The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  I watched her, as she made her repast, with the most profound attention. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight through my frame; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful eyes in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not have given to have had the power to precipitate myself into that luminous ocean and float with her through those grooves of purple and gold! While I was thus breathlessly following her every movement, she suddenly started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then cleaving the brilliant ether in which she was floating, like a flash of light, pierced through the opaline forest and disappeared.

  Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It seemed as if I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was still before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this sudden disappearance? Had she a lover or a husband? Yes, that was the solution! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated through the avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.

  The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion, startled me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced upon me. I battled against the fatal conclusion—but in vain. It was so. I had no escape from it. I loved an animalcule.

  It is true that, thanks to the marvelous power of my microscope, she appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the revolting aspect of the coarser creatures, that live and struggle and die, in the more easily resolvable portions of the water-drop, she was fair and delicate and of surpassing beauty. But of what account was all that? Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the instrument it fell on a miserable drop of water, within which, I must be content to know, dwelt all that could make my life lovely.

  Could she but see me once! Could I for one moment pierce the mystical walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper all that filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest of my life with the knowledge of her remote sympathy.

  It would be something to have established even the faintest personal link to bind us together—to know that at times, when roaming through these enchanted glades, she might think of the wonderful stranger who had broken the monotony of her life with his presence and left a gentle memory in her heart!

  But it could not be. No invention of which human intellect was capable could break down the barriers that nature had erected. I might feast my soul upon her wondrous beauty, yet she must always remain ignorant of the adoring eyes that day and night gazed upon her, and, even when closed, beheld her in dreams. With a bitter cry of anguish I fled from the room, and flinging myself on my bed, sobbed myself to sleep like a child.

  VI

  I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my microscope, I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature that contained my all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp, surrounded by its moderators, burning when I went to bed the night before. I found the sylph bathing, as it were, with an expression of pleasure animating her features, in the brilliant light which surrounded her. She tossed her lustrous golden hair over her shoulders with innocent coquetry. She lay at full length in the transparent medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and gamboled with the enchanting grace that the nymph Salmacis might have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus. I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection were developed. I lessened the lamplight considerably. By the dim light that remained, I could see an expression of pain flit across her face. She looked upward suddenly, and her brows contracted. I flooded the stage of the microscope again with a full stream of light, and her whole expression changed. She sprang forward like some substance deprived of all weight. Her eyes sparkled and her lips moved. Ah! if science had only the means of conducting and reduplicating sounds, as it does rays of light, what carols of happiness would then have entranced my ears! what jubilant hymns to Adonais would have thrilled the illumined air!

  I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Cabalis peopled his mystic world with sylphs—beautiful beings whose breath of life was lambent fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest ether and purest light. The Rosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had practically realized.

  How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into the night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I saw no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time for my meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as that of any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the divine form strengthened my passion—a passion that was always overshadowed by the maddening conviction that, although I could gaze on her at will, she never, never could behold me!

  At length I grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest and continual brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions, that I determined to make some effort to wean myself from it. “Come,” I said, “this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has bestowed on Animula charms which in reality she does not possess. Seclusion from female society has produced this morbid condition of mind. Compare her with the beautiful women of your own world, and this false enchantment will vanish.”

  I looked over the newspapers by chance. There I beheld the advertisement of a celebrated danseuse who appeared nightly at Niblo’s. The Signorina Caradolce had the reputation of being the most beautiful as well as the most graceful woman in the world. I instantly dressed and went to the theatre.

  The curtain drew up. The usual semicircle of fairies in white muslin were standing on the right toe around the enameled flower-bank of green canvas, on which the belated prince was sleeping. Suddenly a flute is heard. The fairies start. The trees open, the fairies all stand on the left toe, and the queen enters. It was the Signorina. She bounded forward amid thunders of applause, and, lighting on one foot, remained poised in the air. Heavens! was this the great enchantress that had drawn monarchs at her chariot-wheels? Those heavy, muscular limbs, those thick ankles, those cavernous eyes, that stereotyped smile, those crudely painted cheeks! Where were the vermeil blooms, the liquid, expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of Animula?

  The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant movements! The play of her limbs was all false and artificial. Her bounds were painful athletic efforts; her poses were angular and distressed the eye. I could bear it no longer; with an exclamation of disgust that drew every eye upon me, I rose from my seat in the very middle of the Signorina’s pas-de-fascination and abruptly quitted the house.

  I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on the lovely form of my sylph. I felt that henceforth to combat this passion would be impossible. I applied my eyes to the lens. Animula was there—but what could have happened? Some terrible change seemed to have taken place during my absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the lovely features of her I gazed upon. Her face had grown thin and haggard; her limbs trailed heavily; the wondrous lustre of her golden hair had faded. She was ill—ill, and I could not assist her! I believe at that moment I would have forfeited all claims to my human birthright if I could only have been dwarfed to the size of an animalcule, and permitted to console her from whom fate had forever divided me.

  I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery. What was it that afflicted the sylph? She seemed to suffer intense pain. Her features contracted, and she even writhed, as if with some internal agony. The wondrous forests appeared also to have lost half their beauty. Their hues were dim and in some places faded away altogether. I watched Animula for hours with a breaking heart, and she seemed absolutely to wither away under my very eye. Suddenly I remembered that I had not looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact, I hated to see it; for it reminded me of the natural barrier between Animula and myself. I hurriedly looked down on the stage of the microscope. The slide was still there—but, great heavens, the water drop had vanished! The awful truth burst upon me; it had eva
porated, until it had become so minute as to be invisible to the naked eye; I had been gazing on its last atom, the one that contained Animula—and she was dying!

  I rushed again to the front of the lens and looked through. Alas! the last agony had seized her. The rainbow-hued forests had all melted away, and Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be a spot of dim light. Ah! the sight was horrible: the limbs once so round and lovely shriveling up into nothings; the eyes—those eyes that shone like heaven—being quenched into black dust; the lustrous golden hair now lank and discolored. The last throe came. I beheld that final struggle of the blackening form—and I fainted.

  When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I found myself lying amid the wreck of my instrument, myself as shattered in mind and body as it. I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not rise for many months.

  They say now that I am mad; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I have neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent, and I live on charity. Young men’s associations that love a joke invite me to lecture on optics before them, for which they pay me, and laugh at me while I lecture. “Linley, the mad microscopist,” is the name I go by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture. Who could talk sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly memories, while ever and anon among the shapes of death I behold the radiant form of my lost Animula!

  Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894) was an English poet who also published under the name Ellen Alleyne. Most of her works were fantastical, but she also wrote both religious and children’s poetry. Rossetti had the ability to write beautiful and elegant verse without making it feel forced or unnatural, turning even the most unlikely of scenes into something almost believable. The passion she conveys in some of her works is remarkable, and yet she was an advocate of self-denial, a theme that runs through all of her poetry. Some critics believed Rossetti would be the next Alfred Lord Tennyson, but cancer took her too soon. In 1896, her brother found some of her work and published it under the title New Poems. “Goblin Market” was originally to be published with a parental advisory warning, as Rossetti specifically told her publisher it was not appropriate for children. The only poem in this volume, “Goblin Market” definitely tells a tale.

  Goblin Market

  Christina Rossetti

  Morning and evening

  Maids heard the goblins cry:

  “Come buy our orchard fruits,

  Come buy, come buy:

  Apples and quinces,

  Lemons and oranges,

  Plump unpecked cherries,

  Melons and raspberries,

  Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,

  Swart-headed mulberries,

  Wild free-born cranberries,

  Crab-apples, dewberries,

  Pine-apples, blackberries,

  Apricots, strawberries;—

  All ripe together

  In summer weather,—

  Morns that pass by,

  Fair eves that fly;

  Come buy, come buy:

  Our grapes fresh from the vine,

  Pomegranates full and fine,

  Dates and sharp bullaces,

  Rare pears and greengages,

  Damsons and bilberries,

  Taste them and try:

  Currants and gooseberries,

  Bright-fire-like barberries,

  Figs to fill your mouth,

  Citrons from the South,

  Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;

  Come buy, come buy.”

  Evening by evening

  Among the brookside rushes,

  Laura bowed her head to hear,

  Lizzie veiled her blushes:

  Crouching close together

  In the cooling weather,

  With clasping arms and cautioning lips,

  With tingling cheeks and finger tips.

  “Lie close,” Laura said,

  Pricking up her golden head:

  “We must not look at goblin men,

  We must not buy their fruits:

  Who knows upon what soil they fed

  Their hungry thirsty roots?”

  “Come buy,” call the goblins

  Hobbling down the glen.

  “Oh,” cried Lizzie, “Laura, Laura,

  You should not peep at goblin men.”

  Lizzie covered up her eyes,

  Covered close lest they should look;

  Laura reared her glossy head,

  And whispered like the restless brook:

  “Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,

  Down the glen tramp little men.

  One hauls a basket,

  One bears a plate,

  One lugs a golden dish

  Of many pounds weight.

  How fair the vine must grow

  Whose grapes are so luscious;

  How warm the wind must blow

  Through those fruit bushes.”

  “No,” said Lizzie, “No, no, no;

  Their offers should not charm us,

  Their evil gifts would harm us.”

  She thrust a dimpled finger

  In each ear, shut eyes and ran:

  Curious Laura chose to linger

  Wondering at each merchant man.

  One had a cat’s face,

  One whisked a tail,

  One tramped at a rat’s pace,

  One crawled like a snail,

  One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,

  One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.

  She heard a voice like voice of doves

  Cooing all together:

  They sounded kind and full of loves

  In the pleasant weather.

  Laura stretched her gleaming neck

  Like a rush-imbedded swan,

  Like a lily from the beck,

  Like a moonlit poplar branch,

  Like a vessel at the launch

  When its last restraint is gone.

  Backwards up the mossy glen

  Turned and trooped the goblin men,

  With their shrill repeated cry,

  “Come buy, come buy.”

  When they reached where Laura was

  They stood stock still upon the moss,

  Leering at each other,

  Brother with queer brother;

  Signalling each other,

  Brother with sly brother.

  One set his basket down,

  One reared his plate;

  One began to weave a crown

  Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown

  (Men sell not such in any town);

  One heaved the golden weight

  Of dish and fruit to offer her:

  “Come buy, come buy,” was still their cry.

  Laura stared but did not stir,

  Longed but had no money:

  The whisk-tailed merchant bade her taste

  In tones as smooth as honey,

  The cat-faced purr’d,

  The rat-faced spoke a word

  Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;

  One parrot-voiced and jolly

  Cried “Pretty Goblin” still for “Pretty Polly;”—

  One whistled like a bird.

  But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:

  “Good folk, I have no coin;

  To take were to purloin:

  I have no copper in my purse,

  I have no silver either,

  And all my gold is on the furze

  That shakes in windy weather

  Above the rusty heather.”


  “You have much gold upon your head,”

  They answered all together:

  “Buy from us with a golden curl.”

  She clipped a precious golden lock,

  She dropped a tear more rare than pearl,

  Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:

  Sweeter than honey from the rock,

  Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,

  Clearer than water flowed that juice;

  She never tasted such before,

  How should it cloy with length of use?

  She sucked and sucked and sucked the more

  Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;

  She sucked until her lips were sore;

  Then flung the emptied rinds away

  But gathered up one kernel stone,

  And knew not was it night or day

  As she turned home alone.

  Lizzie met her at the gate

  Full of wise upbraidings:

  “Dear, you should not stay so late,

  Twilight is not good for maidens;

  Should not loiter in the glen

  In the haunts of goblin men.

  Do you not remember Jeanie,

  How she met them in the moonlight,

  Took their gifts both choice and many,

  Ate their fruits and wore their flowers

  Plucked from bowers

  Where summer ripens at all hours?

  But ever in the noonlight

  She pined and pined away;

  Sought them by night and day,

  Found them no more, but dwindled and grew grey;

  Then fell with the first snow,

  While to this day no grass will grow

  Where she lies low:

  I planted daisies there a year ago

  That never blow.

  You should not loiter so.”

  “Nay, hush,” said Laura:

  “Nay, hush, my sister:

  I ate and ate my fill,