The Big Book of Classic Fantasy
Page 142
But enough. I shall not recount how I was arrested, nor tell of my subsequent ordeals. Suffice it to say that it cost me incredible patience and effort to get back abroad, and that, ever since, I have forsworn carrying out commissions entrusted one by the insanity of others.
Karel Čapek (1890–1938) was a prolific Czech writer who donned many hats in his lifetime. His early short stories such as “The Luminous Depths” (1916) and “The Garden of Krakonoš” (1918) could be considered philosophical. In later works, Čapek presented a series of suspect utopias featuring scientific discoveries that ultimately lead to rebellion. One such work is a play titled Rossum’s Universal Robots (1920), which introduced the public to the term “robot.” Another famous work is the early science-fantasy novel The War with the Newts. He also wrote stories satirizing complacency, greed, and man’s understanding of the self. “The Water Sprite’s Tale” (1932) is one of many fairy tales that combine satire with the fantastic and is part of the collection Nine Fairy Tales & One More Thrown in for Good Measure, delightfully illustrated by his brother, Josef Čapek. The language and wordplay are phenomenal and reflective of the nimble, clever aspects of Čapek’s fiction.
The Water Sprite’s Tale
Karel Čapek
Translated by Dagmar Hermann
CHILDREN, IF YOU BELIEVE that there are no water sprites, you are wrong. Why, there are so many different sorts and kinds, you wouldn’t believe your eyes! Just to give you an example, I need only mention the one who lived near my hometown, in the river Ŭpa, under the sluice. Then there was the one in Haviovice who used to dwell near the wooden bridge, and there was yet another who resided in the Radec brook. That one was a German sprite who spoke not a word of Czech. Once he came to my father’s office to have his tooth pulled and, in return, gave my dad a basket full of silver and pink pikes neatly covered with a nettle to keep them fresh. He was a water sprite, no doubt, for when he got up from the chair, he left a puddle on the seat. There was also the one next to my grandpa’s mill, in Hronov, who kept sixteen horses under the sluice. That’s why the engineers used to say that at that particular spot the river had sixteen horsepower. The sixteen white horses kept on pulling, the water mill went on spinning, and when one night our grandpa died, the water sprite quietly unharnessed the sixteen horses, and for three days the wheel stopped dead in its spokes. In large rivers there are water sprites who own even more horses, perhaps fifty, or maybe one hundred. On the other hand, there are also those poor ragamuffins who haven’t even a wooden toy horse to play with.
Of course, a water sprite magnate in Prague, in the river Moldau, would be quite affluent, and a gentleman of fine standing. He might even own a motorboat and, in summer, he would vacation at the seashore. For in Prague, even an ordinary, second-rate water sprite has more money than there are shells in the sand, and he darts around in a flashy car spattering mud all around.
Then again, there are those petty little hucksters who barely have a puddle, no larger than the palm of your hand, and in it a frog, three mosquitoes, and two water bugs; or their business is located in such a miserable trickle that if a mouse ran across it, he wouldn’t even dampen his tummy. Some can barely lure a passing paper boat, and, if they are lucky, they may catch a baby diaper that the stream snatched from a mother while she was washing it. How awful!
Now the Rožmberk water sprite, for instance, has perhaps twenty thousand carp, as well as some scrod, catfish, mackerel, and toothy pike. There is no justice in this world, that’s for sure!
Water sprites are loners by nature, but once or twice a year, during high tide, they will all gather and hold what you would call a district meeting. The ones who hail from our area always meet in the deep waters along Hradec Králové meadows, for there the country is nice and flat, with beautiful pools, backwater reaches, and river beds cushioned with the finest grade of mud. As is the case with liniment, the mud must be yellow or slightly brownish, for if it is red, or gray, it will not be supple enough. What a lovely, dank place their conference ground is! There they sit and share the news: About the old water sprite George who was forced into moving from Hilldry because of some newly enforced regulation; about the price increase of pots and ribbon that was scandalous, to say the least! If a water sprite intends to make a catch, he now must spend thirty crowns on ribbons, another three on a small pot, and the pot turns out to be trash in the bargain. It would be better to quit the whole blasted business and take up a different trade altogether. They also talk about Faltys the redhead, from Jaromĕř, who went into business selling mineral waters; and about the lame Slepánek who has become a plumber and makes water pipes; and about the others who made ends meet in different trades. Obviously, a water sprite can only take up a trade that relates to water: you understand that, of course, children, don’t you? So, for instance, he can perfect any of the water crafts, become a waterman, and end up working on a ferry in, say, Waterloo. He can also grow watercress, water lilies, or watermelons. He may become a painter of watercolors. On the other hand, he can become a professional water polo player, too. He need not be well known, nor well-to-do, to pretend that he is well bred, but then again, he might be as well. At any rate, some water must be in it!
So you see, there are plenty of trades left open for water sprites. That’s also why their numbers are dwindling. The roll call at every annual meeting is accompanied by sad comments, like “Again, we have lost five of us. If the trend continues, friends, our trade will slowly die out.”
“Times are changing,” said the old Kreuzmann, the Trutnov water sprite. “Today is different from yesterday. Goodness, it must be thousands and thousands of years now since the whole of Bohemia was under water, and man, water man, to be exact, for people weren’t around as yet. That’s right, those were different times…darn it, where was I?”
“In Bohemia, under water,” cued Greeney, the water sprite from Skalice.
“That’s it,” said Kreuzmann, and continued. “The whole of Bohemia was under the water, and Žaltman too, of course, and so was Red Mountain, and Crow Mountain, and all the other mountains, and any of you fellas could have crossed the country under water, I’d say from as far as Brno, to Prague, directly. Even Snow Mountain was hidden a fathom deep. Those were the days, my friends…”
“They were,” recalled Kulda, the water sprite from Ratiboř. “And we weren’t such loners and recluses then. We had underwater cities built of water bricks, furniture made of hard water, and featherbeds made of soft rainwater. We used hot water for heating our homes. And there was no bottom to the water, nor embankment, nor even surface. Only water and us.”
“That’s right,” agreed Fox from Froggy Bottom marsh, nicknamed the Croaker. “And what gorgeous water that was! One could slice it like butter, roll it into balls, spin it into yarn, and twist it into ropes. Back then, water was like steel, like flax, like glass, like down. It was thick as cream, solid as oak, and warm as a fur coat. Everything was made of water. Goodness! Where can you find water like that today? Not even in America!” Croaker spat, then spat again, till he made quite a deep pool.
“It used to be…” Kreuzmann mused. “Water was absolutely beautiful, but it also was, how shall I put it? It was mute.”
“How is that?” asked Greeney, who wasn’t as old as the rest of them.
“What do you mean, how’s that? It was silent,” said Fox the Croaker.
“It had no voice. It couldn’t talk yet. It was as quiet and mute as it turns now when it freezes. Quiet as midnight after the snow has fallen and not a thing stirs. When it’s so still, so silently still you nearly quiver, your head popping out of the water, listening. When the endless silence wrings your heart—that’s how quiet it was when water was mute.”
“Then how come it isn’t mute anymore?” asked Greeney, who was only seven thousand years old.
“Let me tell you,” said Fox. “My great-grandfather said it happened s
ome million years ago. There once lived a water sprite—what was his name, what was it? Reeds, no, it wasn’t Reeds. Minařík, no, wrong again. Hampl, no, not Hampl. Pavlásek, no, it wasn’t Pavlásek. Fiddlesticks! What was his name again?”
“Arion,” said Kreuzmann.
“That’s it, Arion,” agreed Fox. “Arion was his name. I had it on the tip of my tongue. Now this Arion had a unique gift, a God-given talent of sorts. He spoke and sang so beautifully that he made your heart throb and cry with joy. What a musician he was!”
“Poet,” corrected Kulda.
“Musician or poet, never mind,” Fox replied. “He knew how to perform, let me tell you that. Great-grandpa said that this Arion needed only to hum the first measures of a tune, and everybody around him began to sob. He harbored a great grief in his heart, Arion. No one knows how great. Nobody knows what ill had befallen him, but his heart must have been broken to make him sing so beautifully and with such anguish. As he sang and wailed in the deep waters, every trickle quivered like a trembling tear, and as his song sailed through the water, every droplet caught a bit of its tune. That’s why water isn’t mute anymore. That’s why it jingles and tingles, rustles and murmurs, trickles and bubbles, splashes, hums, drones, groans and wails, roars and booms, sighs, moans, laughs, plays as if on a silver harp, warbles like a nightingale, rumbles like an organ, blasts like a French horn, and speaks like a man in joy or in sorrow. Since that time, water has spoken all the many languages in the world and can say things so strange and wonderful that no one, man, least of all, understands them. Yet, before Arion taught the water to sing, it was mute as the sky.”
“It wasn’t Arion, though, who set the sky into the water,” said the old Kreuzmann. “That happened later, during my father’s time, Lord preserve his memory forever. Croakoax did it, out of love.”
“How did that happen?” asked Greeney.
“I’ll tell you how. Listen. Croakoax fell in love. He saw Princess Croakanne, and his heart was aflame. Croakanne was beautiful indeed. She had a yellow tummy, tiny frog’s legs, a frog’s mouth stretching from ear to ear, and she was all wet and cold. A beauty. There are none left like her.”
“And what happened then?” inquired Greeney, eagerly.
“What do you think happened? Croakanne was beautiful and she was proud. She just puffed up, and said, ‘Croak.’ Croakoax went mad with desire. ‘If you marry me,’ he told her, ‘I’ll give you anything you wish for.’ ‘Then bring me the blue of the sky,’ she said.”
“What did he do then?” Greeney queried.
“What could he have done? He remained under the water and moaned, ‘Croak, croaaaak.’ He wanted to take his own life. To that end, he jumped from the water into the air, trying to drown in it. No one before him had jumped into the air. Croakoax was the first.”
“And what did he do in the air?”
“Nothing. He looked up, and lo, blue sky was above. He looked down, and behold, blue sky was below, as well. Croakoax marveled. That happened at a time when no one knew that water reflected the sky. When Croakoax saw the blue sky in the water, bewildered, he uttered, ‘Croak,’ and fell into the water again. Then he took Croakanne on his back, and jumped with her into the air. Seeing the blue sky reflected in the water, Croakanne filled with joy and exclaimed, ‘Croak, croak,’ for Croakoax had brought her the blue from the sky.”
“What happened then?”
“Nothing. They lived happily ever after and had oodles of tadpoles. Ever since, water sprites crawl out of the water to remind themselves that the sky is in their home. When one leaves home, whoever he may be, and looks back, just as Croakoax did when he looked into the water, he will understand that his home is there, where the real sky extends. The real, blue, beautiful sky.”
“Who said so?”
“Croakoax did.”
“Long live Croakoax!”
“Long live Croakanne!”
Just then, a man came walking by and thought to himself: “Boy, how the frogs are croaking today!” He grabbed a pebble and threw it into the marsh. The water sprites jumped in. They wouldn’t have another meeting before the year was over. The water splattered high and splashed, then all was quiet.
Lao She is the pseudonym of the Chinese author Shu Sheyu (1899–1966). But even the name Shu Sheyu is not the name he was born with; that would be Shu Qingchun. She was an elementary school principal and after reading Dickens’ novels, he was inspired to pen his own. She’s first novel was Philosophy of Lao Zhang (1926), serialized in a literary magazine. Many of his novels, often banned in China, documented how diligence and fortitude could change one’s circumstances in a cruel world. One such novel, Rickshaw (1936), was illegally bowdlerized in the translation Rickshaw Boy (1945), which became more popular in the United States than the original version. She was badly beaten as a dissident during the Cultural Revolution and committed suicide in 1966. Written in reaction to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the novel Cat Country (1932), an example of science fantasy, has been translated into numerous languages and is said to be one of the earliest examples of Chinese speculative fiction. “The Capital of Cat Country” is a short excerpt from She’s popular work.
The Capital of Cat Country
Lao She
Translated by William A. Lyell
AS SOON AS I SET EYES on Cat City, for some reason or other, a sentence took form in my mind: this civilization will soon perish! It certainly wasn’t because I knew all there was to know about the civilization of Cat Country that I thought this—the experience I had in the reverie forest had only been enough to stimulate my curiosity and make me want to understand everything. Nor was it because I viewed the civilization of Cat Country as a mere tragic interlude prepared for my entertainment and diversion. It was rather that I had hoped to utilize my sojourn in Cat Country to fully comprehend the inner workings of at least this one civilization and thus enrich my experience of life. I knew that it was possible that a whole civilization or even a whole race might perish, for the history of mankind on my own planet, Earth, was not entirely wreathed in roses. And since perusing the history of mankind had been at times enough to make me shed tears, imagine my feelings at the prospect of seeing a civilization breathe its last before my very eyes!
The life of a man, like a candle, seems to glow again with its former brilliance just before going out; similarly, an entire civilization on the point of extinction is not without a final, ephemeral splendor. And yet there is a difference: a civilization on the edge of oblivion is not so conscious of its own imminent demise as is a lone man. It is almost as though the creative process itself had marked the civilization for extinction so that the good—and there are always a few good people left, even in a country that’s about to expire—suffer the same fate as the evil. And perhaps in such a civilization, the few good people left will begin to experience a certain shortness of breath, will begin to draw up their wills, and will even moan over the impending fate of their civilization. But their sad cries, matched against the funeral dirge of their own death-bound culture, will be but as the chirps of lingering cicadas against a cruel autumn wind.