“Naked she stood, lithe and yet nobly formed. Her flesh was the soft blue brilliance of the moon-light—her hair was the bright glistening of silver—her eyes the pale gold of the sunlight on a dying day—her face in its dark blue wonderful radiance seemed at first strange and uncanny; and yet there was in its brilliance a beauty such as mortal never wore. She stepped forward, poised, unconscious, listening. Above between the smoke and grime of the Pit peered the blue sky. She looked toward it, ‘Mother,’ she said softly. A little star paced slowly by. She hesitated—watching it greedily. ‘Sister, sister?’ she asked. Then quickly, swiftly she climbed, groping but ever more and more lightly, gliding, until at last she stood upon the mighty hill and raised her golden eyes toward the great blue dome of the sky beneath the twinkling radiance of the stars. The tears streamed down and she lifted her voice and sang: ‘Life, Life, Life!’ Then all silent she stood, enraptured, worshipful. Out of the east came light; a white gray brilliance began to unfold. She turned upon it wonderingly and watched it with great eyes; the east glowed and reddened and she cowered almost in terror;—long barbed spears of light lashed across the world and killed the stars; the winds waited, the birds sang, twittered, the princess trembled in wild confusion, until above the earth shot the great red glory of the sun. Then she rose and danced and in sudden great good laughter lifted up her voice and cried in ecstasy: ‘Father, Father, the Prince of the Princess of Africa!’ Ever she laughed and twirled and danced upon the hill until suddenly her eyes fell upon the crouched form of Sir Guess of Londonton and she stood very still. He seeing her for the first time in the broad brilliance and beholding that beautiful face, rose with a wonder in his soul; rose and half timidly, half beseechingly stretched his arms. She looked at him in fright, amaze and sympathy; a softness crept into her eyes. Her bosom heaved. She gathered the silver of her hair around her, shading her lithe limbs and heaving breasts, and then with sudden abandon cried, ‘I love thee.’ He started toward her. ‘Hold.’
“It was the cry of the Lord of the Golden Way as he groped from out of the Pit, tired, dirty, fearsome. ‘What will you?’ asked the younger lord. ‘Our bargain,’ muttered the other. ‘Where is it?’ cried the youth—‘Look fool! her hair is silver and her eyes are golden, and,’ he whispered, ‘mayhap there be jewels crusted on her heart.’ For a moment they gazed at each other. ‘Wouldst murder my bride for silver and gold?’ cried Sir Guess. ‘The Treasure,’ growled the lord doggedly and his greedy eyes shifted and caught the gleam of the Golden Sword where it lay between them. He bent stealthily toward it. ‘Back,’ cried the other. ‘We fight with iron and who so wins, his be the Princess, Treasure and All.’ Out sprang the iron broad swords and made morning music on the hills. Three times the Lord of the Golden Way slipped to his knees and twice the younger, slighter man grazed death; finally lunging forward the Lord struck Sir Guess heavily upon his shoulder and the knight slipped and fell along the mountain way; ere he could rise the Lord threw away his iron and seized the Golden Sword. Twice he twirled it and twice again and then with an oath drove it through helm and corselet and the younger warrior with gurgling burst of hot red blood, fell at the maiden’s feet while the other sick with his fighting dropped fainting to his side. The maiden had at the first onset stood like a stone, then slowly she wakened, at first bewildered, then half confused at the quick wondrous dancing of the men. Then she became grave, excited, mad: her voice came forth in little sharp cries and faint sweet moans. Pain and sorrow wrote themselves on her face. She threw her hands, wildly unloosed and tossed her silvery hair until it went whirling like a great white misty web above her dark blue glowing face and golden eyes and to her face struggled the memory of other worlds and other battles; so from the face of a maiden it became a woman’s face and with a woman’s great bereaved cry she threw herself on her fallen lover, ripped off the helmet and tore aside the breastplate staunching the blood with her silvery hair, and lay panting and murmuring above him. Then the hair seemed to her coarse. She rose, hesitated and stood there all silver until she spied a thin round stone lying in the dust. With deft strength she clove a hole in its middle and gripping it lightly in her fingers wheeled and whirled it and so spun a strand of her hair to a long thin beautiful thread and wove it carefully round and round the bloody body in cunning fashion until it lay there hearsed in burning breathing silver.
“The Lord of the Golden Way awoke, gasped and painfully dragged himself to his knees. He saw the wonderful covering and he knew that the treasure he wanted was the spun hair of the maiden. The sweat of greed oozed on his forehead. He crept forward, stealthily, silently. The maiden never deigned to notice him but crouched there all clothed and gowned in her burning curls. She watched the wan cold face of her lover’s, whispering to him and making mystic passes above his bier. Stealthily, silently the Lord crept on till he had seized lightly a single strand of her hair; then he slipped quickly and more quickly down the hill, toiling and trailing after him.
“Then came long days of work and sweat; he rigged a great wheel and spun the silken steel—clumsily and coarsely but finely enough to joy him to ecstasy. Upward he crept stealthily and seized another strand and spun it; and another and another; and then bold and ever bolder he seized a great curl and setting up a mighty loom wove to a great tough solid mat that rang and pealed till the Lord screamed with greed and joy. And yet ever the maid sat, silent, save for the mystic whispering; motionless, save for the mystic waving of her hand above the bier, there on hills over the Pit of the imprisonment to which her spun hair held her as it stretched across the world. ‘I bent forward and watched her—There it was I first saw her,’ said the Voice—that bluish radiance above the western hills, wondrous beautiful, all crowned in silvery cloud and I caught the low full voice in some language of all Languages:
“I watch and ward above my sleeping lord till he awake and then woe World! When I shake my curls a-loose.”
I started for I too heard those mystic words and the answering voice of the old man, from afar: “What then? O Princess?” She laughed. Her laugh was like the beating of the billows on the bar, angry with softness. One hand lashed up and with a quick sharp grasp she pulled a single curl. I watched where the curl wended its way past Chicago, past Omaha, past the great plain and the sad mountain and the rough roaring of lands toward the sea and San Francisco; and suddenly the world whirled in San Francisco. The ire burst, the earth trembled, buildings fell, great cries rang round the world. Only the Steel stood silent and grim in the treacherous innocence—I gasped in fear—again lashed that blue and fatal hand: another curl trembled and far down in Valparaiso the earth sighed and sank and staggered, and the steel stood cold and grim; again, and the Isles of the Sea quivered, a great ship shivered and dove to its death. Again—but I cried in horror, “Hold—hold O Princess—” the hand sank and low the voice came sad and full of awful sweetness. “I watch and ward above my sleeping Lord till he awake and then woe World! when I shake my curls a-loose.” The voice ceased but on the plain where the Lord of the Golden Way held the mill and guarded the things that rolled thither on the silver threads, I heard the crash and roar of battle as the four robber knights bore down upon him. “How will it end?” I cried to the Voice at my side. “I know not nor shall we know in many hundred years. For a day to the Over-World is a thousand years to us and even the megascope is slave to Time.”
I dropped the ends of the machine and sat back astonished. My wife sat looking at me curiously. “Well what on earth have you been doing?” she said. “Didn’t you see—didn’t you hear?” I cried. “I’ve been watching Broadway.” “But the cliffs? Saw you not the cliffs and castles and the Lord?”—I hesitated. “I saw only the great towering cliff-like buildings,” she said. “Did you not hear the roar of the waters?” “I heard the roar of passing wagons and the voices of men.” “And the space above the hills? Did you not see that?” “I saw clouds and the rising moon—for really Robert, it’s late and we must go—.�
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“It was not tuned delicately enough for her,” said the old man—“Next time—” but we greeted him hurriedly and passed out.
Fernán Caballero was a pseudonym of Cecilia Böhl de Faber (1796–1877), a Spanish writer known for her gift for description. Her most popular novel was The Seagull (1849), and her short stories depict the legends, beliefs, and traditions of the Andalusian people, although she was not raised there. Even though she is not as popular as she once was, The Seagull was the precursor to Spanish realism, and her short folkloric stories, like “The Hump” (1911), are still household favorites in Spain.
The Hump
Fernán Caballero
Translated by Marian and James Womack
ONCE UPON A TIME there was a King who had an only daughter, whom he wished very much to marry off in order to ensure heirs to his kingdom. But the girl, who had been spoiled when young, was willful and did not wish to marry (although, if her father had been opposed to her marriage, then she would have been anxious to marry, and as soon as possible).
One day, as she was heading out to Mass, she met with a beggar, who was so old, so hunchbacked, so ugly, and so insistent that he made her sick, and she didn’t want to give him any alms. The wretch, in order to take his revenge, threw a flea at her; and the Princess, who had never seen one of these disgusting creatures before, took it home to the palace, put it in a bottle and fed it on milk broth, until it was so big that it didn’t fit in the bottle anymore. And so the Princess sent it off to be slaughtered, and ordered its hide to be tanned and used to make the skin for a tambourine, stretched over a hoop of fennel-stalk.
And then one day, when her father started off insisting again that she get married, she said that she would, but only to the man who could guess what her tambourine was made of.
“So be it,” said her father, “but I swear, as I am a King and a Christian, you have to marry the man who guesses correctly, whoever he may be.”
Once the news had spread that the Princess would marry the man who guessed what her tambourine was made of, there came from all four corners of the world Kings, Princes, Dukes, Marquises, Counts and very well-behaved knights, and each one of them, in order of noble precedence, took a look at the tambourine, and no one guessed what it was made of. The strangest thing about it was that, when it was struck, the sound that it made was very much like the cry that beggars gave to ask for alms, in the name of the Lord. And then the King gave permission for anyone who wanted, noble or not, to come and see if they could guess what the tambourine was made of.
And it so happened that among the Princes there was one, a very handsome one, to whom the King’s daughter had taken a fancy, and when she was out on her balcony she saw him, and called out:
Fennel-stalk, and the skin of a flea:
They’re what make my tambourine.
But the Prince did not hear what she shouted; the person who did hear was the horrible hunchback, to whom she had refused her alms. The old man, who was very crafty, understood what the words the Princess had said to the handsome Prince must mean, and so he went posthaste to the palace, and said that he had come to guess what the King’s daughter’s tambourine was made of, and no sooner was he standing in front of the court than he said:
Fennel-stalk, and the skin of a flea:
They’re what make your tambourine.
Alas! He had guessed correctly, and there was no way round it. And the Princess, for all that she was against the idea, was handed over by her father to this horrid beggar, who had won the prize that the Princess had offered.
“Go, now, right away, with your husband,” the King said, “and forget you ever had a father.”
This Princess, ashamed and weeping, went away with her hunchback, and they walked and walked until they came to a river, which they had to cross.
“Take me on your back and start to wade. That’s what wives are for,” the old man said.
The Princess did what her husband said, but when she was halfway across the river she started to shake and jump in order to throw the beggar into the water. And she shook and jumped, and he fell to pieces: first the head, then the arms and legs; everything, in fact, apart from the hump, which stayed stuck to the Princess’s back, as though it had been glued there.
Once she was over the river, she asked for directions, and she found out that her hump imitated her voice and copied whatever she said, as though she had an echoing crag instead of a hump stuck to her back. Some people laughed at her, and some people were angry because they thought she was making fun of them; and so she had no option but to pretend to be dumb. In this way, holding out her hand to beg for alms, she went walking until she came to a city that she guessed must be the kingdom of the Prince she had liked so much. She went to the palace and asked to be taken on as a serving maid, and they took her. The Prince saw her and thought she was very pretty, and he said:
“If she weren’t dumb and hunchbacked, I might even marry the serving maid, because she’s got a charming face.”
The Prince’s family was trying to marry him off, and the Princess felt ever more sad and jealous, as she was falling more in love with the Prince every day.
Once the marriage contracts were drawn up between the Prince and another Princess, ramrod straight and chattier than a parrot, the Prince set off with a great host to bring her back to the palace, and the whole palace was all of a hubbub preparing for the marriage feast. They set the dumb serving maid to frying pancakes.
As she fried, the maid said to her hump:
“Little hump, little hump, would you like a pancake?”
The hump, which, as it had come from an old man and was very greedy, said yes.
“Well, get up on my shoulder,” the Princess said.
And she gave it a pancake.
And then she asked again:
“Little hump, little hump, would you like another pancake?”
The hump said that it would.
And she said:
“Well, get down into my lap.”
The hump made a little leap and settled on the Princess’s lap; but she was ready, and took the tongs and picked up the hump and threw it into the oil, where it was fried up like a pork scratching.
As soon as she was free of her hump, she went to her room, cleaned herself, combed her hair, and put on makeup and got dressed in a green and gold dress.
When the Prince returned, he was ecstatic to see the serving girl in a new dress, so clean and tidy, and without her hump.
His promised bride saw this, and said:
Just you look at her, all dressed in green:
Thinks she’s a princess, thinks she’s a queen.
To which the Princess, all high and mighty, replied:
No, just you look at her, with her flounces and furs:
Only just got here, and putting on airs.
As soon as the Prince had registered that the dumb serving maid could speak, and that there was no sign of her former hump, then he married her, and they had lots of children, and were very happy, and I was obscurely disappointed.
Edward Morgan Forster (1879–1970), who wrote as E. M. Forster, was an English novelist and critic who gained acclaim for his novels Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924). During World War I, he lived in Egypt and published short stories under the pseudonym Pharos. Although lesser known, Forster’s short stories are just as intriguing and sometimes groundbreaking. This work tends to showcase how the imagination can undermine one’s sense of reality and morals, but also includes at least a couple classics of modern speculative fiction. Some critics believe that Forster was able to create such visceral scenarios because of his travels and his coming to terms with his sexuality. “The Celestial Omnibus” (1911) is about self-discovery that coincides with a magical awakening.
The Celestial Omnibus
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E. M. Forster
I
THE BOY WHO RESIDED at Agathox Lodge, 28, Buckingham Park Road, Surbiton, had often been puzzled by the old sign-post that stood almost opposite. He asked his mother about it, and she replied that it was a joke, and not a very nice one, which had been made many years back by some naughty young men, and that the police ought to remove it. For there were two strange things about this sign-post: firstly, it pointed up a blank alley, and, secondly, it had painted on it in faded characters, the words, “To Heaven.”
The Big Book of Classic Fantasy Page 89