The Nightmare Had Triplets

by Branch Cabell

  “In fact,” said Smirt, with some show of interest, “why should any human life be longer than a tunnel? I had not thought of the matter in that light. But, now my own wits have pointed it out, I can see that if my life were just 3600 feet long I would be in a sad taking.”

  Then the black dog began to smile in a way which, somehow, appeared equivocal, and he wagged his white tail with contentment.

  “Moreover, Smirt,” said the black dog, “you forget that the metal chromium was discovered and isolated by Vauquelin in 1797.”

  “Whereas I am not isolated at all!” said Smirt, brightening still more. “I have never been isolated. So that I am far luckier than chromium, or than beryllium either, upon which Vauquelin played the same trick during the following year.”

  “Finally, Smirt, you forget that the chief interest of North Dakota is agriculture, which produces in that state every cereal and other crop known to the north temperate zone.”

  “Whereas I am not the least bit interested in agriculture!” Smirt declared happily. “I never have been. Nor do I have to live in North Dakota, where, as I now recall, black dog, nine and six-tenths less fortunate people do have to live to every square mile. I would find it quite intolerable to have to associate every day with six-tenths of a person. And all this, just as you say, I am spared. Well, well, but there is nothing like logic: and it does pay, in the long run, to reason these things out to the bottom with one’s own wits.”

  “So now you see for yourself,” said the black dog. “Your wits have returned to you, and I am very well rid of them. But you, you will need all those precious wits of yours before the Spider Woman has done with Smirt.”

  Then he went away, laughing unpleasantly, in a way which Smirt did not think respectful, somehow, although that was hardly the immediate point.

  “The immediate point is, he is not a real dog. He has inside him no traditional love for mankind, but only bits of string. Moreover, his back lifts off. So of course he has to go back to the radiator in my writing room,” Smirt reasoned it out. “It would be wholly absurd to expect any such black wooden dog to remain here talking with me, because no species of dog can talk.”

  For now that Smirt had considered logically his good luck along with his bad luck, the Curse of Two Fortnights was lifted; and along with his lost wits all Smirt’s urbanity had returned to him. He took out of his pocket the forty reis piece, and procured a fresh package of cigarettes, with the necessary matches, and he passed jauntily from the dead city of Ras Sem into the highest circles of philosophy.

  XXXII. IN THE PAPER PALACE

  Now that his wits were restored to him, and he was once more a sound logician, Smirt went, rather as a matter of course, into the palace of Rani. The home of the South Wind’s third daughter was builded handsomely, out of the very best quality of paper; by a great triumph of engineering, it was balanced upon a gilt weather-cock, in order that its inhabitants might not ever fall into set ways, or any paralyzing routine of life; and into this variable, high palace the charms of the South Wind’s third daughter had uplifted the finest of existent minds, so that in this place her servitors could observe and criticize the doings of time and chance without any bias.

  Nor was that everything: for the servants of Rani played in wide fields of thought. Hour in, and hour out, did her followers speak to one another, and to nobody else. And it was about every sociological matter which entered into the doings of time and chance that they spoke to one another, hour in, and hour out, after a sublime fashion which time and chance would no doubt have found informative; and inasmuch as none of these philosophers had ever for one instant listened to his fellows, all passed happily enough in the paper palace of Rani.

  “One perceives,” said Smirt, “that the humanities are well honored hereabouts, and that these are not ordinary philosophers.”

  A doctor of laws replied: “These, Smirt, are the wise followers of Rani. They think each man his own sociological thoughts, and they voice these thoughts without ever ceasing, who know that for such fine minds the universe and its contents are toys to be played with.”

  “Well, but,” said Smirt, “this savors of hubris, of that overweening pride which destroyed Oedipus, and Prometheus, and so many other protagonists of Greek drama. Let us avoid hubris. Let us remember, gentlemen, that in point of fact it is the Stewards of Heaven who play with this special part of the universe and with all its contents, including philosophers.”

  “That, Smirt, is but a gross and material consideration,” returned a lexicographer.

  “You remind me, sir, of my late fiancée Oriana—”

  “I remind you rather that such gods, if there be any gods, have their divine will with our bodies; but all we live snug and secure from such foolishness, each man abiding in the inmost nook of his own brain cells, thinking our sociological thoughts, and deriding the gods, who have no power over our minds.”

  Up went the eyebrows of Smirt, and his shoulders also went up, shruggingly; but his doubtfulness stayed unspoken. He remarked, instead:

  “You reason adroitly. Yet has this continuous thinking at any time revealed to you gentlemen why on earth the All-Highest ever created mankind? For that one sociological problem does baffle me, I admit. I cannot quite believe it was done solely for the diversion of Smirt—”

  “The possible intentions of his just not impossible Creator,” replied a grammarian, “is an affair with which man has no concern. Man exists endowed with certain qualities. To develop, and to make full use of, these qualities, in so far as stays convenient under the local police regulations, is his proper sociological course. It is a course which, in plain reason, could not anger any rational Creator under Whose direct supervision the hornet stings, the hawk murders, and the polecat is unpopular.”

  Then a pantologist said: “All human freedom consists in the affirmation of the inevitable. Thus alone may one achieve teshuvah, the identification of one’s will with the will of the All-Highest. Yet have not many psychologists equated this self-negation with a lack of self-esteem as a fairly constant element in the neuroses of an Hebraic windbag? That is a weighty point; that is fundamental stuff such as Ludwig Lewisohn publishes; and people admire it.”

  “Moreover, in considering the All-Highest, and eschatology in general,” said a bachelor of science, “one must distinguish between the rude fables of antiquity and the refinements of polite religion. For I am meditating, this afternoon, upon the sociology of Doomsday. The dead will then arise, we are informed, unchanged. I infer that all the blessed will arise with their bowels, which will undoubtedly continue to function. In Our Father’s house are many outhouses. Yes, there will be comfort stations in Paradise, with millions of rest rooms; and it is a solemn thought to reflect upon the holy persons enthroned in them every morning.”

  “But each one of you,” said Smirt, “strays from the point, like a broken compass. I have asked a plain question, a question of some importance. And each one of you three has veered away from it, to reverberate another question.”

  “How does it matter, Smirt?” asked Rani, who was the lovely and erratic queen over all these philosophers. “Is it not better to be broad-minded?”

  “Well, now that all depends,” said Smirt. “There are far too many minds which broaden by the simple process of becoming more shallow. Yet in most circumstances it is well to be broad-minded; for otherwise, there is no telling.”

  The South Wind’s daughter regarded him pensively; and pensively she began, you could see, to approve of her newest philosopher.

  Rani was clothed, to a certain extent at least, in a fine robe of transparent iridescent stuff, colored like the wings of a blue-bottle fly; and this was embroidered with very small scarlet fig-leaves. Her golden head-dress had the quaint shaping of a coiled serpent with its head raised.

  Rani remarked, after a moment of appraising reflection:

  “And besides, Smirt, if you and I were human, it might be we would need to trouble over these human problems.
But as matters stand, they do not concern us, any more than we need to know why a dog must turn about in a circle before he lies down or why moths fly toward a lighted candle and destroy themselves joyfully.”

  “Yet I do know, Rani, about the King of Hearts and about barbers’ poles also—”

  “For the rest,” said Rani, standing a-tiptoe to pat his cheek, “you are Smirt the Peripatetic Episcopalian, and I am the South Wind’s own daughter. Let us be content with our high stations.”

  “Revered Rani, it is in a dream that we occupy these stations. And that makes a difference, it may be,” said Smirt, dubiously. “However, even in a dream it is pleasant to become a philosopher and to lead a contemplative life in this handsome palace of yours. Yes, it is quite gratifying to have so many superb minds forever at work to the right and the left of you, and to hear them delivering such valuable opinions about every topic unceasingly. It is still more gratifying—I need hardly say—to be cherished by a creature so lovable and so wholly lovely as you are, dear lady.”

  “Ah, but,” said Rani, “the best is yet to be.” And at that, Smirt shook his head, forebodingly.

  XXXIII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF RANI

  Yes, dreaming was pleasant enough, Smirt reflected, in the good graces of Rani. None the less was it necessary to be firm when Rani talked about marriage and, a very little later, about dispensing with marriage.

  “These are suggestions which pain me,” Smirt told her. “It is true that your family owes me a wife, O daughter of the South Wind, but I have no need of a wife now that I have turned philosopher. No, there is Socrates who, being dead, yet speaketh, dehorting the philosophic from matrimony. No, these suggestions are the sort of thing which one expects from mortal women, and from goddesses also, but you, my adored Rani, are the supreme passion of my life, at this special instant; and I do not propose to have the supreme passion of my life destroyed by any such antics.”

  “On the other hand—” said Rani.

  “Do you consider, O heart’s dearest,” Smirt pleaded, as he sat down beside Rani, on her double bed, in order to reason more comfortably, “do you consider the grotesque indignity of the performance you contemplate! In no variant does it admit an element of gracefulness. It betrays one into a frame of mind which is neither tactful nor urbane. Indeed, it temporarily remits the intelligence; and to do that is not good for a philosopher. Moreover, this performance results in sweat, in spasms, in slime, and in smells. It results, in brief, in the instant need of a bath. Yet it is in this horrible way that every woman expects a man to express his affection!”

  “Nevertheless—” said Rani.

  “I can but suggest,” said Smirt, “that relatively few women possess any imagination. They resent, it may be, the male’s larger gift of imagination, which attains its most epic proportions when the man is in love. They beguile him therefore into the inconsequent notion that his imaginings have something to do with a conjuncture of sewer pipes. They suggest to him that the most undignified goings-on, in a bed such as we now occupy, are the goal and the logical result of all his lofty imaginings. In this way do women manage to discredit the imagination of every man, sooner or later. And in this way also do women find for all abstract notions a common denominator, so that the justice of Airel, the piety of Oriana, and the philosophy of Rani become indistinguishable the one from another.”

  “Still—” said Rani.

  “I present this theory,” said Smirt, “simply as an hypothesis. A learned author has remarked that no man quite understands women; and he might well have added that in this respect women are far from unique, inasmuch as no man can quite understand anything. I cannot understand, for example, why you do not keep your hands to yourself. I understand only that illusions are highly entertaining to Smirt. I must in consequence cherish my illusions; and you, O my dearest Rani, are the chief of my illusions, at of course this special stage in my dream.”

  “Yet—” said Rani.

  “I can but entreat you,” said Smirt, “not to persuade, reason, moralize, dispute, wrangle, and bandy arguments, with such torrents of eloquence; for my mind is made up. Yes, dear lady, it is quite pretty; but then I have seen a great many of them, you know.”

  “But—” said Rani.

  “No, my darling,” said Smirt. “In the palace of Rani my pursuits shall be purely intellectual. Even in the bed of Rani I intend to remain upright and unadventurous. Meanwhile, if you insist on it, I not mind kissing you in a purely philosophic way.”

  Rani said nothing.

  But Smirt said, almost immediately: “Did I not stipulate ‘in a purely philosophic way’? Ah, well, but Epicurus also was a philosopher; and there is certainly something to be said for the hedonistic school.”

  In his heart, however, Smirt was reflecting: “After all, this young woman is not Arachne. No; I am still in the wrong legend; and my quest, as yet, remains unfulfilled.”

  XXXIV. IS PAST IN A JIFFY

  Smirt left the bed of Rani and the delights of her paper palace without further delay. He quitted them in a jiffy (which he preferred upon the whole to a trice, although neither of them was in appearance quite what Smirt had expected) because Smirt’s honor was engaged in the quest of Arachne’s legend, and because the trivial pretty face of Arachne stayed always in Smirt’s thinking. He had promised, by no less than seven revered matters, to restore to this girl her lost estate in the lands beyond common-sense. It was a fact which debarred shilly-shallying. He must keep his promise, he deduced, with the unhesitancy of a sound logician, in a jiffy.

  But in a jiffy he found that her legend was not known at Camelot: no one of Arthur’s knights, and not even gray Merlin Ambrosius, could direct Smirt to that lost estate. Charlemagne and the twelve paladins who were then in attendance upon Charlemagne had heard no report of Arachne, nor had bland Bishop Turpin heard of her either. At Tara of the Kings, Fionn Mac Uail shook his wise head regretfully; no, he had known many women, but never Arachne: at Tara, not even Diarmuid, whom all women cherished because of his love spot, had been pursued by Arachne, in so far as Diarmuid could remember. And at Bagdad it was the same disappointing story: Haroun Alraschid was sympathetic, even cordial; if Smirt wanted a woman, here were three dozen young virgins, each one of them more fair than the moon, at Smirt’s disposal: but of these un-pierced pearls, of these most lovely fillies not as yet tamed by any rider (so Mesrour the head eunuch reported) no one was Arachne. Nor when Smirt came to the court of Prester John in a jiffy could the king-bishop or any of the seventy-two emperors who served Prester John, after they had consulted together, in a large hall hung with red panther skins, help Smirt in Smirt’s questing.

  Then, still in a jiffy, Smirt went about the kingdom of El Dorado, where the reigning monarch was oiled every morning and sprinkled all over with gold dust. And afterward Smirt visited the Hyperboreans, on the other side of the North Star. And in neither country could Smirt find the legend of Arachne.

  Then at Atlantis Smirt consulted, without any least success, the supreme oracle of Poseidon, in a circular temple builded of ivory and of silver, and capped with tall pinnacles of gold and orichalc. Through four of the Fortunate Islands likewise did Smirt seek after Arachne’s legend without finding any trace of it. And Smirt travelled among more barbarous peoples too, among men that had the heads and the soft pendant ears of setter dogs, and among men who were shaped like eels, and among men who were so oddly constructed as to possess, each one of them in his own person, the organs proper to both sexes. And among none of these peoples could Smirt find the legend of Arachne.

  After that, Smirt questioned the Samoyeds, another remarkably hirsute nation, whose faces were upside down, and who shed their skins once a year. And Smirt questioned the Umeloi, the Hill-Dwellers, a black people with flaming red eyes and very bright yellow hair, who lived in elm-trees, in large egg-shaped nests made out of gaily colored bird feathers. And Smirt questioned also the terrible army of Gog and Magog, where they lay encamped in the Caucasus Mountains, wai
ting until the hour came for them to destroy all this world and to ravage the golden city of Jehovah.

  But everywhere Smirt questioned in vain. None of these peoples had the desired legend, and learned person with whom Smirt talked in the lands beyond common-sense could tell Smirt anything about the Arachne whose trivial pretty face stayed so obstinately in Smirt’s thinking.

  “It is needful,” said Smirt, “that something should be done at once about this unsatisfactory state of affairs.”

  XXXV. THE WAY OF A MAID

  Now the appearance of Arachne haunted Smirt, saying: “You have talked, and strutted, and talked,—and then you have talked some more. But you have not ever found my legend, you have not restored to me any of my lost estate in these lands beyond common-sense, as you most faithfully promised you would do, when you swore a great oath by those curious gods of yours.”

  “That is true, Arachne.... And for the rest, as a matter of course I have talked. One has to keep up the conversation. But I most certainly have not strutted. My modesty is proverbial.”

  Then the appearance of Arachne would smile somewhat. “It does not matter,” she said, cryptically. “I rather like it.”

  “In fact, Arachne, now that you have brought up the topic, modesty is a rare virtue.”

  “And it seems particularly praiseworthy, Smirt, in any Virginian gentleman who has so little to be modest about, does it not?”

  “Come now, Arachne, but that also is true! You have a logical mind, my dear—”

  She had colored up deliriously. But she frowned also, saying,—

  “To begin with—”

  “I know,” said Smirt. “But I do not apologize, because you really are my dear, at all events during this special stage of my dream. And in any case, I was only going on to observe that my virtues, whatsoever they may or may not happen to be, have thus far availed nothing.”