winged boy, with laughing eyes, naked but for the quiver that hung from
the shoulders. He does a good deal for the Muses, but not in a menial
way. They all smiled when he came in. He stood by the side of Erato,
who evidently petted him a good deal, drawing one strand of her dark
hair through his little rosy fingers--but he was looking at Clio.
“Cupid,” said the grave Muse, “we would stay here: let the wind blow
our cloud no farther.” He nodded his head, turned to go, and then
lingered, still playing with Erato’s hair.
“Erato,” he whispered in her ear, “my bow-string is frayed. Let me make
a bow-string of your hair.”
“No--perhaps--not now. You wicked little boy!” she said, looking up in
his face and laughing.
“Then soon,” he whispered again, and passed once more behind the
curtain. I do not know what he did, but the wind ceased, and the cloud
remained still. Clio took her place on the divan. “Who shall begin?”
she asked.
“Oh, you!” they all cried together.
“You’re the eldest, you know,” added Erato, a little maliciously. Erato
had taken a cushion from the divan, and stretched herself very lazily
on the floor. I am afraid the other Muses were all anxious to get
Clio’s story over as soon as possible. History was her province, and
she was so exceedingly historical as to be sometimes almost dull.
“Very well, then. I will begin,” said Clio. “The number of temporal
lords summoned by writ to the parliaments of the House of Plantagenet
was exceedingly various.”
Clio paused. There was a sly, mischievous look on Erato’s face; she
stretched out one hand to the golden casket, and took from it a little
powder, which she dropped into the brazier. A strange, pungent odour
came up from it. I do not know what it was, but it had a curious effect.
“I think I will begin again,” said Clio. “That’s the wrong story.”
Then she told the story which follows. I am afraid the powder had a
little to do with it.
* * * * *
With the battle of Waterloo the last hope of Charles was humbled in
the dust. Three years afterwards he was found by the lictors seated
in a poor third-class compartment in the railway junction which was
erected on the site of that scene of carnage, and still retains the
name of Waterloo. Charles surveyed them from the window, calmly and
unflinchingly. “Go,” he said, “and tell the Carthaginians that you have
seen Marius seated in the South-Eastern Express for Charing Cross.”
His request was never carried out. It was almost impossible to book
through to Carthage, and it was too far to walk. With tears in their
eyes, the lictors walked sorrowfully away to the refreshment-room.
The train steamed out of the station and arrived a week later at
Charing Cross, a little tired, but in fairly good condition. Charles
Marius levied two benevolences on the arrival platform, and conferred
a monopoly on the bookstall; but he was not looking at all well. The
marshes of Minturnæ, and a rooted dislike to being called a man of
blood, had preyed on his mind, and made him appear haggard and anxious.
He was met under the clock by the aged Menenius Agrippa, Socrates,
John Bradshaw, the Spanish Ambassador, and others. John Bradshaw was
naturally the first to speak.
“As Serjeant-at-Law and President of the High Court of Justice, it is
my painful duty to----”
“Stay,” interrupted Menenius Agrippa. “I once told a fable to the
Plebeians, and it did good. It is not generally known, and it may be of
service in the present critical juncture. Charles Marius, you man of
blood, listen. Once upon a time the members refused to work any longer
for the Belly, which led a lazy life, and grew fat upon----”
“Don’t, my dear friend, don’t,” said the Spanish Ambassador piteously.
“We know it by heart. It’s all in little Smith.”
“But it may do good,” said the aged Menenius. “How far had I got?
Oh yes--and grew fat upon their toils. But receiving no longer any
nourishment from the Belly, they soon began to----”
At this moment a cheerful porter, with a merry cry of “Now then,
stoopid!” ran a heavy truckful of luggage into the aged Menenius and
bowled him over. This gave John Bradshaw an opportunity to resume his
remarks:
“It seemeth to me that the time hath now gone by when the telling of
fables might serve the body politick; and seeing what grave charges
have been exhibited against you, Charles Marius, you man of blood, and
duly proven before me, it behoveth us rather to inquire into the method
which shall be deemed most suitable for your execution.”
He went on to point out that there were many methods of execution, but
that it was most agreeable to the sense of the nation that Charles
Marius should be taken to a very small, very cheap, very dirty, very
Italian restaurant; and that he should drink there one bottle of that
sound dinner-wine Raisonola at eleven shillings the dozen.
“We hereby give our royal word,” said Charles Marius; but he was
sternly checked by the Serjeant-at-Law.
“We need nothing of your royal word, having in former times had too
much of it. I myself will walk first, accompanied by the Spanish
Ambassador and Menenius Agrippa. You, Socrates, will accompany that man
of blood, Charles Marius, and administer to him the consolations of
your philosophy. You others will remain.”
The sad procession filed out of Charing Cross Station. Menenius Agrippa
looked a little angry, and was brushing the dust from his toga; but
the Spanish Ambassador and John Bradshaw were intensely stately and
dignified. Behind them walked Socrates and Charles Marius. Socrates
began at once:
“Seeing, my friend, that you are about to be executed, let us speak of
execution. For it is well to speak always of the thing which is the
present thing. So, setting aside your misconduct under H. Metellus
Stanleius in Africa, let us discuss this execution. Now, I have often
wondered why to the many it always seems an evil to be executed. For
if a will be duly executed, it takes force therefrom. Now, to acquire
force is plainly to be reckoned among the good things. Therefore to be
executed must be good and desirable. Or shall we say rather that words
have no meaning?”
“Go to the deuce!” said Charles Marius sulkily. “We offered John
Bradshaw our royal word, and he refused to take it. So we won’t talk at
all.”
And he never said another word until they were all five seated at
one table in the Italian restaurant. A melancholy waiter of no
nationality brought a soiled bill of fare; he also added two forks and
a mustard-pot as a kind of after-thought.
“Bring,” said John Bradshaw, “one bottle of Raisonola and one glass.”
“Ver’ well,” said the waiter sadly, flicking a dead fly off the table
with one end of his napkin. “It will be a shilling, if you please.”
“Pay afterwards,” said John Bradshaw sharply.
The waiter shrugged his shoulders. “I am ver’ sorry, but we mos’ always
ask for ze monny before we bring ze Raisonola. We haf our orders. You
see we haf often had a trouble to get ze monny afterwards from ze
heirs. Tree weeks ago two gemmens kom in and order ze Raisonola. They
trink it, and die all over ze floor.” (An expressive shrug of shoulders
came in again here.) “We sweep ’em up, and throw ’em away, and they
pay us nossin--nossin at all. It is all so moch loss.” His hands were
turned outward, deprecatingly.
“Look here, my man,” said Menenius Agrippa quickly. “Once upon a time
the members refused to work any longer for the Belly, which----”
“Dry up,” thundered John Bradshaw. “We must pay,” he added. “And it so
befalleth that I have not my purse, but the Spanish Ambassador----”
The Ambassador explained that he had only Spanish coins with him, which
would not be accepted. Socrates hastily added the information that he
always took his money straight home to Xantippe, and that if he was
short that night there would be unpleasantness.
Menenius said that he had no money, but would be glad to continue his
fable. “Let’s see. Where was I? Oh, I know--any longer for the Belly,
which----”
“Do drop it,” sighed the Spanish Ambassador pathetically.
“Silence,” said John Bradshaw. “Charles, be a man, and pay for your own
execution.”
Charles offered his note-of-hand and his royal word.
He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene.
But the waiter refused them. And the five were compelled to leave the
restaurant. There was a crowd round the door. When they had got clear
of the crowd, one of their number was missing. It was Charles Marius.
The rest of the story is well known. Charles Marius escaped to St.
Helena, and spent the rest of his life in collaborating with Dr. Gauden
on a novel called “Eikon Basilike.” The failure of the execution
preyed upon John Bradshaw’s mind, and in a fit of madness he wrote the
time-tables which bear his name. Menenius Agrippa became a diner-out,
and acquired the surname of “History,” because he always repeated
himself. The Ambassador still lives in his castle in Spain.
* * * * *
Clio had finished. “Thank you so much,” said the other Muses.
II.
EUTERPE’S STORY: THE GIRL AND THE MINSTREL.
There was silence for a few moments. Erato, stretched lazily on the
floor, looking up at the dim-lit roof of the cloud-chamber, let her
pretty lips curve half-way to a smile, when she checked herself
suddenly; she never could keep her thoughts still for a moment,--they
flew from poor Clio’s story to a story of her own. She was thinking
now of a hot summer night in Sicily, and of one who walked across
the low hills, with flocks pattering softly after him, and seen but
indistinctly in those fragrant moments when the evening touches the
darkness. She thought of him. As he went, he piped a melody--a simple
strain enough, but with one of those quaint refrains that nestle down
in the memory of a man. Ah--and afterwards!
“Clio,” she said, drawing a long breath, “I have a story, sweet and fit
for a summer night, a story of the joyousness, and rapture, and sorrow
of Love. Will you hear it?”
“Ah, yes, Clio!” said Terpsichore. “Erato once told me a story, and it
was so lovely and dreamy. It had the temper of soft valse music. One’s
heart throbbed to it: one lived to it, as it were. Let us hear Erato’s
story.”
“Not just yet, I think,” answered Clio. “We must not forget that
Granta lies beneath us. Far down below our feet, one sits--a young
man with red hair--amid many dictionaries. He is turning into Latin
elegiacs those beautiful lines--I quote from memory--
His head was bare, his matted hair
Was shaved to keep him cool.
Already he has seven feet in his hexameter, and knows it not, because
the gods do not like him. If we let thoughts of love stray forth from
our cloud-chamber, and flutter down into that young man’s red head, I
fear that he would never get the pentameter at all. No, Erato, to these
young men love is a disturbing influence; they avoid the maidens, and
care only for a surer knowledge of Greek accentuation. When they have
all gone to bed, you shall tell your story; great personages in history
have fallen in love; I myself have no prejudice against it. But you may
choose which of us shall tell the next story.”
Erato sighed, and glanced round the room. When her eyes fell on Euterpe
her face brightened. And truly Euterpe was good to see: she had a
wonderful grace of body, and fresh gladness in her eyes; yet there
was a depth in the look of her; it was the look of one not easily
understood, of one who could feel a sorrow.
“I choose Euterpe, because she is so beautiful.”
A little flush came into Euterpe’s cheeks; her lips parted, showing her
small white teeth. She was ever shy and quiet.
“I would sooner sing to you,” she said. “I am more used to singing.”
“No, dear, it must be a story,” said Clio firmly.
“And perhaps a song will come into it,” added Erato sweetly.
Then Euterpe told this story. And all the time that she was telling it
Erato sat gazing upward into Euterpe’s eyes.
* * * * *
The child came through the forest. The big trees grew close together,
and creeping plants hung like heavy serpents from their boughs. The sun
found its way through, here and there, among the broad, smooth leaves,
and made splashes of light on the red gold of the child’s hair. One
bird called to another; every now and then there was a flutter among
the leaves, or the quick rustle of some small live thing in the tall
grasses and brushwood below, and a scented wind kept singing of a land
of rest where the good winds go when they die. From far away one could
hear the low roar of a lion, as he stood by the margin of the distant
morass, looking over stretches of sand and spaces of still water to the
line of grey hills that seemed to be the end of the world.
The child was very fair. Her hair was glorious; her eyes were blue; her
young limbs were white, and strong, and graceful. Yet one might see a
fierce look in the blue eyes, and splashes of crimson here and there on
the white limbs, and her breath came quickly; for it was in her nature
to torture and to kill, and she knew no better thing. In one hand
she dragged along the body of a young wild cat, scarcely more than a
kitten. She lived ever in the open air, and she was fleet and fearless.
All the morning she had chased it, until it was weary; yet, although
it was young, it had fought long and fiercely. On the hand that
dragged it along were the marks of its claws and teeth; thick drops of
blood fell slowly on to its body, and its fur was wet and stained. The
child wore a living, tortured, fluttering necklace. She had caught the
butterflies one by one, choosing those which were brightest in colour,
and had threaded a spiked tendril through the soft bodies to make
herself the necklace. She liked the tickling fuss and flutter that the
butterflies made against her smooth skin, as they hung there and died
slowly.
A great purple flower, that grew low down on the ground, lifted its
brightness towards her as she passed: “And, oh!” sighed the flower,
“she is fair, and sweet would it be if she would take me and wear me
gently at her breast.” The child did not know the voice of flowers; but
she stooped down and tore off the purple petals one by one. From the
cup of the flower rolled a big golden bee: he had been sleeping there.
For one second he buzzed on the ground, trying to remember where he
was and to understand what had happened. In that second the child had
swiftly seized a stone, and so she crushed most of the bee, leaving it
enough life to let it feel the agony of death. She flung down the body
of the wild cat, and ran on for a few steps, with a laugh on her red
mouth. Then she stopped again where a nest was built in a bush with
very dark leaves and little white globes of flowers. In the nest were
three young birds: two of these she cast to the ground and killed at
once: she held the third in her small hot hands for a second, and a
kind of frenzy came on her, and she made her firm teeth meet in its
neck. For a little while she stood shuddering, and then she passed
onwards, but more slowly. Slowly she came through the forest in her
fairness and cruelty, caring nothing for her own beauty, and knowing
nothing better than her cruelty.
And it chanced that she came to the place where the minstrel sat in
pleasant shade on a mossy curve of a tree’s root. In his hands was his
lyre, and music came from it like falling water. The child crept into
the brushwood, and hid herself, and listened. And the minstrel sang:
Far away is the land where all things go,
The rest of the winds that have ceased to blow,
The peace of the rose whose leaves lie low,
Scattered and dead, where roses grow.
Far away! far away!
There the dead bird takes a song again,
And the steed has rest from the spur and rein,
And the dead man learns that all were vain--
All the old struggles, and joys, and pain.
Far away! far away!
And the light on their eyes is a wondrous light,
Where there is not day and there is not night,
Where the fallen star once more grows bright
That fell into darkness out of the height--
Far away! far away!
Let me win there ere the break of day,
Ere the first faint light o’er the hills grows grey,
I am tired of my work and tired of my play,
And I’ll make better songs in the land far away,--
Far away! far away!
The voice ceased; but the music of the lyre still flowed on, and the
minstrel looked upwards towards the sky. No word of cruelty had been in
the song; but through the music her first knowledge of gentleness came
to the child, and she saw that she had been cruel. She crouched there
amid the tall rank grasses; her face had grown whiter and whiter; her
eyes were strained and piteous, but there was no tear in them. With
trembling fingers she unfastened the living fluttering necklace, and
gently killed all the butterflies to spare them torture. Then she flung
herself prone on the ground, with her forehead on her linked hands; her
red lips quivered a little, but the relief of tears came not. “Ah!” she
moaned, “why was I so cruel? Why did I never know?” The wind played
with her hair, moving it caressingly.
As the child lay there, and the minstrel played on and on, the sky
above grew darker. There was no need now for pleasant shade. Over the
line of grey hills that seemed to be the end of the world rested the
storm-clouds, black and purple. Suddenly the air became quite still, as
if it were waiting for something. Was it the roar of the lion or the
voice of the storm that sounded dimly afar off?
Once more the minstrel raised his voice to song, and anger was in his
eyes:
The pure white flower grew up in the way
Where the wild cat’s whelp went forth to play.
And the whelp rent the flower for the gold within,
And a child slew the whelp for its soft warm skin.
And the lion slew the child for a draught of blood,
And the river swept the lion away in its flood.
And the gods dried the river in its deep stone bed,
And all from the flower to the stream were dead.
We are things that the gods make sport upon:
We shall have no peace till the gods are gone.
The child had raised herself to watch the minstrel. As he sang the
last words the skies seemed to snap overhead; a quick flash shot
downwards, like the thrust of ghostly steel. For a moment the child’s
eyes were dazzled; then the loud roar of thunder seemed to fill the
forest and the sky. When she looked again she saw that the minstrel had
fallen forward on his face; by his side was his lyre, with the strings
broken and smouldering; from his body, charred by the lightning,
delicate strays of smoke curled up. The child came, and knelt by the
side of the dead minstrel. She raised his head, and looked piteously
upon it, for the beauty had all gone out of it now; then she pressed
her little red lips to the blackened lips of the dead man, and went on
her way. It was the first kiss she had ever given.
And still she did not weep; but the blood in her veins seemed to be as
fire, and strange voices were sounding in her head. When the evening
fell she stood by the edge of the swamp. Out of a dim cavern crept an
old lion, and looked at her with green, hungry eyes. His lips curled
a little backward. The child called to him: “Come, then! I have been
seeking for you! Torture me, and then let me die!”
The lion turned swiftly round, and fled with a howl back into the
cavern.
The child wandered on. She ate the black poison berries, but they would
not hurt her. At last, when the moon was up, she saw a dark, deep pool,
and flung herself into it; but the pool cast her back again on to the
shore. She was fain to die, and to atone; but the gods knew their
business better than to allow it.
And still she walks through the forest, seeking rest and finding it
not, and she speaks to none. Only sometimes at night, when the golden
moon comes up behind the low grey hills, she sings in a sweet child’s
voice a few lines of a remembered song:
Let me win there ere the break of day,
Ere the first faint light o’er the hills grows grey!
I am tired of my work and tired of my play,
And I’ll make better songs in the land far away,--
Far away! far away!
And the gods are immensely amused.
* * * * *
“Thanks,” said Thalia, “though I don’t care much for those fanciful
high-toned stories.”
But Erato rose, and seated herself on the divan by Euterpe’s side, and
wound one arm round her waist, and kissed her on the lips. I thought
they looked rather pretty and poetical; but I don’t go in much for that
kind of thing myself.
III.
TERPSICHORE’S STORY: THE UNDER-STUDY.
A short pause, and then Erato spoke, addressing Clio:
“Clio, my dear, and reverend sister, do you think these young men below
us, in the colleges, have gone to bed yet?”
“My dear child,” said Clio, “you could hardly expect me to----well, as
far as I can judge, some of them are still up and at work. The young
red-headed man is stamping up and down his room, as if he were angry.
He has discovered that his hexameter would not do, for
His head was bare, his matted hair,
and he has been trying it a different way. Now he moans: ‘“Caput erat
nudum”--and the “a” ’s short, and I wish I was dead!”’
“I asked the question,” said Erato, “because a story has just occurred
to me, which I should like to tell you. I read it in the French. I
don’t think it would hurt the young men, even if they could hear it.
I’ll tone it down a little, of course. There’s one splendid part where
the husband----” She paused suddenly.
“Yes,” said Thalia drily. “In those pretty French stories there
generally is one splendid part where the husband----” and she also
paused suddenly. She looked at Erato, and they both smiled.
“Certainly not! Most certainly not!” said Clio at once. “You must
remember, Erato, that this is not the Greek civilisation. The English
have got beyond that: they have advanced; they sweep through the deep
while the stormy winds do blow, and hearts of oak are their men, and
they’d take a cup o’ kindness yet on the place where the old hoss died.
I make these last remarks on the authority of their own favourite
songs, of which I have made a special study for my book on National
Misfortunes. I assure you, Erato, that any University paper which
printed your story would be ruined.”
“Ah, well!” answered Erato. “I have heard it said that Love’s a lost
art nowadays.” She paused a second, and then added: “Perhaps--perhaps
they are happier without it.”
“I don’t think so,” said Terpsichore. “Everything depends on the way
you take it. Some take their love laughing, and some take it crying. I
always take it laughing myself. Either way, you’re happier for it.”
“Really, Terpsichore,” murmured Clio reprovingly.
Terpsichore did not heed her. “Where they are so wrong nowadays is in
taking their love commercially; in other words, they do not _love_;
they simply acquire all rights in a cheap housekeeper or an expensive
table ornament. They are so much too judicious. Yet sometimes--well,
there was a man--shall I go on?”
“Yes, do,” said Erato.
And this is the way that Terpsichore went on:--
* * * * *
There was a man once--not very long ago--who was poor, but artistic;
and during his life he had rather more than his share of coincidences.
It happened one autumn that he was amusing himself by wandering about
a country that was good enough for an artist, but failed to attract
many tourists because it did not boast enough places where you had
to pay for admission. He had stayed a few days in a little village,
where there was one street that went tumbling downhill, sometimes with
cottages on each side, sometimes through clumps of stunted trees,
sometimes with the open heath all round it. It happened one night that
he was wandering down this street, and had reached one of those places
where the street turned into a country lane for a time, or rather for a
space. He was smoking, and humming to himself a song that he had heard
Viola sing a few months before.
Viola had taken very fair hold of the town that season. It was not only
that she sang divinely; she was beautiful, and a little mysterious.
The numerous stories told about her were rendered probable by her
beauty, which was rather wicked; but no one could be certain about
them because she was so mysterious. Besides, many of the stories were
self-contradictory.