Fantastic Tales: Visionary and Everyday

by Italo Calvino

  Instead of darkening, the haunted landscape began to brighten. Through the belt of trees beyond the brook shone a strange red light, the trunks and branches of the trees making a black lacework against it. It struck the creeping figures and gave them monstrous shadows, which caricatured their movements on the lit grass. It fell upon their faces, touching their whiteness with a ruddy tinge, accentuating the stains with which so many of them were freaked and maculated. It sparkled on buttons and bits of metal in their clothing. Instinctively the child turned toward the growing splendor and moved down the slope with his horrible companions; in a few moments had passed the foremost of the throng—not much of a feat, considering his advantages. He placed himself in the lead, his wooden sword still in hand, and solemnly directed the march, conforming his pace to theirs and occasionally turning as if to see that his forces did not straggle. Surely such a leader never before had such a following.

  Scattered about upon the ground now slowly narrowing by the encroachment of this awful march to water, were certain articles to which, in the leader’s mind, were coupled no significant associations: an occasional blanket, tightly rolled lengthwise, doubled and the ends bound together with a string; a heavy knapsack here, and there a broken rifle—such things, in short, as are found in the rear of retreating troops, the “spoor” of men flying from their hunters. Everywhere near the creek, which here had a margin of lowland, the earth was trodden into mud by the feet of men and horses. An observer of better experience in the use of his eyes would have noticed that these footprints pointed in both directions; the ground had been twice passed over—in advance and in retreat. A few hours before, these desperate, stricken men, with their more fortunate and now distant comrades, had penetrated the forest in thousands. Their successive battalions, breaking into swarms and reforming in lines, had passed the child on every side—had almost trodden on him as he slept. The rustle and murmur of their march had not awakened him. Almost within a stone’s throw of where he lay they had fought a battle; but all unheard by him were the roar of the musketry, the shock of the cannon, “the thunder of the captains and the shouting.” He had slept through it all, grasping his little wooden sword with perhaps a tighter clutch in unconscious sympathy with his martial environment, but as heedless of the grandeur of the struggle as the dead who had died to make the glory.

  The fire beyond the belt of woods on the farther side of the creek, reflected to earth from the canopy of its own smoke, was now suffusing the whole landscape. It transformed the sinuous line of mist to the vapor of gold. The water gleamed with dashes of red, and red, too, were many of the stones protruding above the surface. But that was blood; the less desperately wounded had stained them in crossing. On them, too, the child now crossed with eager steps; he was going to the fire. As he stood upon the farther bank he turned about to look at the companions of his march. The advance was arriving at the creek. The stronger had already drawn themselves to the brink and plunged their faces into the flood. Three or four who lay without motion appeared to have no heads. At this the child’s eyes expanded with wonder; even his hospitable understanding could not accept a phenomenon implying such vitality as that. After slaking their thirst these men had not had the strength to back away from the water, nor to keep their heads above it. They were drowned. In rear of these, the open spaces of the forest showed the leader as many formless figures of his grim command as at first; but not nearly so many were in motion. He waved his cap for their encouragement and smilingly pointed with his weapon in the direction of the guiding light—a pillar of fire to this strange exodus.

  Confident of the fidelity of his forces, he now entered the belt of woods, passed through it easily in the red illumination, climbed a fence, ran across a field, turning now and again to coquet with his responsive shadow, and so approached the blazing ruin of a dwelling. Desolation everywhere! In all the wide glare not a living thing was visible. He cared nothing for that; the spectacle pleased, and he danced with glee in imitation of the wavering flames. He ran about, collecting fuel, but every object that he found was too heavy for him to cast in from the distance to which the heat limited his approach. In despair he flung in his sword—a surrender to the superior forces of nature. His military career was at an end.

  Shifting his position, his eyes fell upon some outbuildings which had an oddly familiar appearance, as if he had dreamed of them. He stood considering them with wonder, when suddenly the entire plantation, with its inclosing forest, seemed to turn as if upon a pivot. His little world swung half around; the points of the compass were reversed. He recognized the blazing building as his own home!

  For a moment he stood stupefied by the power of the revelation, then ran with stumbling feet, making a half-circuit of the ruin. There, conspicuous in the light of the conflagration, lay the dead body of a woman—the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole the brain protruded, overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles—the work of a shell.

  The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain gestures. He uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries—something between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey—a startling, soulless, unholy sound, the language of a devil. The child was a deaf mute.

  Then he stood motionless, with quivering lips, looking down upon the wreck.

  JEAN LORRAIN

  The Holes in the Mask

  (Les Trous du Masque)

  A fin-de-siècle Parisian maudit (he was a homosexual and an ether addict when the open display of these habits was much more scandalous than it would be today), Jean Lorrain (1855–1906) is the author of this tale about masks and nothingness. It possesses a rare nightmare power, especially because the narrator contemplates his own demise.

  The charm of horror only tempts the strong.

  FOR MARCEL SCHOWB

  I

  “YOU DO WANT to see it,” my friend De Jacquels said to me. “Well then, get yourself a domino costume and a mask, an elegant domino cloak made of black satin, put on some dancing pumps, and for this occasion, silk stockings as well. And wait for me at your house on Tuesday at around ten-thirty. I’ll come for you then.”

  The following Tuesday, wrapped in the rustling folds of a long cloak, wearing a velvet mask with a satin beard fastened behind my ears, I waited for my friend De Jacquels in my bachelor flat on Taibout Street, warming my feet, which were stiff with cold and irritated from the unfamiliar touch of silk, at the fireplace. Outside, a jumble of horns and exasperating shrieks of a carnival night rose from the boulevard.

  It was turning out odd, that solitary evening, consisting of a masked man reclining in an armchair in the chiaroscuro of a ground-floor apartment crammed with objects, insulated by rugs, with the high flame of an oil lamp and the flickering of two long, white, slender, almost funerary candles reflected in the mirrors hanging on the wall—even, in retrospect, little by little, disturbing. And still De Jacquels hadn’t arrived! The shrieks of the masqueraders that broke out in the distance made the hostility of the silence seem even heavier. The two candles were burning so straight that, suddenly and impatiently, upset by those three lights, I got up to put one of them out.

  At that moment one of the curtains parted, and De Jacquels entered.

  De Jacquels? I’d heard no knocking, no opening of the door. How had he gotten into my apartment? I’ve often thought about it since then. In any case, there before me was De Jacquels. De Jacquels? Well, a long domino cloak, a large, somber form, veiled and masked, as I was.

  “Are you ready?” asked his voice, which I did not recognize, so changed was it. “My carriage is here, let’s go.”

  His carriage: I hadn’t heard it arrive or stop outside my windows. Into what nightmare, shadow, and mystery had I begun to descend?

  “It’s your h
ood that’s blocking your ears. You aren’t used to the costume,” De Jacquels reflected aloud, having penetrated my silence. So that night he had the power of divination; and, lifting my cloak, he checked on the quality of my silk stockings and my light footwear.

  That gesture calmed me: it was De Jacquels and none other who was speaking from beneath the costume. No one else would have been aware of the admonition De Jacquels had made to me a week before.

  “Well then, let’s go,” ordered his voice, and, in a whisper of silk and satin rubbing together, we sank into the carriage entrance like, it seems to me, two enormous bats, with the flutter of our two capes suddenly wafted above our domino cloaks.

  Where had that strong wind come from, that strange gust? The weather of that carnival night was at once so damp and so mild!

  II

  Where were we traveling now, sunk into the darkness of the extraordinarily silent horse-drawn carriage, whose wheels made no noise beyond that of the horses’ hooves on the wooden pavement of the streets and the macadam on the deserted avenues?

  Where were we going along wharves and unfamiliar shores, barely illuminated here and there by the blurred light of an old lantern? We’d long since lost sight of Notre-Dame’s fantastic silhouette, outlined on the other side of the river against a leaden sky. The Quai Saint-Michel, the Quai de la Tournelle, even the Quai de Bercy; we were far from the Opera, from Drouot, Le Peletier streets, and the center of town. We weren’t even going to Bullier, where shameful vices have their rendezvous and, escaping beneath their masks, whirl around almost like demons cynically confessed on carnival night. And my companion remained silent.

  Alongside that taciturn and pale Seine, under those increasingly infrequent bridges, along those wharves planted with tall, thin trees with branches separated under the livid sky like the fingers of a dead man, I was overcome by an irrational fear, a fear aggravated by De Jacquels’ implacable silence. I began to doubt he was there, to think I was next to a stranger. My companion’s hand had seized my own, and even though his was soft and weak, he held mine in a vise that was crushing my fingers …. That hand of power and will nailed my words to my throat, and I felt any inclination to rebel melt and dissolve within me under its oppression. We were now driving beyond the fortifications and along highways lined by beech trees and the lugubrious stands of wine merchants, food stands on the outskirts of town closed long before. We made our way under the moon, which at last finished outlining a floating mass of clouds and seemed to shower down a coat of salt over that ambiguous suburban landscape. At that instant, it seemed to me that the horses’ hooves were echoing on the embankment of the highway, and that the coach’s wheels, ceasing to be ghosts, were grating on the gravel and the cobblestones.

  “This is the place,” my companion murmured. “We’ve arrived, we can get out.” And to my stammered-out, timid “Where are we?” “At the tollhouse for the Italy road, outside the fortifications. We took the long way, but the safest. We’ll return by another tomorrow morning.” The horses stopped. De Jacquels let go of me to open the door, and then reached his hand out to me.

  III

  A large hall with high ceilings, its walls whitewashed, interior shutters hermetically sealed, and throughout the entire room, tables to which white tin cups were chained. To the rear, raised three steps on a dais, the zinc bar, crowded with liquors and bottles bearing the brightly colored labels of legendary wines. Inside that place the gas hissed, loud and clear. The hall, in sum, no more spacious or clean than a popular suburban tavern doing a brisk business.

  “Above all, not a word to anyone at all. Don’t speak to a soul; don’t even answer. They would see we don’t belong, and we could have a rough time. Me, they know.” De Jacquels pushed me into the hall.

  Some masked people, scattered about the hall, were drinking. When we entered, the owner of the establishment stood up and, dragging his feet, made his way heavily toward us as if to block our way. Without a word, De Jacquels raised the hem of our cloaks and showed him our feet shod in fine slippers. That, doubtless, was the “open sesame” for this strange establishment. The owner returned heavily to the bar, and I realized, strange to say, that he too was wearing a mask, but one made of rough cardboard, painted in a burlesque style, imitating a human face.

  The two waiters, two giants with their shirtsleeves rolled up over their boxer’s biceps, made their way in silence, they too invisible under the same frightful mask.

  The few costumed people seated at the tables and drinking wore masks made of velvet and satin. Except for an enormous, uniformed cuirassier, a brutish type with a heavy jaw and reddish beard, seated next to two elegant dominoes wearing mauve silk, and drinking with his face exposed, his blue eyes already vague, none of the beings there had a human face.

  In one corner, two huge figures wearing blouses and velvet caps, masked in black satin, were intriguing because of their suspicious elegance—their blouses were made of pale blue silk, and from beneath their too-new trousers peeked fine women’s feet wrapped in silk and encased in slippers. As if hypnotized, I would have gone on contemplating that spectacle if De Jacquels hadn’t dragged me to the back of the hall, toward a windowless door closed off by a red curtain. Entrance to the Dance was written above the door in the fancy lettering of an apprentice painter. A municipal policeman stood guard next to it. It was, at least, some sort of security, but when I passed and touched his hand, I realized it was made of wax, as was his pink face bristling with false whiskers. I had the horrible certitude that the only being whose presence had reassured me in that place of mystery was a mere manikin ….

  IV

  For how many hours was I wandering alone among silent masks in that hangar vaulted like a church. And in effect, it was a church: an abandoned, secularized church, that large hall with ogival windows, most of them half walled-up, between its ornate columns whitewashed with a thick yellowish coating into which the sculpted flowers on the capitals sank.

  A strange ball, at which no one danced and at which there was no orchestra! De Jacquels had disappeared, and I was alone, abandoned amid that unknown crowd. An old wrought-iron chandelier burned bright and clear suspended in the dome, illuminating the dusty paving stones, some of which, blackened with inscriptions, perhaps covered tombs. In the rear, where the altar should have reigned, there were, hung at mid-height on the wall, cribs and eating-troughs, and in the corners were piled forgotten harnesses and halters. The ballroom was a stable. Here and there, huge barbershop mirrors framed with gold paper reflected, from one to the next, the silent passage of the masqueraders. That is to say, they no longer reflected it, since they’d all sat down, lined up, immobile, on both sides of the old church, entombed up to their shoulders in the old choir seats.

  There they remained, mute, motionless, as if withdrawn into mystery under long monk’s cowls made of silvery cloth, but a matte silver without reflection. Now there were no more dominoes, no silk blouses, no Columbines, no Pierrots, no grotesque disguises. But all those masked people were alike, swathed in the same green suit, a discolored green rather like gold sulfite, with capacious black sleeves, and all in dark green hoods with two holes for their eyes in their silver cowls in the hollow of the cape.

  One might have said they were the limy faces of the lepers from the ancient lazaretto. And their black-gloved hands held erect a long stem of a black lily with pale leaves, and their hoods, like Dante’s, were crowned with black fleurs-de-lis.

  And all those cowls kept silent with the fixedness of ghosts, and above their funeral crowns, the orb of the windows, clearly outlined above the white sky of the moon, covered them with a transparent miter.

  I felt my reason sinking away in horror. The supernatural was enveloping me! The rigidity, the silence of all those masked beings! What were they? Another moment of doubt would be madness. I couldn’t stand it anymore, so, with my hand clenched in anguish, I advanced toward one of the masked figures and roughly raised his cowl.

  Horror! There was
nothing, nothing! My terrified eyes found only the hollow of the hood. The suit, the cloak were empty. That being who once lived was only shadow and nothingness.

  Crazed with terror, I pulled off the cowl of the masked figure sitting in the next chair: the green velvet cowl was empty, as empty as the cowls of the other masked figures seated along the wall. They all had shadow faces; they were all nothing.

  And the gas blazed higher, almost whistling in the high-ceilinged room. Through the broken glass of the ogives, the moonlight glowed, almost blinding. Then a horror seized me amid all those hollow beings with the empty appearance of ghosts, a horrible doubt oppressed my heart before all those vacant masks.

  What if I were like them, what if I too had ceased to exist, and what if beneath my mask there was nothing, only nothingness! I ran to one of the mirrors. A dream figure rose before me, covered in dark green, crowned with black fleurs-de-lis, wearing a silver mask.