The Book of Fantasy

by Jorge Luis Borges

  Some of them were recognized from the ramparts: Dione, Aedon, Amalthea, Xanthi! They greeted the men with joyous whinnies, arching their tails, then immediately charging at them with fiery jerks. One of them, obviously a leader, stood straight up on his hocks and walked some way like this, gracefully waving his forelegs in the air, as if he were dancing a military two-step, and writhing his neck with snake-like elegance, until an arrow pierced his chest.

  Meanwhile, the attack was succeeding; the fortress walls were beginning to yield.

  Suddenly, an alarm paralysed the beasts. Using each other’s rumps and backs for support, they raised themselves one above the other and stretched out their necks to peer at the poplar grove that grew along the banks of the Kossinites; and when the defenders turned to look in the same direction, a fearful sight met their eyes.

  Towering above the dark trees, horrifying against the early evening sky, the colossal head of a lion gazed towards the city. It was one of those wild prehistoric beasts which, although gradually dying out, still occasionally devastated the Rhodope Mountains. But never had anything so monstrous been seen before, for the head soared above the tallest trees, the matted hair of its mane merging with the twilight-tinged leaves.

  They could see its enormous teeth gleaming brightly, its eyes half-closed against the light; its wild smell wafted towards them in the fitful breeze. Motionless against the trembling foliage, its gigantic mane glowing rusty-red, shining like gold in the setting sun, it rose on the horizon like one of those boulders upon which Pelasgian, as old as the mountains, carved his savage deities.

  And suddenly it began to walk, as slowly as the ocean. You could hear the foliage being forced apart beneath its chest, and its bellow-like breathing, which, undoubtedly, would soon turn into a roar, making the whole city tremble with fear.

  Despite their prodigious strength and numbers, the insurgent horses were unable to endure the presence of such a beast. In one thrust, they rushed to the beach, where they headed towards Macedonia, raising a storm of sand and foam, as many disappeared beneath the waves.

  In the fortress, panic reigned. What could they do against such an enemy? What bronze door-hinge could resist its jaws? What wall could withstand its huge claws? They were already beginning to prefer past dangers (it had, after all, been a fight against civilized animals), too exhausted to even reload their bows, when the monster emerged from the trees.

  Yet a roar did not break from its jaws: instead came a human war-cry, the aggressive ‘hollo!’ of battle, and in reply came the triumphant, joyous cries of ‘hail!’ and ‘hip, hurrah!’ from the fortress.

  Oh, wondrous miracle!

  Beneath the feline head the face of a deity, lit from above, appeared; and it blended magnificently with his honey-coloured skin, his marble chest, his arms of oak and his splendid muscles.

  And a cry, a concerted cry of freedom, of gratitude, of pride, filled the evening air:

  ‘It is Hercules, Hercules is coming!’

  The Ceremony

  Arthur Machen, Welsh novelist, essayist, translator and journalist, born 1863. Fascinated by black magic and the supernatural, he wrote stories and novels on these themes, such as The Great God Pan (1894) and The Hill of Dreams (1907), dying in poverty in 1947.

  From her childhood, from those early and misty days which began to seem unreal, she recollected the grey stone in the wood.

  It was something between the pillar and the pyramid in shape, and its grey solemnity amidst the leaves and the grass shone and shone from those early years, always with some hint of wonder. She remembered how, when she was quite a little girl, she had strayed one day, on a hot afternoon, from her nurse’s side, and only a little way in the wood the grey stone rose from the grass, and she cried out and ran back in panic terror.

  ‘What a silly little girl!’ the nurse had said. ‘It’s only the——stone.’ She had quite forgotten the name that the servant had given, and she was always ashamed to ask as she grew older.

  But always that hot day, that burning afternoon of her childhood when she had first looked consciously on the grey image in the wood, remained not a memory, but a sensation. The wide wood swelling like the sea, the tossing of the bright boughs in the sunshine, the sweet smell of the grass and flowers, the beating of the summer wind upon her cheek, the gloom of the underglade rich, indistinct, gorgeous, significant as old tapestry; she could feel it and see it all, and the scent of it was in her nostrils. And in the midst of the picture, where strange plants grew gross in shadow, was the old grey shape of the stone.

  But there were in her mind broken remnants of another and far earlier impression. It was all uncertain, the shadow of a shadow, so vague that it might well have been a dream that had mingled with the confused waking thoughts of a little child. She did not know that she remembered, she rather remembered the memory. But again it was a summer day, and a woman, perhaps the same nurse, held her in her arms, and went through the wood. The woman carried bright flowers in one hand; the dream had in it a glow of bright red, and the perfume of cottage roses. Then she saw herself put down for a moment on the grass, and the red colour stained the grim stone, and there was nothing else—except that one night she woke up and heard the nurse sobbing.

  She often used to think of the strangeness of very early life; one came, it seemed, from a dark cloud, there was a glow of light, but for a moment, and afterwards the night. It was as if one gazed at a velvet curtain, heavy, mysterious, impenetrable blackness, and then, for the twinkling of an eye, one spied through a pinhole a storied town that flamed, with fire about its walls and pinnacles. And then again the folding darkness, so that sight became illusion, almost in the seeing. So to her was that earliest, doubtful vision of the grey stone, of the red colour spilled upon it, with the incongruous episode of the nursemaid, who wept at night.

  But the later memory was clear; she could feel, even now, the inconsequent terror that sent her away shrieking, running to the nurse’s skirts. Afterwards, through the days of girlhood, the stone had taken its place amongst the vast array of unintelligible things which haunt every child’s imagination. It was part of her life, to be accepted and not questioned; her elders spoke of many things which she could not understand, she opened books and was dimly amazed, and in the Bible there were many phrases which seemed strange. Indeed, she was often puzzled by her parents’ conduct, by their looks at one another, by their half-words, and amongst all these problems which she hardly recognized as problems, was the grey ancient figure rising from dark grass.

  Some semi-conscious impulse made her haunt the wood where shadow enshrined the stone. One thing was noticeable: that all through the summer months the passers-by dropped flowers there. Withered blossoms were always on the ground, amongst the grass, and on the stone fresh blooms constantly appeared. From the daffodil to the Michaelmas daisy there was marked the calendar of the cottage gardens, and in the winter she had seen sprays of juniper and box, mistletoe and holly. Once she had been drawn through the bushes by a red glow, as if there had been a fire in the wood, and when she came to the place, all the stone shone and all the ground about it was bright with roses.

  In her eighteenth year she went one day into the wood, carrying with her a book that she was reading. She hid herself in a nook of hazel, and her soul was full of poetry, when there was a rustling, the rapping of parted boughs returning to their place. Her concealment was but a little way from the stone, and she peered through the net of boughs, and saw a girl timidly approaching. She knew her quite well: it was Annie Dolben, the daughter of a labourer, lately a promising pupil at Sunday school. Annie was a nice-mannered girl, never failing in her curtsey, wonderful for her knowledge of the Jewish Kings. Her face had taken an expression that whispered, that hinted strange things; there was a light and a glow behind the veil of flesh. And in her hand she bore lilies.

  The lady hidden in hazels watched Annie come close to the grey image; for a moment her whole body palpitated with expectation, almost the sen
se of what was to happen dawned upon her. She watched Annie crown the stone with flowers, she watched the amazing ceremony that followed.

  And yet, in spite of all her blushing shame, she herself bore blossoms to the wood a few months later. She laid white hot-house lilies upon the stone, and orchids of dying purple, and crimson exotic flowers. Having kissed the grey image with devout passion, she performed there all the antique immemorial rite.

  The Riddle

  Walter de la Mare (1873-1956), English poet and novelist. His writing reveals his fascination with childhood, nature and dreams, notably in Henry Brocken (1904) and The Listeners (1912), and in his fine anthology Come Hither (1939).

  So these seven children, Ann and Matilda, James, William and Henry, Harriet and Dorothea, came to live with their grandmother. The house in which their grandmother had lived since her childhood was built in the time of the Georges. It was not a pretty house, but roomy, substantial, and square; and a great cedar tree outstretched its branches almost to the windows.

  When the children were come out of the cab (five sitting inside and two beside the driver), they were shown into their grandmother’s presence. They stood in a little black group before the old lady, seated in her bow-window. And she asked them each their names, and repeated each name in her kind, quavering voice. Then to one she gave a work-box, to William a jackknife, to Dorothea a painted ball; to each a present according to age. And she kissed all her grandchildren to the youngest.

  ‘My dears,’ she said, ‘I wish to see all of you bright and gay in my house. I am an old woman, so that I cannot romp with you; but Ann must look to you, and Mrs Fenn, too. And every morning and every evening you must all come in to see your granny; and bring me smiling faces, that call back to my mind my own son Harry. But all the rest of the day, when school is done, you shall do just as you please, my dears. And there is only one thing, just one, I would have you remember. In the large spare bedroom that looks out on the slate roof there stands in the corner an old oak chest; aye, older than I, my dears, a great deal older; older than my grandmother. Play anywhere else in the house, but not there.’ She spoke kindly to them all, smiling at them; but she was very old, and her eyes seemed to see nothing of this world.

  And the seven children, though at first they were gloomy and strange, soon began to be happy and at home in the great house. There was much to interest and to amuse them there; all was new to them. Twice every day, morning and evening, they came in to see their grandmother, who every day seemed more feeble; and she spoke pleasantly to them of her mother, and her childhood, but never forgetting to visit her store of sugar-plums. And so the weeks passed by . . .

  It was evening twilight when Henry went upstairs from the nursery by himself to look at the oak chest. He pressed his fingers into the carved fruit and flowers, and spoke to the dark-smiling heads at the corners; and then, with a glance over his shoulder, he opened the lid and looked in. But the chest concealed no treasure, neither gold nor baubles, nor was there anything to alarm the eye. The chest was empty, except that it was lined with silk of old-rose seeming darker in the dusk, and smelling sweet of pot-pourri. And while Henry was looking in, he heard the softened laughter and the clinking of the cups downstairs in the nursery; and out at the window he saw the day darkening. These things brought strangely to his memory his mother who in her glimmering white dress used to read to him in the dusk; and he climbed into the chest; and the lid closed gently down over him.

  When the other six children were tired with their playing, they filed into their grandmother’s room for her good-night and her sugar-plums. She looked out between the candles at them as if she were uncertain of something in her thoughts. The next day Ann told her grandmother that Henry was not anywhere to be found.

  ‘Dearie me, child. Then he must be gone away for a time,’ said the old lady. She paused. ‘But remember, all of you, do not meddle with the oak chest.’

  But Matilda could not forget her brother Henry, finding no pleasure in playing without him. So she would loiter in the house thinking where he might be. And she carried her wooden doll in her bare arms, singing under her breath all she could make up about it. And when one bright morning she peeped in on the chest, so sweet-scented and secret it seemed that she took her doll with her into it—just as Henry himself had done.

  So Ann, and James, and William, Harriet and Dorothea were left at home to play together. ‘Some day maybe they will come back to you, my dears,’ said their grandmother, ‘or maybe you will go to them. Heed my warning as best you may.’

  Now Harriet and William were friends together, pretending to be sweethearts; while James and Dorothea liked wild games of hunting, and fishing and battles.

  On a silent afternoon in October, Harriet and William were talking softly together, looking out over the slate roof at the green fields, and they heard the squeak and frisking of a mouse behind them in the room. They went together and searched for the small, dark hole from whence it had come out. But finding no hole, they began to finger the carving of the chest, and to give names to the dark-smiling heads, just as Henry had done. ‘I know! Let’s pretend you are Sleeping Beauty, Harriet,’ said William, ‘and I’ll be the Prince that squeezes through the thorns and comes in.’ Harriet looked gently and strangely at her brother but she got into the box and lay down, pretending to be fast asleep, and on tiptoe William leaned over, and seeing how big was the chest, he stepped in to kiss the Sleeping Beauty and to wake her from her quiet sleep. Slowly the carved lid turned on its noiseless hinges. And only the clatter of James and Dorothea came in sometimes to recall Ann from her book.

  But their old grandmother was very feeble, and her sight dim, and her hearing extremely difficult.

  Snow was falling through the still air upon the roof; and Dorothea was a fish in the oak chest, and James stood over the hole in the ice, brandishing a walking-stick for a harpoon, pretending to be an Esquimau. Dorothea’s face was red, and her wild eyes sparkled through her tousled hair. And James had a crooked scratch upon his cheek. ‘You must struggle, Dorothea, and then I shall swim back and drag you out. Be quick now!’ He shouted with laughter as he was drawn into the open chest. And the lid closed softly and gently down as before. Ann, left to herself, was too old to care overmuch for sugar-plums, but she would go solitary to bid her grandmother good-night; and the old lady looked wistfully at her over her spectacles.

  ‘Well, my dear,’ she said with trembling head; and she squeezed Ann’s fingers between her own knuckled finger and thumb. ‘What lonely old people we two are, to be sure!’ Ann kissed her grandmother’s soft, loose cheek. She left the old lady sitting in her easy chair, her hands upon her knees, and her head turned sidelong towards her.

  When Ann was gone to bed she used to sit reading her book by candlelight. She drew up her knees under the sheets, resting her book upon them. Her story was about fairies and gnomes, and the gently-flowing moonlight of the narrative seemed to illumine the white pages, and she could hear in fancy fairy voices, so silent was the great many-roomed house, and so mellifluent were the words of the story. Presently she put out her candle, and, with a confused babel of voices close to her ear, and faint swift pictures before her eyes, she fell asleep.

  And in the dead of night she rose out of her bed in dream, and with eyes wide open yet seeing nothing of reality, moved silently through the vacant house. Past the room where her grandmother was snoring in brief, heavy slumber, she stepped lightly and surely, and down the wide staircase. And Vega the far-shining stood over against the window above the slate roof. Ann walked into the strange room beneath as if she were being guided by the hand towards the oak chest. There, just as if she were dreaming it was her bed, she laid herself down in the old-rose silk, in the fragrant place. But it was so dark in the room that the movement of the lid was indistinguishable.

  Through the long day, the grandmother sat in her bow-window. Her lips were pursed, and she looked with dim, inquisitive scrutiny upon the street where people passed to
and fro, and vehicles rolled by. At evening she climbed the stair and stood in the doorway of the large spare bedroom. The ascent had shortened her breath. Her magnifying spectacles rested upon her nose. Leaning her hand on the doorpost she peered in towards the glimmering square of window in the quiet gloom. But she could not see far, because her sight was dim and the light of day feeble. Nor could she detect the faint fragrance as of autumnal leaves. But in her mind was a tangled skein of memories—laughter and tears, and children long ago become old-fashioned, and the advent of friends, and last farewells. And gossiping fitfully, inarticulately, with herself, the old lady went down again to her window-seat.

  Who Knows?

  Guy de Maupassant, French novelist and short-story writer, born in the Chateau de Miromesnil in 1850, died at Auteuil in 1893. He wrote various novels and two hundred and fifteen short stories. His works include La Maison Tellier (1881), Les Soeurs Rondoli (1884), Bel Ami (1885), Contes du Jour et de la Nuit (1885), Le Horla (1887), Monsieur Parent (1888), La Main Gauche (1889), Notre Coeur (1890), and Le Lit (1895), all of which have been translated.

  I

  My God! My God! So at last I am going to put down in writing all that has happened to me! But how can I do it? How dare I do it? It’s all so bizarre, so incomprehensible, so crazy!

  If I were not certain about what I have seen, certain that there has been no weak link in my logic, no error in my investigations, no lapse in the relentless progression of my observations, I would consider myself simply the victim of some hallucination, deceived by some strange fantasy. After all, who knows?

  I am writing this in a private mental hospital. But I have come in here of my own free will—as a precaution, and because I am afraid. Only one living soul knows my story: the doctor in charge here. And now I am going to write it down—I don’t really know why. Perhaps it is so I can get it out of my system, for I can feel it rising within me, like an unbearable nightmare . . . Well, here it is.