The Nightmare Had Triplets

by Branch Cabell

  He jumped now, a little, as he put aside these disturbing reflections. Yes, that wakeful half-hour, in the time before dawn, was troublesome, but there was no need to bother about it on this pleasant afternoon. It was better to continue conscientiously upon one of those therapeutic walks which the family physician recommends, with an affable obstinacy, after you have reached the angina age. It was gratifying, too, to observe that as you passed among your fellow townsmen, in the cool of this pleasant evening, the public at large were all speaking, with appropriate interest and with a hitherto unnoted deference, as to the main glory of Richmond-in-Virginia. It showed that the black dog did not know what he was talking about.

  IV. “THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF”

  “That is Smirt, the very great author,” an intelligent looking baker remarked to his companions—“yonder tall and dark and superbly handsome gentleman.”

  “He is more beautiful than a Greek god,” declared the butcher, who was plainly a well-read person. “I would describe his appearance as Praxitelean.”

  “But how unimportant, my friends, is his virile comeliness in comparison with his other gifts!” cried the candlestick maker.

  “Born of an old and distinguished family, with an authentic coat of arms,” said Tom, “the genius of Smirt has promoted him to opulence and fame alike.”

  “The books of Smirt,” Dick commented, “are read with deference and a complete lack of understanding, all over the world, in every language. I have seen his picture in two newspapers.”

  Then Harry said, a little enviously: “His morals are by no means what they should be, and all women pursue him. He has dug much in other men’s ditches.”

  “In its every passage his life,” declared Madame Quelquechose, “has been an incredible romance, for Smirt has indulged every passion with discrimination; he burns always with the required gem-like flame, and he has philosophically sampled its every scorching. There is no emotion which has not been tested and described handsomely by Smirt.”

  “Indeed I have it upon the very best authority,” said Senora Etcetera, “that forgery, arson, rape, barratry, plagiarism, driving while under the influence of intoxicants, manslaughter, piracy on the high seas, false income tax returns, and offences against the person, against property (either with or without violence) and offences against the currency also—I have heard, I repeat, that such matters are the daily diversion of Smirt.”

  “That is as it should be,” stated Lady Ampersand, “for these naughty doings enrich the mind, and they broaden the point of view of a writer, besides adding to the interest of his biography.”

  “The biography of Smirt, my friends,” said Anon, “will never be printed in anything like a complete state. The fact is well known that he has his dinner jackets tailored with two outside pockets so as to keep contraceptives always handy; and his own relatives admit he has done everything which makes a person sophisticated. These matters are familiar to all Richmond-in-Virginia.”

  “You need add no more,” remarked Ibid, “for, as a writer who am myself pretty widely quoted, I know that such enormities cannot be mentioned in any biography intended for school and college use. Yet genius creates its own laws.”

  “You may well say that,” the world and his wife agreed comfortably. “There is really nothing like genius.”

  “I think his books are perfectly wonderful,” declared Mrs. Murgatroyd; “and whenever I see Smirt I simply cannot imagine what it was I saw in Murgatroyd.”

  V. RATIONALITY INTERVENES

  Now the provoker of all this adulation was not listening any longer to the public at large. Instead he was wondering why these persons, who in every other respect spoke with tact, courtesy, intelligence, and discrimination, should all be emulating that uncivil black dog by calling him Smirt, when the fact stayed almost certain his name was not Smirt. It seemed an odd thing, too, that for the moment he could not recall his real name; but he had not any doubt this name would come back to him by-and-by.

  “Meanwhile let us respect public opinion,” he exhorted himself. “These persons can see in me but Smirt, a supreme genius who is in every way superb and enviable. With what inadequacy do they comprehend me! The truth as to this being whom they erroneously call Smirt is far more great and more profound and more strange, I now perceive. It is undeniable that this truth eludes me for the present. I perceive its existence, but I do not grasp its connection with anything else. Yet this truth relates, I know, to an eternal questing which is not yet finished. Since I cannot well be the Wandering Jew, who was circumcised, it would seem to follow in plain logic that Ahasuerus may have his complement in the Errant Christian. To put the matter even more precisely, I am no doubt the Peripatetic Episcopalian.”

  For an urbane person, he reflected, must naturally be an Episcopalian, taking his beliefs not too seriously, as luxuries rather than as necessities. Between piety and atheism, then, the Peripatetic Episcopalian would go his discreet way, admiring the fervors of both now and again, but admiring them, as one does the flowers in a public park, without touching either. To believe, absolutely and indissuadably, as did such quaint persons as Methodists and Free-thinkers, that you yourself knew the truth as to religion, or as to anything else, must always be for the Peripatetic Episcopalian an unattainable naïveté. At odd times you might almost desire such naïveté.

  Meanwhile the Peripatetic Episcopalian had his unrivalled Book of Common Prayer, he had his one safe religious tenet, that Thomas Cranmer wrote excellent prose. Apart from that dogma he was well content (in so far as Smirt could recall what Pater had written about Botticelli) “to accept that middle world in which men take no side in great conflicts, and decide no great causes, and make great refusals; setting thus for himself the limits within which art, undisturbed by any moral ambition, does its most sincere and surest work.”

  Afterward Smirt said: “On the other hand, I once dreamed, more or less like the philosopher Chuang Tzu, that I was a blue-bottle fly. I was then conscious only of my thoughts, my interests, and my beliefs as a blue-bottle fly, and unconscious of my present individuality as a man. I awoke from that dream, and it seemed to me I was myself again. Still, I cannot be certain. Still, I do not know whether I was at that time a gifted literary genius dreaming I was a bluebottle fly, or whether I am at this time a blue-bottle fly dreaming I am a literary genius.”

  It was not, he reflected, that any urbane and literate person could object to being a fly. To the contrary, Homer had lauded the fly, finding no higher praise possible for any warrior than to liken his boldness in battle to the boldness, during the dog days, of a fly, which although driven away once and again from the skin of men, still is eager to bite, and sweet to it is the blood of mankind.

  And Lucian also, Lucian had devoted an entire essay to praising the beauty and wisdom and musical gifts, and yet other virtues, of the fly, an essay in which Lucian had laid special emphasis upon the fact, not very generally known even to-day, that if a little ashes be sprinkled on a dead fly, it experiences a second birth, and stands up, spreading its delicate and peacock-hued wings for a fresh start in life,—a circumstance, as Lucian conceded half-enviously, which could not but be interpreted as a proof that the soul of every fly is both rational and immortal, where the soul of man may well be made of less durable stuff, inasmuch as the soul of a fly, after returning somehow from an insectean Hades, can thus recognize and reanimate its discarded body.

  You could not desire better sponsors. No living literary genius had ever been commended by both Homer and Lucian, no mere man of letters could now hope to be mentioned thus honorably by these masters.... And yet, after all, one’s flyship was but a possibility. It might be a deluding mirage. To imagine that you were born of the Calliphora family, and related closely to all the Muscoidea and kin to the great race of Diptera, might even be an excursion into that overweening and highly dangerous pride termed hubris; for after weighing every bit of the evidence, you had no sound legal proof with which to establish in any court
of law that Smirt was a bluebottle fly who was now dreaming about you.

  For this reason Smirt said also: “The problem baffles me. It is plain that I move in a dream. Yet in no way known to me can I deduce from a dream the person who is dreaming it. He is Smirt, obviously. Ah, but who is Smirt? As to that profound question I remain unassured. He may very well be a blue-bottle fly, most nobly descended from the Diptera, through the Calliphora family; but with equal likelihood he may be the Peripatetic Episcopalian, a personage no less splendid. I do not know. I know only that in this dream, no matter who may happen to be dreaming it, my desire reaches beyond the doings and the rewards of an applauded literary genius, about whom all the public at large are now talking. And the moral of that is (as the dear Duchess put it) that I must satisfy this desire, the very instant I have discovered its nature.”

  “Perhaps, Smirt, it is your desire to give a brief interview to the Times-Leader,” the young man suggested.

  VI. REASONS FOR NOT TALKING

  “No,” Smirt replied, “it is not my desire to ‘give’ either a brief interview or a lengthy interview for the Times-Leader in this place. I cannot reasonably expected to display my wit, my erudition, my profundity, or in fact any of my talents, upon a street corner.”

  “Yet your publisher suggested, sir—”

  “That is possible. With time, with sore travail, does each author learn that the ways of every known publisher resemble the axiomatic peace of God.”

  “And so—” said the young man.

  “Nevertheless,” Smirt explained, “I really cannot; talk with you just now.”

  “But—” said the young man.

  “To the other side,” Smirt went on, “since I can think of no civil pretext for avoiding the intrusion, I must assure you, my dear sir, that should you call at my home about four o’clock to-morrow afternoon, your advent will be to me a source of considerable pleasure; and that with unbounded delight I will then ‘give’ the newspaper interview for which you have misguidedly asked. The affair is thus settled. And yet it really does seem rather an unexhilarating manner of wasting our time.”

  I am sure of this fact (Smirt continued, in the while that he went on to explain why Smirt could not talk to the representative of the Times-Leader) because, under varying surnames, and wearing slightly different very young faces, you have called on me aforetime, very, very often, at the bidding of one or another of the local papers. Your questions, during the last twenty-five years, have varied in their objectives, but never in their depth and seriousness and futility. Nor indeed have they varied widely. Not ever, for example, during the last twenty-five years, has any representative of the Virginian press failed to inquire, “What will be the future trend of literature in the South?” and, “Whom do you consider to have the most promising future among our younger Southern writers?” I am forlornly convinced therefore that, at not later than two minutes after four o’clock to-morrow afternoon, you also, my dear sir, will have asked me both these questions, quite gravely.

  Not at all (Smirt resumed) will your polite summons to unveil the future perturb me. I shall face both queries, I can assure you, without replying “Alackaday!” or “Misserime!” or even “Ototoi!” For whensoever anybody, in any walk of life, is “interviewed,” then as a matter of course he is called on to prophesy. It is possible to unfold no morning paper without facing a half-column instance or so of magnates vaticinating as to next month’s stock market and the next quarter’s upswing, or of tourists just off the gangplank who are reassuringly conversant with Europe’s future (specialising at this present moment in the destinies of Russia and of Germany), or of realtors lyric over the impendent boom in real estate. And what publicist anywhere (save only, perhaps, Mr. Roosevelt) remains ignorant as to what the President intends to do next? It seems but fair that in this welter of omniscience the most obtuse of writers should know all about the future of literature in the South.

  So I shall not reply to these perennial questions truthfully, “I don’t know.” To admit any such nescience would be humiliating beyond human endurance so long as at least a dozen persons continue to subscribe to the New Republic, and thus find all future happenings made plain as an equal number of pike-staves. I dislike appearing unique in my ignorance. I prefer to hedge; I elect to answer all “interviewers” a civil pretence of taking them seriously; and therefore, at two minutes after four o’clock tomorrow afternoon, I shall attempt to disguise, in resonant and shifty babblings, modeled after the general style of the New York Times’ editorial page, my lack of any firm interest in literary trends or in any of our younger Southern writers.

  It is not that even in my most private thoughts I disparage these matters. I mean only that, if any author dared venture into printed frankness, I would have to say to you, necessarily, that it was my appointed task to construct my own books in the way which seemed best to me. I was thus forced (I would continue) throughout the passing away of many highly enjoyable years, to run counter to all current literary trends, and to disregard them. You question me (I would point out) as to a subject with which I have cultivated—resolutely, throughout my whole life as an author—all possible unacquaintance. Inasmuch as I have never taken holy orders, I do not believe that complete ignorance of the topic in hand can peculiarly qualify me to dispose of it with authority.

  Even so, I prefer to be fair. I remark that, perhaps throughout the entire South, but most certainly in the State of Virginia, the liberal arts now flourish to an unprecedented extent. Mr. Charles Gilpin, the noted actor who but lately created the title role of The Emperor Jones, I would remind you, was a native born Virginian. So, I believe, was Miss Peggy Hopkins Joyce, whose cognate genius for acting is attested by the number of her husbands. And Mr. Bill Robinson, the famous tap dancer, is yet another jewel—as one should say, a black diamond—in the cultural diadem of Virginia.

  In still another field of aesthetics may Virginia point with maternal pride to that gifted cantatrice, Miss Kate Smith, whose voice makes melody in the homes of a vast radio audience thrice a week, proclaiming the merits of I forget whose cigars. And in what state, I demand of the welkin, was reared and nurtured Mr. Freeman Gosden, that pre-eminent expositor of Pepsodent’s never-ending comédie humaine! Echo answers, I admit, “Maine.” But her answer is not true. The world knows that Mr. Gosden likewise is a native born Virginian.

  Do not think me a mere boaster, in the best Southern tradition. It is needful for a Virginian thus to catalogue at the top of his voice these finer flowers of our present-day cultural renaissance. And my point is not merely that all these Virginian artists prospered through the simple and unarduous recipe of leaving Virginia. What seems to me far more important, and more instructive, and more full of promise as concerns the future, is the attested fact that Virginia nowadays honors her leading artists liberally. Did Charles, the great emperor, stoop to pick up the brush of Titian? With a celerity no less imperial or gleaming, so often as Miss Kate Smith delights Virginia With a visit, does the Governor of Virginia, attended by his gold-braided staff, arise very early in the morning to meet her Pullman with plenary homage. And when Mr. Robinson frequents Richmond-in-Virginia, then even in the lobby of our most fashionable hotel is Mr. Bill Robinson to be seen dancing nimbly with this or the other fair Caucasian maiden, his pupil, amid the respectful applause of our city’s elite, so properly have we learned to esteem the art of Mr. Robinson as weighed against yesterday’s inter-racial taboos.

  Concerning the enthusiasm with which Virginia greets the most widely known of her children, Mr. Gosden, I can but remark that it staggers belief and checks traffic in the public highways. It does not seem enough that en grande tenue the citizens of Richmond have conferred upon this all-conqueror the appropriate gift of a sword. The pomps of that chivalrous ceremony did but feebly indicate our fond and inexpressible pride in the most famous of living Virginians. Everywhither do such throngs attend the passing of our supreme artist that when, with his confrere in comedy, Mr. Charl
es Correll, he last entered a Richmond bank, it was found needful to put a placard in the front window explaining that no “run” on the establishment was in progress, but that “Amos ’n’ Andy” were inside. We Virginians have taken, in short, the main step toward autochthonous art: we have evolved, we have learned to revere, our own aesthetic.

  With the cultural ideals of the South in a condition thus thriving, I do not doubt that, in the former Confederacy, literature will begin, by-and-by, to share with her sister arts in public esteem. This very afternoon I have overheard remarks from the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker which displayed a praiseworthy interest in polite letters. That fact is encouraging. It induces me to look forward to a time when every Southern household of the better class will contain its book as well as its electric refrigerator; when painters and musicians will be regarded in the South almost as seriously as aldermen; when its statuary will serve needs not wholly canine; and when Southerners will accord, in brief, to the career of every kind of creative artist a quota of condonation.

  My point is merely that the dawn of this approvable day (despite the highly encouraging symptoms noted this afternoon) is not quite as yet apparent. And so I admit that, to my finding, for any young Southerner to commence author, just at present, does show such disregard for the opinions of his more mature and better-thought-of neighbors as (even before I have looked over his book and decided that, after all, I do not have to read it) does prejudice me as to his mental balance. One who forfeits thus wantonly the respect of his daily associates, and of his abashed family, is not, I reflect, the exact person with whom the judicious would foregather, even in print. So I do, it may be, avoid the books of our younger Southern authors somewhat more expeditiously than I shy away from the newest balderdash by oncoming American authors spawned in some other section of the Republic. I do it unconsciously, because of my respect for the common-sense standards of my own better-thought-of neighbors.