screened by the shrubs which grew in the small garden in front of it.
Here the man stopped short, for the lower windows of the cottage were
open, and from within he could hear some one singing the very song
which he had just been humming. Some one? Why, it could be no other
than Viola herself who was singing it like that! He had always been
interested in Viola, although he had seen her only on the stage. It
was her reputation that she loved splendour and luxury. What could she
be doing in this quiet, out-of-the-way village?
He leaned over the low garden gate, resting his elbows on the top of
it, and listened until the song’s conclusion. The room in the cottage
was brightly lighted, and the curtains were not drawn over the window;
he had heard rightly; it _was_ Viola. He could see her distinctly. She
was standing with her face towards the garden; and the man watched her
attentively. The mystery increased. Her dress was brilliant, not the
dress that a woman would put on in solitude and in a country village.
She was wearing her diamonds too--those diamonds about which every
story had been told except the true one. What was the reason for it
all? Was this simply her passion for splendour, existing even when the
splendour was to have no witnesses. The little, shabby, taciturn old
woman who acted as her companion in London was seated at the piano, and
had been playing the music for her song. But surely Viola would not
have made herself so magnificent simply on her account.
It suddenly dawned on him that he was doing rather a mean thing by
watching Viola in this way. He would not look any more, but he would
wait, in case she should be going to sing again. That was love of
music--not curiosity.
But even as he was making this decision the door of the cottage opened,
and Viola came out. She walked straight up the pathway towards the gate
on which the man was leaning; there was not the least hesitation about
her.
“I wonder how on earth she managed to see me in this darkness?” he
thought. “Well, I’m not going to run away. I will wait, and make my
apologies to her. I expect she will be angry with me. Well, she should
not leave the windows open when she sings, if she does not want people
to stop and listen.”
As she drew near to him she murmured a few words in Italian, as if she
were pleased about something; he conjectured that much, for he could
not understand Italian. Then she astonished him by placing her hands on
his shoulders, and kissing him, once, passionately.
It flashed across him for an instant that she had been expecting some
one else, and had made a mistake. Now he understood the dress, the
diamonds--everything.
“Excuse me, my dear lady,” he said, “but you are kissing the wrong
face--are you not?” He afterwards thought that he might have expressed
himself better, but he was agitated.
She, on the other hand, never lost her composure for a second. She
spoke in English, with the faintest possible stammer:
“Yes, th--thanks; it _is_ the wrong face. Would you t--take it away?”
He retired at once, walked twenty yards down the road, and then met
the full humour of the situation. He laughed a long, suppressed laugh.
He went on and on, away from the village, out over the heath, away
from the haunts of men. And, as he walked, the humour of the situation
vanished again; but the night was full of her music, her queenliness,
the fragrant charm of her presence. “Viola,” he said softly, “Viola,
what a heavenly mistake!”
Three years passed away. The poor but artistic man grew slowly wealthy
in those years. The exaltation of that night never left him; he was
full of brightness and happiness; his work was all light and strength.
He grew popular--partly by reason of his excellent spirits, and partly
because of his finer qualities. His luck was proverbially good; but
he had enough hope, optimism, and vigour to have carried him safely
through the most trying fortunes. His reputation was at its brightest
when his death came.
He was in an accident--a commonplace railway accident--an accident
that passed over a dishonest commercial traveller in one compartment,
and killed the artist in the next. There was a short period, however,
chiefly occupied by delirium, between the accident and the man’s death.
It was at the end of the delirium that he turned to the friend who was
by his bedside, and asked abruptly:
“Have I been speaking of Viola?”
“Yes; of course I wouldn’t----”
“Of course. All the time?”
“All the time.”
“Were you surprised?”
“Well, I have known you most of your life, and I never heard you speak
of her before--not in that way at all. I did not know that you had been
her lover.”
“I was not. But once, before she left England, I was--I was her lover’s
under-study. I have lived on it ever since,” he added, after a pause.
Then, through some queer freak of the brain, the humour of the mistaken
kiss appealed to him again, and he began to laugh--uncontrollably, as
if the thing had just happened.
Laughter was the worst thing possible for him in that state. He died
laughing.
* * * * *
“I suppose she--Viola--didn’t care,” said Erato thoughtfully, when
Terpsichore had finished her story.
“You forget that she had some one else to think about. Did you ever
know a woman yet that thought twice, by way of pity, about a man she
did _not_ love, when she had a man that she _did_ love to think about?”
“N--no,” Erato replied.
There was a moment’s pause. “Personally I don’t mind,” said Clio,
“but--considering where we are--do you think that last story
quite--quite judicious?”
IV.
MELPOMENE’S STORY: THE CURSED PIG.
“I’m rather thirsty,” said Erato to Clio. Erato had stretched herself
once more on the mosaic floor of the cloud-room, with enough cushions
to make herself comfortable. “So am I,” said Terpsichore.
“Well, considering how very hot the night is, I am not surprised.
Cupid!”
The little petulant boy came laughing into the room, and nodded his
head in reply to the order which Clio gave him. Then he brought in a
silver tray covered with fragile glasses of nectar. All the Muses drank
nectar except Melpomene. She had a look of intense gloom, and she drank
blood-and-seltzer from a very large tumbler with a very bad curse cut
in Greek characters on the margin of it. Before Cupid handed her glass
to Erato, he just touched it with his own lips. Then he sat down by
Erato’s side, playing with her long hair. “Erato,” he said, “I would
like to wrap your beautiful dark hair all around me, and go to sleep.
There’s a faint scent of those yellow roses about it, and it’s awfully
soft and warm. I love you, Erato.”
“You ought to love all of us,” said Clio reprovingly.
“I try to,” said Cupid, very soberly, “and it’s tough work with some of
them,” he added under his breath.
“Cupid, darling,” whispered Erato to him, “to-morrow I will give you
the bow-string that you wanted.”
“Thanks awfully,” said Cupid, “and you must tell the next story, you
know, and I will lie here and listen to it. Tell me the story again
about that shepherd in Sicily who----”
“Hush! hush!” interrupted Erato, “some of the sisters hardly like that
kind of story; and they say that the young students at work in the
colleges below us never think of love, and would not care to hear about
it.”
“Well,” replied Cupid, with some assumption of importance, “I was there
last June week on business, and I bagged three hundred and forty-two
brace. That looks rather different, I fancy. Every man that I hit
is engaged. They write long letters to Her. They keep faded flowers
which She wore. They are beginning to drop all their bachelor friends.
One of them has made a kind of little shrine on his mantelpiece, in
which he keeps one tiny white satin slipper that She wore, and also
a large photograph of Her. Unfortunately the virus--I mean the sweet
influence--is not always permanent. Only too often the June week of one
year undoes the work of the previous June. I feel sure they would like
to hear the story about the Sicilian shepherd, and how he got to the
cave, and found----”
“Hush!” said Erato quickly, “that’s the most dangerous part of all.
We’ll see about it though. Clio,” she added, raising her voice, “Cupid
tells me that you must be a little mistaken about those young students;
he says that----”
“I am sorry to have to interrupt you,” remarked Clio, “but I have
asked Melpomene to tell us a soul-moving story, and she is going to
commence.”
“I am not going to listen to that bloodthirsty hag,” whispered Cupid to
Erato. He kissed her and passed out of the room. Erato was busy with
the curious little silver brazier, from which the smoke began to ascend
more quickly.
Melpomene took a draught of her blood-and-seltzer, and began in a deep
and husky voice:--
* * * * *
A watchman stood on a lonely tower, looking eastward, and whistling
“Wait till the clouds roll by,” shredding it in as a remedy against
impatience. And that watchman was nothing if he was not classical.
He pondered upon the history of the house. For the master was away
from home, having gone to a lonely place not marked on the maps, in
order to make atonement for his crime. Ten years before he had eaten
a veal-and-ham pie, in which, owing to the inadvertence of the cook,
his eldest daughter had taken the place of the veal-and-ham. And the
cook’s carelessness had been entirely due to absence of mind: he was
distraught because his son had just murdered his aunt, and the son
had murdered the aunt because his mind was unhinged owing to a sudden
depreciation in nitrates, which he had bought largely. And the gods had
caused the nitrates to depreciate because one of the directors hadn’t
sacrificed anything except one thigh slice, rather fat, for the last
two years. And the director hadn’t sacrificed anything else, because
he got his butcher’s meat under contract and the butcher had bilked
him. And the butcher had been compelled to bilk him, because the gods
had sent a murrain on all the cattle in the world, to punish one pig
that they had a spite against. This was not quite the ordinary curse,
descending from father to son with the silver spoons and the mortgages.
It went zigzag, like a snipe. Many people had taken snap-shots at
it with sacrifices, but they hadn’t been able to stop it. Nobody
knew where that curse was going to next; so a general interest in it
prevailed. Teiresias had taken a long prayer at it, just as it was
hopping from the director to the cook’s family, and missed badly. And
now the master of the watchman’s house--by name Eustinkides--had fired
a ten-years’ penance at it. Some thought he’d hit it; others said it
was lying low, and would get up again in a minute.
This distressed the watchman. He felt uneasy. It was one of those
frisky curses, with an everlasting ricochet about it, going on like
sempiternal billiards with a bad cushion. He did not think it probable,
of course, that it would hit him. He was in such a very humble position
in life. But still he would have felt more comfortable if he could have
seen that curse getting to work somewhere else. It was not a pleasant
thing to have hanging about the house. In the meantime he awaited the
coming of Eustinkides. The master had ordered that at the moment when
he appeared in sight the hot water should be turned into the bath.
For, during the ten years’ penance in the place not recognised by the
Atlas, he had carefully abstained from all manner of washing, and had
not so much as breathed the name of soap. Suddenly the watchman removed
his eye from the telescope, and cried: “Listen, ye that are within
the house. For on the road is a curious geological formation that
walks, and a staff is stuck in a projecting portion of one of its upper
strata.” When it came nearer, and within hearing, the watchman called
out to it:
“What ho! old alluvial deposit. How’s your ammonites?”
A deep voice answered: “I am thy master, Eustinkides.”
“Oh! sorry!” gasped the watchman, and disappeared abruptly. Whish! The
hot water poured into the bath.
An hour afterwards Eustinkides lay in that bath, and soaked. As
fragments of other climates slowly detached themselves from him, he
thought of his penance and of his journey home. He had stopped at
Delphi and put himself in communication with Zeus. “Could you tell me
how to stop this curse, Mr. Zeus?” he called up the communication tube.
He waited for some little time, and then a hollow voice replied:
“One pork chop and mashed. Two in order.” At this Eustinkides had
at first been angry; but afterwards it seemed to him that it might
be a mystery. He thought of writing to Zeus to ask for a further
explanation, but there was the difficulty about the address. He felt
sure it would not do to write:
----ZEUS, ESQ.,
Up Top, R.S.O.
So he dried himself slowly, and went into the study. As he sat there,
his French cook was announced, to consult with him on the question of
dinner. While they were talking, a smell came out of the kitchen and
walked slowly upstairs; it was a strong young smell, but it was lazy.
It lounged into the study, and sat down under the King’s nose.
“Ah!” said Eustinkides, “that is very pleasant. What is that you are
cooking downstairs?”
“Pork chops for myself and the watchman,” said the cook.
In a moment the words of the oracle flashed across into the mind of
Eustinkides. “I also will eat pork chops, but they must not be cut from
the animal whereof my servants eat. So go out, and catch another pig,
and kill him, and chop him, and cook him, and bring me the result.”
So the cook went out, and caught a butcher who was very careless, and
demanded a pig. And the careless butcher remembered that he had killed
a pig a month or two before, but he had entirely forgotten what he had
done with it. At last he found it in the coal-cellar, and brought it to
the cook. “It’s a bit dusty,” he remarked, “but that’ll all wash off.”
“There’s something wrong with that pig,” said the cook as he prepared
dinner for Eustinkides.
“There’s something deuced wrong with these chops,” remarked Eustinkides
as he worked his way slowly through them. However, he felt sure that he
was doing the right thing, and carrying out the commands of Zeus, so he
did not much mind at the time.
A quarter of an hour afterwards he staggered into a Chemist’s. “Give us
two-pennyworth of any quick sort of death, will you?” he gasped faintly.
“What are you suffering from?”
“Cursed pork,” he murmured.
That was precisely it. The pig from which those chops had been taken
was the very pig which the gods had such a spite against. Eustinkides
was carried home to fulfil his destiny. His last words were: “Apple
sauce!”
So the front end of the curse run into the hinder end, and that smashed
the thing up. Wherefore let us all reverence the name of Eustinkides,
and refrain from soap and sin.
* * * * *
Melpomene fainted, and squirmed on the floor. I cannot say that
I was surprised. They picked her up, and gave her a little more
blood-and-seltzer, and she recovered gradually.
“Tragedy _does_ take it out of one,” she explained.
“There isn’t any more of the story, is there?” asked Thalia.
“No, that’s all.”
“Thank Zeus!” all the sisters ejaculated fervently, but in a whisper.
V.
POLYMNIA’S STORY: AN HOUR OF DEATH.
Clio was toying with the delicate little glass from which she had
been drinking. “Before we have the next story, one of you might sing
something,” she said. “I shall be glad to play the accompaniment on the
sackbut, which is a historical instrument. We first hear of it as being
in use about the latter end of the----”
“Let’s see,” said Erato, shamelessly interrupting, “I was to tell the
next story, I think.”
“Well, let’s have the song first.”
“I like music at night,” said Erato. “At night it has a speaking voice,
and one understands it better. And it would be a good introduction
to my story; but it must not be a drawing-room song. They are called
drawing-room songs because they are whistled in the street. No, my song
must be good. There mustn’t be any--
Love me! love me forrever!
Till the years shall porse awye
Beside the flowin’ river
You ’ear the words I sye.
Love me! love me forrever!
Love, though the world grows cold,
Till no more we roam, and they call us ’ome.
And there’s tew more lambs in the fold.
That sort of thing couldn’t possibly make anybody love anybody, you
know. It’s rather queer,” she continued meditatively, “but one goes out
at night all alone, and it’s quiet, and a lot of little stars show you
how big the darkness is. You’re thinking just about ordinary things;
and without any reason there comes into your head a bit of one of the
Nocturnes--Chopin’s, the eleventh, I think--and straightway you feel as
if you’ll die unless you kiss somebody you’re awfully fond of. And, of
course, being alone, you can’t. And so you get sorrowful. It’s queer,
because there’s nothing about love in all that--the music, and quiet,
and darkness--to make one think about it; but one always does--at least
I do.”
“My dear Erato!” remonstrated Clio.
“Well, I do. Euterpe shall sing to us now. I don’t mind a song that can
be sung in a drawing-room--it’s the drawing-room song that I hate. But
Euterpe knows all about it, and she sings beautifully, and she’s very
pretty--and yet she’s shy.”
Erato was quite shameless in her favouritism. But she had chosen
well. Euterpe was shy and quiet, but she loved singing. She smiled
at Erato, and seated herself at a cottage piano in one corner of the
cloud-room. I had not noticed before that there was a piano. She
refused Clio’s offer to accompany her on the sackbut, and another offer
from Terpsichore to accompany her on the banjo. She was quiet, but when
it came to music she was firm. The music of her song was beautiful,
but owing to the expense of printing music it is cheaper to give the
words:--
Down the dusty road together
Homeward pass the hurrying sheep,
Stupid with the summer weather,
Too much grass and too much sleep.
I, their shepherd, sing to thee
That summer is a joy to me.
Down the shore rolled waves all creamy
With the flecked surf yesternight;
I swam far out in starlight dreamy,
In moving waters, cool and bright.
I, the shepherd, sing to thee
I love the strong life of the sea.
And upon the hillside growing,
Where the fat sheep dozed in shade,
Bright red poppies I found blowing,
Drowsy, tall, and loosely made.
I, the shepherd, sing to thee
How fair the bright red poppies be.
To the red-tiled homestead bending
Winds the road, so white and long;
Day and work are near their ending,
Sleep and dreams will end my song.
I, the shepherd, sing to thee;
In the dream-time answer me.
“Dear Euterpe,” said Erato, “you must have been thinking of Sicily. It
brings it all back to my mind, how he and I----” Erato paused. “Clio,”
she said at last, “I don’t want to tell the next story. Let one of
the others tell it. Perhaps I sha’n’t listen very much, but you must
forgive me. I want to lie here, and think, and think, with music in my
head.”
“Perhaps Polymnia has a story to tell us,” suggested Clio.
Polymnia wore a long robe of pearly-grey; her face was pale, and her
eyes were deep and thoughtful.
“Yes,” she said, in a low musical voice, “I remember a story.”
And this is the story which she remembered:--
* * * * *
It happened one day that Zeus was in a bad temper--a thoroughly bad
temper. When this took place the whole of Olympus knew it. John
Ganymede knew it. He had grown respectable and middle-aged. He was
inclined to be portly, and still more inclined to give his views on
anything to anybody. Just at present he was standing in his pantry,
polishing glasses, and talking to the Deputy Cloud-controller.
“There’s no pleasin’ of him, when he’s like that,” said Ganymede,
shaking his bald respectable head. “Last night he was suthin’ awful.
‘Ganymede,’ he says to me, when I brings him his whisky last thing
afore he goes to bed, ‘you can pour it out for me.’ So I does. ‘And you
can put hot water in it.’ So I does again. ‘I think a couple of lumps
of sugar would improve it--and a little bit of lemon peel--don’t you,
Ganymede?’ ‘Yessir, suttinly sir,’ I says, and puts ’em in. ‘Grate a
little nutmeg on the top.’ I were surprised, o’ course, but I did it.
‘Stick a couple of spoonfuls of Maraschino into it.’ All this time he’s
lookin’ as quiet and gentle as a hangel. There wasn’t no Maraschino,
and I had to go down to the cellar and fetch it. I measures it out
careful, and says nothing. ‘I’ll have a large lump of ice in it, and
two straws.’ I thought his poor ’ead must be going, but it wasn’t my
place to make no remarks. I just carries out the horder. ‘Have you
done all that, Ganymede?’ he asks, drowsy-like. ‘Yessir, suttinly
sir,’ says I. ‘Well, there,’ says he, ‘you--several blanks--now you can
run round, and see if you can find a dog that’s such a Zeus-forsaken
fool as to drink it--because I ain’t going to.’ And with that he goes
off into his bedroom, screamin’ an’ laughin’ an’ swearin’ like a
maniac. Now that ain’t no way to be’ave.”
The Deputy Cloud-controller could sympathise. That very morning Zeus
had sent for him, and demanded:
“How’s the wind?”
“Due East,” said the Deputy.
“Then make it due West.”
The Deputy bowed, retired, and made it due West. In ten minutes’ time
he was summoned before Zeus again.
“Make it East and West and South and North all at once,” said Zeus.
“I can’t,” said the Deputy.
“Then consider yourself discharged,” roared Zeus.
“Then consider _yourself_ a blighted idiot,” replied the Deputy
indiscreetly, getting ready to dodge a thunderbolt.
“So I do,” said Zeus, who never was very expected. “Go away, and send
me some one else to be angry with. You’re stale.”
The Deputy Cloud-controller had found some difficulty in getting any
one to go.
“What am I to do, Mr. Ganymede?” said the Deputy despairingly. “They
all say that it’s more than their lives are worth. And the females
won’t stand his language. I must send some one, or I shall get
discharged in real earnest.”
“Well, pussonally,” said Ganymede, “I should be very glad to oblige
you, but leave this ’ere glass and plate I can’t. Now, there’s the
Clerk of the Curses. He’s pretty tough. Why don’t you send him?”
“So I would,” said the Deputy, “but he’s away on his holiday.”
“Then there’s the Earth-child,” suggested Ganymede, looking a little
ashamed of himself.
No one quite knew how the Earth-child had come among the gods. There
must have been a mistake somewhere; it was pretty generally known that
she was to have been born in Arcadia. There was something of a scandal
about it, too. But there she was, generally petted and liked, and happy
enough among the gods.
“Yes, there’s the Earth-child,” said the Deputy, and he too looked a
little ashamed of himself. They talked together a little while longer,
and then the Deputy went away, suffering badly from conscience.
A few minutes afterwards the Earth-child walked fearlessly into the
hall where Zeus was seated. She had red hair, and an intelligent face.
She was bright, and affectionate, and twelve years old, and not afraid
of anything.
“I heard you wanted to be angry with me, Zeus,” said the child.
Zeus looked at her grimly. “I should prefer something rather bigger.”
“Why do you want to be angry?” the child asked.
“Because I’ve done everything, and know almost everything, and I’m
quite sick of everything.”
“Music?” suggested the child.
“Sick of it!”
“Love?”
“Everything--everything, I tell you,” said Zeus hastily. “I’m tired
of eating, drinking, loving, hating, sleeping, walking, talking,
killing--everything.”
“I’m sorry for you, Zeus,” said the child, with a sigh. “Couldn’t you
die?” she suggested afterwards, seriously.
Zeus frowned. “No, no--not that,” he said. There was a moment’s pause.
Zeus was thinking; and, as he thought, his face grew very ugly. He was
immortal, but to a certain extent his immortality was conditioned. He
might die at any moment he chose, and remain dead for an hour. If at
the end of that hour any one would put his lips on the lips of Zeus,
and draw in his breath, then Zeus would come back to life, and he
that so drew in his breath would die. But if no one did that, then
Zeus himself would be dead for ever. Zeus had never ventured on the
experiment; he knew that no one loved him enough. But he might play on
the simplicity of the child. And take her life? No, he could not do
that. But he would ask her.
“Earth-child,” he said, “will you do something for me?”
“Yes, Zeus--anything that will make you happy again.”
It was horribly tempting. Should he try this one thing of which he knew
nothing, of which he was not tired? Yes, he must.
“I am going to sleep,” he said rapidly. “I will turn this hour-glass
here, and when the last grain of sand is running out, you must put your
lips to mine and draw in your breath. Then I shall wake up again, and
be happy.”
The child stared at him with wondering eyes. “I will do it,” she said.