The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

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

  Who was Jos Violon that he’d contradict the poor sod, children? Because, as true as yer here, dunno if it was the fault of the Trois-Rivières bein nearish, but I’ve never wintered around Saint-Maurice without somethin’ unwholesome happenin in our camp.

  Be it as it may, as Mr. le Curé would say, springtime come, we didn’t need convincin to bugger off down the river. The rafts were ready, everybody lashed his little luggage down ta start our journey. Cloaks, helmets, snowshoes, tools, rifles, traps, Fifi Labranche’s violin, Bram Lacouture’s checkerboard, exetera, exetera!

  The Boss tasked us, Zeb Roberge and me, ta bring the hosses. And off we went, in tow, with Belzemir attached between the shafts, and the tall black ’un followin. We were goin fast, when, in a place called the Fork, here’s the mare takin ta the left at breakneck speed, instead of turnin right along the river.

  Zeb draws in the reins, yanks at the curb chain, then pulls left, right, left, right—sev’ral times—ta no avail!

  “Listen,” I say, “we should let her have it her way. We’ll find the river down the road apiece.”

  We covered at least five miles at that speed, and I was startin ta find the route long, when we glimpsed a house.

  “All right!” I was ’bout ta say, “This is a good moment ta flex our manners!”

  But as we opened our mouths, Belzemir stopped right in front of the door.

  “Well,” says Zeb Roberge, “looks like da silly mare knows da place; she’s never trotted ’round here though.”

  As he finished sayin’ these words, here’s the door swingin’ open, and a thin, clear voice sayin:

  “Look who’s here! It’s Mr. Baptiste’s mare! She’s smart, uh. She’s recognized the place, even tho’ she’s come only a few times in daylight…”

  “Shut up and close the door!” a big, harsh voice thundered, from the back of the house.

  It smelled like goblinfolk, that much is sure.

  The year after, guess who I stumbled upon, down in the Cul-de-Sac, in Quebec? Baptiste Lanouette, nicknamed Gingerbread, pipe glued to his cakehole, ’course, head adorned with a big pointy hat, which had me thinkin ’bout the ’un I’d spotted on the goblin’s head, near the Oak River.

  He told me that he had almost nabbed one of those, in the very stable where Zeb and I had seen our own, so that the goblin’s hat had remained in his hands.

  I’d recognized the thing right away, c’mon!

  Damned Gingerbread! Just one more second, and he’d become a wickedly rich man.

  If ya ever pass by the Coves of Cap-Blanc, children, ask about Baptiste Lanouette and talk ta him of these things. See if I lie.

  Grazia Deledda (1871–1936) was an Italian (Sardinian) novelist and playwright known for her social realism. In 1926, Deledda won the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature. She was the first Italian woman to win the prize, and she continued to write with vigor after receiving this honor. Deledda was an intriguing person: she kept a pet crow and did not particularly like many of the perks that came with fame. In fact, Mussolini once asked her if he could do her a favor, and instead of asking for wealth, she asked for the release of a friend who was imprisoned for anti-Fascist activities. In 1936, Deledda lost a long battle with breast cancer. Yet she continued to publish posthumously, as additional manuscripts were found in her home. “Sowbread” (1908) is an unusual tale, in that it is told from the point of view of a plant.

  Sowbread

  Grazia Deledda

  Translated by Gio Clairval

  AS SOON AS HE BLOOMED, the cyclamen saw a spectacle that many famous poets have never seen. He saw a moonlit night in the mountains. The silence was so deep the cyclamen could hear the drops of water—collected by the leaves of an oak protecting the small flower—fall to the ground as if poured by small hands.

  The night was terse and cold, the mountain black and white, like an immense sleeping ermine, its profile of a pale purple color sparkling against the blue sky. It was not too high, that mountain: the woods covered it to the top; the snow-blanketed rocks resembled blocks of marble in which a gigantic artist had attempted to sketch strange figures. There was one, for example, that looked like a huge wolf with its face turned to the sky; and a thread of smoke, coming out of the rock as if exhaled from the mouth of the beast, increased the illusion.

  From its damp and sheltered corner, the cyclamen saw the rocks, the trees, the moon, and a blue background with the outlines of other distant mountains. The moon was setting behind these mountains. Everything existed in silent, pure coldness. The stars shimmered with unusual splendors: they seemed to be looking at each other, communicating a joy unknown to the inhabitants of the earth. The cyclamen felt a bit of this joy; and he, too, trembled on his stem; and he did not know what it was, and did not know that it was the joy that makes the diamond and the spring water sparkle: the joy of feeling pristine. And this happiness lasted a long time, much longer than most human pleasure: it lasted an hour.

  Then the cyclamen saw a strange thing, more marvelous even than the white rocks, the black trees, the shining stars. He saw a shadow moving. The flower had believed that everything in its world was still, or just trembling: instead the shadow walked. And after the wonder, the cyclamen shook with dread. The shadow approached, growing larger, rising against the blue background, among the black trunks; and it was so tall that it hid a whole mountain and reached up to the moon. It was a man. From time to time the man stopped under the trees, doubled over, as if looking for something in the shadows at his feet. Arriving under the oak he crouched, and began to rummage through the rotting leaves that covered the ground. And the young flower knew that the man had found what he was looking for: a little cyclamen plant.

  After his one hour of life, certain that he had seen all that is most beautiful and most terrible in the entire universe, the cyclamen resigned himself to die. The unfriendly shadow uprooted the seedling, leaving some of the feeding soil around the bulbs. The cyclamen then realized that the black shadow did not represent Death: on the contrary it seemed to him his life was going to be more intense, if not as happy as that which he experienced before. With all his family of leaves, with his unbroken brothers, the flower was riding high, and saw the sky, the stars, better, as he abandoned his birthplace, moving across the mountain.

  Like the man who carried him on the palm of his hand, the cyclamen possessed the great power of movement, and he felt a deep gratitude for the one who brought him so much joy. Upon coming under the rock that looked like a wolf, the man entered a cave that looked like the heart of a wolf, black, harsh, full of smoke; and having laid the seedling on a rock ledge, he bent to rekindle the fire. The little flower’s despair lasted but an instant, for he saw another wonderful thing. He saw a black oak trunk transform into fire, and the flames spring from the branches like large golden leaves shook by a burning breath.

  The man lay down by the fire and from his corner the little flower saw him fall asleep and heard him talking in his dream. And the man’s voice seemed to him another revelation. Then a whistle vibrated outside, a dog barked, the man raised his head.

  Another man entered the cave: the newcomer was young, tall and dressed in red cloth and black skins; his face, swarthy, but with blue eyes and a reddish beard, had something sweet and wild at the same time.

  “Compadre,” he said, as soon as he entered, “I think we’re going to catch the fox tonight.”

  The older man raised his face, questioning.

  “I saw the trail!” said the young man.

  The two men said nothing more, but the old man jolted to his feet, and they both listened for a long time. One hour passed, though, and outside the silence of the night was still intense and deep. For a moment the moon appeared at the cave entrance, like a pale face with curious gray eyes, and then disappeared. The white darkness of snow took over the night.

  “Your fox is not coming,
” said the old man. “And I’ve got to take off! How is the little mistress?”

  “Not good. Maybe she’ll die tonight.”

  “And you didn’t tell me! I’ve got to go back! Must bring her the flower.”

  “What flower?”

  “A sowbread. Yesterday, in her fever, she asked for nothing else. She imagines he’s embroidering a stole for Holy Mass and wants to copy the flower. We must please her. I’m off.”

  “A stole with a sowbread on it…?” The young man gave a puzzled smile. Then he raised his head, whispering: “Did you hear that?”

  A dog barked, another echoed in the distance. The two shepherds, leaping out of the cave, heard whistles, screams, shouts more hoarse and ferocious than the dogs’ barking. The flame ceased to tremble, as if listening to the din, while the cyclamen closed his petals among his sleeping brothers. The two men returned, dragging between them a young man with a bruised face and thick, frizzy black hair. Bound with leather strings, the captive struggled desperately. The three men were silent, while their breathing, panting, almost hissing, revealed their anger. This scene, beautiful and terrible, evoked the cavemen’s world, man fighting his fellow man.

  The prisoner was taken to the end of the cave, tied better, with cowhide straps and a noose, the end rope fixed to the ground with a stone. He didn’t protest but lowered his disheveled head to the rocky ground and closed his eyes: he seemed dead.

  The old man stared at him in rage, shuddering. “One, two, three times you escaped the gallows. But now you won’t decimate my flock anymore! I’m alerting the judge.”

  And after throwing a leather bag across his shoulders, forming a hump on his back, he strode out.

  No sooner had the old man departed, than the prisoner opened his eyes and pulled his head up, listening. The footsteps could not be heard any longer. The young man with a reddish beard sat on the ground next to the fire, looking sad. The prisoner gazed at him and said a word: “Remember!”

  The other remained silent and still. The thief repeated: “The authorities. Remember! Once, on the night of St. John, two boys from different villages watched a flock under the moon. They loved each other like brothers. The elder said: ‘Should we become St. John’s fellows?’ And they swore to be brothers, for life and for death, and especially in the hour of danger. Then they grew up and each went his way. And once the elder went to steal and was caught and given in custody to the younger, who happened to be in the sheep pen. The first word, though, that the prisoner said, ‘Remember!’ was enough, because the other, regardless of the damage that would come to him, untied him and released him. Remember!”

  The younger shepherd avoided the captive’s eyes: “That was different! I wasn’t a servant back then. Before the fellow comes the master.”

  “No, before the master comes the brother: and a St. John’s fellow is a brother.”

  The other, eyes fixed on the flame, did not answer, but seemed lost in a dream.

  “We are all subject to error,” said the thief. “Some do this and some do that! We are born with our destiny. And does your master have no flaws? He is the proudest man on earth. He’s the one who’s killing his daughter, your little mistress. And what is she guilty of? Doesn’t everyone say that she’s dying because she’s in love with a priest? No? Ah, you say it’s not like that? You say that the young man became a priest out of despair, because he was not given the girl’s hand? Even so, she should have stopped loving him. Instead, she dies…”

  “Ah, that’s why…The stole…the sowbread flower!” The shepherd stood and untied the prisoner, who, without even saying “thank you,” jumped up and ran away.

  Left alone, the shepherd picked up the sowbread plant, ran out, leaped from rock to rock, went down a path, shouting, calling the old man by his name.

  The latter answered from afar. And the voices of the two men, closer and closer, crisscrossed in the silence of the night.

  “You forgot the flower!”

  “You left that devil alone!”

  “The flower…”

  “Give me! Go back…”

  “I thought of the little mistress…”

  “Go, go back. Now!”

  The seedling passed into the old man’s hand, and it was as good as a warm, capacious planter. The old man walked quickly but safely down the path illuminated by snow glowing like a grayish twilight. Finally he reached the foot of the mountain, and the cyclamen discovered a place that was darker and sadder than the cave: it was a place inhabited by men, a village.

  The old man knocked on a door; a woman came to open, dressed in yellow and black, very pale in the face.

  “How’s the little mistress? I brought her the flower she wanted to copy for an embroidery.”

  The woman gave a hissing cry and began tearing at her hair. “The little mistress is dead!”

  The man did not utter a word but entered the vast kitchen and laid the seedling on the ottoman where the little mistress used to sit to sew and embroider. In the adjacent rooms women’s cries resounded like the chanting of ancient preachers. The old man left.

  And long hours passed. The fire went out in the hearth. A hooded man, dressed in dark velvet, came to sit on the ottoman and kept still for a long time, without weeping, without speaking. Then the red-bearded servant arrived, and began to tell the story of the thief and the cyclamen.

  “While I was bringing the flower to the master, the thief found a way to untie himself and escaped. I tried to catch him, in vain: I ran all night. Now the old fool says that the fault is mine, and that he, the master, will send me away.”

  The man dressed in velvet did not understand the story of the cyclamen. “An embroidery? For whom?”

  The pale servant turned red. He lowered his voice even more. “They say…the stole is for Priest Paulu’s first mass…”

  A fleeting blush colored the hooded man’s dull face. He looked at the seedling, then, in a harsh voice, he said: “Return to the sheep pen.”

  The shepherd studied the man’s face and, before leaving, whispered: “May the Lord grant you all the good…Master…” But the man dressed in velvet did not seem to hear the wish. As soon as he was alone he grabbed the seedling, and clenched his teeth angrily.

  The cyclamen saw his end come.

  The man dressed in velvet opened his fist, stared at the folded leaves, the languishing little flower, and wept. And so, before dying, the cyclamen, who had seen so many beautiful and terrible scenes, experienced a deep wonder, a shiver, a commotion similar to the one he had sensed while he was blooming. He seemed to see the stars again, he believed himself on the mountain again, feeling, within the confines of that man’s hand, still happy and pure as in mother earth. And all this because he had collected among his petals the tears of a proud man.

  Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936), or G. K. Chesterton, was an English writer known for his exuberant personality and his mastery of the ballad form. By the time of his death at the age of sixty-two, Chesterton wrote five novels, five plays, and more than two hundred short stories. His critical repertoire is just as impressive, if not more so. In fact, it is almost impossible to sum him up, and many of his contemporaries considered him a genius, including H. G. Wells. Many a tale begins with a remarkable first sentence and “The Angry Street” (1908) is no different.

  The Angry Street

  G. K. Chesterton

  I CANNOT REMEMBER whether this tale is true or not. If I read it through very carefully I have a suspicion that I should come to the conclusion that it is not. But, unfortunately, I cannot read it through very carefully because, you see, it is not written yet. The image and idea of it clung to me through a great part of my boyhood; I may have dreamt it before I could talk; or told it to myself before I could read; or read it before I could remember. On the whole, however, I am certain that I did not read it. For children have very cl
ear memories about things like that; and of the books of which I was really fond I can still remember not only the shape and bulk and binding, but even the position of the printed words on many of the pages. On the whole, I incline to the opinion that it happened to me before I was born.

  At any rate, let us tell the story now with all the advantages of the atmosphere that has clung to it. You may suppose me, for the sake of argument, sitting at lunch in one of those quick-lunch restaurants in the City where men take their food so fast that it has none of the quality of food, and take their half-hour’s vacation so fast that it has none of the qualities of leisure. To hurry through one’s leisure is the most unbusiness-like of actions. They all wore tall shiny hats as if they could not lose an instant even to hang them on a peg, and they all had one eye a little off, hypnotised by the huge eye of the clock. In short, they were the slaves of the modern bondage, you could hear their fetters clanking. Each was, in fact, bound by a chain; the heaviest chain ever tied to a man—it is called a watch-chain.

  Now, among these there entered and sat down opposite to me a man who almost immediately opened an uninterrupted monologue. He was like all the other men in dress, yet he was startlingly opposite to them all in manner. He wore a high shiny hat and a long frock coat, but he wore them as such solemn things were meant to be worn; he wore the silk hat as if it were a mitre, and the frock coat as if it were the ephod of a high priest. He not only hung his hat up on the peg, but he seemed (such was his stateliness) almost to ask permission of the hat for doing so, and to apologise to the peg for making use of it. When he had sat down on a wooden chair with the air of one considering its feelings and given a sort of slight stoop or bow to the wooden table itself, as if it were an altar, I could not help some comment springing to my lips. For the man was a big, sanguine-faced, prosperous-looking man, and yet he treated everything with a care that almost amounted to nervousness.