I could not go out for my ride, and the next day I gave up my queer English coat and hat for good.
That day again at dead of night I heard the stifled heart-breaking sobs of someone – as if below the bed, below the floor, below the stony foundation of that gigantic palace, from the depths of a dark damp grave, a voice piteously cried and implored me: ‘Oh, rescue me! Break through these doors of hard illusion, deathlike slumber and fruitless dreams, place me by your side on the saddle, press me to your heart, and, riding through hills and woods and across the river, take me to the warm radiance of your sunny rooms above!’
Who am I? Oh, how can I rescue thee? What drowning beauty, what incarnate passion shall I drag to the shore from this wild eddy of dreams? O lovely ethereal apparition! Where didst thou flourish and when? By what cool spring, under the shade of what date-groves, wast thou born – in the lap of what homeless wanderer in the desert? What Bedouin snatched thee from thy mother’s arms, an opening bud plucked from a wild creeper, placed thee on a horse swift as lightning, crossed the burning sands, and took thee to the slave-market of what royal city? And there, what officer of the Badshah, seeing the glory of thy bashful blossoming youth, paid for thee in gold, placed thee in a golden palanquin, and offered thee as a present for the seraglio of his master? And O, the history of that place! The music of the sareng, the jingle of anklets, the occasional flash of daggers and the glowing wine of Shiraz poison, and the piercing flashing glance! What infinite grandeur, what endless servitude! The slave-girls to thy right and left waved the chamar as diamonds flashed from their bracelets; the Badshah, the king of kings, fell on his knees at thy snowy feet in bejewelled shoes, and outside the terrible Abyssinian eunuch, looking like a messenger of death, but clothed like an angel, stood with a naked sword in his hand! Then, O, thou flower of the desert, swept away by the blood-stained dazzling ocean of grandeur, with its foam of jealousy, its rocks and shoals of intrigue, on what shore of cruel death wast thou cast, or in what other land more splendid and more cruel?
Suddenly at this moment that crazy Meher Ali screamed out: ‘Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!’ I opened my eyes and saw that it was already light. My chaprasi came and handed me my letters, and the cook waited with a salam for my orders.
I said: ‘No, I can stay here no longer.’ That very day I packed up, and moved to my office. Old Karim Khan smiled a little as he saw me. I felt nettled, but said nothing, and fell to my work.
As evening approached I grew absentminded; I felt as if I had an appointment to keep; and the work of examining the cotton accounts seemed wholly useless; even the Nizamat, or royalty, of the Nizam did not appear to be of much worth. Whatever belonged to the present, whatever was moving and acting and working for bread seemed trivial, meaningless, and contemptible.
I threw my pen down, closed my ledgers, got into my dog-cart, and drove away. I noticed that it stopped of itself at the gate of the marble palace just at the hour of twilight. With quick steps I climbed the stairs, and entered the room.
A heavy silence was reigning within. The dark rooms were looking sullen as if they had taken offence. My heart was full of contrition, but there was no one to whom I could lay it bare, or of whom I could ask forgiveness. I wandered about the dark rooms with a vacant mind. I wished I had a guitar to which I could sing to the unknown: ‘O fire, the poor moth that made a vain effort to fly away has come back to thee! Forgive it but this once, burn its wings and consume it in thy flame!’
Suddenly two tear-drops fell from overhead on my brow. Dark masses of clouds overcast the top of the Avalli hills that day.
The gloomy sooty waters of the Susta were waiting in terrible suspense and in an ominous calm. Suddenly land, water, and sky shivered, and a wild tempest-blast rushed howling through the distant pathless woods, showing its lightning-teeth like a raving maniac who had broken his chains. The desolate halls of the palace banged their doors, and moaned in the bitterness of anguish.
The servants were all in the office, and there was no one to light the lamps. The night was cloudy and moonless. In the dense gloom within I could distinctly feel that a woman was lying on her face on the carpet below the bed – clasping and tearing her long dishevelled hair with desperate fingers. Blood was trickling down her fair brow, and she was now laughing a hard, harsh, mirthless laugh, now bursting into violent wringing sobs, now rending her bodice and striking at her bare bosom, as the wind roared in through the open window, and the rain poured in torrents and soaked her through and through.
All night there was no cessation of the storm or of the passionate cry. I wandered from room to room in the dark, with unavailing sorrow. Whom could I console when no one was by? Whose was this intense agony of sorrow? Whence arose this inconsolable grief?
And the mad man cried out: ‘Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!’
I saw that the day had dawned, and Meher Ali was going round and round the palace with his usual cry in that dreadful weather. Suddenly it came to me that perhaps he also had once lived in that house, and that, though he had gone mad, he came there every day, and went round and round, fascinated by the weird spell cast by the marble demon.
Despite the storm and rain I ran to him and asked: ‘Ho, Meher Ali, what is false?’
The man answered nothing, but pushing me aside went round and round with his frantic cry, like a bird flying fascinated about the jaws of a snake, and made a desperate effort to warn himself by repeating: ‘Stand back! Stand back!! All is false! All is false!!’
I ran like a mad man through the pelting rain to my office, and asked Karim Khan: ‘Tell me the meaning of all this!’
What I gathered from that old man was this: That at one time countless unrequited passions and unsatisfied longings and lurid flames of wild blazing pleasure raged within that palace, and that the curse of all the heart-aches and blasted hopes had made its every stone thirsty and hungry, eager to swallow up like a famished ogress any living man who might chance to approach. Not one of those who lived there for three consecutive nights could escape these cruel jaws, save Meher Ali, who had escaped at the cost of his reason.
I asked: ‘Is there no means whatever of my release?’ The old man said: ‘There is only one means, and that is very difficult. I will tell you what it is, but first you must hear the history of a young Persian girl who once lived in that pleasure-dome. A stranger or a more bitterly heart-rending tragedy was never enacted on this earth.’
Just at this moment the coolies announced that the train was coming. So soon? We hurriedly packed up our luggage, as the train steamed in. An English gentleman, apparently just aroused from slumber, was looking out of a first-class carriage endeavouring to read the name of the station. As soon as he caught sight of our fellow-passenger, he cried, ‘Hallo,’ and took him into his own compartment. As we got into a second-class carriage, we had no chance of finding out who the man was nor what was the end of his story.
I said: ‘The man evidently took us for fools and imposed upon us out of fun. The story is pure fabrication from start to finish.’ The discussion that followed ended in a lifelong rupture between my theosophist kinsman and myself.
The Vegetable Man
Luigi Ugolini
Translated into English by Brendan and Anna Connell
Luigi Ugolini (1891–1980) was an Italian writer who garnered an international reputation for his short stories. Early on, Ugolini wrote articles and tales for newspapers. Later he dedicated himself almost exclusively to fiction for young people, which included works of historical biography and a sequel to Pinocchio. He also worked as an illustrator, most notably on a number of Jules Verne novels. A compelling tale of weird transformation, ‘The Vegetable Man’ was originally published in 1917 in an Italian publication whose title translates as The Illustrated Journal of Travel and Adventure Over Land and Sea. Brendan and Anna Connell’s skilful translation of the story is the first in the English language.
The following is the
story told to me by the green man:
‘It is only natural, Sir, that you are surprised by the color of my face. That color is why for months now I have not exposed myself to people’s eyes. Because it is not a story I could tell to everyone who saw me. But with you it is a different matter. You have seen me, you are my neighbour, you have enquired after my health and, what is more important, you are an intelligent and balanced man. So I will keep no secrets from you and, please, believe what you are about to hear, even if it seems rather strange and improbable.
‘My name is Dr. Benito Olivares. I was born in Santos, Brazil, and received a degree in Natural Sciences. Let this suffice for an introduction.
‘Later I will tell you the reason why I left my native country and am here in Italy.
‘But it is not my private adventures that would interest you, even if I wished to recount them. You asked about my health, so I will tell you without hesitation about the origin of my illness.
‘I told you that I am Brazilian and I imagine that you already know the reputation of my country: a vast region, larger than Europe, almost half of it as yet unexplored.
‘What do we know about the impenetrable Amazon, or about the mysterious Mato Grosso?
‘Our ignorance about this wonderfully fertile and seductive land ignited in me the desire to discover its mysteries.
‘With the ardor of a young pioneer and the zeal of a scientist, science being a matter of faith and martyrdom, I penetrated the virgin forests, discovering the remote sources of some of our magnificent rivers, measuring myself against death in that poisonous climate, risking the horrible bites of the deadly snakes that live in the mysterious jungle shadows.
‘I wrung countless secrets out of that vegetable environment that knows no bounds, that rises to the highest glory of free and lush flora, seeming almost to declare its domination over the fertile land, as if jealously guarding its most beautiful and hidden mysteries, wanting to revenge itself on any intruder.
‘Two years passed in this manner, and I found myself lost in the solitude of the Amazon Basin near the boundaries of Mato Grosso, traveling in the middle of flora that was at once magnificent and imbued with almost supernatural charms. My poor style of speech, Sir, can give but a very shabby idea of that inexpressible spectacle, that triumph of plant life and sunshine, of the wonderful contrast of cold shadows and dazzling color, of the silent and titanic struggle made of indestructible embraces and horrendous tangles.
‘But a silent and insidious weapon rules the mute combat of the vegetable kingdom: the liana.
‘It is the octopus of the forest, the paralyzing tentacle, the noose that cuts off the circulation of the sap and produces vegetable suffocation and gangrene.
‘You could see the Cipo matador, the killer liana, encircling the magnificent trunks of rubber trees or rosewood with its treacherous and slow embrace. Gradually its arms tighten into small rings that only an axe can break and then they rise up from the tips, like fluid fingers becoming solid as they ascend, until finally a real plant sheath surrounds and suffocates the peaceful giants of the forest, preventing the sap from circulating, denying it breath and life.
‘So one day, while admiring one of these battles of nature and, I must tell you, becoming entangled in a large bush of liana, a plant I had never seen before suddenly caught my eye, absorbing all my attention. Can you imagine? A new plant.
‘What delight, what triumph, what delirium it is for a botanist to make such a discovery. Trembling with emotion I approached this new specimen and began to study it minutely and lovingly.
‘No, the first glance had not deceived me. I really was in the presence of an example of some unknown species, which I tried in vain to classify.
‘Great God, that plant seemed to have been created deliberately to upset all of my botanical science. It was in fact a living contradiction. As soon as I tried to give it the particular characteristic of a species, another detail diametrically opposite jumped out, and then another, until my mind became lost in that futile work of classification.
‘In the end I came to the conclusion that that admirable plant was in itself an order, family, species, and variety. It was, in short, the progenitor of an order the descendants of which were unknown to me. My wonder and happiness knew no limits.
‘What I can tell you regarding the outward appearance of this unique specimen is the following: it was a shrub as tall as a normal man, with palmate leaves that were thick and fleshy. Its branches had a reddish meat color to them that almost filled me with a feeling of disgust. They seemed…. Well, they seemed like human limbs without skin.
‘Thin white hair made of resistant filaments, similar to the stamen of the maize-cob fell over the entire plant from its top. It had no flowers if by flowers one means a blossom or variously colored corolla. But, on its branches two oval scuttulem had formed that looked like eyes. Yes, two eyes, neither more nor less. See for yourself, Sir, for here in this glass case is a specimen.’
Moved by a lively curiosity, I approached the glass case indicated by the green man’s paralyzed gaze and could not repress the shudder that coursed through my every limb: on the shelf I saw a large leaf that had an appearance not unlike that of the prickly pear. But on its surface I did indeed see two eyes, formed with wonderful precision – two very human eyes that seemed to stare out at me in an unpleasant and sinister way. I stepped back, utterly appalled by the sight.
‘It’s marvelous,’ I said, still shivering in spite of myself. ‘Those eyes are remarkably real.’
The green man nodded his head.
‘It is the gaze of my destiny,’ he murmured in a dull voice, and continued his story.
‘Wanting to take possession of that strange flower, I stretched out my hand to detach it from the trunk, but in doing so let out a cry of great pain. Some very sharp and curved thorns that I had not previously noticed had bitten deep into my hand. The strangest thing was that, as I regarded them carefully, I noticed that a drop of an intensely green-colored liquid had been emitted from the tip of each of them. In short, they were something like the teeth of a viper.
‘And those pricks were quite painful. For a brief period I felt a violent burning, followed by a chill that wound through my veins and ascended suddenly to my heart. Overcome, I was compelled to sit on the ground.
‘For a period my body was filled with this violent discomfort, so that I became seriously afraid I had been poisoned by the plant’s sap. But then, little by little, every symptom faded away, and soon I could get up again and turn my attention to my botanical discovery.
‘With great caution I collected a few leaves and flowers and took them with me, carefully preserved. Intoxicated as I was by my glorious discovery, I lent my name to that strange bush, declaring it the Olivaria vigilans, since, with its many open eyes and treacherous thorns, it watched and kept vigil over its own inviolability and security.
‘At the same time, however, I was led to an unpleasant observation. The painful phenomena that had taken place after I had been stung by the thorns began to recur. At first it was only at long intervals, but gradually it became more frequent. A feeling of cold passed through my veins and heart, accompanied by a general numbness of the limbs and extreme weakness. I ascribed it to my long stay in the deadly climate of the Amazon and prepared to return to the coast.
‘Meanwhile, shortly after the discovery of the Olivaria vigilans, two incidents occurred that disturbed my peace of mind, leaving me rather unsettled.
‘One day while I was in my tent writing some notes concerning my plant, I saw near me a native of my escort, a Guaraní of the Amazon. I had the idea that he, as an expert on these forests, could give me some information on the mysterious plant. So I called him over and questioned him, showing him the flowers and leaves.
‘But as soon as the Indian saw them, he let out a cry of terror and amazement. He stared at me for a moment with the deepest dismay, and then ran off into the forest like a madman. And he never came back a
nd I never heard of him again.
‘A few days later, I arrived at a large village of courteous and hospitable Indians. While staying there, I questioned the old tribal chief, who was considered a true wise man. I asked him about a plant that I longed to find and described it to him completely, but without mentioning that I had, in fact, already found it. To my astonishment, even the old cacique began to tremble and show signs of the liveliest terror, trying his best to evade my question. Struck with curiosity, I asked him again and again, and insisted on getting an explanation, even offering the old chief a shotgun in exchange for information.
‘My insistence and gift won out over his scruples.
‘With a strange caution, he said, “That which you look for, foreigner, is a plant unlike any other. It is the Inhuacoltzi, the great spirit of the plants. Do not look for it, foreigner, for if you find it, it will make you like itself.”’
‘These were the strange words of the old cacique and nothing more could I coerce out of his mouth. I smiled at this strange superstition, for who could believe that there was a deity of plants? I returned to Santos and revealed the specimens I had discovered to the scientific world, resulting in a great deal of furor and discussion. The leaves and flowers that I had brought I donated to the Museum of Natural History in Buenos Aires, keeping for myself the specimen I have shown you.
‘And now, Sir, I will tell you the truly horrible part of my case.
‘I have already mentioned that once back home the alarming symptoms produced by the prick of the Olivaria vigilans returned with ever increasing frequency. Far from decreasing in severity, the phenomena became increasingly violent.
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories Page 23