The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy: 19th Century (European Literary Fantasy Anthologies)
Page 33
Now I might have stayed long in the Fortunate Islands, yet, beautiful as they were, I ever felt like Odysseus in the island of fair Circe. The country was lovely and the land desirable, but the Christian souls were not there without whom heaven itself were no paradise to me. And it chanced that as we sat at the feast a maiden came to me with a pomegranate on a plate of silver, and said, "Sir thou hast now been here for the course of a whole moon, yet hast neither eaten nor drunk of what is set before thee. Now it is commanded that thou must taste if it were but a seed of this pomegranate, or depart from among us." Then, making such excuses as I might, I was constrained to refuse to eat, for no soul can leave a paradise wherein it has tasted food. And as I spoke the walls of the fair hall wherein we sat, which were painted with the effigies of them that fell at Thermopylae and in Arcadion, wavered and grew dim, and darkness came upon me.
The first of my senses which returned to me was that of smell, and I seemed almost drowned in the spicy perfumes of Araby. Then my eyes became aware of a green soft fluttering, as of the leaves of a great forest, but quickly I perceived that the fluttering was caused by the green scarfs of a countless multitude of women. They were "fine women" in the popular sense of the term, and were of the school of beauty admired by the Faithful of Islam, and known to Mr Bailey, in "Martin Chuzzlewit," as "crumby". These fond attendant nymphs carried me into gardens twain, in each two gushing springs, in each fruit, and palms, and pomegranates. There were the blessed reclining, precisely as the Prophet has declared, "on beds the linings whereof are brocade, and the fruit of the two gardens within reach to cull." There also were the "maids of modest glances," previously indifferent to the wooing "of man or ginn." "Bright and large-eyed maids kept in their tents, reclining on green cushions and beautiful carpets. About the golden couches went eternal youths with goblets and ewers, and a cup of flowing wine. No headache shall they feel therefrom," says the compassionate Prophet, "nor shall their wits be dimmed." And all that land is misty and fragrant with the perfume of the softest Latakia, and the gardens are musical with the bubbling of countless narghiles; and I must say that to the Christian soul which enters that paradise the whole place has, certainly, a rather curious air, as of a highly transcendental Cremorne. There could be no doubt, however, that the Faithful were enjoying themselves amazingly - "right lucky fellows," as we read in the new translation of the Koran. Yet even here all was not peace and pleasantness, for I heard my name called by a small voice, in a tone of patient subdued querulousness. Looking hastily round, I with some difficulty recognized, in a green turban and silk gown to match, my old college tutor and professor of Arabic. Poor old Jones had been the best and the most shy of university men. As there was never any undergraduate in his time (it is different now) who wished to learn Arabic, his place had been a sinecure, and he had chiefly devoted his leisure to "drawing" pupils who were too late for college chapel. The sight of a lady of his acquaintance in the streets had at all times been alarming enough to drive him into a shop or up a lane, and he had not survived the creation of the first batch of married fellows. How he had got into this thoroughly wrong paradise was a mystery which he made no attempt to explain. "A nice place this, eh?" he said to me. "Nice gardens; remind me of Magdalene a good deal. It seems, however, to be decidedly rather gay just now; don't you think so? Commemoration week, perhaps. A great many young ladies up, certainly; a good deal of cup drunk in the gardens too. I always did prefer to go down in Commemoration week, myself; never was a dancing man. There is a great deal of dancing here, but the young ladies dance alone, rather like what is called the ballet, I believe, at the opera. I must say the young persons are a little forward; a little embarrassing it is to be alone here, especially as I have forgotten a good deal of my Arabic. Don't you think, my dear fellow, you and I could manage to give them the slip? Run away from them, eh?" He uttered a timid little chuckle, and at that moment an innumerable host of houris began a ballet d'action illustrative of a series of events in the career of the prophet. It was obvious that my poor uncomplaining old friend was really very miserable. The "thornless loto trees" were all thorny to him, and the "tal'h trees with piles of fruit, the outspread shade, and water outpoured" could not comfort him in his really very natural shyness. A happy thought occurred to me. In my early and credulous youth I had studied the works of Cornelius Agrippa and Petrus de Abano. Their lessons, which had not hitherto been of much practical service, recurred to my mind. Stooping down, I drew a circle round myself and my old friend in the fragrant white blossoms which were strewn so thick that they quite hid the grass. This circle I fortified by the usual signs employed, as Benvenuto Cellini tells us, in the conjuration of evil spirits. I then proceeded to utter one of the common forms of exorcism. Instantly the myriad houris assumed the forms of irritated demons; the smoke from the uncounted narghiles burned thick and black; the cries of the frustrated ginns, who were no better than they should be, rang wildly in our ears; the palm-trees shook beneath a mighty wind; the distant summits of the minarets rocked and wavered, and, with a tremendous crash, the paradise of the Faithful disappeared.
As I rang the bell, and requested the club-waiter to carry away the smoking fragments of the moderator-lamp which I had accidentally knocked over in awakening from my nightmare, I reflected on the vanity of men and the unsubstantial character of the future homes that their fancy has fashioned. The ideal heavens of modern poets and novelists, and of ancient priests, come no nearer than the drugged dreams of the angekok and the biraark of Greenland and Queensland to that rest and peace whereof it has not entered into the mind of man to conceive. To the wrong man each of our pictured heavens would be a hell, and even to the appropriate devotee each would become a tedious purgatory.
OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900) was, of course, Irish by birth and homosexual by nature, and his attempts to take English society by storm were doomed to fail. There is, however, every reason to include him in a history of British fantasy; although he was aided and abetted by Richard Garnett, Vernon Lee and Laurence Housman it was he who conspicuously brought to rebellious fruition the covert moral unease which fantasy had contrived to preserve throughout the long years when the British Isles were tyrannised by that appalling species of sanctimonious puritanism which was symbolised and enacted by its unhappy and unfortunate queen.
Wilde published three classic volumes in a single year (1891). Lord Arthur Savile's Crime contains two fine comic fantasies: the title story, which deals with an ironically selffulfilling prophecy; and the best of the many Victorian parodies of ghost stories, "The Canterville Ghost". The Picture of Dorian Gray, though conventionally regarded as a horror story, is actually an allegory revealing and regretting the folly of trying to live one's life as a work of art; it unwittingly prefigures the eventual fall of its creator, crucified by forces of repression which he had finally driven to vengeful outrage. The House of Pomegranates follows Wilde's earlier collection of unorthodoxly-moralistic children's stories, The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) with four longer and more sophisticated parables, each of which combines consummate stylistic elegance with considerable depth of feeling; all four are bitter parables in which human folly, vanity and infidelity cause considerable misery.
"The House of Judgement" is one of a series of poems in prose which appeared in the Fortnightly Review in 1894.
By Oscar Wilde
And there was silence in the House of Judgement, and the Man came naked before God.
And God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, 'Thy life hath been evil, and thou hast shown cruelty to those who were in need of succour, and to those who lacked help thou hast been bitter and hard of heart. The poor called to thee and thou did'st not hearken, and thine ears were closed to the cry of My afflicted. The inheritance of the fatherless thou did'st take unto thyself, and thou did'st send the foxes into the vineyard of thy neighbour's field. Thou did'st take the bread of the children and give it to the dogs to eat, and my lepers who lived
in the marshes, and were at peace and praised Me, thou did'st drive forth on to the highways, and on Mine earth out of which I made thee thou did'st spill innocent blood."
And the Man made answer and said, "Even so did I."
And again God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, "Thy life hath been evil, and the Beauty I have shown thou hast sought for, and the Good I have hidden thou did'st pass by. The walls of thy chamber were painted with images, and from the bed of thine abominations thou did'st rise up to the sound of flutes. Thou did'st build seven altars to the sins I have suffered, and did'st eat of the thing that may not be eaten, and the purple of thy raiment was broidered with the three signs of shame. Thine idols were neither of gold nor of silver that endure, but of flesh that dieth. Thou did'st stain their hair with perfumes and put pomegranates in their hands. Thou did'st stain their feet with saffron and spread carpets before them. With antimony thou did'st stain their eyelids and their bodies thou did'st smear with myrrh. Thou did'st bow thyself to the ground before them, and the thrones of thine idols were set in the sun. Thou did'st show to the sun thy shame and to the moon thy madness."
And the Man made answer and said, "Even so did I."
And a third time God opened the Book of the Life of the Man.
And God said to the Man, "Evil hath been thy life, and with evil did'st thou requite good, and with wrongdoing kindness. The hands that fed thee thou did'st wound, and the breasts that gave thee suck thou did'st despise. He who came to thee with water went away thirsting, and the outlawed men who hid thee in their tents at night thou did'st betray before dawn. Thine enemy who spared thee thou did'st snare in an ambush, and the friend who walked with thee thou did'st sell for a price, and to those who brought thee Love thou did'st ever give Lust in thy turn."
And the Man made answer and said, "Even so did I."
And God closed the Book of the Life of the Man, and said,
"Surely I will send thee into Hell. Even into Hell will I send thee."
And the Man cried out, "Thou canst not."
And God said to the Man, "Wherefore can I not send thee to Hell, and for what reason?"
"Because in Hell have I always lived," answered the Man.
And there was silence in the House of Judgment.
And after a space God spake, and said to the Man, "Seeing that I may not send thee into Hell, surely I will send thee unto Heaven. Even unto Heaven will I send thee."
And the man cried out, "Thou canst not."
And God said to the Man, "Wherefore can I not send thee unto Heaven, and for what reason?"
"Because never, and in no place, have I been able to imagine it," answered the Man.
And there was silence in the House of Judgment.
VERNON LEE was the pseudonym of Violet Paget (1856-1935), who was born in France and lived most of her life in voluntary exile, but who was English nevertheless. She was the half-sister of the poet Eugene Lee-Hamilton, who spent most of his life as a chronic invalid but eventually recovered his health by mysterious means (only to be accused by some of his friends of having been a hypochondriac all along). Violet also became a habitual sufferer of nervous breakdowns, and her life was further complicated by her ill-concealed lesbianism.
Lee's supernatural fiction includes some vivid horror stories as well as several notable fantasies. She makes extensive use of the figure of the femme fatale, which is featured in the intense "Amour Dure" and "Dionea" (both in Hauntings , 1890), the flamboyant extravaganza "The Virgin of the Seven Daggers" (written in 1889), and the bitterly sentimental Yellow Book fantasy "Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady" (1896; reprinted in Pope Jacynth and Other Fantastic Tales, 1904). She also wrote an excellent comic fantasy, "The Gods and Ritter Tanhuser" (1913), which - like "The Virgin of the Seven Daggers" - was belatedly reprinted in a book dedicated to Maurice Baring (who was himself a writer of some delicately ironic fantasies), For Maurice: Five Unlikely Stories (1927).
"St. Eudaemon and his Orange-Tree" is one of a small group of sarcastic fantasies by Lee which make subtle mockery of Christian mythology in order to support a more liberal morality; the others are "Pope Jacynth" and "Marsyas in Flanders". These, together with certain stories by Richard Garnett, belong to a curious fin de siecle sub-genre first popularised by Anatole France in stories collected in Mother of Pearl (1892; tr. 1908) and The Well of St. Clare (1895; tr. 1909).
By Vernon Lee
Here is the story of St. Eudaemon's Orange-Tree. It is not among the Lives of the Blessed Fathers, by Brother Dominick Cavalca of Vico Pisano, still less in the Golden Legend compiled by James of Voragine; nor, very likely, in any other work of hagiography. I learned it on the spot of the miracle, and in the presence of its ever-blossoming witness, the orange-tree. The orchards of the Caelian and the Aventine spread all round, with their criss-cross of reeds carrying young vines, and you see on all sides great arches and vague ruins: Colosseum, Circus Maximus, House of Nero, and the rest; with, far beyond, modern Rome, St. Peter's dome and the blue Sabine Mountains . There is a little church - one of a dozen like it - with chipped Ionic columns, and a tesselated pavement lilac and russet like a worn-out precious rug, and a great cactus, like a python, winding round the apse. The orange-tree stands there, shedding its petals over vines and salads, immense and incredibly venerable; what seems the trunk, in reality merely the one surviving branch, the real trunk being hidden deep below the level of the garden. Here did I learn the legend; but from whom, and how, I must leave you to guess. Suffice that it be true.
Long, long ago, before the church was built, which has stood, however, over twelve hundred years, there settled on the Caelian slopes a certain saint, by name Eudaemon. The old Pagan Rome was buried under ground, great boulders and groups of columns only protruding; and the new Christian Rome was being built far off, of stones and brick quarried and carted from the ruins. Weeds and bushes, and great ilexes and elms, had grown up above the former city, and it was haunted of demons. Men never came near it, save to quarry for stone or seek for treasure with dreadful incantation; and it became a wilderness, surrounded, at uneven distances, by the long walls, and the storied square belfries of many monasteries.
The place to which this Eudaemon came - and no one can tell whence he came, nor anything of him save that he had a bride, who died the eve of their wedding - the place to which Eudaemon came was in the heart of the ruins and the wilderness, very far from the abode of men; and indeed he had but two neighbouring saints like himself, a theologian who inhabited a ruined bath to avoid the noise of bellringing; and a stylite, who had contrived a platform of planks roofed over with reeds on the top of the column of the Emperor Philip.
Eudaemon, as above stated, was a saint; persons who did not molest their neighbours were mostly saints in those days; and so, of course, he could work miracles. Only, his miracles, in the opinion of other saints, particularly of the Theologian and the Stylite (whose names were Carpophorus and Ursicinus), were nothing special, in fact, just barely within the limits of the miraculous. Eudaemon had planted a garden round about the ruins of the circular temple of Venus; and vines and lettuces, roses and peaches had replaced within a very few years the scrub of ilex and myrtle, and the mad vegetation of wild fennel and oats and wallflower which matted over the masonry; and this, of course, since he was a saint, must be a miracle. He had cleared out, also, the innermost cell of the temple, and turned it into a chapel, with a fair carved tomb of the pagans for an altar, and pictures of the Blessed Virgin and the Saviour, with big eyes and purple clothes, painted on the whitewash. And he had erected alongside a belfry, three stories high, circular and open with pillars quarried from the temple, and stuck about with discs of porphyry (out of the temple floor), and green Cretan bowls for ornament; which, of course, was also a miracle. Moreover, at the end of the orchard he had erected wattled huts for poor folk, to whom he taught gardening and other useful arts; also sheds for cows and goats, and a pigeon-cot; and he had construct
ed out of osier a cart, and broken in a donkey's foal, in order to send his vegetables to distribute in Rome to the indigent, together with cans of milk and rounds of goats' cheese. And to the wives of the poor whom he lodged he taught how to weave and cure skins, and to the children he taught the abacus and the singing of hymns. And for the poor folk he made, near their wattled huts, a bowling-green, and instructed them to play at that game. And indeed the matter of the orange-tree arose out of the making of the bowling-green; all of which were plainly miracles. Meanwhile Eudaemon lived all alone in a shed closed with reeds, and roofed by one of the vaultings of that temple of the Pagans; and he was a laborious man, and abstemious, and possessed a knowledge of medicine, and was able, though but little, to read in the Scriptures; and Eudaemon was a saint, though but a small one.
But Carpophorus the theologian, and Ursicinus the stylite, did not think much of Eudaemon and his saintlings, nay, each thought even less of him than of the other. For Carpophorus, who had translated the books of Deuteronomy from the Hebrew, and the gospels of Nicodemus and of Enoch into Latin, and written six treatises against the Gnostics and Paulicians, and a book on the marriage of the Sons of God; and who, moreover, had a servant to wash his clothes and dust his rolls of manuscript, and cook his dinner, thought Ursicinus both ignorant and rustic, living untidily on that platform on the column, as shaggy and black as a bear, and constantly fixing his eyes on his own navel; while Ursicinus the stylite, who had not changed his tunic or touched cooked food for five years, and had frequently risen to the contemplation of the One, looked down upon the pedantry and luxurious habits of Carpophorus, and esteemed him a man of fleshly vanities.
But Carpophorus and Ursicinus agreed in having a very poor opinion of Eudaemon; and often met in brotherly discourse upon the likelihood of his being given over by Heaven to the Evil One. And this opinion they made freely manifest to himself, on the occasions when he would invite them to dinner in his orchard, regaling them on fruit, milk, wine, and the honey of his bees; and whenever either came singly to borrow a wax taper, or a piece of fair linen, or a basket, or a penn'orth of nails, he made it a point to warn Eudaemon very seriously against his dangerous ways of thinking and proceeding, and to promise intercession with the Powers above.