Dream Tales and Prose Poems Page 16

  'What is it, brother?' I asked him; 'why aren't you cheerful? Have you some trouble?'

  The lad did not answer me for a minute. 'Yes, sir, I have,' he said at last. 'And such a trouble, there could not be a worse. My wife is dead.'

  'You loved her … your wife?'

  The lad did not turn to me; he only bent his head a little.

  'I loved her, sir. It's eight months since then … but I can't forget it. My heart is gnawing at me … so it is! And why had she to die? A young thing! strong!… In one day cholera snatched her away.'

  'And was she good to you?'

  'Ah, sir!' the poor fellow sighed heavily, 'and how happy we were together! She died without me! The first I heard here, they'd buried her already, you know; I hurried off at once to the village, home—I got there—it was past midnight. I went into my hut, stood still in the middle of the room, and softly I whispered, "Masha! eh, Masha!" Nothing but the cricket chirping. I fell a-crying then, sat on the hut floor, and beat on the earth with my fists! "Greedy earth!" says I … "You have swallowed her up … swallow me too!—Ah, Masha!"

  'Masha!' he added suddenly in a sinking voice. And without letting go of the cord reins, he wiped the tears out of his eyes with his sleeve, shook it, shrugged his shoulders, and uttered not another word.

  As I got out of the sledge, I gave him a few coppers over his fare. He bowed low to me, grasping his cap in both hands, and drove off at a walking pace over the level snow of the deserted street, full of the grey fog of a January frost.

  April 1878.

  THE FOOL

  There lived a fool.

  For a long time he lived in peace and contentment; but by degrees rumours began to reach him that he was regarded on all sides as a vulgar idiot.

  The fool was abashed and began to ponder gloomily how he might put an end to these unpleasant rumours.

  A sudden idea, at last, illuminated his dull little brain…. And, without the slightest delay, he put it into practice.

  A friend met him in the street, and fell to praising a well-known painter….

  'Upon my word!' cried the fool,' that painter was out of date long ago … you didn't know it? I should never have expected it of you … you are quite behind the times.'

  The friend was alarmed, and promptly agreed with the fool.

  'Such a splendid book I read yesterday!' said another friend to him.

  'Upon my word!' cried the fool, 'I wonder you're not ashamed. That book's good for nothing; every one's seen through it long ago. Didn't you know it? You're quite behind the times.'

  This friend too was alarmed, and he agreed with the fool.

  'What a wonderful fellow my friend N. N. is!' said a third friend to the fool. 'Now there's a really generous creature!'

  'Upon my word!' cried the fool. 'N. N., the notorious scoundrel! He swindled all his relations. Every one knows that. You're quite behind the times.'

  The third friend too was alarmed, and he agreed with the fool and deserted his friend. And whoever and whatever was praised in the fool's presence, he had the same retort for everything.

  Sometimes he would add reproachfully: 'And do you still believe in authorities?'

  'Spiteful! malignant!' his friends began to say of the fool. 'But what a brain!'

  'And what a tongue!' others would add, 'Oh, yes, he has talent!'

  It ended in the editor of a journal proposing to the fool that he should undertake their reviewing column.

  And the fool fell to criticising everything and every one, without in the least changing his manner, or his exclamations.

  Now he, who once declaimed against authorities, is himself an authority, and the young men venerate him, and fear him.

  And what else can they do, poor young men? Though one ought not, as a general rule, to venerate any one … but in this case, if one didn't venerate him, one would find oneself quite behind the times!

  Fools have a good time among cowards.

  April 1878.

  AN EASTERN LEGEND

  Who in Bagdad knows not Jaffar, the Sun of the Universe?

  One day, many years ago (he was yet a youth), Jaffar was walking in the environs of Bagdad.

  Suddenly a hoarse cry reached his ear; some one was calling desperately for help.

  Jaffar was distinguished among the young men of his age by prudence and sagacity; but his heart was compassionate, and he relied on his strength.

  He ran at the cry, and saw an infirm old man, pinned to the city wall by two brigands, who were robbing him.

  Jaffar drew his sabre and fell upon the miscreants: one he killed, the other he drove away.

  The old man thus liberated fell at his deliverer's feet, and, kissing the hem of his garment, cried: 'Valiant youth, your magnanimity shall not remain unrewarded. In appearance I am a poor beggar; but only in appearance. I am not a common man. Come to-morrow in the early morning to the chief bazaar; I will await you at the fountain, and you shall be convinced of the truth of my words.'

  Jaffar thought: 'In appearance this man is a beggar, certainly; but all sorts of things happen. Why not put it to the test?' and he answered: 'Very well, good father; I will come.'

  The old man looked into his face, and went away.

  The next morning, the sun had hardly risen, Jaffar went to the bazaar. The old man was already awaiting him, leaning with his elbow on the marble basin of the fountain.

  In silence he took Jaffar by the hand and led him into a small garden, enclosed on all sides by high walls.

  In the very middle of this garden, on a green lawn, grew an extraordinary-looking tree.

  It was like a cypress; only its leaves were of an azure hue.

  Three fruits—three apples—hung on the slender upward-bent twigs; one was of middle size, long-shaped, and milk-white; the second, large, round, bright-red; the third, small, wrinkled, yellowish.

  The whole tree faintly rustled, though there was no wind. It emitted a shrill plaintive ringing sound, as of a glass bell; it seemed it was conscious of Jaffar's approach.

  'Youth!' said the old man, 'pick any one of these apples and know, if you pick and eat the white one, you will be the wisest of all men; if you pick and eat the red, you will be rich as the Jew Rothschild; if you pick and eat the yellow one, you will be liked by old women. Make up your mind! and do not delay. Within an hour the apples will wither, and the tree itself will sink into the dumb depths of the earth!'

  Jaffar looked down, and pondered. 'How am I to act?' he said in an undertone, as though arguing with himself. 'If you become too wise, maybe you will not care to live; if you become richer than any one, every one will envy you; I had better pick and eat the third, the withered apple!'

  And so he did; and the old man laughed a toothless laugh, and said: 'O wise young man! You have chosen the better part! What need have you of the white apple? You are wiser than Solomon as it is. And you've no need of the red apple either…. You will be rich without it. Only your wealth no one will envy.'

  'Tell me, old man,' said Jaffar, rousing himself, 'where lives the honoured mother of our Caliph, protected of heaven?'

  The old man bowed down to the earth, and pointed out to the young man the way.

  Who in Bagdad knows not the Sun of the Universe, the great, the renowned

  Jaffar?

  April 1878.

  TWO STANZAS

  There was once a town, the inhabitants of which were so passionately fond of poetry, that if some weeks passed by without the appearance of any good new poems, they regarded such a poetic dearth as a public misfortune.

  They used at such times to put on their worst clothes, to sprinkle ashes on their heads; and, assembling in crowds in the public squares, to shed tears and bitterly to upbraid the muse who had deserted them.

  On one such inauspicious day, the young poet Junius came into a square, thronged with the grieving populace.

  With rapid steps he ascended a forum constructed for this purpose, and made signs that he wished to recite a
poem.

  The lictors at once brandished their fasces. 'Silence! attention!' they shouted loudly, and the crowd was hushed in expectation.

  'Friends! Comrades!' began Junius, in a loud but not quite steady voice:—

  'Friends! Comrades! Lovers of the Muse!

  Ye worshippers of beauty and of grace!

  Let not a moment's gloom dismay your souls,

  Your heart's desire is nigh, and light shall banish darkness.'

  Junius ceased … and in answer to him, from every part of the square, rose a hubbub of hissing and laughter.

  Every face, turned to him, glowed with indignation, every eye sparkled with anger, every arm was raised and shook a menacing fist!

  'He thought to dazzle us with that!' growled angry voices. 'Down with the imbecile rhymester from the forum! Away with the idiot! Rotten apples, stinking eggs for the motley fool! Give us stones—stones here!'

  Junius rushed head over heels from the forum … but, before he had got home, he was overtaken by the sound of peals of enthusiastic applause, cries and shouts of admiration.

  Filled with amazement, Junius returned to the square, trying however to avoid being noticed (for it is dangerous to irritate an infuriated beast).

  And what did he behold?

  High above the people, upon their shoulders, on a flat golden shield, wrapped in a purple chlamys, with a laurel wreath on his flowing locks, stood his rival, the young poet Julius…. And the populace all round him shouted: 'Glory! Glory! Glory to the immortal Julius! He has comforted us in our sorrow, in our great woe! He has bestowed on us verses sweeter than honey, more musical than the cymbal's note, more fragrant than the rose, purer than the azure of heaven! Carry him in triumph, encircle his inspired head with the soft breath of incense, cool his brow with the rhythmic movement of palm-leaves, scatter at his feet all the fragrance of the myrrh of Arabia! Glory!'

  Junius went up to one of the applauding enthusiasts. 'Enlighten me, O my fellow-citizen! what were the verses with which Julius has made you happy? I, alas! was not in the square when he uttered them! Repeat them, if you remember them, pray!'

  'Verses like those I could hardly forget!' the man addressed responded with spirit. 'What do you take me for? Listen—and rejoice, rejoice with us!'

  'Lovers of the Muse!' so the deified Julius had begun….

  'Lovers of the Muse! Comrades! Friends

  Of beauty, grace, and music, worshippers!

  Let not your hearts by gloom affrighted be!

  The wished-for moment comes! and day shall scatter night!'

  'What do you think of them?'

  'Heavens!' cried Junius; 'but that's my poem! Julius must have been in the crowd when I was reciting them; he heard them and repeated them, slightly varying, and certainly not improving, a few expressions.'

  'Aha! Now I recognise you…. You are Junius,' the citizen he had stopped retorted with a scowl on his face. 'Envious man or fool!… note only, luckless wretch, how sublimely Julius has phrased it: "And day shall scatter night!" While you had some such rubbish: "And light shall banish darkness!" What light? What darkness?'

  'But isn't that just the same?' Junius was beginning….

  'Say another word,' the citizen cut him short, 'I will call upon the people … they will tear you to pieces!'

  Junius judiciously held his peace, but a grey-headed old man who had heard the conversation went up to the unlucky poet, and laying a hand upon his shoulder, said:

  'Junius! You uttered your own thought, but not at the right moment; and he uttered not his own thought, but at the right moment. Consequently, he is all right; while for you is left the consolations of a good conscience.'

  But while his conscience, to the best of its powers—not over successfully, to tell the truth—was consoling Junius as he was shoved on one side—in the distance, amid shouts of applause and rejoicing, in the golden radiance of the all-conquering sun, resplendent in purple, with his brow shaded with laurel, among undulating clouds of lavish incense, with majestic deliberation, like a tsar making a triumphal entry into his kingdom, moved the proudly erect figure of Julius … and the long branches of palm rose and fell before him, as though expressing in their soft vibration, in their submissive obeisance, the ever-renewed adoration which filled the hearts of his enchanted fellow-citizens!

  April 1878.

  THE SPARROW

  I was returning from hunting, and walking along an avenue of the garden, my dog running in front of me.

  Suddenly he took shorter steps, and began to steal along as though tracking game.

  I looked along the avenue, and saw a young sparrow, with yellow about its beak and down on its head. It had fallen out of the nest (the wind was violently shaking the birch-trees in the avenue) and sat unable to move, helplessly flapping its half-grown wings.

  My dog was slowly approaching it, when, suddenly darting down from a tree close by, an old dark-throated sparrow fell like a stone right before his nose, and all ruffled up, terrified, with despairing and pitiful cheeps, it flung itself twice towards the open jaws of shining teeth.

  It sprang to save; it cast itself before its nestling … but all its tiny body was shaking with terror; its note was harsh and strange. Swooning with fear, it offered itself up!

  What a huge monster must the dog have seemed to it! And yet it could not stay on its high branch out of danger…. A force stronger than its will flung it down.

  My Trésor stood still, drew back…. Clearly he too recognised this force.

  I hastened to call off the disconcerted dog, and went away, full of reverence.

  Yes; do not laugh. I felt reverence for that tiny heroic bird, for its impulse of love.

  Love, I thought, is stronger than death or the fear of death. Only by it, by love, life holds together and advances.

  April 1878.

  THE SKULLS

  A sumptuous, brilliantly lighted hall; a number of ladies and gentlemen.

  All the faces are animated, the talk is lively…. A noisy conversation is being carried on about a famous singer. They call her divine, immortal…. O, how finely yesterday she rendered her last trill!

  And suddenly—as by the wave of an enchanter's wand—from every head and from every face, slipped off the delicate covering of skin, and instantaneously exposed the deadly whiteness of skulls, with here and there the leaden shimmer of bare jaws and gums.

  With horror I beheld the movements of those jaws and gums; the turning, the glistening in the light of the lamps and candles, of those lumpy bony balls, and the rolling in them of other smaller balls, the balls of the meaningless eyes.

  I dared not touch my own face, dared not glance at myself in the glass.

  And the skulls turned from side to side as before…. And with their former noise, peeping like little red rags out of the grinning teeth, rapid tongues lisped how marvellously, how inimitably the immortal … yes, immortal … singer had rendered that last trill!

  April 1878.

  THE WORKMAN AND THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS

  A DIALOGUE

  WORKMAN. Why do you come crawling up to us? What do ye want? You're none of us…. Get along!

  MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. I am one of you, comrades!

  THE WORKMAN. One of us, indeed! That's a notion! Look at my hands. D'ye see how dirty they are? And they smell of muck, and of pitch—but yours, see, are white. And what do they smell of?

  THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS (offering his hands). Smell them.

  THE WORKMAN (sniffing his hands). That's a queer start. Seems like a smell of iron.

  THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. Yes; iron it is. For six long years I wore chains on them.

  THE WORKMAN. And what was that for, pray?

  THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. Why, because I worked for your good; tried to set free the oppressed and the ignorant; stirred folks up against your oppressors; resisted the authorities…. So they locked me up.

  THE WORKMAN. Locked you up, did they? Serve you right for resisting!

>   Two Years Later.

  THE SAME WORKMAN TO ANOTHER. I say, Pete…. Do you remember, the year before last, a chap with white hands talking to you?

  THE OTHER WORKMAN. Yes;… what of it?

  THE FIRST WORKMAN. They're going to hang him to-day, I heard say; that's the order.

  THE SECOND WORKMAN. Did he keep on resisting the authorities?

  THE FIRST WORKMAN. He kept on.

  THE SECOND WORKMAN. Ah!… Now, I say, mate, couldn't we get hold of a bit of the rope they're going to hang him with? They do say, it brings good luck to a house!

  THE FIRST WORKMAN. You're right there. We'll have a try for it, mate.

  April 1878.

  THE ROSE

  The last days of August…. Autumn was already at hand.

  The sun was setting. A sudden downpour of rain, without thunder or lightning, had just passed rapidly over our wide plain.

  The garden in front of the house glowed and steamed, all filled with the fire of the sunset and the deluge of rain.

  She was sitting at a table in the drawing-room, and, with persistent dreaminess, gazing through the half-open door into the garden.

  I knew what was passing at that moment in her soul; I knew that, after a brief but agonising struggle, she was at that instant giving herself up to a feeling she could no longer master.

  All at once she got up, went quickly out into the garden, and disappeared.

  An hour passed … a second; she had not returned.

  Then I got up, and, getting out of the house, I turned along the walk by which—of that I had no doubt—she had gone.

  All was darkness about me; the night had already fallen. But on the damp sand of the path a roundish object could be discerned—bright red even through the mist.

  I stooped down. It was a fresh, new-blown rose. Two hours before I had seen this very rose on her bosom.