‘Red cloud of the sunset, tell it abroad;
I am victor. Greet me, O Sun,
Dominant master and absolute lord
Over the soul of one!’
‘Well?’ said Charlie, looking over my shoulder.
I thought it far from well, and very evil indeed, when he silently laid a photograph on the paper – the photograph of a girl with a curly head and a foolish slack mouth.
‘Isn’t it – isn’t it wonderful?’ he whispered, pink to the tips of his ears, wrapped in the rosy mystery of first love. ‘I didn’t know; I didn’t think – it came like a thunderclap.’
‘Yes. It comes like a thunderclap. Are you very happy, Charlie?’
‘My God – she – she loves me!’ He sat down repeating the last words to himself. I looked at the hairless face, the narrow shoulders already bowed by desk-work, and wondered when, where, and how he had loved in his past lives.
‘What will your mother say?’ I asked cheerfully.
‘I don’t care a damn what she says!’
At twenty the things for which one does not care a damnshould, properly, be many, but one must not include mothers in the list. I told him this gently; and he described Her, even as Adam must have described to the newly-named beasts the glory and tenderness and beauty of Eve. Incidentally I learned that She was a tobacconist’s assistant with a weakness for pretty dress, and had told him four or five times already that She had never been kissed by a man before.
Charlie spoke on and on, and on; while I, separated from him by thousands of years, was considering the beginnings of things. Now I understood why the Lords of Life and Death shut the doors so carefully behind us. It is that we may not remember our first and most beautiful wooings. Were this not so, our world would be without inhabitants in a hundred years.
‘Now, about the galley-story,’ I said still more cheerfully, in a pause in the rush of the speech.
Charlie looked up as though he had been hit. ‘The galley – what galley? Good heavens, don’t joke, man! This is serious! You don’t know how serious it is!’
Grish Chunder was right. Charlie had tasted the love of woman that kills remembrance, and the finest story in the world would never be written.
THE CHILDREN OF THE ZODIAC
Though thou love her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Though her parting dim the day,
Stealing grace from all alive,
Heartily know
When half Gods go
The Gods arrive.
Emerson
Thousands of years ago, when men were greater than they are to-day, the Children of the Zodiac lived in the world. There were six Children of the Zodiac – the Ram, the Bull, Leo, the Twins, and the Girl; and they were afraid of the Six Houses which belonged to the Scorpion, the Balance, the Crab, the Fishes, the Archer, and the Waterman. Even when they first stepped down upon the earth and knew that they were immortal Gods, they carried this fear with them; and the fear grew as they became better acquainted with mankind and heard stories of the Six Houses. Men treated the Children as Gods and came to them with prayers and long stories of wrong, while the Children of the Zodiac listened and could not understand.
A mother would fling herself before the feet of the Twins, or the Bull, crying: ‘My husband was at work in the fields and the Archer shot him and he died; and my son will also be killed by the Archer. Help me!’ The Bull would lower his huge head and answer: ‘What is that to me?’ Or the Twins would smile and continue their play, for they could not understand why the water ran out of people’s eyes. At other times a man and a woman would come to Leo or the Girl crying: ‘We two are newly married and we are very happy. Take these flowers.’ As they threw the flowers they would make mysterious sounds toshow that they were happy, and Leo and the Girl wondered even more than the Twins why people shouted ‘Ha! ha! ha!’for no cause.
This continued for thousands of years by human reckoning, till on a day, Leo met the Girl walking across the hills and saw that she had changed entirely since he had last seen her. The Girl, looking at Leo, saw that he too had changed altogether. Then they decided that it would be well never to separate again, in case even more startling changes should occur when the one was not at hand to help the other. Leo kissed the Girl and all Earth felt that kiss, and the Girl sat down on a hill and the water ran out of her eyes; and this had never happened before in the memory of the Children of the Zodiac.
As they sat together a man and a woman came by, and the man said to the woman:
‘What is the use of wasting flowers on those dull Gods? They will never understand, darling.’
The Girl jumped up and put her arms round the woman, crying, ‘I understand. Give me the flowers and I will give you a kiss.’
Leo said beneath his breath to the man ‘What was the new name that I heard you give to your woman just now?’
The man answered, ‘Darling, of course.’
‘Why “of course”?’ said Leo; ‘and if of course, what does it mean?’
‘It means “very dear,” and you have only to look at your wife to see why.’
‘I see,’ said Leo; ‘you are quite right’; and when the man and the woman had gone on he called the Girl ‘darling wife’; and the Girl wept again from sheer happiness.
‘I think,’ she said at last, wiping her eyes, ‘I think that we two have neglected men and women too much. What did you do with the sacrifices they made to you, Leo?’
‘I let them burn,’ said Leo; ‘I could not eat them. What did you do with the flowers?’
‘I let them wither. I could not wear them, I had so many of my own,’ said the Girl, ‘and now I am sorry.’
‘There is nothing to grieve for,’ said Leo; ‘we belong to each other.’
As they were talking the years of men’s life slipped by unnoticed, and presently the man and the woman came back, both white-headed, the man carrying the woman.
‘We have come to the end of things,’ said the man quietly. ‘This that was my wife—’
‘As I am Leo’s wife,’ said the Girl quickly, her eyes staring.
‘—was my wife, has been killed by one of your Houses.’ The man set down his burden, and laughed.
‘Which House?’ said Leo angrily, for he hated all the Houses equally.
‘You are Gods, you should know,’ said the man. ‘We have lived together and loved one another, and I have left a good farm for my son. What have I to complain of except that I still live?’
As he was bending over his wife’s body there came a whistling through the air, and he started and tried to run away, crying, ‘It is the arrow of the Archer. Let me live a little longer – only a little longer!’ The arrow struck him and he died. Leo looked at the Girl and she looked at him, and both were puzzled.
‘He wished to die,’ said Leo. ‘He said that he wished to die, and when Death came he tried to run away. He is a coward.’
‘No, he is not,’ said the Girl; ‘I think I feel what he felt. Leo, we must learn more about this for their sakes.’
‘For their sakes,’ said Leo, very loudly.
‘Because we are never going to die,’ said the Girl and Leo together, still more loudly.
‘Now sit you still here, darling wife,’ said Leo, ‘while I go to the Houses whom we hate, and learn how to make these men and women live as we do.’
‘And love as we do,’ said the Girl.
‘I do not think they need to be taught that,’ said Leo, and he strode away very angry, with his lion-skin swinging from his shoulder, till he came to the House where the Scorpion lives in the darkness, brandishing his tail over his back.
‘Why do you trouble the children of men?’ said Leo, with his heart between his teeth.
‘Are you so sure that I trouble the children of men alone?’said the Scorpion. ‘Speak to your brother the Bull, and see what he says.’
‘I come on behalf of the children of men,’ said Leo. ‘I have learned to love as they
do, and I wish them to live as I – as we do.’
‘Your wish was granted long ago. Speak to the Bull. He is under my special care,’ said the Scorpion.
Leo dropped back to the earth again, and saw the great star Aldebaran, that is set in the forehead of the Bull, blazing very near to the earth. When he came up to it he saw that his brother the Bull, yoked to a countryman’s plough, was toiling through a wet rice-field with his head bent down, and the sweat streaming from his flanks. The countryman was urging him forward with a goad.
‘Gore that insolent to death,’ cried Leo, ‘and for the sake of our honour come out of the mire.’
‘I cannot,’ said the Bull, ‘the Scorpion has told me that some day, of which I cannot be sure, he will sting me where my neck is set on my shoulders, and that I shall the bellowing.’
‘What has that to do with this disgraceful work?’ said Leo, standing on the dyke that bounded the wet field.
‘Everything. This man could not plough without my help. He thinks that I am a stray beast.’
‘But he is a mud-crusted cottar with matted hair,’ insisted Leo. ‘We are not meant for his use.’
‘You may not be; I am. I cannot tell when the Scorpion may choose to sting me to death – perhaps before I have turned this furrow.’ The Bull flung his bulk into the yoke, and the plough tore through the wet ground behind him, and the countryman goaded him till his flanks were red.
‘Do you like this?’ Leo called down the dripping furrows.
‘No,’ said the Bull over his shoulder as he lifted his hind legs from the clinging mud and cleared his nostrils.
Leo left him scornfully and passed to another country, where he found his brother the Ram in the centre of a crowdof country people who were hanging wreaths round his neck and feeding him on freshly-plucked green corn.
‘This is terrible,’ said Leo. ‘Break up that crowd and come away, my brother. Their hands are spoiling your fleece.’
‘I cannot,’ said the Ram. ‘The Archer told me that on some day of which I had no knowledge, he would send a dart through me, and that I should die in very great pain.’
‘What has that to do with this disgraceful show?’ said Leo, but he did not speak as confidently as before.
‘Everything in the world,’ said the Ram. ‘These people never saw a perfect sheep before. They think that I am a stray, and they will carry me from place to place as a model to all their flocks.’
‘But they are greasy shepherds; we are not intended to amuse them,’ said Leo.
‘You may not be, I am,’ said the Ram. ‘I cannot tell when the Archer may choose to send his arrow at me – perhaps before the people a mile down the road have seen me.’ The Ram lowered his head that a yokel newly arrived might throw a wreath of wild garlic-leaves over it, and waited patiently while the farmers tugged his fleece.
‘Do you like this?’ cried Leo over the shoulders of the crowd.
‘No,’ said the Ram, as the dust of the trampling feet made him sneeze, and he snuffed at the fodder piled before him.
Leo turned back intending to retrace his steps to the Houses, but as he was passing down a street he saw two small children, very dusty, rolling outside a cottage door, and playing with a cat. They were the Twins.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Leo, indignant.
‘Playing,’ said the Twins calmly.
‘Cannot you play on the banks of the Milky Way?’ said Leo.
‘We did,’ said they, ‘till the Fishes swam down and told us that some day they would come for us and not hurt us at all and carry us away. So now we are playing at being babies down here. The people like it.’
‘Do you like it?’said Leo.
‘No,’ said the Twins, ‘but there are no cats in the MilkyWay,’ and they pulled the cat’s tail thoughtfully. A woman came out of the doorway and stood behind them, and Leo saw in her face a look that he had sometimes seen in the Girl’s.
‘She thinks that we are foundlings,’ said the Twins, and they trotted indoors to the evening meal.
Then Leo hurried as swiftly as possible to all the Houses one after another; for he could not understand the new trouble that had come to his brethren. He spoke to the Archer, and the Archer assured him that so far as that House was concerned Leo had nothing to fear. The Waterman, the Fishes, and the Scorpion gave the same answer. They knew nothing of Leo, and cared less. They were the Houses, and they were busied in killing men.
At last he came to that very dark House where Cancer the Crab lies so still that you might think he was asleep if you did not see the ceaseless play and winnowing motion of the feathery branches round his mouth. That movement never ceases. It is like the eating of a smothered fire into rotten timber in that it is noiseless and without haste.
Leo stood in front of the Crab, and the half darkness allowed him a glimpse of that vast blue-black back and the motionless eyes. Now and again he thought that he heard some one sobbing, but, the noise was very faint.
‘Why do you trouble the children of men?’ said Leo. There was no answer, and against his will Leo cried, ‘Why do you trouble us? What have we done that you should trouble us?’
This time Cancer replied, ‘What do I know or care? You were born into my House, and at the appointed time I shall come for you.’
‘When is the appointed time?’ said Leo, stepping back from the restless movement of the mouth.
‘When the full moon fails to call the full tide,’ said the Crab, ‘I shall come for the one. When the other has taken the earth by the shoulders, I shall take that other by the throat.’
Leo lifted his hand to the apple of his throat, moistened his lips, and recovering himself, said:
‘Must I be afraid for two, then?’
‘For two,’ said the Crab, ‘and as many more as may come after.’
‘My brother, the Bull, had a better fate,’ said Leo, sullenly; ‘he is alone.’
A hand covered his mouth before he could finish the sentence, and he found the Girl in his arms. Womanlike, she had not stayed where Leo had left her, but had hastened off at once to know the worst, and passing all the other Houses, had come straight to Cancer.
‘That is foolish,’ said the Girl, whispering. ‘I have been waiting in the dark for long and long before you came. Then I was afraid. But now—’ She put her head down on his shoulder and sighed a sigh of contentment.
‘I am afraid now,’ said Leo.
‘That is on my account,’ said the Girl, ‘I know it is, because I am afraid for your sake. Let us go, husband.’
They went out of the darkness together and came back to, the Earth, Leo very silent, and the Girl striving to cheer him. ‘My brother’s fate is the better one,’ Leo would repeat from time to time, and at last he said: ‘Let us each go our own way and live alone till we die. We were born into the House of Cancer, and he will come for us.’
‘I know; I know. But where shall I go? And where will you sleep in the evening? But let us try. I will stay here. Do you go on?’
Leo took six steps forward very slowly, and three long steps backward very quickly, and the third step set him again at the Girl’s side. This time it was she who was begging him to go away and leave her, and he was forced to comfort her all through the night. That night decided them both never to leave each other for an instant, and when they had come to this decision they looked back at the darkness of the House of Cancer high above their heads, and with their arms round each other’s necks laughed, ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ exactly as the children of men laughed. And that was the first time in their lives that they had ever laughed. Next morning they returned to their proper home, and sawthe flowers and the sacrifices that had been laid before their doors by the villagers of the hills. Leo stamped down the fire with his heel, and the Girl flung the flower-wreaths out of sight, shuddering as she did so. When the villagers returned, as of custom, to see what had become of their offerings, they found neither roses nor burned flesh on the altars, but only a man and a woman, with frigh
tened white faces, sitting hand in hand on the altar-steps.
‘Are you not Virgo?’ said a woman to the Girl. ‘I sent you flowers yesterday.’
‘Little sister,’ said the Girl, flushing to her forehead, ‘do not send any more flowers, for I am only a woman like yourself.’ The man and the woman went away doubtfully.
‘Now, what shall we do?’ said Leo.
‘We must try to be cheerful, I think,’ said the Girl. ‘We know the very worst that can happen to us, but we do not know the best that love can bring us. We have a great deal to be glad of.’
‘The certainty of death,’ said Leo.
‘All the children of men have that certainty also; yet they laughed long before we ever knew how to laugh. We must learn to laugh, Leo. We have laughed once already.’
People who consider themselves Gods, as the Children of the Zodiac did, find it hard to laugh, because the Immortals know nothing worth laughter or tears. Leo rose up with a very heavy heart, and he and the Girl together went to and fro among men; their new fear of death behind them. First they laughed at a naked baby attempting to thrust its fat toes into its foolish pink mouth; next they laughed at a kitten chasing her own tail; andthen they laughed at a boy trying to steal a kiss from a girl, and getting his ears boxed. Lastly, they laughed because the wind blew in their faces as they ran down a hillside together, and broke panting and breathless into a knot of villagers at the bottom. The villagers laughed too at their flying clothes and wind-reddened faces; and in the evening gave them food and invited them to a dance on the grass, where everybody laughed through the mere joy of being able to dance.
That night Leo jumped up from the Girl’s side crying: ‘Every one of those people we met just now will die—’
‘So shall we,’ said the Girl sleepily. ‘Lie down again, dear.’ Leo could not see that her face was wet with tears.
But Leo was up and far across the fields, driven forward by the fear of death for himself and for the Girl, who was dearer to him than himself. Presently he came across the Bull drowsing in the moonlight after a hard day’s work, and looking through half-shut eyes at the beautiful straight furrows that he had made.
The Mark of the Beast and Other Fantastical Tales Page 34