Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I
Yet was not this breeze over-cool; though at times the zephyrs grewboisterous. Especially at the season of high sea, when the strongTrades drawn down the cleft in the mountain, rushed forth from thegrotto with wonderful force. Crossing it then, you had much ado tokeep your robe on your back.
Thus much for the House of the Afternoon. Whither--after spending theshady morning under the eastern cliffs of the glen--daily, at acertain hour, Donjalolo in his palanquin was borne; there, findingnew shades; and there tarrying till evening; when again he wastransported whence he came: thereby anticipating the revolution ofthe sun. Thus dodging day's luminary through life, the prince hied toand fro in his dominions; on his smooth, spotless brow Sol's raysnever shining.
CHAPTER LXXVIIIBabbalanja Solus
Of the House of the Afternoon something yet remains to be said.
It was chiefly distinguished by its pavement, where, according to thestrange customs of the isle, were inlaid the reputed skeletons ofDonjalolo's sires; each surrounded by a mosaic of corals,--red,white, and black, intermixed with vitreous stones fallen from theskies in a meteoric shower. These delineated the tattooing of thedeparted. Near by, were imbedded their arms: mace, bow, and spear, insimilar marquetry; and over each skull was the likeness of a scepter.
First and conspicuous lay the half-decayed remains of Marjora, thefather of these Coral Kings; by his side, the storied, sickle-shapedweapon, wherewith he slew his brother Teei.
"Line of kings and row of scepters," said Babbalanja as he gazed."Donjalolo, come forth and ponder on thy sires. Here they lie, fromdread Marjora down to him who fathered thee. Here are their bones,their spears, and their javelins; their scepters, and the veryfashion of their tattooing: all that can be got together of what theywere. Tell me, oh king, what are thy thoughts? Dotest thou on thesethy sires? Art thou more truly royal, that they were kings? Or more aman, that they were men? Is it a fable, or a verity about Marjora andthe murdered Teei? But here is the mighty conqueror,--ask him. Speakto him: son to sire: king to king. Prick him; beg; buffet;entreat; spurn; split the globe, he will not budge. Walk over andover thy whole ancestral line, and they will not start. They are nothere. Ay, the dead are not to be found, even in their graves. Norhave they simply departed; for they willed not to go; they died notby choice; whithersoever they have gone, thither have they beendragged; and if so be, they are extinct, their nihilities went notmore against their grain, than their forced quitting of Mardi. Eitherway, something has become of them that they sought not. Truly, hadstout-hearted Marjora sworn to live here in Willamilla for ay, andkept the vow, _that_ would have been royalty indeed; but here helies. Marjora! rise! Juam revolteth! Lo, I stamp upon thy scepter;base menials tread upon thee where thou hest! Up, king, up! What? noreply? Are not these bones thine? Oh, how the living triumph over thedead! Marjora! answer. Art thou? or art thou not? I see thee not; Ihear thee not; I feel thee not; eyes, ears, hands, are worthless totest thy being; and if thou art, thou art something beyond all humanthought to compass. We must have other faculties to know thee by.Why, thou art not even a sightless sound; not the echo of an echo;here are thy bones. Donjalolo, methinks I see thee fallen upon byassassins:--which of thy fathers riseth to the rescue? I see theedying:--which of them telleth thee what cheer beyond the grave? Butthey have gone to the land unknown. Meet phrase. Where is it? Not oneof Oro's priests telleth a straight story concerning it; 'twill behard finding their paradises. Touching the life of Alma, in Mohi'schronicles, 'tis related, that a man was once raised from the tomb.But rubbed he not his eyes, and stared he not most vacantly? Not onerevelation did he make. Ye gods! to have been a bystander there!
"At best, 'tis but a hope. But will a longing bring the thingdesired? Doth dread avert its object? An instinct is no preservative.The fire I shrink from, may consume me.--But dead, and yetalive; alive, yet dead;--thus say the sages of Maramma. But die wethen living? Yet if our dead fathers somewhere and somehow live, whynot our unborn sons? For backward or forward, eternity is the same;already have we been the nothing we dread to be. Icy thought! Butbring it home,--it will not stay. What ho, hot heart of mine: to beatthus lustily awhile, to feel in the red rushing blood, and then beashes,--can this be so? But peace, peace, thou liar in me, telling meI am immortal--shall I not be as these bones? To come to this! Butthe balsam-dropping palms, whose boles run milk, whose plumes waveboastful in the air, they perish in their prime, and bow theirblasted trunks. Nothing abideth; the river of yesterday floweth notto-day; the sun's rising is a setting; living is dying; the verymountains melt; and all revolve:--systems and asteroids; the sunwheels through the zodiac, and the zodiac is a revolution. Ah gods!in all this universal stir, am _I_ to prove one stable thing?
"Grim chiefs in skeletons, avaunt! Ye are but dust; belike the dustof beggars; for on this bed, paupers may lie down with kings, andfilch their skulls. _This_, great Marjora's arm? No, some oldparalytic's. _Ye_, kings? _ye_, men? Where are your vouchers? I doreject your brother-hood, ye libelous remains. But no, no; despisethem not, oh Babbalanja! Thy own skeleton, thou thyself dost carrywith thee, through this mortal life; and aye would view it, but forkind nature's screen; thou art death alive; and e'en to what's beforethee wilt thou come. Ay, thy children's children will walk over thee:thou, voiceless as a calm."
And over the Coral Kings, Babbalanja paced in profound meditation.
CHAPTER LXXIXThe Center Of Many Circumferences
Like Donjalolo himself, we hie to and fro; for back now must we paceto the House of the Morning.
In its rear, there diverged three separate arbors, leading to lesspublic apartments.
Traversing the central arbor, and fancying it will soon lead you toopen ground, you suddenly come upon the most private retreat of theprince: a square structure; plain as a pyramid; and without, asinscrutable. Down to the very ground, its walls are thatched; but onthe farther side a passage-way opens, which you enter. But not yetare you within. Scarce a yard distant, stands an inner thatched wall,blank as the first. Passing along the intervening corridor, lightedby narrow apertures, you reach the opposite side, and a secondopening is revealed. This entering, another corridor; lighted as thefirst, but more dim, and a third blank wall. And thus, three timesthree, you worm round and round, the twilight lessening as youproceed; until at last, you enter the citadel itself: the innermostarbor of a nest; whereof, each has its roof, distinct from the rest.
The heart of the place is but small; illuminated by a range of opensky-lights, downward contracting.
Innumerable as the leaves of an endless folio, multitudinous matscover the floor; whereon reclining by night, like Pharaoh on the topof his patrimonial pile, the inmate looks heavenward, and heavenwardonly; gazing at the torchlight processions in the skies, when, instate, the suns march to be crowned.
And here, in this impenetrable retreat, centrally slumbered theuniverse-rounded, zodiac-belted, horizon-zoned, sea-girt, reef-sashed, mountain-locked, arbor-nested, royalty-girdled, arm-clasped,self-hugged, indivisible Donjalolo, absolute monarch of Juam:--thehusk-inhusked meat in a nut; the innermost spark in a ruby; thejuice-nested seed in a goldenrinded orange; the red royal stone in aneffeminate peach; the insphered sphere of spheres.
CHAPTER LXXXDonjalolo In The Bosom Of His Family
To pretend to relate the manner in which Juam's ruler passed hiscaptive days, without making suitable mention of his harem, would beto paint one's full-length likeness and omit the face. For it was hisharem that did much to stamp the character of Donjalolo.
And had he possessed but a single spouse, most discourteous, surely,to have overlooked the princess; much more, then, as it is; and byhow-much the more, a plurality exceeds a unit.
Exclusive of the female attendants, by day waiting upon the person ofthe king, he had wives thirty in number, corresponding in name to thenights of the moon. For, in Juam, time is not reckoned by days, butby nights; each night of the lunar month having its own designation;which, relatively only, is extended to the day.
In unif
orm succession, the thirty wives ruled queen of the king'sheart. An arrangement most wise and judicious; precluding much ofthat jealousy and confusion prevalent in ill-regulated seraglios. Foras thirty spouses must be either more desirable, or less desirablethan one; so is a harem thirty times more difficult to manage than anestablishment with one solitary mistress. But Donjalolo's wives wereso nicely drilled, that for the most part, things went on verysmoothly. Nor were his brows much furrowed with wrinkles referable todomestic cares and tribulations. Although, as in due time will beseen, from these he was not altogether exempt.
Now, according to Braid-Beard, who, among other abstruse politicalresearches, had accurately informed himself concerning the internaladministration of Donjalolo's harem, the following was the methodpursued therein.
On the Aquella, or First Night of the month, the queen of that nameassumes her diadem, and reigns. So too with Azzolino the Second, andVelluvi the Third Night of the Moon; and so on, even unto the uttereclipse thereof; through Calends, Nones, and Ides.
For convenience, the king is furnished with a card, whereon arecopied the various ciphers upon the arms of his queens; and parallelthereto, the hieroglyphics significant of the corresponding Nights ofthe month. Glancing over this, Donjalolo predicts the true time ofthe rising and setting of all his stars.
This Moon of wives was lodged in two spacious seraglios, which fewmortals beheld. For, so deeply were they buried in a grove; sooverpowered with verdure; so overrun with vines; and so hazy with theincense of flowers; that they were almost invisible, unless closelyapproached. Certain it was, that it demanded no small enterprise,diligence, and sagacity, to explore the mysterious wood in search ofthem. Though a strange, sweet, humming sound, as of the clusteringand swarming of warm bees among roses, at last hinted the royal honeyat hand. High in air, toward the summit of the cliff, overlookingthis side of the glen, a narrow ledge of rocks might have been seen,from which, rumor whispered, was to be caught an angular peep at thetip of the apex of the roof of the nearest seraglio. But this wildreport had never been established. Nor, indeed, was it susceptible ofa test. For was not that rock inaccessible as the eyrie of youngeagles? But to guard against the possibility of any visualprofanation, Donjalolo had authorized an edict, forever tabooing thatrock to foot of man or pinion of fowl. Birds and bipeds both trembledand obeyed; taking a wide circuit to avoid the spot.
Access to the seraglios was had by corresponding arbors leading fromthe palace. The seraglio to the right was denominated "Ravi"(Before), that to the left "Zono" (After). The meaning of which was,that upon the termination of her reign the queen wended her way tothe Zono; there tarrying with her predecessors till the Ravi wasemptied; when the entire Moon of wives, swallow-like, migrated backwhence they came; and the procession was gone over again.
In due order, the queens reposed upon mats inwoven with theirrespective ciphers. In the Ravi, the mat of the queen-apparent, ornext in succession, was spread by the portal. In the Zono, the newly-widowed queen reposed furthest from it.
But alas for all method where thirty wives are concerned.Notwithstanding these excellent arrangements, the mature result ofages of progressive improvement in the economy of the royal seragliosin Willamilla, it must needs be related, that at times the order ofprecedence became confused, and was very hard to restore.
At intervals, some one of the wives was weeded out, to the no smalldelight of the remainder; but to their equal vexation her place wouldsoon after be supplied by some beautiful stranger; who assuming thedenomination of the vacated Night of the Moon, thenceforth commencedher monthly revolutions in the king's infallible calendar.
In constant attendance, was a band of old men; woe-begone, thin ofleg, and puny of frame; whose grateful task it was, to tarry in thegarden of Donjalolo's delights, without ever touching the roses.Along with innumerable other duties, they were perpetually keptcoming and going upon ten thousand errands; for they had it in strictcharge to obey the slightest behests of the damsels; and with allimaginable expedition to run, fly, swim, or dissolve into impalpableair, at the shortest possible notice.
So laborious their avocations, that none could discharge themfor more than a twelvemonth, at the end of that period giving up theghost out of pure exhaustion of the locomotive apparatus. It was thisconstant drain upon the stock of masculine old age in the glen, thatso bethinned its small population of gray-beards and hoary-heads. Andany old man hitherto exempted, who happened to receive a summons torepair to the palace, and there wait the pleasure of the king: thisunfortunate, at once suspecting his doom, put his arbor in order;oiled and suppled his joints; took a long farewell of his friends;selected his burial-place; and going resigned to his fate, in duetime expired like the rest.
Had any one of them cast about for some alleviating circumstance, hemight possibly have derived some little consolation from the thought,that though a slave to the whims of thirty princesses, he wasnevertheless one of their guardians, and as such, he mightingeniously have concluded, their superior. But small consolationthis. For the damsels were as blithe as larks, more playful thankittens; never looking sad and sentimental, projecting clandestineescapes. But supplied with the thirtieth part of all that Aspasiacould desire; glorying in being the spouses of a king; nor in theremotest degree anxious about eventual dowers; they were care-free,content, and rejoicing, as the rays of the morning.
Poor old men, then; it would be hard to distill out of your fate, onedrop of the balm of consolation. For, commissioned to watch overthose who forever kept you on the trot, affording you no time to huntup peccadilloes; was not this circumstance an aggravation of hardtimes? a sharpening and edge-giving to the steel in your souls?
But much yet remains unsaid.
To dwell no more upon the eternal wear-and-tear incident to theseattenuated old warders, they were intensely hated by the damsels.Inasmuch, as it was archly opined, for what ulterior purposes theywere retained.
Nightly couching, on guard, round the seraglio, like fangless oldbronze dragons round a fountain enchanted, the old men ever and anoncried out mightily, by reason of sore pinches and scratches receivedin the dark: And tri-trebly-tri-triply girt about as he was,Donjalolo himself started from his slumbers, raced round and roundthrough his ten thousand corridors; at last bursting all dizzy amonghis twenty-nine queens, to see what under the seventh-heavens was thematter. When, lo and behold! there lay the innocents all soundasleep; the dragons moaning over their mysterious bruises.
Ah me! his harem, like all large families, was the delight and thetorment of the days and nights of Donjalolo.
And in one special matter was he either eminently miserable, orotherwise: for all his multiplicity of wives, he had never an heir.Not his, the proud paternal glance of the Grand Turk Solyman, lookinground upon a hundred sons, all bone of his bone, and squinting withhis squint.
CHAPTER LXXXIWherein Babbalanja Relates The Adventure Of One Karkeke In The LandOf Shades
At our morning repast on the second day of our stay in the hollow,our party indulged in much lively discourse.
"Samoa," said I, "those isles of yours, of whose beauty you so oftenmake vauntful mention, can those isles, good Samoa, furnish a valleyin all respects equal to Willamilla?"
Disdainful answer was made, that Willamilla might be endurable enoughfor a sojourn, but as a permanent abode, any glen of his own natalisle was unspeakably superior.
"In the great valley of Savaii," cried Samoa, "for every leaf grownhere in Willamilla, grows a stately tree; and for every tree herewaving, in Savaii flourishes a goodly warrior."
Immeasurable was the disgust of the Upoluan for the enervatedsubjects of Donjalolo; and for Donjalolo himself; though it wasshrewdly divined, that his annoying reception at the hands of theroyalty of Juam, had something to do with his disdain.
To Jarl, no similar question was put; for he was sadly deficient in ataste for the picturesque. But he cursorily observed, that in hisblue-water opinion, Willamilla was next to uninhabitable, all view ofthe sea be
ing intercepted.
And here it may be well to relate a comical blunder on the part ofhonest Jarl; concerning which, Samoa, the savage, often afterwardtwitted him; as indicating a rusticity, and want of polish in hisbreeding. It rather originated, however, in his not heeding theconventionalities of the strange people among whom he was thrown.
The anecdote is not an epic; but here it is.
Reclining in our arbor, we breakfasted upon a marble slab; so frost-white, and flowingly traced with blue veins, that it seemed a littlelake sheeted over with ice: Diana's virgin bosom congealed.
Before each guest was a richly carved bowl and gourd, fruit and winefreighted also the empty hemisphere of a small nut, the purpose ofwhich was a problem. Now, King Jarl scorned to admit the slightestdegree of under-breeding in the matter of polite feeding. So nothingwas a problem to him. At once reminded of the morsel of Arvaroot inhis mouth, a substitute for another sort of sedative thenunattainable, he was instantly illuminated concerning the purpose ofthe nut; and very complacently introduced each to the other; in theinnocence of his ignorance making no doubt that he had acquittedhimself with discretion; the little hemisphere plainly being intendedas a place of temporary deposit for the Arva of the guests.
The company were astounded: Samoa more than all. King Jarl,meanwhile, looking at all present with the utmost serenity. Atlength, one of the horrified attendants, using two sticks for aforceps, disappeared with the obnoxious nut, Upon which, the mealproceeded.