by John Gardner
“After some time, a long time or a short time, he went to the town to invite his brother and sister-in-law to his birthday celebration. ‘What an idea!’ his rich brother said to him. ‘You have nothing to eat, yet you are celebrating your birthday!’ and he laughed with scorn. ‘True,’ said the brother who had once been poor, ‘at one time I had nothing to eat, but now, thank God, I am no worse off than you. Come and you will see.’ ‘Very well then, I will come.’ The next day the rich brother and his wife came to the birthday feast; and lo and behold, the once wretched man had a large wooden house, new and lofty, such as not even his brother had. The peasant gave them a royal feast, fed them with all kinds of viands, and set various meads and wines before them, feeding his brother and sister-in-law first of all. The rich brother asked him: ‘Tell me, please, how did you become so wealthy?’ The peasant told him truthfully how miserable Misery had attached himself to him, how he had led him to drink away all his possessions, down to the last thread, till nothing was left but the soul in his body, and how one day Misery had left him for a moment, and how he had found the vast treasure and penned up Misery.
“The rich man was envious and angry. He thought to himself: ‘I will go to the field, lift the log, and let Misery out—let him ruin my brother completely, so that he will never again dare boast of his riches to me.’ He sent his wife home and rushed to the field. He drove to the big log, turned it over, and stooped to see what was beneath it. Before he could bend his head all the way down, Misery jumped out and sat on his neck. ‘Ah,’ he shrieked, ‘you wanted to starve me to death in there, but I’ll never leave you now.’ ‘Listen, Misery,’ said the merchant, ‘in truth it was not I who imprisoned you beneath that log.’ ‘Who did it then, if not you?’ ‘It was my brother who imprisoned you, and I came for the express purpose of freeing you again.’ ‘No, you are lying! You cheated me once, but you won’t cheat me again.’ Misery sat securely on the rich man’s neck; the rich man carried him home, and his fortune began to dwindle. From early morning Misery applied himself to his task; every day he called upon the merchant to drink, and much of his wealth went to the tavern keeper. ‘This is no way to live,’ groaned the merchant. ‘It seems to me that I have suffered sufficiently to pay for my selfishness and pride. It is high time I separated from Misery—but how?’
“He thought and thought and finally said to his wife, ‘I will go and ask my brother for help.’ ‘Go then, fool,’ said his wife, ‘but your brother is an ape and a dolt and will not help you,’ and she spit out the window. He came to his brother’s house and said, ‘Ah, my own brother, help me a little in my misery. I have behaved toward you like a pig, like a spider and a weasel and an eel, and like a carp, because I thought you were a foolish oaf and beneath my notice. But now I am chastised and brought to my senses, for Misery sits here on my neck both night and day, and I cannot shake him.’
“ ‘Brother, leave it to me,’ said the brother who had been poor before, ‘I will see to it.’ He went out into his courtyard, cleft two oaken spikes, took a new wheel, and drove a spike into one end of the hollow shaft that went through the hub of the wheel. Then he came back to his brother who had Misery on his neck and said, ‘Misery, why do you do nothing but ride on people’s necks like a lummox?’ ‘What else shall I do?’ asked Misery. ‘What else? Come into the courtyard and play hide-and-seek.’ Misery was delighted with this idea. They went into the yard. First the merchant brother hid and then the once-poor brother. Misery found both of them with ease, and now it was Misery’s turn to hide. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you won’t find me so soon. I can get into any hole, no matter how small!’ ‘Braggart,’ said the once-poor brother. ‘You can’t even get into that wheel, let alone a hole.’ ‘I can’t get into that wheel? Just wait and see how I slip into that wheel!’ Misery crawled into the hollow shaft; the once-poor brother drove the second spike into the hollow shaft, picked up the wheel, and cast it, together with Misery, into the river. Misery drowned, and the brothers at last became steadfast friends, generous and loyal to one another to the death, and as rich as kings.”
Chapter Seventeen
That,” said Chudu the Goat’s Son, with a look of disgust, “is not how things happen!”
“Never mind,” said the babe with a wink, “life follows art.”
They traveled for a day, and for another and another, a short way or a long, and they came to the palace at last with their wagonloads of treasure. There was a great celebration, and Christopher the Sullen and Armida the Blacksmith’s Daughter were married, and when the old king, many years later, was buried, Prince Christopher became king and made Chudu the Goat’s Son (though he never learned his name) Prime Minister, and the babe Archbishop. Christopher the Sullen was considered on all sides to be the bravest, manliest, most quick witted of kings, and his queen the sweetest and most lovable of aristocratic ladies, though she secretly went off on long trips and fought dragons. The Prime Minister frightened off all enemies by his calculated rages and crafty, saw-toothed smiles; the Archbishop did miracles and grew famous for his sermons and moralizing tales; and the world rolled on.
A Biography of John Gardner
John Gardner (1933–1982) was a bestselling and award-winning novelist and essayist, and one of the twentieth century’s most controversial literary authors. Gardner produced more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction, consisting of novels, children’s stories, literary criticism, and a book of poetry. His books, which include the celebrated novels Grendel, The Sunlight Dialogues, and October Light, are noted for their intellectual depth and penetrating insight into human nature.
Gardner was born in Batavia, New York. His father, a preacher and dairy farmer, and mother, an English teacher, both possessed a love of literature and often recited Shakespeare during his childhood. When he was eleven years old, Gardner was involved in a tractor accident that resulted in the death of his younger brother, Gilbert. He carried the guilt from this accident with him for the rest of his life, and would incorporate this theme into a number of his works, among them the short story “Redemption” (1977). After graduating from high school, Gardner earned his undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and he married his first wife, Joan Louise Patterson, in 1953. He earned his Master’s and Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa in 1958, after which he entered into a career in academia that would last for the remainder of his life, including a period at Chico State College, where he taught writing to a young Raymond Carver.
Following the births of his son, Joel, in 1959 and daughter, Lucy, in 1962, Gardner published his first novel, The Resurrection (1966), followed by The Wreckage of Agathon (1970). It wasn’t until the release of Grendel (1971), however, that Gardner’s work began attracting significant attention. Critical praise for Grendel was universal and the book won Gardner a devoted following. His reputation as a preeminent figure in modern American literature was cemented upon the release of his New York Times bestselling novel The Sunlight Dialogues (1972). Throughout the 1970s, Gardner completed about two books per year, including October Light (1976), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the controversial On Moral Fiction (1978), in which he argued that “true art is by its nature moral” and criticized such contemporaries as John Updike and John Barth. Backlash over On Moral Fiction continued for years after the book’s publication, though his subsequent books, including Freddy’s Book (1980) and Mickelsson’s Ghosts (1982), were largely praised by critics. He also wrote four successful children’s books, among them Dragon, Dragon and Other Tales (1975), which was named Outstanding Book of the Year by the New York Times.
In 1980, Gardner married his second wife, a former student of his named Liz Rosenberg. The couple divorced in 1982, and that same year he became engaged to Susan Thornton, another former student. One week before they were to be married, Gardner died in a motorcycle crash in Pennsylvania. He was forty-nine years old.
A two-year-old Gardner, shown here, in 1935. He went by the nickna
me “Buddy” throughout his childhood.
Gardner on a motorcycle in 1948, when he was about fifteen years old. He was a lifelong enthusiast of motorcycle and horseback riding, hobbies that resulted in multiple broken bones and other injuries throughout his life.
Gardner’s senior photo from Batavia High School, taken in 1950. Though he found most of his classes boring, he particularly enjoyed chemistry. One day in class, Gardner and some friends disbursed a malodorous concoction through the school’s ventilation system, causing the whole building to reek and classes to be dismissed early.
Gardner and Joan Patterson, his first wife, in the early 1950s. The couple were high school sweethearts and attended senior prom together in 1951.
John and Joan’s wedding photograph, taken on June 6, 1953.
A Gardner family photograph from 1957. From left to right: John Gardner, Priscilla (mother), John Sr. (father), Jim (brother), and Sandy (sister). John Sr. and Priscilla took in thirteen foster children after John and his siblings grew up and moved away.
Gardner at the University of Detroit in 1970. He was a distinguished visiting professor at the university.
Gardner’s children, Joel and Lucy, circa 1975. Joel is the founder of Camp Gardner Films, and Lucy works in publishing. Both currently live in Massachusetts.
Gardner playing the French horn around 1979. He began playing in high school and played in the Batavia Civic Orchestra.
Gardner and Liz Rosenberg at their wedding on Valentine’s Day, 1980. Liz’s dress was a wedding gift from John, who had it made in Kansas City by a woman he had met at a reading there. Liz later remembered that instead of following her specifications, the dressmaker made her “Cleopatra’s shroud.”
Gardner in the early 1980s. In the last years before his death, he had become much more interested in politics than in literature, declaring at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 1982 that “if you’re not writing politically, you’re not writing.”
Selected images from The John Gardner Papers, Department of Rare Books/Special Collections, University of Rochester.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The abbot’s tales and the baby’s tales are adapted from traditional Russian fairy tales as collected by Aleksandr Afanas’ev, translated by Norbert Guterman.
copyright © 1977 by Boskydell Artists, Ltd.
cover design by Robin Bilardello
ISBN: 978-1-4532-0326-2
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