The Nightmare Had Triplets

by Branch Cabell

  “They have brought us two together, Smirt. It may be that before long,” the girl said, with an odd, an almost hungry look, “they will bring us a great deal more closely together. There is a quiet little place over yonder—”

  “It is that outcome which I desire, my darling, even though it be far more than has been merited by my wit, my fancy, my profundity, and by yet other mental gifts with which a few excellent critics have been so kind as to accredit me—oh, but beyond doubt, through that habitual excess of charity which distinguishes most book reviewers,—and to which, Arachne, I shall not further allude lest I appear boastful. Some day I must show you my press clippings. Nevertheless, and with all these talents, I have failed thus far, I repeat, in two quests.”

  “Your modesty really is,” she remarked, with conviction, “rather wonderful. But I do like it, somehow. I find it appetizing. And as I was saying, just over yonder—”

  “For I know, Arachne,” Smirt continued, “I know very well that I adore you. Yet I do not know anything else about you, inasmuch as I have not yet recovered your legend; and I do not know who I may happen to be, either. That is the great drawback to having an over-vigorous and too inclusive mind. It is a mind, Arachne, which embraces a wide variety of subjects with a quickness I cannot possibly follow. So we are both lost, my dearest, we are lost forever, I am very much afraid, in the encyclopaedic dreaming of Smirt.”

  She appeared puzzled now; and she protested,—

  “But you yourself are Smirt—”

  “That is perhaps true,” he admitted. “It is a point upon which one necessarily reserves judgment. Yet who is Smirt?”

  “Why, Smirt,” the girl replied triumphantly, “is you.”

  “I do not deny that, Arachne. At least, as a sound logician, I do not deny it outright. Yet I once dreamed, I must tell you, I 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—”

  Now the girl’s innocent brown eyes had become like lovely saucers.

  “And why, dear Smirt, should you not be yourself again, after you had waked up, when it was probably just something you ate? And that reminds me—”

  “But do you not see my dilemma, Arachne? I cannot be certain whether I belong to the Mammalia or to the Diptera. Still, I do not know whether I was at that time the Peripatetic Episcopalian dreaming I was a blue-bottle fly, or whether I am at this time a blue-bottle fly dreaming I am the Peripatetic Episcopalian.”

  Then Arachne said, “But all that is nonsense.”

  “Is it?” Smirt asked, with unconcealed dubiety. “I am not sure. Only a woman is ever sure. And that is because the more honest of you do not pretend to a sense of humor.”

  “All your devisings are nonsense,” Arachne continued. “You play—like a great dear baby—with your plain out-and-out nonsense, and with your silly chop logic, and, above all, you play with your words, so that no other person can get in even one word edgewise. And yet I rather like that too, somehow. For how could anybody possibly be a blue-bottle fly?”

  “I was about to say—” Smirt began to answer. But the girl interrupted him, saying shyly:

  “Ah, but let us not talk any longer in this open road, with people coming and going, and staring at us so all the time. For just over yonder there is a little parlor, Smirt, a very quiet neat place, where we could talk quite undisturbed, if only I could trust you not to attempt any liberties such as we might both regret afterward, because you really do have such a way with you, dear Smirt, that a girl feels utterly helpless—”

  “You wrong me, my darling. You misunderstand the nature of a Southern gentleman,” said Smirt, mildly horrified. “A Southern gentleman does not ever take advantage of an unprotected female, no matter what be the temptation, so I have always heard. And meanwhile I was about to say—when you interrupted me, Arachne, and began to rub up against me like a kitten in this way, which, although highly agreeable, does rather interfere with our conversation—I was about to say, I repeat, that no man can live happily with any woman who cultivates a sense of humor. It is a fact for which five explanations occur to me—”

  “Then do you explain them to yourself at leisure, dear Smirt, now that I am going out of the lands beyond common-sense, in which I have no estate and no legend.”

  And with that, the pouting and slightly disappointed looking appearance of Arachne vanished, as irresponsibly as it had arrived.

  “Come now,” said Smirt, “but this will never do. The girl is simply charming. What is far better, she is charmingly simple. No, I cannot have my adored Arachne thus flickering about like a Jill o’ lantern or a Wilhelmina o’ the wisp, nor can I myself eternally be travelling everywhither in a jiffy. No, my duty is plain. It is needful that I return to Amit, a god among godlings; and that in Amit I create for Arachne a new legend.”

  PART SIX. DIVINE STUMBLING-BLOCKS

  “In very much this way has St. George [Egori] taken over many Pagan legends; and in one of the semi-sacred byline [v. Bezsonov, Kaleki Perekhozhie], he turns round the oaks and the mountains, like Vertodub and Vertogor. Nevertheless, these byline may be ranked as fictions: i.e. as facts of real life (as then understood), applied to non-existent, un-vouched, or legendary individuals.”

  XXXVI. REFLECTIONS OF THE MASTER

  Now the Shining Ones sat at the ramparts of their supernal home, busied with all sorts of romance making in the approved manner of Smirt. And Smirt, their acknowledged master, the chief of this planet’s gods, meditated alone in his temple. Since he could not find the legend of Arachne, he must make her a new legend and a better legend: that was obvious. Meanwhile, when once he had got together the tools of his thaumaturgy, and had ready his paper and his carbon ink and his customary black pen, he found that a number of more or less irrelevant matters invaded his divine mind, to delay creativeness; and about these matters he thought perforce, just to get them out of the way, so that he could settle down to his work with undivided attention.

  He did not, he reflected, think about that mortal woman Jane who had been his wife upon Earth, and who had died a great long while ago. He thought, instead, about the churchyard of St.-Peter’s-in-the-East, in Oxford, and of its serene beauty under a June sunset; about what had happened, so delightfully, to Janet Ormerod and Smirt, in the south doorway of this church, a rich specimen of Norman work, badly obscured by the porch with a parvise, or upper story, characteristic of the fifteenth century; about the curious etymology of the word “hearse”; and about the various tariff duties on baking soda, card cases, toothbrushes, cheese, zinc, and Spanish cedar, whether in logs or in sawn planks.

  He thought about a dusty disused room and the ancient odors, suggesting an embalmed body, of that room’s blue-and-gray-striped, bare mattress, in the while that he and Mrs. Murgatroyd were misbehaving themselves; about how odd it was that in his present dream his power to smell anything appeared to have been remitted; and about the disruption of the Whig party in 1852, when General Winfield Scott carried only four states.

  With these matters disposed of, Smirt laid out upon the table ten sheets of writing paper; he scratched his nose; he uncorked his ink bottle; and he sat thinking for a few moments.

  Smirt did not think about Jane. To the contrary (as he noted, with continued approval of such abstinence) he thought about Beerbohm Tree’s fine production of King Henry the Eighth, at His Majesty’s Theatre in 1911, and about the young girl who played Anne Bullen kneeling to be crowned, in the last scene, with her long neck bent far forward, just as it would bend later over the executioner’s block; and about how it was another Jane, a Jane Seymour, who had caused this. He thought about the gargoyles upon Notre Dame; about the silver ring he had bought at the first World’s Fair; about the Washington Post March; about how at college he saw a road company act Othello, and how he
coupled later in the night with the woman who had acted the part of Roderigo; about how very pleasant was the combination of Bartlett pears with Gruyere cheese; about how odd it was that, thus far in his dream, he had gone continuously without food; and about an immoral and philosophic Swiss waiter at a small hotel in the small Rue d’Alger, just off the Rue de Rivoli.

  Then Smirt thought about Marian, a white blur in her nightgown, as they both waited at their bedroom doors, immediately across the hall from each other, to make sure that the rest of the house was asleep; about the unreliability of rubber as an investment, both in the stock market and elsewhere; about Florence, her perfect body, in which Smirt had been able to find no flaw anywhere except in the slight grossness of her wrist and her ankles, and about her extraordinary tumescence; and about how droll it was that only 261 words should be spoken by Lady Macbeth during the entire tragedy.

  After that, Smirt dipped his pen in the ink; he attempted to remove a non-existent small hair, or it might have been a non-existent dust grain, from the point of his pen, with the fore-finger and the thumb of his left hand; and he sat for a while thinking.

  Smirt did not think about Jane. He thought about the tax blank (Form III6) upon which you figured out the allowed deduction for royalties already taxed in foreign countries; about how very carefully the Federal Government and the Supreme Court had cooperated to promote disloyalty among authors by taxing them with less rationality and with less fairness than were taxed the followers of any other profession; about Perseus in his old age, at Argos, brooding upon that which his eyes alone of living eyes had seen, when the bright shield of young Perseus reflected the face of Medusa; about an anemone noticed in the spring of 1897; about fireflies loitering over a meadow just beyond a railway bridge in the same year of grace; and about goldfish, including comets, shobunkins, moors, telescopes, and fantails.

  He thought about prose made fine and elaborate; about Mona Lisa’s seniority to the rocks among which she sits, about Ecclesiastes and Isaiah, about the quintessence of dust, about just, mighty and subtle opium, about the drums and tramplings of three conquests, and about the sedulous ape; about American literature, from its acknowledged masterpieces all the way up to mediocre writing; about warm water and mustard, and the better-thought-of book reviewers, and the unfairness of some few of them in compelling you to like them as persons; about that little dark-haired Jeanne, who, for all that she had made away with Smirt’s scarf pin in the morning, really did reveal breasts like white apples, and had so justified Theocritus; about a boy whom Smirt had found to be even more wonderful than himself, dead long ago of tuberculosis; about A Toccata of Galuppi’s, about Cranford, about Proverbs in Porcelain, about Kenneth Grahame’s books, and about Chastelard; and about death, which ended all mirth and prettiness utterly, and which made such an excellent literary theme.

  Then Smirt looked for and found a small black and yellow blotter, upon which was printed “Promote Prosperity with Printer’s Ink,” and this blotter he laid upon the topmost sheet of his nice clean writing paper, so that the oil from his hand would not soil this paper while he was writing on it; and he sat for a while thinking.

  Smirt did not think about Jane. He thought about how Troilus was rescued by his actual father, Phoebus Apollo, from the sword of death-dealing Achilles, and was made immortal, and how Troilus could not find upon Olympus, or upon earth, or among the dead, any being so dear to him as was all-hateful Cressida; and how the young demigod returned to her, who was an old woman now, well wasted away in leprosy, and so found contentment. Smirt thought about Athenaeus and astigmatism and the Washington Monument and the old-fashioned saloon. He thought, also, about how Lady Jane Crawley (née Sheepshanks) after Sir Pitt’s death, did not, in so far as Smirt remembered, marry en secondes noces either Frederick the Great or Nebuchadnezzar.

  Next Smirt thought about katydids, and about the large mole far up on the inside of the left leg of Mrs. Murgatroyd, and about that black-painted tin sign, very rough to the touch, like sandpaper, with gilt letters on it proclaiming that Smirt’s father was Attorney at Law; about the green looking dust which buttercups leave upon black shoes; about the knight’s move at chess, and about Stonehenge; and about the Man in the Iron Mask (but one had so much wanted Aramis to win out), and about the high percentage of iodine to be found in oysters, and about the two positions of the American flag on Memorial Day.

  After that, Smirt dipped his pen in the ink for the second time, and he noted with approval how very cleverly he had controlled his thoughts, keeping them away from any unprofitable and misleading topic.

  For Smirt did not ever, he assured himself, think about the mortal woman Jane who had been his wife upon Earth. He thought only about Jane Eyre, and about Jane Austen, and about Lady Jane, the contralto singer in Patience; about Jane Shore and about Lady Jane Grey and about Jeanne Du Barry; about Joan of Arc, and reverting to fiction, about Jeanie Deans and about Jehane de St. Pol and about Jenny Wren, the doll’s dressmaker; about Jane Addams and about Jeanne d’Albret; about Joan of Navarre, the witch queen, and about wicked Joanna of Naples, and about insane Joanna of Spain, and about Pope Joan, and about Beatrice-Joanna also, in Middleton’s Changeling.

  “It is known, however,” said Smirt, conscientiously, “that William Rowley wrote some part of this play.”

  Then he laid down his black pen without having written one least word of the legend of Arachne, and Smirt buried his face in both his arms, and he began to sob, convulsively, without shedding any tears, because Jane had been taken away from him.

  “Master of the Gods,” said a girl’s voice, “I am called Jane Doe.”

  “That is a legal fiction; and I prefer Arachne,” Smirt answered.

  XXXVII. LITURGY OF WORSHIP

  He had lifted his divine head, and Smirt the supreme god sat staring rather forlornly at this schoolgirl.

  “—And, Master of the Gods, I have come into your temple to worship you by asking a few questions.”

  “I remember that there was once a princess,” Smirt replied, as he climbed up on his pedestal, “and you also, my child, I seem to remember, but in a different role.”

  “Therefore,” Smirt continued, “do you put your questions as briefly as may be, for I am under bonds to devise the legend of Arachne.”

  “In one instant, Master of the Gods,” replied Jane Doe, as she knelt down before Smirt on his pedestal,—“for I quite comprehend that you are a busy deity now that you are devising the legend of Arachne. But the members of my class in comparative religion have been asked to get in touch with a number of prominent deities of this country, and as a member of my class in comparative religion I have chosen you from a list of the prominent deities of this country. I know that as one of the prominent deities of this country in the profession of creating you are quite busy, but I would appreciate it very much if you would have the kindness, as one of the most prominent deities of this country, to answer me a few questions about your profession of creating.”

  “Well, so that your questions be brief, my dear—”

  “Where, Master of the Gods, did you receive your education before you took up creating as a profession? Which one of your own creations do you like best, and what are your hobbies when you are not working at your profession of creating? How long had you taken up your creating as a profession before you became one of the most prominent deities in this country? Before you became one of the most prominent deities in this country why did you take up creating as a profession? Now that you are one of the most prominent deities in this country, to what do you attribute your success as one of the most prominent deities in this country in creating as a profession? How do you advise young people who want to take up creating as a profession to get started in creating as a profession and to become one of the most prominent deities in this country who are engaged in creating as a profession? And ought I to let my boy friends, I do not quite know how to put it, but with every precaution, of course, or do you think it better for a gi
rl to wait until she is married?”

  “Well, I would say it all depends. Yes, my child, it all depends. And now do you pardon me, for I must get back to work upon the legend of Arachne.”

  And Smirt raised his hand in a gesture somewhere between a blessing and a farewell.

  “Yet as one of your most devout worshippers,” replied a professor of biology, as he too knelt before Smirt’s pedestal, “I think it imperative, now that you have taken up creative work, for you to present to our university an autographed Arachne. We now have over 2500 creations, each and every one of which bears the name of the gifted and gift-giving deity who made it up out of his own head. We beseech you, whensoever you visit China, to honor with a brief epiphany the splendid student body of the University of Wen-Ching. We entreat you, O Master of the Gods, to devote a day or two to the scenic beauties of Peeping.”

  “Why, whatever do you mean, my worshipper?” said Smirt.

  “I mean, Divine Master,” the kneeling professor replied reverently, “that the University of Wen-Ching, in Peeping, China, is American supported.”

  “Even in its grammar,” Smirt assented.

  “I mean also, Divine Master, that by many authorities Wen-Ching is regarded as a most important factor in the development of our next generation. Although founded as a Christian institution, and though loyally supported by every denominational missionary, the activities and teaching of Wen-Ching are approved by non-Christian leaders likewise. Wen-Ching is co-educational. Through all the national disorders of recent years Wen-Ching, under the untiring supervision of Professor Morecock, has gone along undisturbed. It follows that we all think you ought to honor us with an epiphany at Peeping; and we find it obligatory for you to send us, by to-day’s post, an autographed Arachne.”