"So you shall, when you come through that door a second
time--whistling. I can't take you there now."
"Do you keep only the Characters of living scribblers in this hall?"
"We should be crowded out if we didn't draft them off somehow. Step
this way and I'll take you to the Master. One moment, though. There's
John Ridd with Lorna Doone, and there are Mr. Maliphant and the
Bormalacks--clannish folk, those Besant Characters--don't let the twins
talk to you about Literature and Art. Come along. What's here?"
The white face of Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, broke through the press.
"I wish to explain," said he in a level voice, "that had I been
consulted I should never have blown out my brains with the Duchess and
all that Poker Flat lot. I wish to add that the only woman I ever loved
was the wife of Brown of Calaveras." He pressed his hand behind him
suggestively. "All right, Mr. Oakhurst," I said hastily; "I believe
you." "_Kin_ you set it right?" he asked, dropping into the Doric of
the Gulches. I caught a trigger's cloth-muffled click. "Just heavens!"
I groaned. "Must I be shot for the sake of another man's Characters?"
Oakhurst levelled his revolver at my head, but the weapon was struck
up by the hand of Yuba Bill. "You durned fool!" said the stage-driver.
"Hevn't I told you no one but a blamed idiot shoots at sight _now_?
Let the galoot go. You kin see by his eyes he's no party to your
matrimonial arrangements." Oakhurst retired with an irreproachable bow,
but in my haste to escape I fell over Caliban, his head in a melon and
his tame orc under his arm. He spat like a wildcat.
"Manners none, customs beastly," said the Devil. "We'll take the Bishop
with us. They all respect the Bishop." And the great Bishop Blougram
joined us, calm and smiling, with the news, for my private ear, that
Mr. Gigadibs despised him no longer.
We were arrested by a knot of semi-nude Bacchantes kissing a clergyman.
The Bishop's eyes twinkled, and I turned to the Devil for explanation.
"That's Robert Elsmere--what's left of him," said the Devil. "Those are
French _feuilleton_ women and scourings of the Opera Comique. He has
been lecturing 'em, and they don't like it." "He lectured _me_!" said
the Bishop with a bland smile. "He has been a nuisance ever since he
came here. By the Holy Law of Proportion, he had the audacity to talk
to the Master! Called him a 'pot-bellied barbarian'! That is why he
is walking so stiffly now," said the Devil. "Listen! Marie Pigeonnier
is swearing deathless love to him. On my word, we ought to segregate
the French characters entirely. By the way, your regiment came in very
handy for Zola's importations."
"My regiment?" I said. "How do you mean?"
"You wrote something about the Tyneside Tail-Twisters, just enough to
give the outline of the regiment, and of course it came down here--one
thousand and eighty strong. I told it off in hollow squares to pen
up the Rougon-Macquart series. There they are." I looked and saw the
Tyneside Tail-Twisters ringing an inferno of struggling, shouting,
blaspheming men and women in the costumes of the Second Empire. Now and
again the shadowy ranks brought down their butts on the toes of the
crowd inside the square, and shrieks of pain followed. "You should have
indicated your men more clearly; they are hardly up to their work,"
said the Devil. "If the Zola tribe increase, I'm afraid I shall have
to use up your two companies of the Black Tyrone and two of the Old
Regiment."
"I am proud----" I began.
"Go slow," said the Devil. "You won't be half so proud in a little
while, and I don't think much of your regiments, anyway. But they are
good enough to fight the French. Can you hear Coupeau raving in the
left angle of the square? He used to run about the hall seeing pink
snakes, till the children's story-book Characters protested. Come
along!"
Never since Caxton pulled his first proof and made for the world a
new and most terrible God of Labour had mortal man such an experience
as mine when I followed the Devil of Discontent through the shifting
crowds below the motto of the Dome. A few--a very few--of the faces
were of old friends, but there were thousands whom I did not recognise.
Men in every conceivable attire and of every possible nationality,
deformed by intention, or the impotence of creation that could not
create--blind, unclean, heroic, mad, sinking under the weight of
remorse, or with eyes made splendid by the light of love and fixed
endeavour; women fashioned in ignorance and mourning the errors of
their creator, life and thought at variance with body and soul; perfect
women such as walk rarely upon this earth, and horrors that were women
only because they had not sufficient self-control to be fiends; little
children, fair as the morning, who put their hands into mine and made
most innocent confidences; loathsome, lank-haired infant-saints,
curious as to the welfare of my soul, and delightfully mischievous
boys, generalled by the irrepressible Tom Sawyer, who played among
murderers, harlots, professional beauties, nuns, Italian bandits and
politicians of state.
The ordered peace of Arthur's Court was broken up by the incursions
of Mr. John Wellington Wells, and Dagonet, the jester, found that his
antics drew no attention so long as the "dealer in magic and spells,"
taking Tristram's harp, sang patter-songs to the Round Table; while a
Zulu Impi, headed by Allan Quatermain, wheeled and shouted in sham
fight for the pleasure of Little Lord Fauntleroy. Every century and
every type was jumbled in the confusion of one colossal fancy-ball
where all the characters were living their parts.
"Aye, look long," said the Devil. "You will never be able to describe
it, and the next time you come you won't have the chance. Look long,
and look at"--Good's passing with a maiden of the Zu-Vendi must have
suggested the idea--"look at their legs." I looked, and for the second
time noticed the lameness that seemed to be almost universal in the
Limbo of Lost Endeavour. Brave men and stalwart to all appearance had
one leg shorter than the other; some paced a few inches above the
floor, never touching it, and others found the greatest difficulty in
preserving their feet at all. The stiffness and laboured gait of these
thousands was pitiful to witness. I was sorry for them. I told the
Devil as much.
"H'm," said he reflectively, "that's the world's work. Rather cockeye,
ain't it? They do everything but stand on their feet. _You_ could
improve them, I suppose?" There was an unpleasant sneer in his tone,
and I hastened to change the subject.
"I'm tired of walking," I said. "I want to see some of my own
Characters, and go on to the Master, whoever he may be, afterwards."
"Reflect," said the Devil. "Are you certain--do you know how many they
be?"
"No--but I want to see them. That's what I came for."
"Very well. Don't abuse me if you don't like the view. There are
one-and-fifty of your make up to date, and--it's rather an appalling
thing to be confronted with fifty-one children. However, here's a
special favourite of yours. Go and shake hands with her!"
A limp-jointed, staring-eyed doll was hirpling towards me with a
strained smile of recognition. I felt that I knew her only too well--if
indeed she were she. "Keep her off, Devil!" I cried, stepping back. "I
never made _that_!" "'She began to weep and she began to cry, Lord ha'
mercy on me, this is none of I!' You're very rude to--Mrs. Hauksbee,
and she wants to speak to you," said the Devil. My face must have
betrayed my dismay, for the Devil went on soothingly: "That's as she
_is_, remember. I _knew_ you wouldn't like it. Now what will you give
if I make her as she ought to be? No, I don't want your soul, thanks.
I have it already, and many others of better quality. Will you, when
you write your story, own that I am the best and greatest of all
the Devils?" The doll was creeping nearer. "Yes," I said hurriedly.
"Anything you like. Only I can't stand her in that state."
"You'll _have_ to when you come next again. Look! No connection with
Jekyll and Hyde!" The Devil pointed a lean and inky finger towards the
doll, and lo! radiant, bewitching, with a smile of dainty malice, her
high heels clicking on the floor like castanets, advanced Mrs. Hauksbee
as I had imagined her in the beginning.
"Ah!" she said. "You are here so soon? Not dead yet? That will come.
Meantime, a thousand congratulations. And now, what do you think of
me?" She put her hands on her hips, revealed a glimpse of the smallest
foot in Simla and hummed: "'Just look at that--just look at this! And
then you'll see I'm not amiss.'"
"She'll use exactly the same words when you meet her next time," said
the Devil warningly. "You dowered her with any amount of vanity, if
you left out----Excuse me a minute! I'll fetch up the rest of your
menagerie." But I was looking at Mrs. Hauksbee.
"Well?" she said. "_Am_ I what you expected?" I forgot the Devil and
all his works, forgot that this was not the woman I had made, and
could only murmur rapturously: "By Jove! You _are_ a beauty." Then,
incautiously: "And you stand on your feet." "Good heavens!" said
Mrs. Hauksbee. "Would you, at my time of life, have me stand on my
head?" She folded her arms and looked me up and down. I was grinning
imbecilely--the woman was so alive. "Talk," I said absently; "I want to
hear you talk." "I am not used to being spoken to like a coolie," she
replied. "Never mind," I said, "that may be for outsiders, but I made
you and I've a right----"
"You have a right? You made me? My dear sir, if I didn't know that we
should bore each other so inextinguishably hereafter I should read
you an hour's lecture this instant. You made me! I suppose you will
have the audacity to pretend that you understand me--that you _ever_
understood me. Oh, man, man--foolish man! If you only knew!"
"Is that the person who thinks he understands us, Loo?" drawled a voice
at her elbow. The Devil had returned with a cloud of witnesses, and it
was Mrs. Mallowe who was speaking.
"I've touched 'em all up," said the Devil in an aside. "You couldn't
stand 'em raw. But don't run away with the notion that they are your
work. I show you what they ought to be. You must find out for yourself
how to make 'em so."
"Am I allowed to remodel the batch--up above?" I asked anxiously.
"_Litera scripta manet._ That's in the Delectus and Eternity." He
turned round to the semi-circle of Characters: "Ladies and gentlemen,
who are all a great deal better than you should be by virtue of _my_
power, let me introduce you to your maker. If you have anything to say
to him, you can say it."
"What insolence!" said Mrs. Hauksbee between her teeth. "This isn't
a Peterhoff drawing-room. I haven't the slightest intention of being
leveed by this person. Polly, come here and we'll watch the animals
go by." She and Mrs. Mallowe stood at my side. I turned crimson with
shame, for it is an awful thing to see one's Characters in the solid.
"Wal," said Gilead P. Beck as he passed, "I would not be you at this
_pre_-cise moment of time, not for all the ile in the univarsal airth.
_No_, sirr! I thought my dinner-party was soul-shatterin', but it's
mush--mush and milk--to your circus. Let the good work go on!"
I turned to the company and saw that they were men and women, standing
upon their feet as folks should stand. Again I forgot the Devil, who
stood apart and sneered. From the distant door of entry I could hear
the whistle of arriving souls, from the semi-darkness at the end of
the hall came the thunderous roar of the Furnace of First Edition,
and everywhere the restless crowds of Characters muttered and rustled
like windblown autumn leaves. But I looked upon my own people and was
perfectly content as man could be.
"I have seen you study a new dress with just such an expression of
idiotic beatitude," whispered Mrs. Mallowe to Mrs. Hauksbee. "Hush!"
said the latter. "He thinks he understands." Then to me: "Please trot
them out. Eternity is long enough in all conscience, but that is no
reason for wasting it. _Pro_-ceed, or shall I call them up? Mrs.
Vansuythen, Mr. Boult, Mrs. Boult, Captain Kurrel and the Major!" The
European population in Kashima in the Dosehri hills, the actors in the
Wayside Comedy, moved towards me; and I saw with delight that they were
human. "So you wrote about us?" said Mrs. Boult. "About my confession
to my husband and my hatred of that Vansuythen woman? Did you think
that you understood? Are _all_ men such fools?" "That woman is bad
form," said Mrs. Hauksbee, "but she speaks the truth. I wonder what
these soldiers have to say." Gunner Barnabas and Private Shacklock
stopped, saluted, and hoped I would take no offence if they gave it as
their opinion that I had not "got them down quite right." I gasped.
A spurred Hussar succeeded, his wife on his arm. It was Captain
Gadsby and Minnie, and close behind them swaggered Jack Mafflin, the
Brigadier-General in his arms. "Had the cheek to try to describe our
life, had you?" said Gadsby carelessly. "Ha-hmm! S'pose he understood,
Minnie?" Mrs. Gadsby raised her face to her husband and murmured:
"I'm _sure_ he didn't, Pip," while Poor Dear Mamma, still in her
riding-habit, hissed: "I'm sure he didn't understand _me_." And these
also went their way.
One after another they filed by--Trewinnard, the pet of his Department;
Otis Yeere, lean and lanthorn-jawed; Crook O'Neil and Bobby Wick arm in
arm; Janki Meah, the blind miner in the Jimahari coal fields; Afzul
Khan, the policeman; the murderous Pathan horse-dealer, Durga Dass; the
bunnia, Boh Da Thone; the dacoit, Dana Da, weaver of false magic; the
Leander of the Barhwi ford; Peg Barney, drunk as a coot; Mrs. Delville,
the dowd; Dinah Shadd, large, red-cheeked and resolute; Simmons, Slane
and Losson; Georgie Porgie and his Burmese helpmate; a shadow in a high
collar, who was all that I had ever indicated of the Hawley Boy--the
nameless men and women who had trod the Hill of Illusion and lived in
the Tents of Kedar, and last, His Majesty the King.
Each one in passing told me the same tale, and the burden thereof was:
"You did not understand." My heart turned sick within me. "Where's Wee
Willie Winkie?" I shouted. "Little children don't lie."
A clatter of pony's feet followed, and the child appeared, habited as
on the day he rode into Afghan territory to warn Coppy's love against
the "bad men." "I've been playing," he sobbed, "playing on ve Levels
wiv Jackanapes and Lollo, an' _he_ says I'm only just borrowed. I'm
_isn't_ borrowed. I'm Willie Wi-_inkie_! Vere's Coppy?"
"'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,'" whispered the Devil, who
had drawn nearer. "You know the rest of the proverb. Don't look as if
you were going to be shot in the morning! Here are the last of your
gang."
I turned despairingly to the Three Musketeers, dearest of all my
children to me--to Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd. Surely the
Three would not turn against me as the others had done! I shook hands
with Mulvaney. "Terence, how goes? Are _you_ going to make fun of me,
too?" "'Tis not for me to make fun av you, sorr," said the Irishman,
"knowin' as I _du_ know, fwat good friends we've been for the matter av
three years."
"Fower," said Ortheris, "'twas in the Helanthami barricks, H block, we
was become acquaint, an' 'ere's thankin' you kindly for all the beer
we've drunk twix' that and now."
"Four ut is, then," said Mulvaney. "He an' Dinah Shadd are your
friends, but----" He stood uneasily.
"But what?" I said.
"Savin' your presence, sorr, an' it's more than onwillin' I am to be
hurtin' you; you did not ondersthand. On my sowl an' honour, sorr, you
did not ondersthand. Come along, you two."
But Ortheris stayed for a moment to whisper: "It's Gawd's own trewth,
but there's this 'ere to think. 'Tain't the bloomin' belt that's wrong,
as Peg Barney sez, when he's up for bein' dirty on p'rade. 'Tain't the
bloomin' belt, sir; it's the bloomin' pipeclay." Ere I could seek an
explanation he had joined his companions.
"For a private soldier, a singularly shrewd man," said Mrs. Hauksbee,
and she repeated Ortheris's words. The last drop filled my cup, and I
am ashamed to say that I bade her be quiet in a wholly unjustifiable
tone. I was rewarded by what would have been a notable lecture on
propriety, had I not said to the Devil: "Change that woman to a d----d
doll again! Change 'em all back as they were--as they are. I'm sick of
them."
"Poor wretch!" said the Devil of Discontent very quietly. "They are
changed."
The reproof died on Mrs. Hauksbee's lips, and she moved away
marionette-fashion, Mrs. Mallowe trailing after her. I hastened after
the remainder of the Characters, and they were changed indeed--even as
the Devil had said, who kept at my side.
They limped and stuttered and staggered and mouthed and staggered round
me, till I could endure no more.
"So I am the master of this idiotic puppet-show, am I?" I said
bitterly, watching Mulvaney trying to come to attention by spasms.
"_In saecula saeculorum_," said the Devil, bowing his head; "and you
needn't kick, my dear fellow, because they will concern no one but
yourself by the time you whistle up to the door. Stop reviling me and
uncover. Here's the Master!"
Uncover! I would have dropped on my knees, had not the Devil prevented
me, at sight of the portly form of Maitre François Rabelais, some
time Curé of Meudon. He wore a smoke-stained apron of the colours
of Gargantua. I made a sign which was duly returned. "An Entered
Apprentice in difficulties with his rough ashlar, Worshipful Sir,"
explained the Devil. I was too angry to speak.
Said the Master, rubbing his chin: "Are those things yours?" "Even so,
Worshipful Sir," I muttered, praying inwardly that the Characters would
at least keep quiet while the Master was near. He touched one or two
thoughtfully, put his hand upon my shoulder and started: "By the Great
Bells of Notre Dame, you are in the flesh--the warm flesh!--the flesh I
quitted so long--ah, so long! And you fret and behave unseemly because
of these shadows! Listen now! I, even I, would give my Three, Panurge,
Gargantua and Pantagruel, for one little hour of the life that is in
you. And _I_ am the Master!"
But the words gave me no comfort. I could hear Mrs. Mallowe's joints
cracking--or it might have been merely her stays.
"Worshipful Sir, he will not believe that," said the Devil. "Who live
by shadows lust for shadows. Tell him something more to his need."
The Master grunted contemptuously: "And he is flesh and blood! Know
this, then. The First Law is to make them stand upon their feet, and
the Second is to make them stand upon their feet, and the Third is to
make them stand upon their feet. But, for all that, Trajan is a fisher
of frogs." He passed on, and I could hear him say to himself: "One
hour--one minute--of life in the flesh, and I would sell the Great
Perhaps thrice over!"
"Well," said the Devil, "you've made the Master angry, seen about all
there is to be seen, except the Furnace of First Edition, and, as the
Master is in charge of that, I should avoid it. Now you'd better go.
You know what you ought to do?"
"I don't need all Hell----"
"Pardon me. Better men than you have called this Paradise."
"All _Hell_, I said, and the Master to tell me what I knew before.
What I want to know is _how_?" "Go and find out," said the Devil. We
turned to the door, and I was aware that my Characters had grouped
themselves at the exit. "They are going to give you an ovation. Think
o' that, now!" said the Devil. I shuddered and dropped my eyes, while
one-and-fifty voices broke into a wailing song, whereof the words, so
far as I recollect, ran:
But we brought forth and reared in hours
Of change, alarm, surprise.
What shelter to grow ripe is ours--
What leisure to grow wise?
I ran the gauntlet, narrowly missed collision with an impetuous soul (I
hoped he liked his Characters when he met them), and flung free into
the night, where I should have knocked my head against the stars. But
the Devil caught me.
* * * * *
The brain-fever bird was fluting across the grey, dewy lawn, and the
punkah had stopped again. "Go to Jehannum and get another man to
pull," I said drowsily. "Exactly," said a voice from the inkpot.
Now the proof that this story is absolutely true lies in the fact that
there will be no other to follow it.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 31: From "Week's News," Sept. 15, 1888.]