,” began the flute-player, “was,
+as I have already told you, a boy. The woodcutter who took pity on him
+was old and childless. He brought the baby to his hut, and gave it over
+to the care of his wife. At first she pretended to be angry, and said
+that nothing would persuade her to have anything to do with the child,
+and that it was all they could do to feed themselves without picking up
+waifs in the gutter; but she ended by looking after the baby with the
+utmost tenderness and care, and by loving it as much as if it had been
+her own child. The baby was christened Franz. As soon as he was able to
+walk and talk there were two things about him which were remarkable. The
+first was his hair, which glittered like sunlight; the second was his
+fondness for all musical sounds. When he was four years old he had made
+himself a flute out of a reed, and on this he played all day, imitating
+the song of the birds. He was in his sixth year when an event happened
+which changed his life. He was sitting in front of the woodcutter’s
+cottage one day, when a bright cavalcade passed him. It was a nobleman
+from a neighbouring castle, who was travelling to the city with his
+retainers. Among these was a Kapellmeister, who organised the music of
+this nobleman’s household. The moment he caught sight of Franz and heard
+his piping, he stopped, and asked who he was.
+
+“The woodcutter’s wife told him the story of the finding of the waif,
+to which both the nobleman and himself listened with great interest. The
+Kapellmeister said that they should take the child with them; that he
+should be attached to the nobleman’s house and trained as a member of
+his choir or his string band, according to his capacities. The nobleman,
+who was passionately fond of music, and extremely particular with regard
+to the manner of its performance, was delighted with the idea. The offer
+was made to the woodcutter and his wife, and although she cried a
+good deal they were both forced to recognise that they had no right to
+interfere with the child’s good fortune. Moreover, the gift of a purse
+full of gold (which the nobleman gave them) did not make the matter more
+distasteful.
+
+“Finally it was settled that the child should go with the nobleman then
+and there; and Franz took leave of his adopted parents, not without many
+and bitter tears being shed on both sides.
+
+“Franz travelled with the nobleman to a large city, and he became a
+member--the youngest--of the nobleman’s household. He was taught his
+letters, which he learnt with ease, and the rudiments of music, which he
+absorbed with such astounding rapidity, that the Kapellmeister said that
+it seemed as if he already knew everything that was taught him. When he
+was seven years old, he could not only play several instruments, but he
+composed fugues and sonatas. When the nobleman invited the magnates of
+the place to listen to his musicians, Franz, the prodigy, was the centre
+of interest, and very soon he became the talk of the town. At the age of
+ten he was an accomplished organ player, and he played with skill on the
+flute and the clavichord.
+
+“He grew up a tall and handsome lad, with clear, dreamy eyes, and hair
+that continued to glitter like sunlight. He was happy in the nobleman’s
+household, for the nobleman and his wife were kind people; like the
+woodcutter they were childless and came to look upon him as their own
+child. He was a quiet youth, and so deeply engrossed in his music and
+his studies that he seemed to be quite unaware of the outside world and
+its inhabitants and its doings. But although he led a retired, studious
+life, his fame had got abroad and had even reached the Emperor’s ears.
+
+“When Franz was seventeen years old it happened that the Court was in
+need of an organist. The Emperor’s curiosity had been aroused by what he
+had heard of Franz, and one fine day the youth was summoned to Court
+to play before his Majesty. This he did with such success that he was
+appointed organist of the Court on the spot.
+
+“He was sad at leaving the nobleman, but there was nothing to be done.
+The Emperor’s wish was law. He became Court organist and he played the
+organ in the Imperial chapel during Mass on Sundays. As before, he spent
+all his leisure time in composing music.
+
+“Now the Emperor had a daughter called Kunigmunde, who was beautiful and
+wildly romantic. She was immediately spellbound by Franz’s music, and
+he became the lodestar of her dreams. Often in the afternoon she would
+steal up to the organ loft, where he was playing alone, and sit for
+hours listening to his improvisations. They did not speak to each other
+much, but ever since Franz had set eyes on her something new had entered
+into his soul and spoke in his music, something tremulous and strange
+and wonderful.
+
+“For a year Franz’s life ran placidly and smoothly. He was made much of,
+praised and petted; but now, as before, he seemed quite unaware of the
+outside world and its doings, and he moved in a world of his own, only
+he was no longer alone in his secret habitation, it was inhabited by
+another shape, the beautiful dark-haired Princess Kunigmunde, and in
+her honour he composed songs, minuets, sonatas, hymns, and triumphal
+marches. As was only natural, there were not wanting at Court persons
+who were envious of Franz, his talent, and his good fortune. And
+among them there was a musician, a tenor in the Imperial choir, called
+Albrecht, who hated Franz with his whole heart. He was a dark-eyed,
+dark-haired creature, slightly deformed; he limped, and he had a
+sinister look as though of a satyr. Nevertheless he was highly gifted
+and composed music of his own which, although it was not radiant
+like that of Franz, was full of brilliance and not without a certain
+compelling power. Albrecht revolved in his mind how he might ruin Franz.
+He tried to excite the envy of the courtiers against him, but Franz was
+such a modest fellow, so kindly and good-natured, that it was not easy
+to make people dislike him. Nevertheless there were many who were
+tired of hearing him praised, and many who were secretly tired of the
+perpetual beauty and radiance of Franz’s music, and wished for something
+new even though it should be ugly.
+
+“An opportunity soon presented itself for Albrecht to carry out his evil
+and envious designs. The Court Kapellmeister died, and not long after
+this event a great feast was to be held at Court to celebrate Princess
+Kunigmunde’s birthday. The Emperor had offered a prize, a wreath of gilt
+laurels, as well as the post of Court Kapellmeister to him who should
+compose the most beautiful piece of music in his daughter’s honour.
+Franz seemed so certain of success that nobody even dared to compete
+with him except Albrecht.
+
+“When the hour of the contest came--it took place in the great
+throne-room before the Emperor, the Empress, their sons, their
+daughters, and the whole court after the banquet--Franz was the first
+to display his work. He sat down at the clavichord and sang what he had
+composed in honour of the Princess. He had made three little songs for
+her. Franz had not much voice, but it had a peculiar wail in it, and he
+sang, like the born and trained musician that he was, with that absolute
+mastery over his means, that certain perfection of utterance, that power
+of conveying, to the shade of a shade, the inmost spirit and meaning
+of the music which only belong to those great and rare artists whose
+perfect art is alive with the inspiration that cannot be learnt.
+
+“The first song he sang was the call of a home-going shepherd to
+his flock on the hills at sunset, and when he sang it he brought the
+largeness of the dying evening and the solemn hills into the elegant
+throne-room. The second song was the cry of a lonely fisherman on the
+river at midnight, and as he sang it he brought the mystery of broad
+starlit waters into the taper-lit, gilded hall. The third song was the
+song of the happy lover in the orchard at dawn. And when he sang it
+he brought the smell of dewy leaves and grass, the soaring radiance
+of spring and early morning, to that powdered and silken assembly. The
+Court applauded him, but they were astonished and slightly disappointed,
+for they had expected something grand and complicated, and not
+three simple tunes. But the nobleman who had educated Franz, and his
+Kapellmeister, who were among the guests, wept tears in silence.
+
+“Albrecht followed him. The swarthy singer sat down to the instrument
+and struck a ringing chord. He had a pure and infinitely powerful tenor
+voice, clear as crystal, loud as a clarion, strong, rich, and rippling.
+He sang a love-song he had composed himself. He called it ‘The Homage of
+King Pan to the Princess.’ It was voluptuous and vehement and sweet
+as honey, full of bold conceits and audacious turns and trills, which
+startled the audience and took their breath away. He sang his song with
+almost devilish skill and power; and his warm, captivating voice rang
+through the room and shook the tall window-panes, and finally died away
+like the vibrations of a great bell. The whole Court shouted, delirious
+with applause, and unanimously declared him to be the victor. A witty
+courtier said that Marsyas had avenged himself on Apollo; but the
+nobleman and his Kapellmeister snorted and sniffed and said nothing.
+Albrecht was given the prize and appointed Kapellmeister to the Court
+without further discussion.
+
+“When the ceremony was over, Franz, who was indifferent to his defeat,
+went to the chapel of the palace, and lighting a candle, walked up into
+the organ loft. There he played to himself another song, a hymn he had
+composed in honour of Princess Kunigmunde. It was filled with rapture
+and a breathless wonder, and in it his inmost soul spoke its unuttered
+love. He had not sung this song in public, it was too sacred. As
+he played and sang to himself in a low voice he was aware of a soft
+footstep. He started and looked round, and there was the Princess,
+bright in silk and jewels, with a pink rose in her powdered hair. She
+took this rose and laid it lightly on the black keys.
+
+“‘That is the prize,’ she said. ‘You won it, and I want to thank you. I
+never knew music could be so beautiful.’
+
+“Franz looked at her, and said ‘Thank you.’ He had risen from his
+seat and was about to go, but the light of his candle caught Princess
+Kunigmunde’s brown eyes (which were wet with tears), and something
+rose like fire in his breast and made him forget his bashfulness, his
+respect, and his sense of decorum.
+
+“‘Come with me,’ he said, in a broken voice. ‘Let us fly from this
+Court to the hills and be happy.’
+
+“But the Princess shook her head sadly, and said: ‘Alas! It is
+impossible. I am betrothed to the King of the Two Sicilies.’
+
+“Then Franz mastered himself once more, and said: ‘Of course, it is
+impossible. I was mad.’
+
+“The Princess kissed her hand to him and fled.
+
+“At that moment Franz heard a noise in the nave of the chapel; he looked
+over the gallery of the organ loft, and saw sidling away in the darkness
+the dim figure of a deformed man.
+
+“That night Princess Kunigmunde had a strange dream. She thought she was
+transported into a beautiful southern country where the azure sky seemed
+to scintillate with the dust of myriads and myriads of diamonds, and to
+sparkle with sunlight like dancing wine. The low blue hills were bare
+and sparsely clothed with delicate trees, and the fields, sprinkled
+with innumerable red, yellow, white and purple flowers, were bright as
+fabulous Persian carpets. On a grassy knoll before her the rosy columns
+of a temple shone in the gleaming dust of the atmosphere. Beside her
+there was a running stream, on the bank of which grew a bay-tree.
+There was a chirping of grasshoppers in the air, a noise of bees, and a
+delicious warm smell of burnt grass and thyme and mint.
+
+“Near the stream a man was standing; he was an ordinary man, and yet he
+seemed to tower above the landscape without being unusually tall; his
+hair was bright as gold, and his eyes, more lustrous still, reflected
+the silvery blue sky and shone like opals. In his hands he held a
+golden lyre, and around him a warm golden cloud seemed to rise, on a
+transparent aura of light, like the glow of the sunset. In front of him
+there stood a creature of the woods, a satyr, with pointed ears, cloven
+hoofs, and human eyes, in his hairy hands holding a flute made out of a
+reed.
+
+“Presently the satyr breathed on his flute and a wonderful note trembled
+in the air, soft, low, and liquid. The note was followed by others, and
+a stillness fell upon Nature; the birds ceased to sing, the grasshoppers
+were still, the bees paused. All Nature was listening and the Princess
+was conscious in her dream that there were others besides herself
+listening, unseen shapes and sightless phantoms; a crowd, a multitude of
+attentive ghosts, that were hidden from her sight. The melody rose and
+swelled in stillness; it was melting and ravishing and bold with a human
+audacity. As she listened it reminded her of something; she felt she had
+heard such sounds before, though she could not remember where and when.
+But suddenly it flashed across her that the music resembled Albrecht’s
+song; it was Albrecht’s song, only transfigured as it were, and a
+thousand times more beautiful in her dream than in reality. More
+beautiful, and at the same time as though it belonged to the days
+of youth and spring which Albrecht had never known. The satyr ceased
+playing and the pleasant noises of the world began once more. The
+shining figure who stood before him looked on the satyr with divine
+scorn and smiled a radiant, merciless smile. Then he struck his lyre and
+Nature once more was dumb.
+
+“But this time the magic was of another kind and a thousand times more
+mighty; a song rose into the air which leapt and soared like a flame,
+imperious as the flashing of a sword, triumphant as the waving of a
+banner, wonderful as the dawn and fresh as the laughing sea. And once
+more Princess Kunigmunde was aware that the music was familiar to her.
+She had heard something like it in the chapel that evening, when in the
+darkness Franz had played and sung the hymn that he had composed in her
+honour. Only now it was more than human, unearthly and divine. As soon
+as he ceased an eclipse seemed to darken the world, a thick cloud of
+rolling darkness; there was a crash of thunder, a flash of lightning,
+and out of the blackness came a piteous, human cry, the cry of a
+creature in anguish, and then a faint moaning.
+
+“Presently all was still, but the dark cloud remained, and she heard a
+mocking laugh and the accents of a clear, scornful voice (she recognised
+the voice, it was the voice of Albrecht), and the voice said: ‘Thou hast
+conquered, Apollo, and cruelly hast thou used thy victory; and cruelly
+has thou punished me for daring to challenge thy divine skill. It was
+mad indeed to compete with a god; and yet shall I avenge my wrong and
+thy harshness shall recoil on thee. For not even gods can be unjust with
+impunity, and the Fates are above us all. And I shall be avenged; for
+all thy sons shall suffer what I have suffered; and there is not one of
+them that shall escape the doom and not share the fate of Marsyas the
+Satyr, whom thou didst cruelly slay. The music and the skill which shall
+be their inheritance shall be the cause to them of sorrow and grief
+unending and pitiless pain and misery. Their life shall be as bitter to
+them as my death has been to me. Their music shall fill the world with
+sweetness and ravish the ears of listening nations, but to them it shall
+bring no joy; for life like a cruel blade shall flay and lay bare their
+hearts, and sorrow like a searching wind shall play upon their souls
+and make them tremble, even as the scabbard of my body trembled in the
+breeze; and just as from that trembling husk of what was once myself
+there came forth sweet sounds, so shall it be with their souls,
+shivering and trembling in the cold wind of life. Music shall come from
+them, but this music shall be born of agony; nor shall they utter a
+single note that is not begotten of sorrow or pain. And so shall the
+children of Apollo suffer and share the pain of Marsyas.
+
+“The voice died away, and a pitiful wail was heard as of a wind blowing
+through the reeds of a river. And the Princess awoke, trembling with
+fear of some unknown and impending disaster.
+
+“The next morning Franz, as he walked into the chapel to practice on
+the organ, was met by two soldiers, who bade him follow them, and he was
+shut up in the prison of the palace. No word of explanation was given
+him; nor had he any idea what the crime might be of which he was
+accused, or of his ultimate fate. But in the evening, when the gaoler’s
+daughter brought him his food, she made him a sign, and he found in his
+loaf of bread a rose, a file, and a tiny scroll, on which the following
+words were written; ‘Albrecht denounced you. Fly for your life. K.’
+Later, when the gaolers had gone to sleep, the gaoler’s daughter stole
+to his cell. She brought him a rope, and a purse full of silver. He
+filed the bars and let himself down into a narrow street of the city.
+
+“By the time the sun rose he had left the city far behind him. He
+journeyed on and on till he passed the frontier of the Emperor’s
+dominions and reached a neighbouring State. By the time he came to
+a city he had spent his money, and he was in rags and tatters;
+nevertheless, he managed to earn his bread by making music in the
+streets, and after a time a well-to-do citizen who noticed him took him
+into his house and entrusted him with the task of teaching music to his
+sons and of playing him to sleep in the evening. Franz spent his leisure
+hours in composing an opera called ‘The Death of Adonis,’ into which
+he poured all the music of his soul, all his love, his sorrow, and his
+infinite desire. He lived for this only, and during all the hours he
+spent when he was not working at his opera he was like a man in a
+dream, unconscious of the realities around him. In a year his opera was
+finished. He took it to the Intendant of the Ducal Theatre in the city
+and played it to him, and the Intendant, greatly pleased, determined to
+have it performed without delay. The best singers were allotted parts
+in it, and it was performed before the Arch-Duke and his Court, and a
+multitude of people.
+
+“The music told the story of Franz’s love; it was bright with all his
+dreams, and sorrowful with his great despair. Never had such music been
+heard; so sweet, so sunlit in its joys, so radiant in its sadness. But
+the Arch-Duke and his Court, startled by the new accent of this music,
+and influenced by the local and established musicians, who were envious
+of this newcomer, listened in frigid silence, so that the common people
+in the gallery dared not show signs of their delight. In fact, the opera
+was a complete failure. Public opinion followed the Court, and found no
+words, bad or strong enough to condemn what they called the new-fangled
+rubbish. Among those who blamed the new work there was none so bitter
+as the citizen whose children Franz had been teaching. For this man
+considered himself to be a genius, and was inordinately vain, and his
+ignorance was equal to his conceit. He dismissed Franz from his service.
+All doors were now closed to him, and being on the verge of starvation
+he was reduced to earning his bread in the streets by playing his pipe.
+This also proved unsuccessful, and it was with difficulty that he earned
+a few pence every day.
+
+“At last he burnt all his manuscripts, and went into the hills; the hill
+people welcomed him, but their kindness came too late; his heart was
+broken, and when sickness came to him with the winter snow, he had no
+longer any strength to resist it. The peasants found him one day lying
+cold and stiff in his hut. They buried him on the hill-side. The night
+of his funeral a strange fiddler with a shining face was seen standing
+beside his grave and playing the most lovely tunes on a violin.
+
+“The name of Franz was soon forgotten, but although he died obscure and
+penniless he left a rich legacy. For he taught the hill-people three
+songs, the songs he had sung at Court in honour of Princess Kunigmunde,
+and they never died. They spread from the hills to the plains, from the
+plains to the river, from the river to the woods, and indeed you can
+still hear them on the hills of the north, on the great broad rivers of
+the east, and in the orchards of the south.”
+
+
+
+
+A CHINAMAN ON OXFORD
+
+“Yes, I am a student,” said the Chinaman, “And I came here to study the
+English manners and customs.”
+
+We were seated on the top of the electric tram which goes to Hampton
+Court. It was a bitterly cold spring day. The suburbs of London were not
+looking their best.
+
+“I spent three days at Oxford last week,” he said.
+
+“It’s a beautiful place, is it not?” I remarked.
+
+The Chinaman smiled. “The country which you see from the windows of the
+railway carriages,” he said, “on the way from Oxford to London strikes
+me as being beautiful. It reminded me of the Chinese Plain, only it is
+prettier. But the houses at Oxford are hideous: there is no symmetry
+about them. The houses in this country are like blots on the landscape.
+In China the houses are made to harmonise with the landscape just as
+trees do.”
+
+“What did you see at Oxford?” I asked.
+
+“I saw boat races,” he said, “and a great many ignorant old men.”
+
+“What did you think of that?”
+
+“I think,” he said, “the young people seemed to enjoy it, and if they
+enjoy it they are quite right to do it. But the way the older men talk
+about these things struck me as being foolish. They talk as if these
+games and these sports were a solemn affair, a moral or religious
+question; they said the virtues and the prowess of the English race were
+founded on these things. They said that competition was the mainspring
+of life; they seemed to think exercise was the goal of existence. A man
+whom I saw there and who, I learnt, had been chosen to teach the young
+on account of his wisdom, told me that competition trained the man to
+sharpen his faculties; and that the tension which it provoked is
+in itself a useful training. I do not believe this. A cat or a boa
+constrictor will lie absolutely idle until it perceives an object worthy
+of its appetite; it will then catch it and swallow it, and once more
+relapse into repose without thinking of keeping itself ‘in training.’
+But it will lie dormant and rise to the occasion when it occurs. These
+people who talked of games seem to me to undervalue repose. They forget
+that repose is the mother of action, and exercise only a frittering away
+of the same.”
+
+“What did you think,” I asked, “of the education that the students at
+Oxford receive?”
+
+“I think,” said the Chinaman, “that inasmuch as the young men waste
+their time in idleness they do well; for the wise men who are chosen to
+instruct the young at your places of learning, are not always wise. I
+visited a professor of Oriental languages. His servant asked me to wait,
+and after I had waited three quarters of an hour, he sent word to say
+that he had tried everywhere to find the professor in the University who
+spoke French, but that he had not been able to find him. And so he asked
+me to call another day. I had dinner in a college hall. I found that the
+professors talked of many things in such a way as would be impossible to
+children of five and six in our country. They are quite ignorant of
+the manners and customs of the people of other European countries. They
+pronounce Greek and Latin and even French in the same way as English. I
+mentioned to one of them that I had been employed for some time in the
+Chinese Legation; he asked me if I had had much work to do. I said yes,
+the work had been heavy. ‘But,’ he observed, ‘I suppose a great deal of
+the work is carried on directly between the Governments and not through
+the Ambassadors.’ I cannot conceive what he meant or how such a thing
+could be possible, or what he considered the use and function of
+Embassies and Legations to be. They most of them seemed to take for
+granted that I could not speak English: some of them addressed me in a
+kind of baby language; one of them spoke French. The professor who spoke
+to me in this language told me that the French possessed no poetical
+literature, and he said the reason of this was that the French language
+was a bastard language; that it was, in fact, a kind of pidgin Latin.
+He said when a Frenchman says a girl is ‘beaucoup belle,’ he is using
+pidgin Latin. The courtesy due to a host prevented me from suggesting
+that if a Frenchman said ‘beaucoup belle’ he would be talking pidgin
+French.
+
+“Another professor said to me that China would soon develop if she
+adopted a large Imperial ideal, and that in time the Chinese might
+attain to a great position in the world, such as the English now held.
+He said the best means of bringing this about would be to introduce
+cricket and football into China. I told him that I thought this was
+improbable, because if the Chinese play games, they do not care who
+is the winner; the fun of the game is to us the improvisation of it as
+opposed to the organisation which appeals to the people here. Upon which
+he said that cricket was like a symphony of music. In a symphony every
+instrument plays its part in obedience to one central will, not for its
+individual advantage, but in order to make a beautiful whole. ‘So it is
+with our games,’ he said, ‘every man plays his part not for the sake of
+personal advantage, but so that his side may win; and thus the citizen
+is taught to sink his own interests in those of the community.’ I
+told him the Chinese did not like symphonies, and Western music was
+intolerable to them for this very reason. Western musicians seem to
+us to take a musical idea which is only worthy of a penny whistle (and
+would be very good indeed if played on a penny whistle!); and they
+sit down and make a score of it twenty yards broad, and set a hundred
+highly-trained and highly-paid musicians to play it. It is the contrast
+between the tremendous apparatus and waste of energy on one side, and
+the light and playful character of the business itself on the
+other which makes me, a Chinaman, as incapable of appreciating your
+complicated games as I am of appreciating the complicated symphonies of
+the Germans or the elaborate rules which their students make with
+regard to the drinking of beer. We like a man for taking his fun and
+not missing a joke when he finds it by chance on his way, but we cannot
+understand his going out of his way to prepare a joke and to make
+arrangements for having some fun at a certain fixed date. This is why
+we consider a wayside song, a tune that is heard wandering in the summer
+darkness, to be better than twenty concerts.”
+
+“What did that professor say?” I asked.
+
+“He said that if I were to stay long enough in England and go to a
+course of concerts at the Chelsea Town Hall, I would soon learn to
+think differently. And that if cricket and football were introduced
+into China, the Chinese would soon emerge out of their backwardness and
+barbarism and take a high place among the enlightened nations of the
+world. I thought to myself as he said this that your games are no
+doubt an excellent substitute for drill, but if we were to submit to so
+complicated an organisation it would be with a purpose: in order to turn
+the Europeans out of China, for instance; but that organisation without
+a purpose would always seem to us to be stupid, and we should no more
+dream of organising our play than of organising a stroll in the twilight
+to see the Evening Star, or the chase of a butterfly in the spring. If
+we were to decide on drill it would be drill with a vengeance and with a
+definite aim; but we should not therefore and thereby destroy our play.
+Play cannot exist for us without fun, and for us the open air, the
+fields, and the meadows are like wine: if we feel inclined, we roam and
+jump about in them, but we should never submit to standing to attention
+for hours lest a ball should escape us. Besides which, we invented the
+foundations of all our games many thousand of years ago. We invented and
+played at ‘Diabolo’ when the Britons were painted blue and lived in
+the woods. The English knew how to play once, in the days of Queen
+Elizabeth; then they had masques and madrigals and Morris dances
+and music. A gentleman was ashamed if he did not speak six or seven
+languages, handle the sword with a deadly dexterity, play chess, and
+write good sonnets. Men were broken on the wheel for an idea: they were
+brave, cultivated, and gay; they fought, they played, and they wrote
+excellent verse. Now they organise games and lay claim to a special
+morality and to a special mission; they send out missionaries to
+civilise us savages; and if our people resent having an alien creed
+stuffed down their throats, they take our hand and burn our homes in
+the name of Charity, Progress, and Civilisation. They seek for one
+thing--gold; they preach competition, but competition for what? For
+this: who shall possess the most, who shall most successfully ‘do’ his
+neighbour. These ideals and aims do not tempt us. The quality of the
+life is to us more important than the quantity of what is done and
+achieved. We live, as we play, for the sake of living. I did not say
+this to the professors because we have a proverb that when you are in a
+man’s country you should not speak ill of it. I say it to you because I
+see you have an inquiring mind, and you will feel it more insulting to
+be served with meaningless phrases and empty civilities than with the
+truth, however bitter. For those who have once looked the truth in the
+face cannot afterwards be put off with false semblances.”
+
+“You speak true words,” I said, “but what do you like best in England?”
+
+“The gardens,” he answered, “and the little yellow flowers that are
+sprinkled like stars on your green grass.”
+
+“And what do you like least in England?”
+
+“The horrible smells,” he said.
+
+“Have you no smells in China?” I asked.
+
+“Yes,” he replied, “we have natural smells, but not the smell of gas and
+smoke and coal which sickens me here. It is strange to me that people
+can find the smell of human beings disgusting and be able to stand the
+foul stenches of a London street. This very road along which we are now
+travelling (we were passing through one of the less beautiful portions
+of the tramway line) makes me homesick for my country. I long to see a
+Chinese village once more built of mud and fenced with mud, muddy-roaded
+and muddy-baked, with a muddy little stream to be waded across or
+passed by stepping on stones; with a delicate one-storeyed temple on the
+water-eaten bank, and green poppy fields round it; and the women in dark
+blue standing at the doorways, smoking their pipes; and the children,
+with three small budding pigtails on the head of each, clinging to them;
+and the river fringed with a thousand masts: the boats, the houseboats,
+the barges and the ships in the calm, wide estuaries, each with a pair
+of huge eyes painted on the front bow. And the people: the men working
+at their looms and whistling a happy tune out of the gladness of their
+hearts. And everywhere the sense of leisure, the absence of hurry and
+bustle and confusion; the dignity of manners and the grace of expression
+and of address. And, above all, the smell of life everywhere.”
+
+“I admit,” I said, “that our streets smell horribly of smoke and coal,
+but surely our people are clean?”
+
+“Yes,” he said, “no doubt; but you forget that to us there is nothing so
+intolerably nasty as the smell of a clean white man!”
+
+
+
+
+VENUS
+
+John Fletcher was an overworked minor official in a Government office.
+He lived a lonely life, and had done so ever since he had been a boy. At
+school he had mixed little with his fellow school-boys, and he took no
+interest in the things that interested them, that is to say, games. On
+the other hand, although he was what is called “good at work,” and did
+his lessons with facility and ease, he was not a literary boy, and did
+not care for books. He was drawn towards machinery of all kinds,
+and spent his spare time in dabbling in scientific experiments or in
+watching trains go by on the Great Western line. Once he blew off his
+eyebrows while making some experiment with explosive chemicals; his
+hands were always smudged with dark, mysterious stains, and his room was
+like that of a mediaeval alchemist, littered with retorts, bottles,
+and test-glasses. Before leaving school he invented a flying machine
+(heavier than air), and an unsuccessful attempt to start it on the high
+road caused him to be the victim of much chaff and ridicule.
+
+When he left school he went to Oxford. His life there was as lonely
+as it had been at school. The dirty, untidy, ink-stained, and
+chemical-stained little boy grew up into a tall, lank, slovenly-dressed
+man, who kept entirely to himself, not because he cherished any dislike
+or disdain for his fellow-creatures, but because he seemed to be
+entirely absorbed in his own thoughts and isolated from the world by a
+barrier of dreams.
+
+He did well at Oxford, and when he went down he passed high into the
+Civil Service and became a clerk in a Government office. There he kept
+as much to himself as ever. He did his work rapidly and well, for this
+man, who seemed so slovenly in his person, had an accurate mind, and was
+what was called a good clerk, although his incurable absent-mindedness
+once or twice caused him to forget certain matters of importance.
+
+His fellow clerks treated him as a crank and as a joke, but none of
+them, try as they would, could get to know him or win his confidence.
+They used to wonder what Fletcher did with his spare time, what were
+his pursuits, what were his hobbies, if he had any. They suspected that
+Fletcher had some hobby of an engrossing kind, since in everyday life he
+conveyed the impression of a man who is walking in his sleep, who acts
+mechanically and automatically. Somewhere else, they thought, in some
+other circumstances, he must surely wake up and take a living interest
+in somebody or in something.
+
+Yet had they followed him home to his small room in Canterbury-mansions
+they would have been astonished. For when he returned from the office
+after a hard day’s work he would do nothing more engrossing than slowly
+to turn over the leaves of a book in which there were elaborate drawings
+and diagrams of locomotives and other kinds of engines. And on Sunday he
+would take a train to one of the large junctions and spend the whole
+day in watching express trains go past, and in the evening would return
+again to London.
+
+One day after he had returned from the office somewhat earlier than
+usual, he was telephoned for. He had no telephone in his own room, but
+he could use a public telephone which was attached to the building. He
+went into the small box, but found on reaching the telephone that he had
+been cut off by the exchange. He imagined that he had been rung up by
+the office, so he asked to be given their number. As he did so his eye
+caught an advertisement which was hung just over the telephone. It was
+an elaborate design in black and white, pointing out the merits of a
+particular kind of soap called the Venus: a classical lady, holding
+a looking-glass in one hand and a cake of this invaluable soap in the
+other, was standing in a sphere surrounded by pointed rays, which was no
+doubt intended to represent the most brilliant of the planets.
+
+Fletcher sat down on the stool and took the receiver in his hand. As he
+did so he had for one second the impression that the floor underneath
+him gave way and that he was falling down a precipice. But before he had
+time to realise what was happening the sensation of falling left him; he
+shook himself as though he had been asleep, and for one moment a faint
+recollection as though of the dreams of the night twinkled in his mind,
+and vanished beyond all possibility of recall. He said to himself that
+he had had a long and curious dream, and he knew that it was too late to
+remember what it had been about. Then he opened his eyes wide and looked
+round him.
+
+He was standing on the slope of a hill. At his feet there was a kind of
+green moss, very soft to tread on. It was sprinkled here and there with
+light red, wax-like flowers such as he had never seen before. He was
+standing in an open space; beneath him there was a plain covered with
+what seemed to be gigantic mushrooms, much taller than a man. Above
+him rose a mass of vegetation, and over all this was a dense, heavy,
+streaming cloud faintly glimmering with a white, silvery light which
+seemed to be beyond it.
+
+He walked towards the vegetation, and soon found himself in the middle
+of a wood, or rather of a jungle. Tangled plants grew on every side;
+large hanging creepers with great blue flowers hung downwards. There was
+a profound stillness in this wood; there were no birds singing and
+he heard not the slightest rustle in the rich undergrowth. It was
+oppressively hot and the air was full of a pungent, aromatic sweetness.
+He felt as though he were in a hot-house full of gardenias and
+stephanotis. At the same time the atmosphere of the place was pleasant
+to him. It was neither strange nor disagreeable. He felt at home in this
+green shimmering jungle and in this hot, aromatic twilight, as though he
+had lived there all his life.
+
+He walked mechanically onwards as if he were going to a definite spot of
+which he knew. He walked fast, but in spite of the oppressive atmosphere
+and the thickness of the growth he grew neither hot nor out of breath;
+on the contrary, he took pleasure in the motion, and the stifling,
+sweet air seemed to invigorate him. He walked steadily on for over three
+hours, choosing his way nicely, avoiding certain places and seeking
+others, following a definite path and making for a definite goal. During
+all this time the stillness continued unbroken, nor did he meet a single
+living thing, either bird or beast.
+
+After he had been walking for what seemed to him several hours, the
+vegetation grew thinner, the jungle less dense, and from a more or less
+open space in it he seemed to discern what might have been a mountain
+entirely submerged in a multitude of heavy grey clouds. He sat down on
+the green stuff which was like grass and yet was not grass, at the edge
+of the open space whence he got this view, and quite naturally he picked
+from the boughs of an overhanging tree a large red, juicy fruit, and
+ate it. Then he said to himself, he knew not why, that he must not waste
+time, but must be moving on.
+
+He took a path to the right of him and descended the sloping jungle with
+big, buoyant strides, almost running; he knew the way as though he had
+been down that path a thousand times. He knew that in a few moments he
+would reach a whole hanging garden of red flowers, and he knew that
+when he had reached this he must again turn to the right. It was as he
+thought: the red flowers soon came to view. He turned sharply, and then
+through the thinning greenery he caught sight of an open plain where
+more mushrooms grew. But the plain was as yet a great way off, and the
+mushrooms seemed quite small.
+
+“I shall get there in time,” he said to himself, and walked steadily on,
+looking neither to the right nor to the left. It was evening by the
+time he reached the edge of the plain: everything was growing dark. The
+endless vapours and the high banks of cloud in which the whole of this
+world was sunk grew dimmer and dimmer. In front of him was an empty
+level space, and about two miles further on the huge mushrooms stood
+out, tall and wide like the monuments of some prehistoric age. And
+underneath them on the soft carpet there seemed to move a myriad vague
+and shadowy forms.
+
+“I shall get there in time,” he thought. He walked on for another half
+hour, and by this time the tall mushrooms were quite close to him,
+and he could see moving underneath them, distinctly now, green, living
+creatures like huge caterpillars, with glowing eyes. They moved slowly
+and did not seem to interfere with each other in any way. Further off,
+and beyond them, there was a broad and endless plain of high green
+stalks like ears of green wheat or millet, only taller and thinner.
+
+He ran on, and now at his very feet, right in front of him, the green
+caterpillars were moving. They were as big as leopards. As he drew
+nearer they seemed to make way for him, and to gather themselves into
+groups under the thick stems of the mushrooms. He walked along the
+pathway they made for him, under the shadow of the broad, sunshade-like
+roofs of these gigantic growths. It was almost dark now, yet he had no
+doubt or difficulty as to finding his way. He was making for the green
+plain beyond. The ground was dense with caterpillars; they were as
+plentiful as ants in an ant’s nest, and yet they never seemed to
+interfere with each other or with him; they instinctively made way
+for him, nor did they appear to notice him in any way. He felt neither
+surprise nor wonder at their presence.
+
+It grew quite dark; the only lights which were in this world came from
+the twinkling eyes of the moving figures, which shone like little stars.
+The night was no whit cooler than the day. The atmosphere was as steamy,
+as dense and as aromatic as before. He walked on and on, feeling no
+trace of fatigue or hunger, and every now and then he said to himself:
+“I shall be there in time.” The plain was flat and level, and covered
+the whole way with the mushrooms, whose roofs met and shut out from him
+the sight of the dark sky.
+
+At last he came to the end of the plain of mushrooms and reached the
+high green stalks he had been making for. Beyond the dark clouds a
+silver glimmer had begun once more to show itself. “I am just in time,”
+ he said to himself, “the night is over, the sun is rising.”
+
+At that moment there was a great whirr in the air, and from out of
+the green stalks rose a flight of millions and millions of enormous
+broad-winged butterflies of every hue and description--silver, gold,
+purple, brown and blue. Some with dark and velvety wings like the
+Purple Emperor, or the Red Admiral, others diaphanous and iridescent as
+dragon-flies. Others again like vast soft and silvery moths. They rose
+from every part of that green plain of stalks, they filled the sky, and
+then soared upwards and disappeared into the silvery cloudland.
+
+Fletcher was about to leap forward when he heard a voice in his ear
+saying--
+
+“Are you 6493 Victoria? You are talking to the Home Office.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+As soon as Fletcher heard the voice of the office messenger through
+the telephone he instantly realised his surroundings, and the strange
+experience he had just gone through, which had seemed so long and which
+in reality had been so brief, left little more impression on him than
+that which remains with a man who has been immersed in a brown study or
+who has been staring at something, say a poster in the street, and has
+not noticed the passage of time.
+
+The next day he returned to his work at the office, and his
+fellow-clerks, during the whole of the next week, noticed that he was
+more zealous and more painstaking than ever. On the other hand, his
+periodical fits of abstraction grew more frequent and more pronounced.
+On one occasion he took a paper to the head of the department for
+signature, and after it had been signed, instead of removing it from
+the table, he remained staring in front of him, and it was not until the
+head of the department had called him three times loudly by name that he
+took any notice and regained possession of his faculties. As these
+fits of absent-mindedness grew to be somewhat severely commented on, he
+consulted a doctor, who told him that what he needed was change of
+air, and advised him to spend his Sundays at Brighton or at some other
+bracing and exhilarating spot. Fletcher did not take the doctor’s
+advice, but continued spending his spare time as he did before, that is
+to say, in going to some big junction and watching the express trains go
+by all day long.
+
+One day while he was thus employed--it was Sunday, in August of
+19--, when the Egyptian Exhibition was attracting great crowds of
+visitors--and sitting, as was his habit, on a bench on the centre
+platform of Slough Station, he noticed an Indian pacing up and down the
+platform, who every now and then stopped and regarded him with peculiar
+interest, hesitating as though he wished to speak to him. Presently the
+Indian came and sat down on the same bench, and after having sat there
+in silence for some minutes he at last made a remark about the heat.
+
+“Yes,” said Fletcher, “it is trying, especially for people like myself,
+who have to remain in London during these months.”
+
+“You are in an office, no doubt,” said the Indian.
+
+“Yes,” said Fletcher.
+
+“And you are no doubt hard worked.”
+
+“Our hours are not long,” Fletcher replied, “and I should not complain
+of overwork if I did not happen to suffer from--well, I don’t know what
+it is, but I suppose they would call it nerves.”
+
+“Yes,” said the Indian, “I could see that by your eyes.”
+
+“I am a prey to sudden fits of abstraction,” said Fletcher, “they are
+growing upon me. Sometimes in the office I forget where I am altogether
+for a space of about two or three minutes; people are beginning to
+notice it and to talk about it. I have been to a doctor, and he said I
+needed change of air. I shall have my leave in about a month’s time, and
+then perhaps I shall get some change of air, but I doubt if it will
+do me any good. But these fits are annoying, and once something quite
+uncanny seemed to happen to me.”
+
+The Indian showed great interest and asked for further details
+concerning this strange experience, and Fletcher told him all that
+he could recall--for the memory of it was already dimmed--of what had
+happened when he had telephoned that night.
+
+The Indian was thoughtful for a while after hearing this tale. At
+last he said: “I am not a doctor, I am not even what you call a quack
+doctor--I am a mere conjurer, and I gain my living by conjuring tricks
+and fortune-telling at the Exhibition which is going on in London. But
+although I am a poor man and an ignorant man, I have an inkling, a few
+sparks in me of ancient knowledge, and I know what is the matter with
+you.”
+
+“What is it?” asked Fletcher.
+
+“You have the power, or something has the power,” said the Indian, “of
+detaching you from your actual body, and your astral body has been into
+another planet. By your description I think it must be the planet Venus.
+It may happen to you again, and for a longer period--for a very much
+longer period.”
+
+“Is there anything I can do to prevent it?” asked Fletcher.
+
+“Nothing,” said the Indian. “You can try change of air if you like,
+but,” he said with a smile, “I do not think it will do you much good.”
+
+At that moment a train came in, and the Indian said good-bye and jumped
+into it.
+
+On the next day, which was Monday, when Fletcher got to the office it
+was necessary for him to use the telephone with regard to some business.
+No sooner had he taken the receiver off the telephone than he vividly
+recalled the minute details of the evening he had telephoned, when the
+strange experience had come to him. The advertisement of Venus Soap that
+had hung in the telephone box in his house appeared distinctly before
+him, and as he thought of that he once more experienced a falling
+sensation which lasted only a fraction of a second, and rubbing his eyes
+he awoke to find himself in the tepid atmosphere of a green and humid
+world.
+
+This time he was not near the wood, but on the sea-shore. In front of
+him was a grey sea, smooth as oil and clouded with steaming vapours,
+and behind him the wide green plain stretched into a cloudy distance.
+He could discern, faint on the far-off horizon, the shadowy forms of the
+gigantic mushrooms which he knew, and on the level plain which reached
+the sea beach, but not so far off as the mushrooms, he could plainly see
+the huge green caterpillars moving slowly and lazily in an endless herd.
+The sea was breaking on the sand with a faint moan. But almost at once
+he became aware of another sound, which came he knew not whence, and
+which was familiar to him. It was a low whistling noise, and it seemed
+to come from the sky.
+
+At that moment Fletcher was seized by an unaccountable panic. He was
+afraid of something; he did not know what it was, but he knew, he felt
+absolutely certain, that some danger, no vague calamity, no distant
+misfortune, but some definite physical danger was hanging over him and
+quite close to him--something from which it would be necessary to run
+away, and to run fast in order to save his life. And yet there was no
+sign of danger visible, for in front of him was the motionless oily sea,
+and behind him was the empty and silent plain. It was then he noticed
+that the caterpillars were fast disappearing, as if into the earth: he
+was too far off to make out how.
+
+He began to run along the coast. He ran as fast as he could, but he
+dared not look round. He ran back from the coast to the plain, from
+which a white mist was rising. By this time every single caterpillar had
+disappeared. The whistling noise continued and grew louder.
+
+At last he reached the wood and bounded on, trampling down long trailing
+grasses and tangled weeds through the thick, muggy gloom of those
+endless aisles of jungle. He came to a somewhat open space where there
+was the trunk of a tree larger than the others; it stood by itself and
+disappeared into the tangle of creepers above. He thought he would climb
+the tree, but the trunk was too wide, and his efforts failed. He stood
+by the tree trembling and panting with fear. He could not hear a sound,
+but he felt that the danger, whatever it was, was at hand.
+
+It grew darker and darker. It was night in the forest. He stood
+paralysed with terror; he felt as though bound hand and foot, but there
+was nothing to be done except to wait until his invisible enemy should
+choose to inflict his will on him and achieve his doom. And yet the
+agony of this suspense was so terrible that he felt that if it lasted
+much longer something must inevitably break inside him . . . and just as
+he was thinking that eternity could not be so long as the moments he was
+passing through, a blessed unconsciousness came over him. He woke
+from this state to find himself face to face with one of the office
+messengers, who said to him that he had been given his number two or
+three times but had taken no notice of it.
+
+Fletcher executed his commission and then went upstairs to his office.
+His fellow-clerks at once asked what had happened to him, for he was
+looking white. He said that he had a headache and was not feeling quite
+himself, but made no further explanations.
+
+This last experience changed the whole tenor of his life. When fits of
+abstraction had occurred to him before he had not troubled about
+them, and after his first strange experience he had felt only vaguely
+interested; but now it was a different matter. He was consumed with
+dread lest the thing should occur again. He did not want to get back
+to that green world and that oily sea; he did not want to hear the
+whistling noise, and to be pursued by an invisible enemy. So much did
+the dread of this weigh on him that he refused to go to the telephone
+lest the act of telephoning should set alight in his mind the train of
+associations and bring his thoughts back to his dreadful experience.
+
+Shortly after this he went for leave, and following the doctor’s advice
+he spent it by the sea. During all this time he was perfectly well, and
+was not once troubled by his curious fits. He returned to London in the
+autumn refreshed and well.
+
+On the first day that he went to the office a friend of his telephoned
+to him. When he was told that the line was being held for him he
+hesitated, but at last he went down to the telephone office.
+
+He remained away twenty minutes. Finally his prolonged absence was
+noticed, and he was sent for. He was found in the telephone room stiff
+and unconscious, having fallen forward on the telephone desk. His face
+was quite white, and his eyes wide open and glazed with an expression
+of piteous and harrowing terror. When they tried to revive him their
+efforts were in vain. A doctor was sent for, and he said that Fletcher
+had died of heart disease.
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRE
+
+Before the bell had time to sound the alarm a huge pillar of smoke
+and flame, leaping high in the breathless August night, told the whole
+village the news of the fire. Men, women, and children hurried to the
+burning place. The firemen galloped down the rutty road with their
+barrels of water and hand-pumps, yelling. The bell rang, with hurried,
+throbbing beats. The fire, which was further off than it seemed to be
+at first sight, was in the middle of the village. Two houses were
+burning--a house built of bricks and a wooden cottage. The flame was
+prodigious: it soared into the sky like the eruption of a volcano, and
+the wooden cottage, with its flat logs and blazing roof, looked like a
+sacrificial pyre consuming the body of some warrior or Viking. In the
+light of the flames the soft sky, which was starless and flooded with
+stillness by the large full moon, had turned from blue to green. A dense
+crowd had gathered round the burning houses.
+
+The firemen, working like bees, were doing what they could to extinguish
+the flames and to prevent the fire spreading. Volunteers from the crowd
+helped them. One man climbed up on the edge of the wooden house, where
+the flames had been overcome, and shovelled earth from the roof on the
+little flames, which were leaping like earth spirits from the ground.
+His wife stood below and called on him in forcible language to descend
+from such a dangerous place. The crowd jeered at her fears, and she
+spoke her mind to them in frank and unvarnished terms. It was St. John
+the Baptist’s Day. Some of the men had been celebrating the feast by
+drinking. One of them, out of the fulness of his heart, cried out:
+“Oh, how happy I am! I’m drunk, and there’s a fire, and all at the same
+time!” But most of the crowd--they looked like black shadows against
+the glare--looked on quietly, every now and then making comments on the
+situation. One of the peasants tried to knock down the burning house
+with an axe. He failed. Someone not far off was playing an accordion and
+singing a monotonous rhythmical song.
+
+Amidst the shifting crowd of shadows I noticed a strange figure, who
+beckoned to me. “I see you are short-sighted,” he said, “let me lend you
+a glass.” His voice sounded thin and distant, and he handed me a piece
+of glass which seemed to be more opaque than transparent. I looked
+through it and I noticed a difference in things:
+
+The cottages had disappeared; in their place were great high buildings
+with lofty porticos, broad columns and carved friezes, but flames were
+leaping round them, intenser and greater than before, and the noise of
+the fire had increased. In front of me was an open court, in the centre
+of which was an altar, and to the right of this altar stood an old
+bay-tree. An old man and a grey-haired woman were clinging to this
+altar; it was drenched with blood, and on the steps of it lay several
+bodies of young men clothed in armour, but squalid with dust and blood.
+
+I had scarcely become aware of the scene before a great cloud of smoke
+passed through the court, and when it rose I saw there had been another
+change: in that few moments’ space the fire seemed to have wrought
+incredible havoc. Nothing was left of all the tall pillared buildings,
+the friezes and the porticos, the altar, the bay-tree and the
+bodies--nothing but the pile of logs which vomited a rolling cloud of
+flame and smoke into the sky. The moon was still shining calmly, and the
+sky was softer and greener. On the ground there were hundreds of dead
+and dying men; the dying were groaning in their agony. Far away on the
+horizon there was a thin line of light, a faint trembling thread as
+though of foam, and I seemed to hear the moaning of the sea.
+
+All at once a woman walked in front of the burning pile. She was tall,
+and silken folds clothed the perfect lines of her body and fell straight
+to the ground. She walked royally, and when she moved her gestures were
+like the rhythm of majestic music. The firelight shone on her hair,
+which was bound with a narrow golden band. Her hair was like a cloud of
+spun sunshine, and it seemed brighter than the flames. She was walking
+with downcast eyes, but presently she looked up. Her face was calm, and
+faultless as skilfully-hewn marble, and it seemed to be made of some
+substance different from the clay which goes to the making of men and
+women. It was not an angel’s face; it was not a divine face; neither was
+it a wicked face, nor had it anything cruel, nor anything of the siren
+or the witch. Love and pleasure seemed to have moulded the flower-like
+lips; but an infinite carelessness shone in the still blue eyes. They
+seemed like two seas that had never known what winds and tempests
+mean, but which bask for ever under unruffled skies lulled by a
+slumber-scented breeze.
+
+She looked up at the fire and smiled, and at that smile one thought the
+heavens must open and the stars break into song, so marvellous was its
+loveliness, so infinitely radiant the glory of it. She was a woman, and
+yet more than a woman, a creature of the earth, yet fashioned of pearls
+and dew and the petals of flowers: delicate as a gossamer, and yet
+radiant with the flush of life, soft as the twilight, and glowing with
+the blood of the ruby; and, above all things, serene, calm, aloof, and
+unruffled like the silver moon. When the dying men saw her smile they
+raised their eyes towards her, and one could see that there shone in
+them a strange and wonderful happiness. And when they had looked they
+fell back and died.
+
+Then a cloud of smoke blinded me. When it rose the full moon was still
+shining in a sky even bluer and softer than it had yet been. The fire
+was further off, but it had spread. The whole village was on fire; but
+the village had grown; it seemed endless, and covered several hills.
+Right in front of me was a grove of cypresses, dark against the intense
+glow of the flames, which leapt all round in the distance: a huge circle
+of light, a chain of fiery tongues and dancing lightnings.
+
+We were on the top of a hill, and we looked down into a place where tall
+buildings and temples stood, where the fire had not penetrated. This
+place was crowded with men, women and children. It was the same shifting
+crowd of shadows: some shouting, some gesticulating, some looking on
+indifferent. And straight in front of me was a short, dark, and rather
+fat man with a low forehead, deep-set eyes, and a heavy jaw. He was
+crowned with a golden wreath, and he was twanging a kind of harp. In
+the distance suddenly the cypress trees became alive with huge flaring
+torches, which lit the garden like Bengal lights. The man threw down his
+harp and clapped his hands in ecstasy at the bright fireworks. Again a
+cloud of smoke obscured everything.
+
+When it lifted I was in the village once more, and once more it was
+different. It was on fire, and it seemed infinitely larger and more
+straggling than when I had arrived. The moon was still in the sky, but
+the air had a chilly touch. Instead of one church there was an infinite
+number of churches, for in the glare countless minarets and small
+cupolas were visible. There was no crowd, no voices, and no shouting;
+only a long line of low, blazing wooden houses. The place was deserted
+and silent save for the crackling blaze. Then down the street a short,
+fat man on horseback rode towards us. He was riding a white horse. He
+wore a grey overcoat and a cocked hat. I became aware of a rhythmical
+tramping: a noise of hundreds and hundreds of hoofs, a champing of
+bits, and the tramp of innumerable feet and the rumble of guns. In the
+distance there was a hill with crenelated battlements round it; it was
+crowned with the domes and minarets of several churches, taller and
+greater than all the other churches in sight. These minarets shone out
+clean-cut and distinct against the ruddy sky.
+
+The short man on horseback looked back for a moment at this hill. He
+took a pinch of snuff.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONQUEROR
+
+When the ancient gods were turned out of Olympus, and the groan of dying
+Pan shook the world like an earthquake, none of the fallen deities was
+so disconsolate as Proserpine. She wandered across the world, assuming
+now this shape and now that, but nowhere could she find a resting-place
+or a home. In the Southern country which she regarded as her own,
+whatever shape or disguise she assumed, whether that of a gleaner or of
+an old woman begging for alms, the country people would scent something
+uncanny about her and chase her from the place. Thus it was that she
+left the Southern country, which she loved; she said farewell to the
+azure skies, the hills covered with corn and fringed everywhere with
+rose bushes, the white oxen, the cypress, the olive, the vine, the
+croaking frogs, and the million fireflies; and she sought the green
+pastures and the woods of a Northern country.
+
+One evening, not long after her arrival (it was Midsummer Eve), as
+she was wandering in a thick wood, she noticed that the trees and the
+under-growth were twinkling with a myriad soft flames which reminded her
+of the fireflies of her own country, and presently she perceived that
+these flames were stars which, soft as dew and bright as moonbeams,
+formed the diadems crowning the hair of unearthly shapes. These shapes
+were like those of men and maidens, transfigured and rendered strange
+and delicate, as light as foam, and radiant as dragonflies hovering over
+a pool. They were rimmed with rainbow-coloured films, and sometimes
+they flew and sometimes they danced, but they rarely seemed to touch
+the ground. And as Proserpine approached them, in the sad majesty of
+her fallen divinity, they gathered round her in a circle and bowed down
+before her. And one of them, taller than the rest, advanced towards her
+and said:--
+
+“We are the Fairies, and for a long time we have been mournful, for we
+have lost our Queen, our beautiful Queen. She loved a mortal, and on
+this account she was banished from Fairyland, nor may she ever revisit
+the haunt and the kingdom that were hers. But Merlin, the oldest and the
+wisest of the wizards, told us we should find another Queen, and that we
+should know her by the poppies in her hair, the whiteness of her brow,
+and the stillness of her eyes, and with or without such tokens we should
+know, as soon as we set eyes on her, that it was she and no other who
+was to be our Queen. And now we know that it was you and no other.
+Therefore shall you be our Queen and rule over us until he comes who,
+Merlin said, shall conquer your kingdom and deliver its secrets to the
+mortal world. Then shall you abandon the kingdom of the Fairies--the
+everlasting Limbo shall receive you.”
+
+* * * * *
+
+It was one summer’s day a long time ago, many and many years after
+Proserpine had become Queen of the Fairies, that a butcher’s apprentice
+called William was enjoying a holiday, and strolling in the woods with
+no other purpose than to stroll and enjoy the fresh air and the cool
+leaves and the song of the birds. William loved the sights and sounds
+of the country; unlike many boys of his age, he was not deeply versed
+in the habits of birds and beasts, but devoted his spare time to reading
+such books as he could borrow from the village schoolmaster whose school
+he had lately left to go into trade, or to taking part in the games of
+his companions, for he loved human fellowship and the talk and laughter
+of his fellow-creatures.
+
+The day was hot--it was Midsummer Day--and William, having stumbled on a
+convenient mound, fell asleep. And he dreamt a curious dream. He thought
+he saw a beautiful maiden walking towards him. She was tall, and clothed
+in dark draperies, and her hair was bound with a coronal of scarlet
+flowers, her face was pale and lustrous, and he could not see her eyes
+because they were veiled. She approached him and said:--
+
+“You are he who has been chosen to try to conquer my kingdom, which is
+faery, and to possess it: if, indeed, you are able to endure the
+fierce ordeal and to perform the three dreadful tasks which have been
+appointed. If he who sets out to conquer my kingdom should fail in any
+one of the three tasks he dies, and the world hears of him no more. Many
+have tried and failed.”
+
+And William said he would try with all his might to conquer the faery
+kingdom, and he asked what the three tasks might be.
+
+The maiden, who was none other than Proserpine, Queen of the Fairies,
+told him that the first task was to pluck the crystal apple from the
+laughing tree, and second to pluck the blood-red rose from the fiery
+rose tree, and the third to cull the white poppy from the quiet fields.
+William asked her how he was to set about these tasks. Proserpine told
+him that he had but to accept the quest and all would be made clear. So
+he accepted the quest without further talk.
+
+Immediately Proserpine vanished, and William found himself in a large
+green garden of fruit trees, and in the distance he heard the noise of
+rippling laughter. He walked along many paths to the place whence he
+thought the laughter came, until he found a large fruit tree which grew
+by itself. It was laden with fruit, and from one of its boughs hung a
+crystal apple which shone with all the colours of the rainbow.
+
+But the tree was guarded by a hideous old hag, covered with sores and
+leprous scales, loathsome to behold. And a laughing voice came from
+the tree saying: “He who would pluck the crystal apple must embrace its
+guardian.” And William looked at her and felt no loathing but rather a
+deep pity, so that tears welled in his eyes and dropped on her, and he
+took her face in his hands to embrace her, and as he did so she changed
+into a beautiful maiden with veiled eyes, who plucked the crystal apple
+from the tree and gave it to him and vanished.
+
+Then the garden changed its semblance, and all around him there seemed
+to be a hedge of smoking thorns and before him a fiery tree on which
+blood-red roses shone like rubies. The tree was guarded by a maiden
+with long grey eyes and flowing hair, and of spun moonshine, beautiful
+exceedingly, and a moaning voice came from the tree, saying: “He who
+would pluck the rose must slay its guardian.” On the grass beneath the
+tree lay an unsheathed sword. William took the sword in his hands, but
+the maiden looked at him piteously and wept, so that he hesitated; then,
+hardening himself, he plunged the sword into her heart and a great moan
+was heard, and the fire disappeared, and only a withered rose-tree stood
+before him. Then he heard the voice say that he must pierce his own
+heart with a thorn from the tree and let the blood fall upon its roots.
+This he did, and as he did so he felt the sharpness of Death, as though
+the last dreadful moment had come; but as the drops of blood fell on
+the roots the beautiful maiden with veiled eyes, whom he had seen before
+stood before him and gave him the blood-red rose, and she touched his
+wound and straightway it was healed.
+
+Then the garden vanished altogether, and he stood before a dark porch
+and a gate beyond which he caught a pale glimmer. And by the porch stood
+a terrible shape: a hooded skeleton bearing a scythe, with white sockets
+of fire which had no eyes in them but which were so terrible that no
+mortal could look on them and live. And here he heard a voice saying:
+“He who would cull the white poppy must look into the eyes of its
+guardian and take the scythe from the bony hands.” And William seized
+the scythe and an icy darkness descended upon him, and he felt dizzy
+and faint; yet he persisted and wrestled with the skeleton, although the
+darkness seemed to be overwhelming him. He tore the hood from the bony
+head and looked boldly into the fiery sockets.
+
+Then with a crash of thunder the skeleton vanished, and the maiden with
+veiled eyes led him through the gate into the quiet fields, and there
+he culled the white poppy. Then the maiden turned to him and unveiled
+herself, and it was Proserpine, the Queen of the Fairies.
+
+“You have conquered,” she said, “and the faery kingdom is yours for
+ever, and you shall visit it and dwell in it whenever you desire, and
+reveal its sounds and its sights to the mortals of the world: and in my
+kingdom you shall see, as though in a mirror, the pageant of mankind,
+the scroll of history, and the story of man which is writ in brave,
+golden and glowing letters, of blood and tears and fire. And there is
+nothing in the soul of man that shall be hid from you; and you shall
+speak the secrets of my kingdom to mortal men with a voice of gold and
+of honey. And when you grow weary of life you shall withdraw for ever
+into the island of faery voices which lies in the heart of my kingdom.
+And as for me I go to the everlasting Limbo.”
+
+Then Proserpine vanished, and William awoke from his dream, and went
+home to his butcher’s shop.
+
+Soon after this he left his native village and went to London, where he
+became well known; although how his surname shall be spelt is a matter
+of dispute, some spelling it Shakespeare, some Shakespere, and some
+Shaksper.
+
+
+
+
+THE IKON
+
+Ferroll was an intellectual, and he prided himself on the fact. At
+Cambridge he had narrowly missed being a Senior Wrangler, and his
+principal study there had been Lunar Theory. But when he went down from
+Cambridge for good, being a man of some means, he travelled. For a
+year he was an honorary Attache at one of the big Embassies. He finally
+settled in London with a vague idea of some day writing a _magnum opus_
+about the stupidity of mankind; for he had come to the conclusion by the
+age of twenty-five that all men were stupid, irreclaimably, irredeemably
+stupid; that everything was wrong; that all literature was really bad,
+all art much overrated, and all music tedious in the long run.
+
+The years slipped by and he never began his _magnum opus_; he joined
+a literary club instead and discussed the current topic of the day.
+Sometimes he wrote a short article; never in the daily Press, which he
+despised, nor in the reviews (for he never wrote anything as long as a
+magazine article), but in a literary weekly he would express in weary
+and polished phrases the unemphatic boredom or the mitigated approval
+with which the works of his fellow-men inspired him. He was the kind of
+man who had nothing in him you could positively dislike, but to whom
+you could not talk for five minutes without having a vague sensation of
+blight. Things seemed to shrivel up in his presence as though they had
+been touched by an insidious east wind, a subtle frost, a secret chill.
+He never praised anything, though he sometimes condescended to approve.
+The faint puffs of blame in which he more generally indulged were never
+sharp or heavy, but were like the smoke rings of a cigarette which a man
+indolently smoking blows from time to time up to the ceiling.
+
+He lived in rooms in the Temple. They were comfortably, not luxuriously
+furnished; a great many French books--French was the only modern
+language worth reading he used to say--a few modern German etchings, a
+low Turkish divan, and some Egyptian antiquities, made up the furniture
+of his two sitting-rooms. Above all things he despised Greek art;
+it was, he said decadent. The Egyptians and the Germans were, in his
+opinion, the only people who knew anything about the plastic arts,
+whereas the only music he could endure was that of the modern French
+School. Over his chimney-piece there was a large German landscape
+in oils, called “Im Walde”; it represented a wood at twilight in the
+autumn, and if you looked at it carefully and for a long time you saw
+that the objects depicted were meant to be trees from which the leaves
+were falling; but if you looked at the picture carelessly and from a
+distance, it looked like a man-of-war on a rough sea, for which it was
+frequently taken, much to Ferrol’s annoyance.
+
+One day an artist friend of his presented him with a small Chinese god
+made of crystal; he put this on his chimney-piece. It was on the evening
+of the day on which he received this gift that he dined, together with a
+friend named Sledge who had travelled much in Eastern countries, at his
+club. After dinner they went to Ferrol’s rooms to smoke and to talk. He
+wanted to show Sledge his antiquities, which consisted of three large
+Egyptian statuettes, a small green Egyptian god, and the Chinese idol
+which he had lately been given. Sledge, who was a middle-aged, bearded
+man, frank and unconventional, examined the antiquities with care,
+pronounced them to be genuine, and singled out for special praise the
+crystal god.
+
+“Your things are very good,” he said, “very good. But don’t you really
+mind having all these things about you?”
+
+“Why should I mind?” asked Ferrol.
+
+“Well, you have travelled a good deal, haven’t you?”
+
+“Yes,” said Ferrol, “I have travelled; I have been as far east as
+Nijni-Novgorod to see the Fair, and as far west as Lisbon.”
+
+“I suppose,” said Sledge, “you were a long time in Greece and Italy?”
+
+“No,” said Ferrol, “I have never been to Greece. Greek art distresses
+me. All classical art is a mistake and a superstition.”
+
+“Talking of superstition,” said Sledge, “you have never been to the Far
+East, have you?”
+
+“No,” Ferrol answered, “Egypt is Eastern enough for me, and cannot be
+bettered.”
+
+“Well,” said Sledge, “I have been in the Far East. I have lived there
+many years. I am not a superstitious man; but there is one thing I
+would not do in any circumstances whatsoever, and that is to keep in my
+sitting-room the things you have got there.”
+
+“But why?” asked Ferrol.
+
+“Well,” said Sledge, “nearly all of them have come from the tombs of the
+dead, and some of them are gods. Such things may have attached to them
+heaven knows what spooks and spirits.”
+
+Ferrol shut his eyes and smiled, a faint, seraphic smile. “My dear boy,”
+ he said, “you forget. This is the Twentieth Century.”
+
+“And you,” answered Sledge, “forget that the things you have here were
+made before the Twentieth Century. B.C.”
+
+“You don’t seriously mean,” said Ferrol, “that you attach any importance
+to these--” he hesitated.
+
+“Children’s stories?” suggested Sledge.
+
+Ferrol nodded.
+
+“I have lived long enough in the East,” said Sledge, “to know that the
+sooner you learn to believe children’s stories the better.”
+
+“I am afraid, then,” said Ferrol, with civil tolerance, “that our points
+of view are too different for us to discuss the matter.” And they talked
+of other things until late into the night.
+
+Just as Sledge was leaving Ferrol’s rooms and had said “Good-night,” he
+paused by the chimney-piece, and, pointing to the tiny Ikon which was
+lying on it, asked: “What is that?”
+
+“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Ferrol, “only a small Ikon I bought for
+twopence at the Fair of Nijni-Novgorod.”
+
+Sledge said “Good-night” again, but when he was on the stairs he called
+back: “In any case remember one thing, that East is East and West is
+West. Don’t mix your deities.”
+
+Ferrol had not the slightest idea what he was alluding to, nor did he
+care. He dismissed the matter from his mind.
+
+The next day he spent in the country, returning to London late in the
+evening. As he entered his rooms the first thing which met his eye was
+that his great picture, “Im Walde,” which he considered to be one of the
+few products of modern art that a man who respected himself could look
+at without positive pain in the eyes, had fallen from its place over
+the chimney-piece to the floor in front of the fender, and the glass was
+shattered into a thousand fragments. He was much vexed. He sought the
+cause of the accident. The nail was a strong one, and it was still in
+its place. The picture had been hung by a wire; the wire seemed strong
+also and was not broken. He concluded that the picture must have been
+badly balanced and that a sudden shock such a door banging had thrown
+it over. He had no servant in his rooms, and when he had gone out that
+morning he had locked the door, so no one could have entered his rooms
+during his absence.
+
+Next morning he sent for a framemaker and told him to mend the frame as
+soon as possible, to make the wire strong, and to see that the picture
+was firmly fixed on the wall. In two or three days’ time the picture
+returned and was once more hung on the wall over the chimney-piece
+immediately above the little crystal Chinese god. Ferrol supervised the
+hanging of the picture in person. He saw that the nail was strong, and
+firmly fixed in the wall; he took care that the wire left nothing to be
+desired and was properly attached to the rings of the picture.
+
+The picture was hung early one morning. That day he went to play golf.
+He returned at five o’clock, and again the first thing which met his eye
+was the picture. It had again fallen down, and this time it had brought
+with it in its fall the small Chinese god, which was broken in two.
+The glass had again been shattered to bits, and the picture itself was
+somewhat damaged. Everything else on the chimney-piece, that is to say,
+a few matchboxes and two candle-sticks, had also been thrown to the
+ground--everything with the exception of the little Ikon he had bought
+at Nijni-Novgorod, a small object about two inches square on which two
+Saints were pictured. This still rested in its place against the wall.
+
+Ferrol investigated the disaster. The nail was in its place in the wall;
+the wire at the back of the picture was not broken or damaged in any
+way. The accident seemed to him quite inexplicable. He was greatly
+annoyed. The Chinese god was a valuable thing. He stood in front of the
+chimney-piece contemplating the damage with a sense of great irritation.
+
+“To think that everything should have been broken except this beastly
+little Ikon!” he said to himself. “I wonder whether that was what Sledge
+meant when he said I should not mix my deities.”
+
+Next morning he sent again for the framemaker, and abused him roundly.
+The framemaker said he could not understand how the accident had
+happened. The nail was an excellent nail, the picture, Mr. Ferrol must
+admit, had been hung with great care before his very eyes and under his
+own direct and personal supervision. What more could be done?
+
+“It’s something to do with the balance,” said Ferrol. “I told you that
+before. The picture is half spoiled now.”
+
+The framemaker said the damage would not show once the glass was
+repaired, and took the picture away again to mend it. A few days later
+it was brought back. Two men came to fix it this time; steps were
+brought and the hanging lasted about twenty minutes. Nails were put
+under the picture; it was hung by a double wire. All accidents in the
+future seemed guarded against.
+
+The following morning Ferrol telephoned to Sledge and asked him to dine
+with him. Sledge was engaged to dine out that evening, but said that he
+would look in at the Temple late after dinner.
+
+Ferrol dined alone at the Club; he reached his rooms about half-past
+nine; he made up a blazing fire and drew an armchair near it. He lit a
+cigarette, made some Turkish coffee, and took down a French novel. Every
+now and then he looked up at his picture. No damage was visible; it
+looked, he thought, as well as ever. In the place of the Chinese idol
+he had put his little green Egyptian god on the chimney-piece. The
+candlesticks and the Ikon were still in their places.
+
+“After all,” thought Ferrol, “I did wrong to have any Chinese art in the
+place at all. Egyptian things are the only things worth having. It is a
+lesson to me not to dabble with things out of my period.”
+
+After he had read for about a quarter of an hour he fell into a doze.
+
+* * * * *
+
+Sledge arrived at the rooms about half-past ten, and an ugly sight met
+his eyes. There had been an accident. The picture over the chimney-piece
+had fallen down right on Ferrol. His face was badly cut. They put Ferrol
+to bed, and his wounds were seen to and everything that was necessary
+was done. A nurse was sent for to look after him, and Sledge decided to
+stay in the house all night. After all the arrangements had been made,
+the doctor, before he went away, said to Sledge: “He will recover all
+right, he is not in the slightest danger; but I don’t know who is to
+break the news to him.”
+
+“What is that?” asked Sledge.
+
+“He will be quite blind,” said the doctor.
+
+Then the doctor went away, and Sledge sat down in front of the fire.
+The broken glass had been swept up. The picture had been placed on the
+Oriental divan, and as Sledge looked at the chimney-piece he noticed
+that the little Ikon was still in its place. Something caught his eye
+just under the low fender in front of the fireplace. He bent forward and
+picked up the object.
+
+It was Ferrol’s green Egyptian god, which had been broken into two
+pieces.
+
+
+
+
+THE THIEF
+
+To Jack Gordon
+
+Hart Minor and Smith were behind-hand with their sums. It was Hart
+Minor’s first term: Smith had already been one term at school. They were
+in the fourth division at St. James’s. A certain number of sums in short
+division had to be finished. Hart Minor and Smith got up early to finish
+these sums before breakfast, which was at half-past seven. Hart Minor
+divided slowly, and Smith reckoned quickly. Smith finished his sums with
+ease. When half-past seven struck, Hart Minor had finished four of them
+and there was still a fifth left: 3888 had to be divided by 36; short
+division had to be employed. Hart Minor was busily trying to divide 3888
+by 4 and by 9; he had got as far as saying, “Four’s into 38 will go six
+times and two over; four’s into twenty-eight go seven times; four’s
+into eight go twice.” He was beginning to divide 672 by 9, an impossible
+task, when the breakfast bell rang, and Smith said to him: “Come on!”
+
+“I can’t,” said Hart Minor, “I haven’t finished my sum.”
+
+Smith glanced at his page and said: “Oh that’s all right, don’t you see?
+The answer’s 108.”
+
+Hart Minor wrote down 108 and put a large R next to the sum, which meant
+Right.
+
+The boys went in to breakfast. After breakfast they returned to
+the fourth division schoolroom, where they were to be instructed in
+arithmetic for an hour by Mr. Whitehead. Mr. Whitehead called for
+the sums. He glanced through Smith’s and found them correct, and then
+through Hart Minor’s. His attention was arrested by the last division.
+
+“What’s this?” he demanded. “Four’s into thirty-eight don’t go six
+times. You’ve got the right answer and the wrong working. What does this
+mean?” And Mr. Whitehead bit his knuckles savagely. “Somebody,” he said,
+“has been helping you.”
+
+Hart Minor owned that he had received help from Smith. Mr. Whitehead
+shook him violently, and said, “Do you know what this means?”
+
+Hart Minor had no sort of idea as to the inner significance of his act,
+except that he had finished his sums.
+
+“It means,” said Mr. Whitehead, “that you’re a cheat and a thief: you’ve
+been stealing marks. For the present you can stand on the stool of
+penitence and I’ll see what is to be done with you later.”
+
+The stool of penitence was a high, three-cornered stool, very narrow at
+the top. When boys in this division misbehaved themselves they had to
+stand on it during the rest of the lesson in the middle of the room.
+
+Hart Minor fetched the stool of penitence and climbed up on it. It
+wobbled horribly.
+
+After the lesson, which was punctuated throughout by Mr. Whitehead with
+bitter comments on the enormity of theft, the boys went to chapel. Smith
+and Hart were in the choir: they wore white surplices which were put on
+in the vestry. Hart Minor, who knew that he was in for a terrific row of
+some kind, thought he observed something unusual in the conduct of the
+masters who were assembled in the vestry. They were all tittering. Mr.
+Whitehead seemed to be convulsed with uncontrollable laughter. The choir
+walked up the aisle. Hart Minor noticed that all the boys in the school,
+and the servants who sat behind them, and the master’s wife who sat in
+front, and the organist who played the harmonium, were all staring at
+him with unwonted interest; the boys were nudging each other: he could
+not understand why.
+
+When the service, which lasted twenty minutes, was over, and the boys
+came out of chapel, Hart Minor was the centre of a jeering crowd of
+boys. He asked Smith what the cause of this was, and Smith confessed to
+him that before going into chapel Mr. Whitehead had pinned on his back a
+large sheet of paper with “Cheat” written on it, and had only removed
+it just before the procession walked up the aisle, hence the interest
+aroused. But, contrary to his expectation, nothing further occurred;
+none of the masters alluded to his misdemeanour, and Hart Minor almost
+thought that the incident was closed--almost, and yet really not at all;
+he tried to delude himself into thinking the affair would blow over, but
+all the while at the bottom of his heart sat a horrible misgiving.
+
+Every Monday there was in this school what was called “reading over.”
+ The boys all assembled in the library and the Head Master, standing in
+front of his tall desk, summoned each division before him in turn. The
+marks of the week were read out and the boys took places, moving either
+up or down according to their marks; so that a boy who was at the top
+of his division one week might find himself at the bottom the next week,
+and vice versa.
+
+On the Sunday after the incident recorded, the boys of the fourth
+division were sitting in their schoolroom before luncheon, in order to
+write their weekly letter home. This was the rule of the school. Mr.
+Whitehead sat at his desk and talked in a friendly manner to the boys.
+He was writing his weekly report in the large black report book that was
+used for reading over. Mr. Whitehead was talking in a chaffing way as to
+who was his favourite boy.
+
+“You can tell your people,” he said to Hart Minor, “that my favourite
+is old Polly.” Polly was Hart Minor’s nickname, which was given to him
+owing to his resemblance to a parrot. Hart Minor was much pleased at
+this friendly attitude, and began to think that the unpleasant incident
+of the week had been really forgotten and that the misgiving which
+haunted him night and day was a foolish delusion.
+
+“We shall soon be writing the half-term reports,” said Mr. Whitehead.
+“You’ve all been doing well, especially old Polly: you can put that in
+your letter,” he said to Hart Minor. “I’m very much pleased with you,”
+ and he chuckled.
+
+On Monday morning at eleven o’clock was reading over. When the fourth
+division were called up, the Head Master paused, looked down the page,
+then at the boys, then at the book once more; then he frowned. There was
+a second pause, then he read out in icy tones:--
+
+“I’m sorry to say that Smith and Hart Minor have been found guilty of
+gross dishonesty; they combined--in fact they entered into a conspiracy,
+to cheat, to steal marks and obtain by unfair means, a higher place and
+an advantage which was not due to them.”
+
+The Head Master paused. “Hart Minor and Smith,” he continued, “go to the
+bottom of the division. Smith,” he added, “I’m astounded at you. Your
+conduct in this affair is inexplicable. If it were not for your previous
+record and good conduct, I should have you severely flogged; and if Hart
+Minor were not a new boy, I should treat him in the same way and have
+him turned out of the choir. (The choir had special privileges.) As it
+is, you shall lose, each of you, 200 marks, and I shall report the
+whole matter in detail to your parents in your half-term report, and if
+anything of the sort ever occurs again, you shall be severely punished.
+You have been guilty of an act for which, were you not schoolboys, but
+grown up, you would be put in prison. It is this kind of thing that
+leads people to penal servitude.”
+
+After the reading over was finished and the lessons that followed
+immediately on it, and the boys went out to wash their hands for
+luncheon, the boys of the second division crowded round Hart Minor
+and asked him how he could have perpetrated such a horrible and daring
+crime. The matter, however, was soon forgotten by the boys, but Hart
+Minor had not heard the last of it. On the following Sunday in chapel,
+at the evening service, the Head Master preached a sermon. He chose as
+his text “Thou shalt not steal!” The eyes of the whole school were fixed
+on Smith and Hart Minor. The Head Master pointed out in his discourse
+that one might think at first sight that boys at a school might not have
+the opportunity to violate the tremendous Commandments; but, he said,
+this was not so. The Commandments were as much a living actuality in
+school life as they were in the larger world. Coming events cast their
+shadows before them; the child was the father of the man; what a boy
+was at school, such would he be in after life. Theft, the boys perhaps
+thought, was not a sin which immediately concerned them. But there were
+things which were morally the same if not worse than the actual theft
+of material and tangible objects--dishonesty in the matter of marks, for
+instance, and cheating in order to gain an undue advantage over one’s
+fellow-schoolboys. A boy who was guilty of such an act at school would
+probably end by being a criminal when he went out into the larger world.
+The seeds of depravity were already sown; the tree whose early shoots
+were thus blemished would probably be found to be rotten when it grew
+up; and for such trees and for such noxious growths there could only be
+one fate--to be cut down and cast into the unquenchable fire!
+
+In Hart Minor’s half-term report, which was sent home to his parents,
+it was stated that he had been found guilty of the meanest and grossest
+dishonesty, and that should it occur again he would be first punished
+and finally expelled.
+
+
+
+
+THE STAR
+
+He had long ago retired from public life, and in his Tuscan villa, where
+he now lived quite alone, seldom seeing his friends, he never regretted
+the strenuous days of his activity. He had done his work well; he had
+been more than a competent public servant; as Pro-Consul he proved a
+pillar of strength to the State, a man whose name at one time was on
+men’s lips as having left plenty where he had found dearth, and order
+and justice where corruption, oppression, and anarchy, had once run
+riot. His retirement had been somewhat of a surprise to his friends, for
+although he was ripe in years, his mental powers were undiminished and
+his body was active and vigorous. But his withdrawal from public life
+was due not so much to fatigue or to a longing for leisure as to a lack
+of sympathy, which he felt to be growing stronger and stronger as the
+years went by, with the manners and customs, the mode of thought, and
+the manner of living of the new world and the new generation which was
+growing up around him. Nurtured as he had been in the old school and the
+strong traditions which taught an austere simplicity of life, a contempt
+for luxury and show, he was bewildered and saddened by the rapid growth
+of riches, the shameless worship of wealth, the unrestrained passion
+for amusement at all costs, the thirst for new sensations, and the
+ostentatious airs of the youth of the day, who seemed to be born
+disillusioned and whose palates were jaded before they knew the taste
+of food. He found much to console him in literature, not only in the
+literature of the past but in the literature of his day, but here again
+he was beset with misgivings and haunted by forebodings. He felt
+that the State had reached its zenith both in material prosperity and
+intellectual achievement, and that all the future held in reserve was
+decline and decay. This thought was ever present with him; in the vast
+extension of empire he foresaw the inevitable disintegration, and he
+wondered in a melancholy fashion what would be the fate of mankind
+when the Empire, dismembered and rotten, should become the prey of the
+Barbarians.
+
+It was in the winter of the second year after his retirement that his
+melancholy increased to a pitch of almost intolerable heaviness. That
+winter was an extraordinarily mild one, and even during the coldest
+month he strolled every evening after he had supped on the terrace walk
+which was before the portico. He was strolling one night on the terrace
+pondering on the fate of mankind, and more especially on the life--if
+there was such a thing--beyond the grave. He was not a superstitious
+man, but, saturated with tradition, he was a scrupulous observer of
+religious feast, custom, and ritual. He had lately been disturbed by
+what he considered to be an ill-favoured omen. One night--it was twelve
+nights ago he reckoned--the statues of Pan and Apollo, standing in his
+dining-room, which was at the end of the portico, had fallen to the
+ground without any apparent cause and had been shattered into fragments.
+And it had seemed to him that the crash of this accident was immediately
+followed by a low and prolonged wail, which appeared to come from
+nowhere in particular and yet to fill the world; the noise of the moan
+had seemed to be quite close to him, and as it died away its echo
+had seemed to be miles and miles distant. He thought it had been a
+hallucination, but that same night a still stranger thing happened.
+After the accident, which had wakened the whole household, he had been
+unable to go to sleep again and he had gone from his sleeping chamber
+into an adjoining room, and, lighting a lamp, had taken down and read
+out of the “Iliad” of Homer. After he had been reading for about half
+an hour he heard a voice calling him very distinctly by his name, but
+as soon as the sound had ceased he was not quite certain whether he had
+heard it or not. At that moment one of his slaves, who had been born in
+the East, entered the room and asked him what he required, saying that
+he had heard his master calling loudly. What these signs and portents
+signified he had no idea; perhaps, he mused, they mean my own
+death, which is of no consequence; or perhaps--which may the Fates
+forfend--some disaster to an absent friend or even to the State. But
+so far--and twelve days had passed since he had seen these strange
+manifestations--he had received no news which confirmed his fears.
+
+As he was thus musing he looked up at the sky, and he noticed the
+presence of a new and unfamiliar star, which he had never seen before.
+He was a close observer of the heavens and learned in astronomy, and
+he felt quite certain that he had never seen this star before. It was
+a star of peculiar radiance, large and white--almost blue in its
+whiteness--it shone in the East, and seemed to put all the other stars
+to shame by its overwhelming radiance and purity. While he was thus
+gazing at the star it seemed to him as though a great darkness had
+come upon the world. He heard a low muttering sound as of a distant
+earthquake, and this was quickly followed by the tramping of innumerable
+armies. He knew that the end had come. It is the Barbarians, he thought,
+who have already conquered the world. Rome has fallen never to rise
+again; Rome has shared the fate of Troy and Carthage, of Babylon,
+and Memphis; Rome is a name in an old wife’s tale; and little savage
+children shall be given our holy trophies for playthings, and shall use
+our ruined temples and our overthrown palaces as their playground. And
+so sharp was the vividness of his vision that he wondered what would
+happen to his villa, and whether or no the Barbarians would destroy the
+image of Ceres on the terrace, which he especially cherished, not
+for its beauty but because it had belonged to his father and to his
+grandfather before him.
+
+An eternity seemed to pass, and the tramp, tramp, tramp of the armies of
+those untrained hordes which were coming from the North and overrunning
+the world seemed to get nearer and nearer. He wondered what they would
+do with him; he had no place for fear in his heart, but he remembered
+that on the portico in the morning his freedman’s child had been playing
+with the pieces of a broken jar, a copper coin, and a dog made of
+terra-cotta. He remembered the child’s brown eyes and curly hair, its
+smile, its laughter, and lisping talk--it was a piece of earth and
+sun--and he thought of the spears of the Barbarians, and then shifted
+his thoughts because they sickened him.
+
+Then, just when he thought the heavy footsteps had reached the approach
+of his villa, the vision changed. The noise of tramping ceased, and
+through the thick darkness there pierced the radiance of the star: the
+strange star he had seen that night. The world seemed to awake from a
+dark slumber. The ruins rose from the dust and took once more a stately
+shape, even lordlier than before. Rome had risen from the dead, and once
+more she dominated the world like a starry diadem. Before him he seemed
+to see the pillars and the portals of a huge temple, more splendid and
+gorgeous than the Temples of Caesar. The gates were wide open, and
+from within came a blare of trumpets. He saw a kneeling multitude; and
+soldiers with shining breastplates, far taller than the legionaries of
+Caesar, were keeping a way through the dense crowd, while the figure of
+an aged man--was it the Pontifex Maximus, he wondered?--was borne aloft
+in a chair over their heads.
+
+Then once more the vision changed. At least the temple seemed to grow
+wider, higher, and lighter; the crowd vanished; it seemed to him
+as though a long corridor of light was opening on some ultimate
+and mysterious doorway. At last this doorway was opened, and he saw
+distinctly before him a dark and low manger where oxen and asses were
+stalled. It was littered with straw. He could hear the peaceful beasts
+munching their food.
+
+In the corner lay a woman, and in her arms was a child and his face
+shone like the sun and lit up the whole place, in which there were
+neither torches nor lamps. The door of the manger was ajar, and through
+it he saw the sky and the strange star still shining brightly. He heard
+a voice, the same voice which he had heard twelve nights before; but the
+voice was not calling him, it was singing a song, and the song was as it
+were a part of a larger music, a symphony of clear voices, more joyous
+and different from anything he had ever heard.
+
+The vision vanished altogether; he was standing once more under the
+portico amongst the surroundings which were familiar to him. The
+strange star was still shining in the sky. He went back through the
+folding-doors of the piazza into the dining-room. His gloom and his
+perplexity had been lifted from him; he felt quite happy; he could not
+have explained why. He called his slave and told him to get plenty of
+provisions on the morrow, for he expected friends to dinner. He added
+that he wanted nothing further and that the slaves could go to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHUN WA
+
+To Henry de C. Ward
+
+His name was Chun Wa; possibly there was some more of it, but that is
+all I can remember. He was about four or five years old, and I made
+his acquaintance the day we arrived at the temple. It was at the end of
+September. We had left Mukden in order to take part in what they said
+was going to be a great battle. I don’t know what the village was called
+at which we arrived on the second day of our march. I can only remember
+that it was a beautiful and deliciously quiet spot, and that we
+established ourselves in a temple; that is to say not actually in the
+temple itself, but in the house of the priest. He was a Buddhist who
+looked after the deities of the place, which were made of carved and
+painted wood, and lived in a small pagoda. The building consisted of
+three quadrangles surrounded by a high stone wall. The first of these
+quadrangles, which you entered from the road, reminded me of the yard
+in front of any farm. There was a good deal of straw lying about, some
+broken ploughshares, buckets, wooden bowls, spades, and other implements
+of toil. A few hens hurried about searching for grains here and there; a
+dog was sleeping in the sun. At the further end of the yard a yellow cat
+seemed to have set aside a space for its exclusive use. This farmyard
+was separated from the next quadrangle by the house of the priest, which
+occupied the whole of the second enclosure; that is to say the living
+rooms extended right round the quadrangle, leaving a square and open
+space in the centre. The part of the house which separated the second
+quadrangle from the next consisted solely of a roof supported by
+pillars, making an open verandah, through which from the second
+enclosure you saw into the third. The third enclosure was a garden,
+consisting of a square grass plot and some cypress trees. At the further
+end of the garden was the temple itself.
+
+We arrived in the afternoon. We were met by an elderly man, the priest,
+who put the place at our disposal and established us in the rooms
+situated in the second quadrangle to the east and west. He himself and
+his family lived in the part of the house which lay between the farmyard
+and the second enclosure. The Cossacks of the battery with which I was
+living encamped in a field on the other side of the farmyard, but the
+treasure chest was placed in the farmyard itself, and a sentry stood
+near it with a drawn sword.
+
+The owner of the house had two sons. One of them, aged about thirteen,
+had something to do with the temple services, and wore a kind of tunic
+made of white silk. The second was Chun Wa. It was when the sentry went
+on guard that we first made the acquaintance of Chun Wa. His cheeks were
+round and fat, and his face seemed to bulge out towards the base. His
+little eyes were soft and brown and twinkled like onyxes. His tiny
+little hands were most beautifully shaped, and this child moved about
+the farmyard with the dignity of an Emperor and the serenity of a
+great Pontiff. Gravely and without a smile he watched the Cossacks
+unharnessing their horses, lighting a fire and arranging the officers’
+kit.
+
+He walked up to the sentry who was standing near the treasure chest,
+a big, grey-eyed Cossack with a great tuft of fair hair, and the
+expression of a faithful retriever, and in a tone of indescribable
+contempt, Chun Wa said “Ping!” “Ping” in Chinese means soldier-man, and
+if you wish to express your contempt for a man there is no word in
+the whole of the Chinese language which expresses it so fully and so
+emphatically as the word “Ping.”
+
+The Cossack smiled on Chun Wa and called him by a long list of endearing
+diminutives, but Chun Wa took no notice, and retired into the inner part
+of the house as if he had determined to pay no more attention to the
+barbarous intruders. The next day, however, curiosity got the better
+of him, and he could not resist inspecting the yard, and observing the
+doings of the foreign devils. And one of the Cossacks--his name was
+Lieskov and he looked after my mule--made friends with Chun Wa. He made
+friends with him by playing with the dog. The dog, like most Chinese
+dogs, was dirty, distrustful, and not used to being played with; he
+slunk away if you called him, and if you took any notice of him he
+evidently expected to be beaten, kicked, or to have stones thrown at
+him. He was too thin to be eaten. But Lieskov tamed the dog and taught
+him how to play, and the big Cossack used to roll on the ground while
+the dog pretended to bite him, until Chun Wa forgot his dignity, his
+contempt, and his superior culture, and smiled. I remember coming home
+that very afternoon from a short stroll with one of the officers, and we
+found Lieskov lying fast asleep in the farmyard right across the steps
+of the door through which we wanted to go, and Chun Wa and the dog were
+sitting beside him. We woke him up and the officer asked him why he had
+gone to sleep.
+
+“I was playing with the dog, your honour,” he said, “and I played so
+hard that I was exhausted and fell asleep.”
+
+After that Chun Wa made friends with everybody, officers and men, and
+he ruled the battery like an autocrat. He ruled by charm and a thousand
+winning ways. But his special friend was Lieskov, who carried the child
+about on his back, performed many droll antics to amuse him, and taught
+him words of pidgin Russian. Among other things he made him a kite--a
+large and beautiful kite--out of an old piece of yellow silk, shaped
+like a butterfly. And Chun Wa’s brother flew this kite with wonderful
+skill, so that it looked like a glittering golden bird hovering in the
+air.
+
+I forget how long we stayed at this temple, whether it was three days or
+four days; possibly it was not so long, but it seemed like many months,
+or rather it seemed at the same time very long and very short, like a
+pleasant dream. The weather was so soft and so fine, the sunshine so
+bright, the air so still, that had not the nights been chilly we should
+never have dreamt that it was autumn. It seemed rather as though the
+spring had been unburied and had returned to the earth by mistake. And
+all this time fighting was going on to the east of us. The battle of
+Sha-Ho had begun, but we were in the reserve, in what they called the
+deepest reserve, and we heard no sound of firing, neither did we receive
+any news of it. We seemed to be sheltered from the world in an island of
+dreamy lotus-eating; and the only noise that reached us was the sound of
+the tinkling gongs of the temple. We lived a life of absolute indolence,
+getting up with the sun, eating, playing cards, strolling about on the
+plains where the millet had now been reaped, eating again and going to
+bed about nine o’clock in the evening. Our chief amusement was to talk
+with Chun Wa and to watch the way in which he treated the Cossacks, who
+had become his humble slaves. I am sure there was not one of the men who
+would not have died gladly for Chun Wa.
+
+One afternoon, just as we were finishing our midday meal, we received
+orders to start. We were no longer in the reserve; we were needed
+further on. Everything was packed up in a hurry, and by half-past two
+the whole battery was on the march, and we left the lovely calm temple,
+the cypress trees, the chiming gongs, and Chun Wa. The idyll was over,
+the reality was about to begin. As we left the place Chun Wa stood by
+the gate, dignified, and grave as usual. In one hand he held his kite,
+and in the other a paper flower, and he gave this flower to Lieskov.
+
+Next day we arrived at another village, and from there we were sent
+still further on, to a place whence, from the hills, all the fighting
+that was going on in the centre of that big battle was visible. From
+half-past six in the morning until sunset the noise of the artillery
+never ceased, and all night long there was a rattle of rifle firing. The
+troops which were in front drew each day nearer to us. Another two
+days passed; the battery took part in the action, some of the men
+were killed, and some of the men and the officers were wounded, and we
+retreated to the River Sha-Ho. Then just as we thought a final retreat
+was about to take place, a retreat right back to Mukden, we recrossed
+the river, took part in another action, and then a great stillness came.
+The battle was practically over. The advance of the enemy had ceased,
+and we were ordered to go to a certain place.
+
+We started, and on our way we passed through the village where we had
+lived before the battle began. The place was scarcely recognisable.
+It was quite deserted; some of the houses looked like empty shells or
+husks, as though the place had suffered from earthquake. A dead horse
+lay across the road just outside the farmyard.
+
+One of the officers and myself had the curiosity to go into the temple
+buildings where we had enjoyed such pleasant days. They were deserted.
+Part of the inner courtyard was all scorched and crumbled as if there
+had been a fire. The straw was still lying about in the yard, and the
+implements of toil. The actual temple itself at the end of the grassy
+plot remained untouched, and the grinning gods inside it were intact;
+but the dwelling rooms of our host were destroyed, and the rooms where
+we had lived ourselves were a mass of broken fragments, rubbish, and
+dust. The place had evidently been heavily shelled. There was not a
+trace of any human being, save that in the only room which remained
+undestroyed, on the matting of the hard _Khang_--that is the divan
+which stretches like a platform across three-quarters of every Chinese
+room--lay the dead body of a Chinese coolie. The dog, the cat, and the
+hens had all gone.
+
+We only remained a moment or two in the place, and as we left it the
+officer pulled my sleeve and pointed to a heap of rubbish near the
+gate. There, amidst some broken furniture, a mass of refuse, burned and
+splintered wood, lay the tattered remains of a golden kite.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories
+and Sketches, by Maurice Baring
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