Directly opposite, separated by a space of about three feet, there also were, in a like manner, banana leaves spread, on which was the other half of the turkey, but untouched.
“How strange!” said his wife, thick tears welling out of her sad eyes. “I wonder why he cut the turkey in two? It was his dream all during his life to eat it all himself! I just wonder who he had invited to eat the other half of his turkey. Whoever he was, he must have been a fine and noble and very gentle person, or Macario wouldn’t have died so very, very happy.”
The Infinite Dream of Pao-Yu
Ts’ao Chan (Hsueh Ch’in), Chinese novelist, born in the Province of Kiangsu in c.1716, died in 1764. Ten years before his death he began work on the long novel for which he is famous, The Dream of the Red Chamber. Like Kin Ping Mei and other novels of the realistic school, it is full of surreal and fantastic episodes.
So before he knew what had happened Pau-Yu’s head nodded, and he fell asleep. It seemed to him presently that he was in a great flower-garden which was extraordinarily like his own garden at home. ‘Is it possible,’ he said to himself in his dream, ‘that there is really another garden so exactly like mine?’ While he was thus wondering to himself, there suddenly appeared in front of him a number of girls who seemed all to be waiting-maids in some great house. And Pao-Yu, more than ever surprised, said to himself again—‘Can it really be that someone else has waiting-maids so exactly like Hsi-Jen, Ping-erh, and all my own maids at home?’ Presently one of the girls called out: ‘Look, there’s Pao-Yu! How ever did he get out here?’ Pao-Yu naturally supposed that she knew it was he, and coming forward, he said: ‘I was just going for a walk, and got here quite by accident. I suppose this garden belongs to some family that my people visit. But in any case, dear Sisters, let me join you in your walk.’ No sooner had he finished speaking than the girls burst into peals of laughter. ‘What a silly mistake!’ they said: ‘We thought you were our younger master Pao-Yu. But of course you are not half so good-looking and do not talk nearly so nicely.’ So they were servants of another Pao-Yu! ‘Dear Sisters,’ he said to them, ‘tell me who then is your master?’ ‘He is Pao-Yu,’ they said. ‘It was his grandmother and mother who wished him to use these two characters Pao (precious) and Yu (jade), hoping that such a name would make him have a long and happy life; and though we are only servants, it pleases him very much that we too should call him by this name. But where do you come from, we should like to know, and whose seedy little drudge are you, that you should use the same characters in your name? You dare try that on again, and we’ll beat your nasty little body into jelly!’ Another of them said, laughing: ‘Come on! Let’s get away as quick as we can. What would our Pao-Yu think if he saw us talking to such a ragamuffin?’ Another said: ‘If we stay near him much longer we shall all smell nasty!’ And at one streak they were gone.
Pao-Yu was very much downcast. ‘No one,’ he thought, ‘has ever before treated me so rudely. Why should these particular girls have taken such a dislike to me? And is there really another Pao-Yu? I must somehow discover.’ While these thoughts were passing through his mind he had been walking on without noticing where he was going, and he now found himself in a courtyard that seemed strangely familiar. ‘Can there then,’ he asked himself, ‘be another courtyard exactly like ours at home?’ He went up some steps and walked straight into a room. Here the first thing he saw was a young man lying on a bed, round which sat a number of girls laughing and playing while they did their needlework. The boy on the bed kept on sighing heavily, till at last one of the girls said to him—‘Pao-Yu, why do you keep on sighing? Can’t you get to sleep? No doubt you are worried over your cousin’s illness. But it is silly to make such a fuss.’ When the real Pao-Yu heard this he was more than ever astonished . . . . ‘I have been having such an odd dream,’ said the young man on the bed. ‘I thought I was in a great flower-garden, where I met some girls who called me nasty names and would not play with me. But I followed them back to the house, and there what should I find but another Pao-Yu, lying senseless on his bed, for all the world like an empty bag. His thoughts and feelings seemed all to have flown somewhere far, far away.’ When the real Pao-Yu heard this dream, he could not contain himself and cried out to the boy on the bed: ‘I came to look for a Pao-Yu; and now it seems that you are the one!’ The boy on the bed rose and coming quickly toward him, embraced him, saying: ‘So you are Pao-Yu, and it was not a dream!’ ‘A dream!’ cried Pao-Yu. ‘No, indeed. It was more true than truth itself.’ But hardly had he finished speaking when someone came to the door, crying: ‘Mr. Pao-Yu is to go to his father’s room at once.’ At the sound of these words both Pao-Yus trembled from head to foot. The dream Pao-Yu rushed away, and as he left the room the real Pao-Yu called after him: ‘Come back soon, Pao-Yu! Come back.’ His maid Hsi-Jen was by the bed, and hearing him calling out his own name in his dreams she woke him, and said, laughing: ‘Where is this Pao-Yu that you are calling to?’ Though he was no longer asleep, his mind was dazed and confused. ‘There he is,’ he said, pointing sleepily at the door. ‘He has just gone out.’ ‘Why, you are still dreaming!’ said Hsi-Jen, much amused. ‘Do you know what it is you are staring at, screwing up your eyes and making such a funny face? It is your own reflection in the mirror!’
The Mirror of Wind-to-Moon
Chia Jui hated Phœnix whenever he thought of her treachery, but then he would see Phœnix’s image before him, lovely as ever and now all the more to be desired because he knew that she had never cared for him, and he would tell himself that he would gladly die if he could have her in his arms for but one brief moment. He knew better, though, than to let himself be seen again at the Yungkuofu.
This proved only the beginning of his real troubles. Chia Yung and Chia Chiang pressed him for the notes and his grandfather imposed on him more severe tasks as a punishment for his recent escapades. His desire being stimulated by the constant image of Phœnix, he gave way to evil habits and slept but poorly. The two nights of exposure soon produced their effects and Chia Jui was laid up in bed. In a year’s time he became a victim to a host of aches and oppressions. His sleep was infested with nightmares from which he would awake in deliriums. Of such tonic simples as cinnamon, futze, peh-chia, meitung, yuchu, he took pounds upon pounds during his illness. The doctors later prescribed the sole use of the best grade of ginseng, something that Tai-Ju could not afford. Madame Wang was appealed to, but as Phœnix was acting for Madame Wang, the supply of ginseng thus secured did not last very long.
One day a lame Taoist mendicant was asking for alms in the street and proclaimed that he could cure ailments of the soul. His cries reached Chia Jui, who begged his family to send for the Taoist. The latter looked at him and said: ‘Your affliction is not something to be remedied with medicine. I have a treasure that will heal you if you will follow my directions.’ He took from his sleeves a mirror that was polished on both sides. It bore the inscription ‘The Precious Mirror to Wind-and-Moon.’ He said to Chia Jui: ‘This mirror is made by the Goddess of Disillusionment of the Ethereal and Spiritual Palace in the Sphere of the Primordial Void and has curative qualities for diseases resulting from impure thoughts and self-destructive habits. It can save the world and restore life. It is intended for youths such as you are. But do not look into the right side. Only use the reverse. In three days I shall be back to get the mirror and to congratulate you on your recovery.’ He went away without taking any reward.
Chia Jui took the mirror and looked into the reverse side as the Taoist had directed. He threw it down with an oath, for he saw a gruesome skeleton staring at him with hollow eyes. He cursed the Taoist for playing such a crude joke upon him. Then he thought he would see what was on the right side. He took up the mirror and looked. Phœnix, in her best clothes, stood beckoning to him. Chia Jui felt himself wafted into a mirror world, wherein he fulfilled his desire for Phœnix. He woke up from his trance and found the mirror lying wrong side up, revealing the repulsive skeleton. He felt exhauste
d from the voluptuous experience that the more deceptive side of the mirror gave him, but it was so delicious that he could not resist the temptation of looking into the right side again. Again he saw Phœnix beckoning to him and again he yielded to the temptation. This happened three or four times. When he was about to leave the illusive world of the mirror on his last visit, he was seized by two men and put in chains.
‘Just a moment, officers,’ Chia Jui pleaded. ‘Let me take my mirror with me.’ These were his last words.
The Desire to be a Man
Comte P.H. Villiers de L’isle Adam, French writer, born at Saint Brieux in 1840, died in Paris in 1889. He contributed novels, short stories and plays to the literature of fantasy. He is the author of Isis (1862), Claire Lenoir (1866), La Revolte (1870), Contes Cruels (1883), Axel (1885; translated into English, 1925), L’Amour Suprême (1886), L’Eve Future (1886), Le Secret de l’echafaud (1888) and Histoires Insolites (1888).
For Monsieur Catulle Mendés
. . . Nature might stand up and say
to all the world: ‘This was a man!’
SHAKESPEARE: Julius Caesar
The Stock Exchange clock struck midnight, under a starry sky. At that time the citizens were still subject to military law, and, in accordance with the curfew regulations, the waiters of those establishments which were still lit up were hurriedly closing their doors.
Inside the boulevard cafés the gas butterflies of the chandeliers fluttered quickly away, one by one, into the darkness. Outside could be heard the noise of the chairs being arranged in quartets on the marble-topped tables; it was the psychological moment when every café proprietor thinks fit to show the last customers, with an arm ending in a napkin, the Caudine Forks of the back door.
That Sunday the sad October wind was whistling through the streets. A few yellow leaves, dusty and rustling, were blown along by the squalls, touching the stones and skimming the asphalt, and then, like bats, disappeared into the shadows, arousing the idea of commonplace days lived through once for all. The theatres of the Boulevard du Crime where, during the evening, all the Medicis, Salviatis, and Montefeltres had been stabbing one another with the utmost fervour, stood silent, their mute portals guarded by their caryatids. Carriages and pedestrians became fewer from one moment to the next; here and there, the sceptical lanterns of rag-pickers gleamed already, phosphorescent glows given off by the rubbish-heaps over which they were wandering.
Under a street lamp level with the Rue Hauteville, at the corner of a fairly luxurious-looking café, a tall passer-by had come to a stop, as if automatically hesitating to cross the roadway separating him from the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. He had a saturnine face, a smooth chin, a somnambulist’s walk, long greying hair under a Louis Treize hat, black gloves holding an ivory-headed stick, and an old greatcoat in royal blue, trimmed with dubious astrakhan.
Was this tardy stroller on his way home? Had the mere chance of a walk late at night brought him to that street-corner? It would have been difficult to decide from his appearance. However, the fact remains that, suddenly noticing on his right one of those mirrors—as tall and narrow as himself—which sometimes stand like public looking-glasses outside leading cafés, he halted abruptly, planted himself opposite his reflection, and deliberately looked himself up and down, from his boots to his hat. Then, all of a sudden, raising his hat with an old-world gesture, he greeted himself with a certain courtesy.
His head, thus unexpectedly bared, then revealed him as none other than the famous tragedian Esprit Chaudval, born Lepeinteur and known as Monanteuil, the scion of a worthy family of Saint-Malo pilots, and whom the mysteries of Providence had induced to become a leading man in the provinces, a star abroad, and the often fortunate rival of Frédérick Lemaitre.
While he was considering himself with this sort of stupor, the waiters in the nearby café were helping their last customers into their overcoats and fetching their hats, others were noisily emptying the contents of the nickel money boxes and piling the day’s takings on a tray. This haste and bustle was due to the ominous presence of two policemen who had suddenly appeared at the door and were standing there with folded arms, harrying the laggardly landlord with their cold gaze.
Soon the shutters were bolted into their iron frames, apart from the one over the mirror, which by a strange oversight was forgotten in the general hurry.
Then silence descended on the boulevard. Only Chaudval, heedless of everybody’s departure, had remained in his ecstatic posture on the corner of the Rue Hauteville, on the pavement in front of the forgotten mirror.
This pale, moonlit looking-glass seemed to give the actor the feeling he would have had bathing in a pond. Chaudval shivered.
Alas, the fact is that in that cruel, dark crystal, the actor had just seen himself growing old.
He noticed that his hair, which only yesterday had still been grizzly, was turning silver; he was finished! It was goodbye to curtains and crowns, goodbye to the roses of Thalia and the laurels of Melpomene. It was time to take leave for ever, with handshakes and tears, of the Ellevious and the Laruettes, of the grand liveries and the soft curves of the Dugazons and the ingénues!
It was time to get down in a hurry from the chariot of Thespis and watch it drive away with his colleagues; to see the baubles and streamers which, that morning, had fluttered from the wind of Hope, disappear in the twilight round a distant bend in the road.
Chaudval, suddenly conscious of his fifty years (he was a good fellow), heaved a sigh. A mist passed in front of his eyes; a sort of wintry fever took hold of him and a hallucination dilated his pupils.
The haggard fixity with which he was gazing into the providential mirror ended up by giving his eyes that ability to enlarge objects and endow them with importance which physiologists have observed in individuals under the stress of intense emotion.
The long mirror was accordingly deformed under the gaze of his eyes, which were filled with dim, murky ideas. Childhood memories of beaches and silvery waves danced about in his brain. And the mirror, doubtless because of the stars deepening its surface, reminded him at first of the sleeping waters of a gulf. Then, billowing out even more, thanks to the old man’s sighs, the mirror took on the appearance of the sea and the night, those two old friends of lonely hearts.
He revelled for some time in his vision, but then the street lamp which was reddening the cold drizzle behind him, above his head, struck him, reflected as it was in the depths of the dreadful mirror, as like the glow of a blood-red lighthouse, luring the doomed vessel of his future to shipwreck.
He shook off his hallucination and drew himself up to his full height, with a nervous burst of bitter, cynical laughter which startled the two policeman under the trees. Luckily for the actor, the latter, taking him for some drunkard or jilted lover, continued their official stroll without paying any attention to the wretched Chaudval.
‘Very well, let us give up!’ he said simply in an undertone, like the condemned man who, suddenly roused from sleep, says to the executioner: ‘I am at your service.’
The old actor then launched into a dazed monologue.
‘I acted prudently the other evening,’ he went on, ‘when I asked my good comrade Mademoiselle Pinson (who shares the Minister’s confidence and even his bed) to obtain for me, between two ardent confessions, that post as lighthouse-keeper which my ancestors occupied on the Atlantic coast. Ah! Now I understand the weird effect the reflection of this street lamp in this mirror had on me! It was that idea at the back of my mind. Pinson will send me my letter of appointment, that’s certain. And then I shall retire into my lighthouse like a rat into a cheese. I shall guide the ships in the distance, across the sea. A lighthouse always gives the impression of a stage-set. I am alone in the world: without a doubt it is the perfect refuge for my old age.’
All of a sudden Chaudval interrupted his reverie.
‘Good Lord!’ he said, feeling inside his greatcoat. ‘But . . . that letter the postman delivered just as I
was coming out must be the reply . . . I was going into this café to read it, and I forgot all about it! I’m losing my grip, and no mistake! . . . Good, here it is!’
Chaudval had just taken out of his pocket a large envelope from which, as soon as he broke the seal, a ministerial letter fell to the ground. He feverishly picked it up and read it at a single glance, in the red glow of the street lamp.
‘My lighthouse! My letter of appointment!’ he exclaimed. ‘Saved, thank God!’ he added, as if out of force of habit and in a falsetto voice so sudden and so different from his own that he looked around, thinking that somebody else had spoken.
‘Come, now,’ he said, ‘calm down . . . and be a man!’
But at these words Esprit Chaudval, born Lepeinteur and known as Monanteuil, stopped as if changed into a statue of salt; this remark seemed to have petrified him.
‘Eh?’ he went on after a pause. ‘What did I tell myself just then? To be a Man? . . . After all, why not?’
He folded his arms reflectively.
‘For nearly half a century now I have been acting and playing other men’s passions without ever feeling them—for at bottom I have never felt anything. So I am like those other men just for fun! So I am nothing but a shadow! Passions, feelings, real actions—that is what makes a genuine Man. Consequently, since my age forces me to rejoin Mankind, I must find myself some passions or real feelings—seeing that that is the sine qua non without which nobody can call himself a Man.
‘There’s a piece of good reasoning for you; it’s positively bursting with common sense. So now to choose the passion most in keeping with my resuscitated nature.’
He meditated, then went on sadly:
‘Love? . . . too late . . . Glory? . . . I have tasted it . . . Ambition? . . . let us leave that nonsense to the politicians!’
The Book of Fantasy Page 45