Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)
Page 164
A BAD NIGHT
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
VILLIAM a Sen
NEEDLESON a Sidniduc
SMILER a Scheister
KI-YI a Trader
GRIMGHAST a Spader
SARALTHIA a Love-lorn Nymph
NELLIBRAC a Sweetun
A BODY; A GHOST; AN UNMENTIONABLE THING; SKULLS; HOODOOS; ETC.
Scene — a Cemetery in San Francisco.
Saralthia, Nellibrac, Grimghast.
SARALTHIA:
The red half-moon is dipping to the west,
And the cold fog invades the sleeping land.
Lo! how the grinning skulls in the level light
Litter the place! Methinks that every skull
Is a most lifelike portrait of my Sen,
Drawn by the hand of Death; each fleshless pate,
Cursed with a ghastly grin to eyes unrubbed
With love’s magnetic ointment, seems to mine
To smile an amiable smile like his
Whose amiable smile I — I alone
Am able to distinguish from his leer!
See how the gathering coyotes flit
Through the lit spaces, or with burning eyes
Star the black shadows with a steadfast gaze!
About my feet the poddy toads at play,
Bulbously comfortable, try to hop,
And tumble clumsily with all their warts;
While pranking lizards, sliding up and down
My limbs, as they were public roads, impart
A singularly interesting chill.
The circumstance and passion of the time,
The cast and manner of the place — the spirit
Of this confederate environment,
Command the rights we come to celebrate
Obedient to the Inspired Hag —
The seventh daughter of the seventh daughter,
Who rules all destinies from Minna street,
A dollar a destiny. Here at this grave,
Which for my purposes thou, Jack of Spades —
(To Grimghast)
Corrupter than the thing that reeks below —
Hast opened secretly, we’ll work the charm.
Now what’s the hour?
(Distant clock strikes thirteen.)
Enough — hale forth the stiff!
(Grimghast by means of a boat-hook stands the coffin on end in the excavation; the lid crumbles, exposing the remains of a man.)
Ha! Master Mouldybones, how fare you, sir?
THE BODY:
Poorly, I thank your ladyship; I miss
Some certain fingers and an ear or two.
There’s something, too, gone wrong with my inside,
And my periphery’s not what it was.
How can we serve each other, you and I?
NELLIBRAC:
O what a personable man!
(Blushes bashfully, drops her eyes and twists the corner of her apron.)
SARALTHIA:
Yes, dear,
A very proper and alluring male,
And quite superior to Lubin Rroyd,
Who has, however, this distinct advantage —
He is alive.
GRIMGHAST:
Missus, these yer remains
Was the boss singer back in ‘72,
And used to allers git invites to go
Down to Swellmont and sing at every feed.
In t’other Villiam’s time, that was, afore
The gent that you’ve hooked onto bought the place.
THE BODY (singing):
Down among the sainted dead
Many years I lay;
Beetles occupied my head,
Moles explored my clay.
There we feasted day and night —
I and bug and beast;
They provided appetite
And I supplied the feast.
The raven is a dicky-bird,
SARALTHIA (singing):
The jackal is a daisy,
NELLIBRAC (singing):
The wall-mouse is a worthy third,
A SPOOK (singing):
But mortals all are crazy.
CHORUS OF SKULLS:
O mortals all are crazy,
Their intellects are hazy;
In the growing moon they shake their shoon
And trip it in the mazy.
But when the moon is waning,
Their senses they’re regaining:
They fall to prayer and from their hair
Remove the straws remaining.
SARALTHIA:
That’s right, Rogues Gallery, pray keep it up:
Your song recalls my Villiam’s “Auld Lang Syne,”
What time he came and (like an amorous bird
That struts before the female of its kind,
Warbling to cave her down the bank) piped high
His cracked falsetto out of reach. Enough —
Now let’s to business. Nellibrac, sweet child,
St. Cloacina’s future devotee,
The time is ripe and rotten — gut the grip!
(Nellibrac brings forward a valise and takes from it five articles of clothing, which, one by one, she lays upon the points of a magic pentagram that has thoughtfully inscribed itself in lines of light on the wet grass. The Body holds its late lamented nose.)
NELLIBRAC (singing):
Fragrant socks, by Villiam’s toes
Consecrated to the nose;
Shirt that shows the well worn track
Of the knuckles of his back,
Handkerchief with mottled stains,
Into which he blew his brains;
Collar crying out for soap —
Prophet of the future rope;
An unmentionable thing
It would sicken me to sing.
UNMENTIONABLE THING (aside):
What! I unmentionable? Just you wait!
In all the family journals of the State
You’ll sometime see that I’m described at length,
With supereditorial grace and strength.
SARALTHIA (singing):
Throw them in the open tomb
They will cause his love to bloom
With an amatory boom!
CHORUS OF INVISIBLE HOODOOS:
Hoodoo, hoodoo, voudou-vet
Villiam struggles in the net!
By the power and intent
Of the charm his strength is spent!
By the virtue in each rag
Blessed by the Inspired Hag
He will be a willing victim
Limp as if a donkey kicked him!
By this awful incantation
We decree his animation —
By the magic of our art
Warm the cockles of his heart,
Villiam, if alive or dead,
Thou Saralthia shalt wed!
(They cast the garments into the grave and push over the coffin. Grimghast fills up the hole. Hoodoos gradually become apparent in a phosphorescent light about the grave, holding one another’s back-hair and dancing in a circle.)
HOODOO SONG AND DANCE:
O we’re the larrikin hoodoos!
The chirruping, lirruping hoodoos!
We mix things up that the Fates ordain,
Bring back the past and the present detain,
Postpone the future and sometimes tether
The three and drive them abreast together —
We rollicking, frolicking hoodoos!
To us all things are the same as none
And nothing is that is under the sun.
Seven’s a dozen and never is then,
Whether is what and what is when,
A man is a tree and a cuckoo a cow
For gold galore and silver enow
To magical, mystical hoodoos!
SARALTHIA:
What monstrous shadow darkens all the place,
(Enter Smyler.)
Flung like a doom athwart — ha! — thou?
Portentous presence, art thou not the same
That stalks with aspect horrible among
Small youths and maidens, baring snaggy teeth,
Champing their tender limbs till crimson spume,
Flung from, thy lips in cursing God and man,
Incarnadines the land?
SMYLER:
Thou dammid slut!
(Exit Smyler.)
NELLIBRAC:
O what a pretty man!
SARALTHIA
Now who is next?
Of tramps and casuals this graveyard seems
Prolific to a fault!
(Enter Needleson, exhaling, prophetically, an odor of decayed eggs and, actually, one of unlaundried linen. He darts an intense regard at an adjacent marble angel and places his open hand behind his ear.)
NEEDLESON:
Hay? (Exit Needleson.)
NELLIBRAC:
Sweet, sweet male!
I yearn to play at Copenhagen with him!
(Blushes diligently and energetically.)
CHORUS OF SKULLS:
Hoodoos, hoodoos, disappear —
Some dread deity draws near!
(Exeunt Hoodos.)
Smitten with a sense of doom,
The dead are cowering in the tomb,
Seas are calling, stars are falling
And appalling is the gloom!
Fragmentary flames are flung
Through the air the trees among!
Lo! each hill inclines its head —
Earth is bending ‘neath his thread!
(On the contrary, enter Villiam on a chip, navigating an odor of mignonette. Saralthia springs forward to put him in her pocket, but he is instantly retracted by an invisible string. She falls headlong, breaking her heart. Reënter Villiam, Needleson, Smyler. All gather about Saralthia, who loudly laments her accident. The Spirit of Tar-and Feathers, rising like a black smoke in their midst, executes a monstrous wink of graphic and vivid significance, then contemplates them with an obviously baptismal intention. The cross on Lone Mountain takes fire, splendoring the Peninsula. Tableau. Curtain.)
ON STONE
As in a dream, strange epitaphs I see,
Inscribed on yet unquarried stone,
Where wither flowers yet unstrown —
The Campo Santo of the time to be.
A WREATH OF IMMORTELLES
* * * * *
LORING PICKERING
(After Pope)
Here rests a writer, great but not immense,
Born destitute of feeling and of sense.
No power he but o’er his brain desired —
How not to suffer it to be inspired.
Ideas unto him were all unknown,
Proud of the words which, only, were his own.
So unreflecting, so confused his mind,
Torpid in error, indolently blind,
A fever Heaven, to quicken him, applied,
But, rather than revive, the sluggard died.
* * * * *
A WATER-PIRATE
Pause, stranger — whence you lightly tread
Bill Carr’s immoral part has fled.
For him no heart of woman burned,
But all the rivers’ heads he turned.
Alas! he now lifts up his eyes
In torment and for water cries,
Entreating that he may procure
One drop to cool his parched McClure!
* * * * *
C.P. BERRY
Here’s crowbait! — ravens, too, and daws
Flock hither to advance their caws,
And, with a sudden courage armed,
Devour the foe who once alarmed —
In life and death a fair deceit:
Nor strong to harm nor good to eat.
King bogey of the scarecrow host,
When known the least affrighting most,
Though light his hand (his mind was dark)
He left on earth a straw Berry mark.
* * * * *
THE REV. JOSEPH
He preached that sickness he could floor
By prayer and by commanding;
When sick himself he sent for four
Physicians in good standing.
He was struck dead despite their care,
For, fearing their dissension,
He secretly put up a prayer,
Thus drawing God’s attention.
* * * * *
Cynic perforce from studying mankind
In the false volume of his single mind,
He damned his fellows for his own unworth,
And, bad himself, thought nothing good on earth.
Yet, still so judging and so erring still,
Observing well, but understanding ill,
His learning all was got by dint of sight,
And what he learned by day he lost by night.
When hired to flatter he would never cease
Till those who’d paid for praises paid for peace.
Not wholly miser and but half a knave,
He yearned to squander but he lived to save,
And did not, for he could not, cheat the grave.
Hic jacet Pixley, scribe and muleteer:
Step lightly, stranger, anywhere but here.
* * * * *
McAllister, of talents rich and rare,
Lies at this spot at finish of his race.
Alike to him if it is here or there:
The one spot that he cared for was the ace.
* * * * *
Here lies Joseph Redding, who gave us the catfish.
He dined upon every fish except that fish.
‘Twas touching to hear him expounding his fad
With a heart full of zeal and a mouth full of shad.
The catfish miaowed with unspeakable woe
When Death, the lone fisherman, landed their Jo.
* * * * *
Judge Sawyer, whom in vain the people tried
To push from power, here is laid aside.
Death only from the bench could ever start
The sluggish load of his immortal part.
* * * * *
John Irish went, one luckless day,
To loaf and fish at San Jose.
He got no loaf, he got no fish:
They brained him with an empty dish!
They laid him in this place asleep —
O come, ye crocodiles, and weep.
* * * * *
In Sacramento City here
This wooden monument we rear
In memory of Dr. May,
Whose smile even Death could not allay.
He’s buried, Heaven alone knows where,
And only the hyenas care;
This May-pole merely marks the spot
Where, ere the wretch began to rot,
Fame’s trumpet, with its brazen bray,
Bawled; “Who (and why) was Dr. May?”
* * * * *
Dennis Spencer’s mortal coil
Here is laid away to spoil —
Great riparian, who said
Not a stream should leave its bed.
Now his soul would like a river
Turned upon its parching liver.
* * * * *
For those this mausoleum is erected
Who Stanford to the Upper House elected.
Their luck is less or their promotion slower,
For, dead, they were elected to the Lower.
* * * * *
Beneath this stone lies Reuben Lloyd,
Of breath deprived, of sense devoid.
The Templars’ Captain-General, he
So formidable seemed to be,
That had he not been on his back
Death ne’er had ventured to attack.
* * * * *
Here lies Barnes in all his glory —
Master he of oratOry.
When he died the people weeping,
(For they thought him only sleeping)
Cried: “Although he now is quiet
And his tongue is not a riot,
Soon, the spell that binds him breaking,
He a motion will be making.
Then, alas, he’ll rise and speak
In support of it a week.”
* * * * *
Rash mortal! stay thy feet and look around —
This vacant tomb as yet is holy ground;
But soon, alas! Jim Fair will occupy
These premises — then, holiness, good-bye!
* * * * *
Here Salomon’s body reposes;
Bring roses, ye rebels, bring roses.
Set all of your drumsticks a-rolling,
Discretion and Valor extrolling:
Discretion — he always retreated —
And Valor — the dead he defeated.
Brings roses, ye loyal, bring roses:
As patriot here he re-poses.
* * * * *
When Waterman ended his bright career
He left his wet name to history here.
To carry it with him he did not care:
‘Twould tantalize spirits of statesmen There.
* * * * *
Here lie the remains of Fred Emerson Brooks,
A poet, as every one knew by his looks
Who hadn’t unluckily met with his books.
On civic occasions he sprang to the fore
With poems consisting of stanzas three score.
The men whom they deafened enjoyed them the more.
Of reason his fantasy knew not the check:
All forms of inharmony came at his beck.