He lifted his eyes from the pudding to the Hokusai print over the
mantel.
“Think of it with shame! We sit here again grossly feeding our
insatiable bellies, while Fujiyama, there, thrusts his copper-colored
cone into a cobalt sky among whipped-cream clouds! Pilgrims, in
the dusk, toil up his sides with staves. Pilgrims like ants. They
struggle upwards in the darkness for pure love of beauty.”
“I don’t like bread-pudding,” ejaculated Mary solemnly, “it’s beany.”
Martha and Marjorie joined in a silvery cascade of giggles.
“Where _did_ she get that awful word!” said Hilda.
“Tom says it, mother.”
“Well, for goodness’ sake forget it.”
Mary stared gravely about the table, spoon in mouth, and then,
removing the spoon, repeated, “It’s beany.”
He groaned, folding his napkin.
“What an awful affliction a family is. Why did we marry, Hilda? Life
is a trap.”
“Mrs. Ferguson called this afternoon and presented me with a
basket of green strawberries. I’m afraid she thought I wasn’t very
appreciative. I hate to be interrupted when I’m sewing. Why under the
sun does she pick them before they’re ripe?”
“That’s a nice way to treat a neighbor who gives you a present!...
You _are_ an ungrateful creature.”
Hilda was languid.
“Well, I didn’t ask her for them.”
Her eyes gleamed with a slow provocative amusement.
“They’re beany,” said Mary.
He rolled his eyes at Mary.
“Our kids are too much with us. Bib and spoon,
Feeding and spanking, we lay waste our powers!”
They all pushed back their chairs, laughing, and a moment later, as
he lighted his cigar, he heard, from the music-room, Hilda’s violin
begin with tremulous thin notes, oddly analogous to the sound of
her voice when she sang, playing Bach to a methodical loud piano
accompaniment by Martha. Melancholy came like a blue wave out of the
dusk, lifted him, and broke slowly and deliciously over him. He stood
for a moment, made motionless by the exquisite, intricate melody,
stared, as if seeking with his eyes for the meaning of the silvery
algebra of sound, and then went out.
The sun had set, darkness was at hand. He walked to the top of the
stone steps and looked across the shallow valley towards the fading
hill and the black water-tower. The trees on the crest, sharply
silhouetted against a last band of pale light, looked like marching
men. Lights winked at the base of the hill. And now, as hill and
water-tower and trees became obscure, he began to see once more
the dim phantasmal outlines of the dark city, the city submerged
under the infinite sea, the city not inhabited by mortals. Immense,
sinister and black, old and cold as the moon, were the walls that
surrounded it. No gate gave entrance to it. Of a paler stone were
the houses upon houses, tiers upon tiers of shadowy towers, which
surmounted the walls. Not a light was to be seen in it, not a motion:
it was still. He stared and stared at it, following with strained
eyes the faint lines which might indicate its unlighted streets,
seeking in vain, as always, to discover in the walls of it any sign
of any window. It grew darker, it faded, a profound and vast secret,
an inscrutable mystery.
“She is older than the rocks,” he murmured.
He turned away and walked over the lawn in the darkness, listening
to the hylas, who seemed now to be saturating the hushed night with
sound. “Peace--peace--peace--” they sang. _Pax vobiscum._ He gathered
the croquet mallets and leaned them against the elm tree, swearing
when he tripped over an unseen wicket. This done, he walked down the
pale road, blowing clouds of smoke above him with uplifted face,
and luxuriated in the sight of the dark tops of trees motionless
against the stars. A soft skipping sound in the leaves at the road’s
edge made him jump. He laughed to himself.... “He had no watch, and
his trousers grew like grass....” He took out his watch and peered
closely at it. The children were in bed, and Hilda was waiting for
a game of chess. He walked back with his hands deep in his pockets.
Pawn to king-four.
“Hilda! Wake up!”
Hilda opened her candid eyes without astonishment and sat up over the
chess-board, on which the tiny men were already arranged.
“Goodness! How you scared me. What took you so long? I’ve been
dreaming about Bluebeard.”
“Bluebeard! Good Heavens! I hope he didn’t look like me.”
“He did--remarkably!”
“A _nice_ thing to say to your husband.... Move! Hurry up!... I’m
going to capture your king. Queens die young and fair.”
He smoked his pipe. Hilda played morosely. Delicious, she was when
she was half asleep like this! She leaned her head on one hand, her
elbow on the table.... When she had been checkmated at the end of
half an hour she sank back wearily in her chair. She looked at him
intently for a moment and began to smile.
“And how about the dark city tonight?” she asked. He took slow puffs
at his pipe and stared meditatively at the ceiling.
“Ah--the dark city, Hilda! The city submerged under an infinite sea,
the city not inhabited by mortals!... It was there again--would
you believe it?... It was there.... I went out to the stone steps,
smoking my cigar, while you played Bach. I hardly dared to look--I
watched the hill out of the corner of my eyes and pretended to be
listening to the music.... And suddenly, at the right moment of
dusk, just after the street lamps had winked along the base of the
hill, I saw it. The hill that we see there in the daylight, with
its water-tower and marching trees, its green sloping fields and
brook that flashes in the sun, is unreal, an illusion, the thinnest
of disguises--a cloak of green velvet which the dark city throws
over itself at the coming of the first ray of light.... I saw it
distinctly. Immense, smooth and black, old and cold as the moon, are
the walls that surround it. No gate gives entrance to it. Of a paler
stone are the houses upon houses, tiers upon tiers of shadowy towers
that surmount those sepulchral walls. No motion was perceptible
there--no light gleamed there--no sound, no whisper rose from it.
I thought: perhaps it is a city of the dead. The walls of it have
no windows, and its inhabitants must be blind.... And then I seemed
to see it more closely, in a twilight which appeared to be its own,
and this closer perception gave way in turn to a vision. For first I
saw that all the walls of it are moist, dripping, slippery, as if
it were bathed in a deathlike dew; and then I saw its people. Its
people are maggots--maggots of perhaps the size of human children;
their heads are small and wedge-shaped, and glow with a faint bluish
light. Masses of them swarm within those walls. Masses of them pour
through the streets, glisten on the buttresses and parapets. They are
intelligent. What horrible feast is it that nightly they celebrate
there in silence? On what carrion do they feed? It is the universe
that they devour; and they build above it, as they devour it, their
dark city like a hollow tomb.... Extraordinary that this city, which
seen from here at dusk has so supernatural a beauty, should hide at
the core so vile a secret....”
Hilda stared at him.
“Really, Andrew, I think you’re going mad.”
“Going? I’m gone! My brain is maggoty.”
They laughed and rattled the chessmen into their wooden box. Then
they began locking the doors and windows for the night.
[2] Copyright, 1922, by The Dial Publishing Company, Inc.
Copyright, 1923, by Conrad Aiken.