The Wish House and Other Stories

  And when his horns were cleaned, he rose up and studied poor Villamarti’s troupe, eyes in eyes, one by one, with the gravity of an equal in intellect and the remote and merciless resolution of a master in his art. This was more terrifying than his toilette.’

  ‘And they – Villamarti’s men?’ I asked.

  ‘Like the audience, were dominated. They had ceased to posture, or stamp, or address insults to him. They conformed to him. The two other matadors stared. Only Chisto, the oldest, broke silence with some call or other, and Apis turned his head towards him. Otherwise he was isolated, immobile – sombre – meditating on those at his mercy. Ah!

  ‘For some reason the trumpet sounded for the banderillas – those gay hooked darts that are planted in the shoulders of bulls who do not think, after their neck-muscles are tired by lifting horses. When such bulls feel the pain, they check for an instant, and, in that instant, the men step gracefully aside. Villamarti’s banderillero answered the trumpet mechanically – like one condemned. He stood out, poised the darts and stammered the usual patter of invitation…And after? I do not assert that Apis shrugged his shoulders, but he reduced the episode to its lowest elements as could only a bull of Gaul. With his truculence was mingled always-owing to the shortness of his tail – a certain Rabelaisian abandon, especially when viewed from the rear. Christophe had often commented upon it. Now, Apis brought that quality into play. He circulated round that boy, forcing him to break up his beautiful poses. He studied him from various angles, like an incompetent photographer. He presented to him every portion of his anatomy except his shoulders. At intervals he feigned to run in upon him. My God, he was cruel! But his motive was obvious. He was playing for a laugh from the spectators which should synchronize with the fracture of the human morale. It was achieved. The boy turned and ran towards the barrier. Apis was on him before the laugh ceased; passed him; headed him – what do I say? – herded him off to the left, his horns beside and a little in front of his chest: he did not intend him to escape into a refuge. Some of the troupe would have closed in, but Villamarti cried: “If he wants him he will take him. Stand!” They stood. Whether the boy slipped or Apis nosed him over I could not see. But he dropped, sobbing. Apis halted like a car with four brakes, struck a pose, smelt him very completely and turned away. It was dismissal more ignominious than degradation at the head of one’s battalion. The representation was finished. Remained only for Apis to clear his stage of the subordinate characters.

  ‘Ah! His gesture then! He gave a dramatic start – this Cyrano of the Camargue – as though he was aware of them for the first time. He moved. All their beautiful breeches twinkled for an instant along the top of the barrier. He held the stage alone! But Christophe and I, we trembled! For, observe, he had now involved himself in a stupendous drama of which he only could supply the third act. And, except for an audience on the razor-edge of emotion, he had exhausted his material. Molière himself – we have forgotten, my friend, to drink to the health of that great soul – might have been at a loss. And Tragedy is but a step behind Failure. We could see the four or five Civil Guards, who are sent always to keep order, fingering the breeches of their rifles. They were but waiting a word from the mayor to fire on him, as they do sometimes at a bull who leaps the barrier among the spectators. They would, of course, have killed or wounded several people – but that would not have saved Apis.

  Monsieur Voiron drowned the thought at once, and wiped his beard.

  ‘At that moment Fate – the Genius of France, if you will, – sent to assist in the incomparable finale, none other than Chisto, the eldest, and I should have said (but never again will I judge!) the least inspired of all; mediocrity itself, but at heart – and it is the heart that conquers always, my friend – at heart an artist. He descended stiffly into the arena, alone and assured. Apis regarded him, his eyes in his eyes. The man took stance, with his cloak, and called to the bull as to an equal: “Now, señor, we will show these honourable caballeros something together.” He advanced thus against this thinker who at a plunge – a kick – a thrust – could, we all knew, have extinguished him. My dear friend, I wish I could convey to you something of the unaffected bonhomie, the humour, the delicacy, the consideration bordering on respect even, with which Apis, the supreme artist, responded to this invitation. It was the Master, wearied after a strenuous hour in the atelier, unbuttoned and at ease with some not inexpert but limited disciple. The telepathy was instantaneous between them. And for good reason! Christophe said to me: “All’s well. That Chisto began among the bulls. I was sure of it when I heard him call just now. He has been a herdsman. He’ll pull it off.” There was a little feeling and adjustment, at first, for mutual distances and allowances.

  ‘Oh, yes! And here occurred a gross impertinence of Villamarti. He had, after an interval, followed Chisto – to retrieve his reputation. My Faith! I can conceive the elder Dumas slamming his door on an intruder precisely as Apis did. He raced Villamarti into the nearest refuge at once. He stamped his feet outside it, and he snorted: “Go! I am engaged with an artist.” Villamarti went – his reputation left behind for ever.

  ‘Apis returned to Chisto saying: “Forgive the interruption. I am not always master of my time, but you were about to observe, my dear confrère…?” Then the play began. Out of compliment to Chisto, Apis chose as his objective (every bull varies in this respect) the inner edge of the cloak – that nearest to the man’s body. This allows but a few millimetres clearance in charging. But Apis trusted himself as Chisto trusted him, and, this time, he conformed to the man, with inimitable judgement and temper. He allowed himself to be played into the shadow or the sun, as the delighted audience demanded. He raged enormously; he feigned defeat; he despaired in statuesque abandon, and thence flashed into fresh paroxysms of wrath – but always with the detachment of the true artist who knows he is but the vessel of an emotion whence others, not he, must drink. And never once did he forget that honest Chisto’s cloak was to him the gauge by which to spare even a hair on the skin. He inspired Chisto too. My God! His youth returned to that meritorious beef-sticker – the desire, the grace, and the beauty of his early dreams. One could almost see that girl of the past for whom he was rising, rising to these present heights of skill and daring. It was his hour too – a miraculous hour of dawn returned to gild the sunset. All he knew was at Apis’ disposition. Apis acknowledged it with all that he had learned at home, at Aries and in his lonely murders on our grazing-grounds. He flowed round Chisto like a river of death – round his knees, leaping at his shoulders, kicking just clear of one side or the other of his head; behind his back, hissing as he shaved by; and once or twice – inimitable! – he reared wholly up before him while Chisto slipped back from beneath the avalanche of that instructed body. Those two, my dear friend, held five thousand people dumb with no sound but of their breathings – regular as pumps. It was unbearable. Beast and man realized together that we needed a change of note – a détente. They relaxed to pure buffoonery. Chisto fell back and talked to him outrageously. Apis pretended he had never heard such language. The audience howled with delight. Chisto slapped him; he took liberties with his short tail, to the end of which he clung while Apis pirouetted; he played about him in all postures; he had become the herdsman again – gross, careless, brutal, but comprehending. Yet Apis was always the more consummate clown. All that time (Christophe and I saw it) Apis drew off towards the gates of the tori! where so many bulls enter but – have you ever heard of one that returned? We knew that Apis knew that as he had saved Chisto, so Chisto would save him. Life is sweet to us all; to the artist who lives many lives in one, sweetest. Chisto did not fail him. At the last, when none could laugh any longer, the man threw his cape across the bull’s back, his arm round his neck. He flung up a hand at the gate, as Villamarti, young and commanding, but not a herdsman, might have raised it, and he cried: “Gentlemen, open to me and my honourable little donkey.” They opened – I have misjudged Spaniards in my time! – those gates
opened to the man and the bull together, and closed behind them. And then? From the mayor to the Guardia Civil they went mad for five minutes, till the trumpets blew and the fifth bull rushed out – an unthinking black Andalusian. I suppose someone killed him. My friend, my very dear friend, to whom I have opened my heart, I confess that I did not watch. Christophe and I, we were weeping together like children of the same Mother. Shall we drink to Her?’

  ALNASCHAR AND THE OXEN

  There’s a pasture in a valley where the hanging woods divide,

  And a Herd lies down and ruminates in peace;

  Where the pheasant rules the nooning, and the owl the twilight tide,

  And the war-cries of our world die out and cease.

  Here I cast aside the burden that each weary week-day brings

  And, delivered from the shadows I pursue,

  On peaceful, postless Sabbaths I consider Weighty Things –

  Such as Sussex Cattle feeding in the dew!

  At the gate beside the river where the trouty shallows brawl,

  I know the pride that Lobengula felt,

  When he bade the bars be lowered of the Royal Cattle Kraal,

  And fifteen mile of oxen took the veldt.

  From the walls of Bulawayo in unbroken file they came

  To where the Mount of Council cuts the blue…

  I have only six and twenty, but the principle’s the same

  With my Sussex Cattle feeding in the dew!

  To a luscious sound of tearing, where the clovered herbage rips,

  Level-backed and level-bellied watch ’em move –

  See those shoulders, guess that heart-girth, praise those loins, admire those hips,

  And the tail set low for flesh to make above!

  Count the broad unblemished muzzles, test the kindly mellow skin

  And, where yon heifer lifts her head at call,

  Mark the bosom’s just abundance ‘neath the gay and clean-cut chin,

  And those eyes of Juno, overlooking all!

  Here is colour, form and substance! I will put it to the proof

  And, next season, in my lodges shall be born

  Some very Bull of Mithras, flawless from his agate hoof

  To his even-branching, ivory, dusk-tipped horn.

  He shall mate with block-square virgins – kings shall seek his like in vain,

  While I multiply his stock a thousandfold,

  Till an hungry world extol me, builder of a lofty strain

  That turns one standard ton at two years old!

  There’s a valley, under oakwood, where a man may dream his dream,

  In the milky breath of cattle laid at ease,

  Till the moon o’ertops the alders, and her image chills the stream,

  And the river-mist runs silver round their knees!

  Now the footpaths fade and vanish; now the ferny clumps deceive;

  Now the hedgerow-folk possess their fields anew;

  Now the Herd is lost in darkness, and I bless them as I leave,

  My Sussex Cattle feeding in the dew!

  GIPSY VANS

  Unless you come of the gipsy stock

  That steals by night and day,

  Lock your heart with a double lock

  And throw the key away.

  Bury it under the blackest stone

  Beneath your father’s hearth,

  And keep your eyes on your lawful own

  And your feet to the proper path.

  Then you can stand at your door and mock

  When the gipsy-vans come through…

  For it isn’t right that the Gorgio stock

  Should live as the Romany do.

  Unless you come of the gipsy blood

  That takes and never spares

  Bide content with your given good

  And follow your own affairs.

  Plough and harrow and roll your land,

  And sow what ought to be sowed;

  But never let loose your heart from your hand,

  Nor flitter it down the road!

  Then you can thrive on your boughten food

  As the gipsy-vans come through…

  For it isn’t nature the Gorgio blood

  Should love as the Romany do.

  Unless you carry the gipsy eyes

  That see but seldom weep,

  Keep your head from the naked skies

  Or the stars’ll trouble your sleep.

  Watch your moon through your window-pane

  And take what weather she brews;

  But don’t run out in the midnight rain

  Nor home in the morning dews.

  Then you can huddle and shut your eyes

  As the gipsy-vans come through…

  For it isn’t fitting the Gorgio ryes

  Should walk as the Romany do

  Unless you come of the gipsy race

  That counts all time the same,

  Be you careful of Time and Place

  And Judgment and Good Name:

  Lose your life for to live your life

  The way that you ought to do;

  And when you are finished, your God and your wife

  And the Gipsies ‘Il laugh at you!

  Then you can rot in your burying-place

  As the gipsy-vans come through…

  For it isn’t reason the Gorgio race

  Should die as the Romany do.

  A Madonna of the Trenches

  ‘Whatever a man of the sons of men

  Shall say to his heart of the lords above,

  They have shown man, verily, once and again.

  Marvellous mercies and infinite love.

  ’O sweet one love, O my life’s delight.

  Dear, though the days have divided us.

  Lost beyond hope, taken far out of sight,

  Not twice in the world shall the Gods do thus.’

  Swinburne, ‘Les Noyades’

  SEEING how many unstable ex-soldiers came to the Lodge of Instruction (attached to Faith and Works E.C. 5837) in the years after the war, the wonder is there was not more trouble from Brethren whom sudden meetings with old comrades jerked back into their still raw past. But our round, torpedo-bearded local doctor – Brother Keede, Senior Warden – always stood ready to deal with hysteria before it got out of hand; and when I examined Brethren unknown or imperfectly vouched for on the Masonic side, I passed on to him anything that seemed doubtful. He had had his experience as medical officer of a South London battalion, during the last two years of the war; and, naturally, often found friends and acquaintances among the visitors.

  Brother C. Strangwick, a young, tallish, new-made Brother, hailed from some South London Lodge. His papers and his answers were above suspicion, but his red-rimmed eyes had a puzzled glare that might mean nerves. So I introduced him particularly to Keede, who discovered in him a headquarters orderly of his old battalion, congratulated him on his return to fitness – he had been discharged for some infirmity or other – and plunged at once into Somme memories.

  ‘I hope I did right, Keede,’ I said when we were robing before Lodge.

  ‘Oh quite. He reminded me that I had him under my hands at Sampoux in ‘Eighteen, when he went to bits. He was a runner.’

  ‘Was it shock?’ I asked

  ‘Of sorts – but not what he wanted me to think it was. No, he wasn’t shamming. He had Jumps to the limit – but he played up to mislead me about the reason of ’em…. Well, if we could stop patients from lying, medicine would be too easy, I suppose.’

  I noticed that, after Lodge-working, Keede gave him a seat a couple of rows in front of us, that he might enjoy a lecture on the Orientation of King Solomon’s Temple, which an earnest Brother thought would be a nice interlude between Labour and the high tea that we called our ‘Banquet’. Even helped by tobacco it was a dreary performance. About half-way through, Strangwick, who had been fidgeting and twitching for some minutes, rose, drove back his chair grinding across the tesselated floor, and yelped: ‘Oh, My
Aunt! I can’t stand this any longer.’ Under cover of a general laugh of assent he brushed past us and stumbled towards the door.

  ‘I thought so!’ Keede whispered to me. ‘Come along!’ We overtook him in the passage, crowing hysterically and wringing his hands. Keede led him into the Tyler’s Room, a small office where we stored odds and ends of regalia and furniture, and locked the door.

  ‘I’m – I’m all right,’ the boy began, piteously.

  ‘Course you are.’ Keede opened a small cupboard which I had seen called upon before, mixed sal volatile and water in a graduated glass, and, as Strangwick drank, pushed him gently on to an old sofa. ‘There,’ he went on. ‘It’s nothing to write home about. I’ve seen you ten times worse. I expect our talk has brought things back.’

  He hooked up a chair behind him with one foot, held the patient’s hands in his own, and sat down. The chair creaked.

  ‘Don’t!’ Strangwick squealed. ‘I can’t stand it. There’s nothing on earth creaks like they do! And – and when it thaws we – we’ve got to slap ’em back with a spa-ade! Remember those Frenchmen’s little boots under the duckboards?…What’ll I do? What’ll I do about it?’

  Some one knocked at the door, to know if all were well.

  ‘Oh, quite, thanks!’ said Keede over his shoulder. ‘But I shall need this room awhile. Draw the curtains, please.’

  We heard the rings of the hangings that drape the passage from Lodge to Banquet Room click along their poles, and what sound there had been, of feet and voices, was shut off.

  Strangwick, retching impotently, complained of the frozen dead who creak in the frost.

  ‘He’s playing up still,’ Keede whispered. ‘That’s not his real trouble – any more than ’twas last time.’

  ‘But surely,’ I replied, ‘men get those things on the brain pretty badly. ‘Remember in October—‘