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The Voice On The Radio
The kidnapping is long past. Janie Johnson can never change what
happened to her or to the families that love her. But finally life
seems to be settling down for the Springs and the Johnsons.The worst
part of this new life for Janie is tha

Author: Caroline B. Cooney

ISBN: 9780375892073
Category: Adult
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The Voice On The Radio

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Cooler for Milk and Butter

An earthen jar or crock, with a cover, set in

a box containing moist sand will keep butter
and milk in hot weather better than a
refrigerator. The sand must be kept moist at
all times.—Edwin J. Bachman, Jr., Fullerton,
Pa.
 Rubber Bumper on a Water Faucet

Sometimes a dish is broken by striking it on the faucet. This is easily

remedied by cutting a rubber washer from a rubber-boot heel with a
sharp chisel and a hammer. The washer is pushed into place on the
end of the faucet, and the dishes may strike the rubber without
being broken.—Contributed by Harriette I. Lockwood, Philadelphia,
Pa.
 Boring a Clean-Edged Hole

When boring a hole in wood, withdraw the

bit as soon as the worm shows, then start the
worm in the hole on the opposite side and
finish boring the hole. It will then have clean
edges on both sides of the wood. Often the bit
pushes splinters of wood ahead of it, when
passing through, but by using the method described this is avoided.
 Drilling Thin Metal

In drilling very thin stock the drill, if not

properly ground, will tear the metal and leave
a ragged edge. To cut a hole through neatly
the drill should be ground as illustrated. The center A should extend
about 1/64 in. beyond the points B. The point A locates the center
and the sharp points B cut out the disk of metal. Holes have been
neatly and quickly made with this drill grinding in metal measuring
.002 in. thickness.—Contributed by Joseph J. Kolar, Maywood, Ill.

¶ A pencil may be kept from falling out of the pocket

by wrapping a couple of turns of tape around it or by
wrapping it with a small rubber band.
Flexible-Cord Adjuster for an Electrical Flatiron

When using an electrical flatiron the

flexible cord frequently gets under the iron,
causing much trouble for the user, and
mussing up the clothing. The cord can be kept
out of the way by fastening a pulley to the
ironing board and attaching a coil spring to
the electric cord between the pulley and the
electric-fixture socket. A coil spring that will
draw out about 3 ft. should be used.—
Contributed by Herbert Blandford, Elmira, N. Y.
 A Wood Clothes Peg

If clothes that are slightly damp are hung

on a nail or metal peg, a rust stain that is
almost impossible to remove will be the result.
To prevent this, drive a nail with the head
removed into the wall or cleat, and place a
wood peg over it. The peg may be turned up
or whittled out with a pocket knife and the hole bored with a hand
drill.—Contributed by Wm. A. Robinson, Waynesboro, Pa.
 To Make Scratch Pads of Old Labels

Labels and blank paper of uniform size,

that would otherwise be cast aside, can be
turned into handy scratch pads by placing
them between blocks of wood, secured by a
wood clamp, and applying paste on two
edges, then pressing a strip of paper on the
pasted portions. The edges to be pasted
should project a trifle beyond the edges of the blocks.
 How to Make an Electric Heater

The electric heater described in this article is very simple to

construct, its operation exceedingly satisfactory, and the necessary
material easily procured at a small cost at most electrical-supply
stores. The few tools needed are usually found about every home,
and the heater may be constructed by any ingenious person.

Procure 6 porcelain tubes, 20 in. long and approximately

13/16 in. in diameter. On each of these tubes wind 25 ft. of bare No.
26 gauge "Climax" resistance wire. The various turns should be
uniformly distributed along the tubes and not allowed to come into
contact with each other, which can be prevented by placing a thin,
narrow coat of plaster of Paris along the side of each of the tubes
immediately after the winding has been put on. Several inches of
free wire should be allowed at each end, for making connections,
and the first and last turns on each tube should be securely fastened
to the tube by several turns of binding wire. It would be best not to
extend the winding nearer the ends of the tubes than 3/4 in.

Cut from some heavy tin, or other thin sheet metal, two disks,
6 in. in diameter, and punch six 5/16-in. holes in each of the disks at
equal distances and within 3/4 in. of the outer edge. Punch two 1/8-
in. holes in one of these disks, to be used in mounting a porcelain
socket, and also one 1/2-in. hole through which the wires may be
led to the socket, as shown in Fig. 1. In the other disk punch four
1/8-in. holes, for mounting two porcelain single-pole snap switches,
and two 1/2-in. holes, for leading the wires through to the switches,
as shown in Fig. 2.
 Detail of the Two Ends on the Heater Giving Dimensions and the Location
of Parts (Fig. 1, Fig. 2)

Cut off six lengths of 5/16-in. iron rod, 22 in. long, and thread
both ends of each piece for a length of 1-1/4 in. Fasten the porcelain
tubes between the metal disks, by placing one of the rods through
each of the tubes and allowing the ends to extend through the 5/16-
in. holes in the outer edge of the disks. A nut should be placed on
each end of all the rods and drawn up so that the length of rod
protruding at each end is the same. Obtain two single-pole snap
switches and a porcelain socket, and mount them on the ends by
means of some small stove bolts.

The windings on the porcelain tubes should be connected as

follows: Let the windings be designated by the letters A, B, C, D, E,
and F, and their position be that indicated in Figs. 1 and 2. The
primes indicate the ends of the windings at the socket end, and the
letters without the primes indicate the ends of the windings at the
switch end of the heater. The ends A and D should be connected
directly together. The ends B and C to the clips of the right-band
snap switch, and E and F, to the clips of the left-hand snap switch.
The ends F, A, and B should be connected to one terminal of the
socket, and C, D, and E to the other terminal of the socket. Electrical
connection is made to the winding by means of a plug and piece of
lamp cord. It is obvious that the windings A and D will be connected
as soon as the plug is screwed into the socket, if the circuit is closed
at all other points, and the windings B and C, and E and F are
controlled by the right and left-hand snap switches, respectively.
Make sure all the connections are properly insulated, and that there
is little chance of a short circuit occurring.

After the socket and snap switches have been connected to the
windings, two more thin disks, the same diameter as the first, may
be fitted over the ends and held in place by two units on the end of
each rod, a nut being placed on each side of the disks. A better way
of mounting these disks would be by small machine screws that
enter threaded holes in the ends of the rods. These last disks are
not absolutely necessary, but they will add some to the appearance
of the completed heater. Four small ears, about 5/8 in. square,
should be cut on the outer edge of the outside or inside disks and
bent over at right angles to the main portion, to be used in
mounting the outside case of the heater.

Cut from a sheet of 1/8-in. asbestos a piece just long enough to

fit between the inside disks and wide enough to cover the three
lower windings C, D, and E. The object of this piece of asbestos is to
protect the surface upon which the heater will stand from excessive
heat, since it is to rest in a horizontal position.

Obtain a piece of perforated, thin sheet metal, 19-1/2 in. wide

and long enough to reach from one outside disk to the other. Bend
this into a cylinder and fasten it to the lugs on the disks by means of
small screws or bolts.
 The legs may be made of 1/8-in.
strap iron, 5/8 in. wide, bent into the
form shown in Fig. 3. These pieces
may be attached to the perforated
cylinder, before it is mounted on the
heater proper, by means of several (Fig. 3)
small bolts. The piece of asbestos should be wired to the cylinder
after the heater is all assembled, so that it will always remain in the
lower part of the cylinder and serve the purpose for which it is
intended.

The heater, as described above, is constructed for a 110-volt

circuit, which is the voltage commonly used in electric lighting. The
total consumption of the heater will be approximately 600 watts,
each part consuming about 1/3 of the total, or 200 watts. If it is
desired to wind the heater for a 220-volt circuit, 25 ft. of No. 29
gauge "Climax" resistance wire should be used on each tube.
 A Molding-Sawing Block Used on a Bench

Having occasion to saw some short pieces of molding, I experienced

considerable trouble in holding them without a vise until I made a
block, as shown in the sketch. This answered the purpose as well as
a vise. The block is not fastened in any manner, but is simply pushed
against the edge of the bench or table and held with the hand. It
should be about 9 in. wide and 1 ft. long, with strips 2 in. thick at
each edge.—Contributed by W. F. Brodnax, Jr., Bethlehem, Pa.

A Block for Holding Molding, or Strips of Wood, While Sawing Small Pieces
from Them
Pipe Caps Used as Castings for Engine Pistons

Desiring to make a small piston for a model engine and not caring to
make a pattern and send it away to have a casting made, I thought
of using ordinary pipe caps, these being both inexpensive and of a
quality adapted to machining.

The cylinder bore was 1-1/2 in. in diameter, so I secured a

standard pipe cap for 1-1/4-in. pipe which gave an outside diameter
of about 1-5/8 in. The cap, not having sufficient depth for holding in
a chuck, was screwed on a short piece of pipe and then trued in the
lathe chuck. The outside surface was turned to a diameter of 1-
1/2 in., then removed from the pipe, reversed and chucked again,
and the threads bored out to reduce the walls to 1/8 in. This made
an excellent piston for a single-acting engine.—Contributed by Harry
F. Lowe, Washington, D. C.
 An Electric Horn

A simple electric horn for use on a bicycle, automobile, or for other

purposes, can be constructed as shown in Fig. 1. The size will of
course depend somewhat on the use for which it is intended, but
one with the diaphragm 1-3/4 in. in diameter and the horn 5 in. long
and 4 in. in diameter, at the large end, will be sufficient for most
purposes. This will make the instrument 7-1/2 or 8 in. in over-all
length.

An Electric Horn Operated in a Manner Similar to an Electric Bell on a

Battery Circuit (Fig. 1)

The horn proper, A, Fig. 1, is constructed first. This can be

formed from sheet brass. To lay out the metal to the desired size
draw a cross section, as ABCD, Fig. 2, then project the lines AC and
BD until they meet at E. Strike two arcs of circles on the brass sheet,
using EC as radius for the inner one and EA for the outer. Measure
off FG and HJ equal to 3-1/4 times DC and AB, respectively, and cut
out FGJH. Roll and lap 1/4 in. at the edges and solder the joint
neatly.
 (Fig. 2)

After smoothing the edges on the ends, solder a very thin disk of
ferrotype metal, B, Fig. 1, to the small end of the horn. This is used
for the diaphragm. Cut out a ring, C, from 1/4-in. hard fiber and
bevel it on the inside edge to fit the horn. Also make a disk of fiber,
D, having the same outside diameter as the ring C. These parts form
the ends for a brass cylinder E, which is made in two parts or halves
joined on the lines shown in Fig. 3. Fasten one of the halves, F,
Fig. 3, to the fiber ring C and disk D, Fig. 1, with small screws, the
other half to be put in place after the instrument is completed and
adjusted.
 (Fig. 3)

A small support, G, is cut from fiber and fastened in as shown. A

pair of magnets of about 50 ohms are mounted on this support. The
parts from an old bell or buzzer may be used, which consist of a
soft-iron armature, H, Fig. 1, having a strap of spring brass, J,
attached by soldering and pivoted at K, with an adjusting screw, L,
to set the tension. Another U-shaped spring-brass strip, M,
constitutes the current breaker, which has an adjusting screw, N.
The points of contact on the current breaker should be tipped with
platinum. A piece of brass wire, O, is soldered to the diaphragm disk
B and the soft-iron armature H, to connect them solidly. The tone of
the horn can be adjusted with the screws L and N. The faster the
armature vibrates, the higher the tone, and vice versa. The
connections are the same as for an electric bell.—Contributed by
James P. Lewis, Golden, Colo.
 Combination Meat Saw and Knife

A very handy combination knife and meat saw can be made of an

old discarded saw blade. The blade is cut on a line parallel with the
toothed edge, allowing enough material to make a good-sized blade,
then the straight part is ground to a knife edge and a wood handle
attached at one end. The handle is made in halves, placed one on
each side of the blade, and riveted together, then the projecting
metal is ground off to the shape of the handle.—Contributed by A. C.
Westby, Porter, Minn.

The Blade of the Knife is Cut from the Toothed Side of a Discarded Saw
Blade
 Clamp Used as a Vise

A carpenter's wood clamp fastened to the edge of a bench, as

shown in the sketch, makes a good substitute for a vise for many
kinds of light work. If the clamp is located over or in front of the
bench post, holes must be bored in the latter to admit the ends of
the clamp screws. A hole is bored through the shoulder screw and a
handle attached as shown.—Contributed by H. W. J. Langletz,
Harrisburg, Pa.

The Clamp Attached to a Bench Top will Serve the Purpose of a Vise in
Many Instances
 Wire Expansion Meter

When there is a current of electricity in an electrical conductor a

certain amount of heat is generated due to the opposition or
resistance of the conductor to the free passage of the electricity
through it. The heat thus generated causes a change in the
temperature of the conductor and as a result there will be a change
in its length, it contracting with a decrease in temperature and
expanding with an increase in temperature. The temperature of the
conductor will change when the current in it changes, and hence its
length will change, and it will reach a constant temperature or a
constant length when the current in it is constant in value and the
rate at which it is giving off heat is exactly equal to the rate at which
heat is being generated in it.

The fact that there is an actual change in the length of the

conductor due to a change in current in it constitutes the
fundamental principle of the following simple instrument.

Meter for Measuring the Expansion of Metal Wires Which are Heated by
Electricity

The parts needed in its construction are as follows: An old safety-

razor blade; one 8-in. hatpin; two medium-size nails; a short piece
of German-silver wire; a small piece of sealing wax; a 1/2-in. board
for the base, approximately 3-1/2 in. by 10 in., and a small piece of
thin sheet brass. Remove the head from the hatpin and fasten the
blunt end in the center of the safety-razor blade A with a piece of
sealing wax so that the pin B is perpendicular to the blade as shown.
Now drive the two nails into the board C, so that they are about
1/4 in. from the edges and 1-1/2 in. from the end. Fasten the piece
of German-silver wire D to these nails as shown. The size of this
wire will depend upon the value of the current to be measured.
Make a small hook, E, from a short piece of rather stiff wire and
fasten it to the hatpin about 1 in. from the razor blade. The length of
this hook should be such that the pointed end of the hatpin will be
at the top of the scale F when there is no current in the wire, D. The
scale F is made by bending the piece of sheet brass so as to form a
right angle and fastening it to the base. A piece of thin cardboard
can be mounted upon the surface of the vertical portion of the piece
of brass and a suitable scale inked upon it. The instrument is now
complete with the exception of two binding posts, not shown in the
sketch, that may be mounted at convenient points on the base and
connected to the ends of the German-silver wire, thus serving as
terminals for the instrument.

The completed instrument can be calibrated by connecting it in

series with another instrument whose calibration is known and
marking the position of the pointer on the scale for different values
of current.
by their violent exertions, they attained a great height in a quarter of
an hour.
Carathis, alarmed at the signs of her mutes, advanced to the
staircase, went down a few steps, and heard several voices calling
out from below:
“You shall in a moment have water!”
Being rather alert, considering her age, she presently regained the
top of the tower, and bade her son suspend the sacrifice for some
minutes, adding:
“We shall soon be enabled to render it more grateful. Certain dolts
of your subjects, imagining, no doubt, that we were on fire, have
been rash enough to break through those doors, which had hitherto
remained inviolate, for the sake of bringing up water. They are very
kind, you must allow, so soon to forget the wrongs you have done
them: but that is of little moment. Let us offer them to the Giaour.
Let them come up: our mutes, who neither want strength nor
experience, will soon despatch them, exhausted as they are with
fatigue.”
“Be it so,” answered the Caliph, “provided we finish, and I dine.”
In fact, these good people, out of breath from ascending eleven
thousand stairs in such haste, and chagrined at having spilt, by the
way, the water they had taken, were no sooner arrived at the top
than the blaze of the flames and the fumes of the mummies at once
overpowered their senses. It was a pity! for they beheld not the
agreeable smile with which the mutes and the negresses adjusted
the cord to their necks: these amiable personages rejoiced, however,
no less at the scene. Never before had the ceremony of strangling
been performed with so much facility. They all fell without the least
resistance or struggle; so that Vathek, in the space of a few
moments, found himself surrounded by the dead bodies of his most
faithful subjects, all of which were thrown on the top of the pile.
Carathis, whose presence of mind never forsook her, perceiving that
she had carcases sufficient to complete her oblation, commanded
the chains to be stretched across the staircase, and the iron doors
barricaded, that no more might come up.
No sooner were these orders obeyed, than the tower shook; the
dead bodies vanished in the flames; which at once changed from a
swarthy crimson to a bright rose colour. An ambient vapour emitted
the most exquisite fragrance; the marble columns rang with
harmonious sounds, and the liquefied horns diffused a delicious
perfume. Carathis, in transports, anticipated the success of her
enterprise; whilst the mutes and negresses, to whom these sweets
had given the cholic, retired to their cells grumbling.
Scarcely were they gone, when, instead of the pile, horns,
mummies, and ashes, the Caliph both saw and felt, with a degree of
pleasure which he could not express, a table, covered with the most
magnificent repast: flaggons of wine, and vases of exquisite sherbet,
floating on snow. He availed himself, without scruple, of such an
entertainment; and had already laid hands on a lamb stuffed with
pistachios, whilst Carathis was privately drawing from a fillagreen
urn, a parchment that seemed to be endless; and which had
escaped the notice of her son. Totally occupied, in gratifying an
importunate appetite, he left her to peruse it, without interruption;
which having finished, she said to him, in an authoritative tone,
“Put an end to your gluttony, and hear the splendid promises with
which you are favoured!” She then read, as follows:
“Vathek, my well-beloved, thou hast surpassed my hopes: my
nostrils have been regaled by the savour of thy mummies, thy horns;
and, still more, by the lives devoted on the pile. At the full of the
moon, cause the bands of thy musicians, and thy tymbals, to be
heard; depart from thy palace surrounded by all the pageants of
majesty; thy most faithful slaves, thy best beloved wives; thy most
magnificent litters; thy richest loaden camels; and set forward on thy
way to Istakar. There await I thy coming. That is the region of
wonders. There shalt thou receive the diadem of Gian Ben Gian, [50]
the talismans of Soliman, and the treasures of the preadimite
Sultans: there shalt thou be solaced with all kinds of delight. But,
beware how thou enterest any dwelling on thy route, or thou shalt
feel the effects of my anger.”
The Caliph, who, notwithstanding his habitual luxury, had never
before dined with so much satisfaction, gave full scope to the joy of
these golden tidings, and betook himself to drinking anew. Carathis,
whose antipathy to wine was by no means insuperable, failed not to
supply a reason for every bumper, which they ironically quaffed to
the health of Mahomet. This infernal liquor completed their impious
temerity, and prompted them to utter a profusion of blasphemies.
They gave a loose to their wit, at the expense of the ass of Balaam,
the dog of the seven sleepers, and the other animals admitted into
the paradise of Mahomet. In this sprightly humour they descended
the eleven thousand stairs, diverting themselves as they went at the
anxious faces they saw on the square, through the oilets of the
tower, and at length arrived at the royal apartments by the
subterranean passage. Bababalouk was parading to and fro, and
issuing his mandates with great pomp to the eunuchs, who were
snuffing the lights and painting the eyes of the Circassians. No
sooner did he catch sight of the Caliph and his mother than he
exclaimed,
“Hah! you have then, I perceive, escaped from the flames; I was
not, however, altogether out of doubt.”
“Of what moment is it to us what you thought or think?” cried
Carathis “go, speed, tell Morakanabad that we immediately want
him; and take care how you stop by the way to make your insipid
reflections.”
Morakanabad delayed not to obey the summons, and was received
by Vathek and his mother with great solemnity. They told him with
an air of composure and commiseration that the fire at the top of
the tower was extinguished, but that it had cost the lives of the
brave people who sought to assist them.
“Still more misfortunes!” cried Morakanabad with a sigh. “Ah,
commander of the faithful, our holy prophet is certainly irritated
against us! it behoves you to appease him.”
“We will appease him hereafter,” replied the Caliph, with a smile that
augured nothing of good. “You will have leisure sufficient for your
supplications during my absence; for this country is the bane of my
health. I am disgusted with the mountain of the Four Fountains,
and am resolved to go and drink of the stream of Rocnabad. [51] I
long to refresh myself in the delightful valleys which it waters. Do
you, with the advice of my mother, govern my dominions; and take
care to supply whatever her experiments may demand; for you well
know that our tower abounds in materials for the advancement of
science.”
The tower but ill suited Morakanabad’s taste. Immense treasures
had been lavished upon it, and nothing had he ever seen carried
thither but female negroes, mutes, and abominable drugs. Nor did
he know well what to think of Carathis, who like a chamelion could
assume all possible colours. Her cursed eloquence had often driven
the poor Mussulman to his last shifts. He considered, however, that
if she possessed but few good qualities, her son had still fewer, and
that the alternative, on the whole, would be in her favour. Consoled,
therefore, with this reflection, he went in good spirits to soothe the
populace, and make the proper arrangements for his master’s
journey.
Vathek, to conciliate the spirits of the subterranean palace, resolved
that his expedition should be uncommonly splendid. With this view
he confiscated on all sides the property of his subjects, whilst his
worthy mother stripped the seraglios she visited of the gems they
contained. She collected all the sempstresses and embroiderers of
Samarah, and other cities, to the distance of sixty leagues, to
prepare pavilions, palanquins, sofas, canopies, and litters, for the
train of the monarch. There was not left in Masulipatan a single
piece of chintz; and so much muslin had been bought up to dress
out Bababalouk and the other black eunuchs, that there remained
not an ell in the whole Irak of Babylon.
During these preparations, Carathis, who never lost sight of her
great object, which was to obtain favour with the powers of
darkness, made select parties of the fairest and most delicate ladies
of the city; but in the midst of their gaiety she contrived to introduce
serpents amongst them, and to break pots of scorpions under the
table. They all bit to a wonder, and Carathis would have left them to
bite, were it not that to fill up the time, she now and then amused
herself in curing their wounds with an excellent anodyne of her own
invention; for this good princess abhorred being indolent.
Vathek, who was not altogether so active as his mother, devoted his
time to the sole gratification of his senses, in the palaces which were
severally dedicated to them. He disgusted himself no more with the
divan or the mosque. One half of Samarah followed his example,
whilst the other lamented the progress of corruption.
In the midst of these transactions, the embassy returned which had
been sent in pious times to Mecca. It consisted of the most
reverend moullahs, [53] who had fulfilled their commission, and
brought back one of those precious besoms which are used to
sweep the sacred caaba; a present truly worthy of the greatest
potentate on earth!
The Caliph happened at this instant to be engaged in an apartment
by no means adapted to the reception of embassies, though
adorned with a certain magnificence, not only to render it agreeable,
but also because he resorted to it frequently, and staid a
considerable time together. Whilst occupied in this retreat, he heard
the voice of Bababalouk calling out from between the door and the
tapestry that hung before it:
“Here are the excellent Mahomet Ebn Edris al Shafei, and the
seraphic Al Mouhadethin, who have brought the besom from Mecca,
and with tears of joy entreat they may present it to your majesty in
person.”
“Let them bring the besom hither, it may be of use,” said Vathek,
who was still employed, not having quite racked off his wine.
“How!” answered Bababalouk, half aloud and amazed.
“Obey,” replied the Caliph, “for it is my sovereign will; go instantly!
vanish! for here will I receive the good folk who have thus filled thee
with joy.”
The eunuch departed muttering, and bade the venerable train attend
him. A sacred rapture was diffused amongst these reverend old
men. Though fatigued with the length of their expedition, they
followed Bababalouk with an alertness almost miraculous, and felt
themselves highly flattered as they swept along the stately porticos,
that the Caliph would not receive them like ambassadors in ordinary,
in his hall of audience. Soon reaching the interior of the harem
(where, through blinds of persian they perceived large soft eyes,
dark and blue, that went and came like lightning) penetrated with
respect and wonder, and full of their celestial mission, they advanced
in procession towards the small corridors that appeared to terminate
in nothing, but nevertheless led to the cell where the Caliph
expected their coming.
“What! is the commander of the faithful sick?” said Ebn Edris al
Shafei, in a low voice to his companion.
“I rather think he is in his oratory,” answered Al Mouhadethin.
Vathek, who heard the dialogue, cried out “What imports it you how
I am employed? approach without delay.”

They advanced, and Bababalouk almost sunk with confusion, [55]

whilst the Caliph, without showing himself, put forth his hand from
behind the tapestry that hung before the door, and demanded of
them the besom.
Having prostrated themselves as well as the corridor would permit,
and even in a tolerable semi-circle, the venerable Al Shafei, drawing
forth the besom from the embroidered and perfumed scarfs in which
it had been enveloped, and secured from the profane gaze of vulgar
eyes, arose from his associates and advanced with an air of the most
awful solemnity towards the supposed oratory; but with what
astonishment! with what horror was he seized!
Vathek, bursting out into a villainous laugh, snatched the besom
from his trembling hand, and fixing upon it some cobwebs that hung
suspended from the ceiling, gravely brushed away till not a single
one remained.
The old men, overpowered with amazement, were unable to lift their
beards from the ground; for as Vathek had carelessly left the
tapestry between them half drawn, they were witnesses to the
whole transaction. Their tears gushed forth on the marble. Al
Mouhadethin swooned through mortification and fatigue, whilst the
Caliph, throwing himself backward on his seat, shouted and clapped
his hands without mercy. At last, addressing himself to Bababalouk:
“My dear black,” said he, “go, regale these pious poor souls with my
good wine from Shiraz; and as they can boast of having seen more
of my palace than any one besides, let them also visit my office
courts, and lead them out by the back steps that go to my stables.”
Having said this, he threw the besom in their face, and went to
enjoy the laugh with Carathis.
Bababalouk did all in his power to console the ambassadors, but the
two most infirm expired on the spot; the rest were carried to their
beds, from whence, being heart-broken with sorrow and shame,
they never arose.
The succeeding night, Vathek, attended by his mother, ascended the
tower to see if everything were ready for his journey, for he had
great faith in the influence of the stars. The planets appeared in
their most favourable aspects. The Caliph, to enjoy so flattering a
sight, supped gaily on the roof, and fancied that he heard, during his
repast, loud shouts of laughter resound through the sky, in a manner
that inspired the fullest assurance.
All was in motion at the palace; lights were kept burning through the
whole of the night; the sound of implements, and of artisans
finishing their work; the voices of women and their guardians who
sung at their embroidery; all conspired to interrupt the stillness of
nature, and infinitely delight the heart of Vathek, who imagined
himself going in triumph to sit upon the throne of Soliman.
The people were not less satisfied than himself; all assisted to
accelerate the moment which should rescue them from the wayward
caprices of so extravagant a master.
The day preceding the departure of this infatuated prince was
employed by Carathis in repeating to him the decrees of the
mysterious parchment, which she had thoroughly gotten by heart;
and in recommending him not to enter the habitation of any one by
the way; “for well thou knowest,” added she, “how liquorish thy
taste is after good dishes and young damsels; let me therefore
enjoin thee to be content with thy old cooks, who are the best in the
world; and not to forget that in thy ambulatory seraglio there are
three dozen pretty faces, which Bababalouk hath not yet unveiled.
I, myself, have a great desire to watch over thy conduct, and visit
the subterranean palace, which no doubt contains whatever can
interest persons like us. There is nothing so pleasing as retiring to
caverns; my taste for dead bodies and everything like mummy is
decided; and I am confident thou wilt see the most exquisite of their
kind. Forget me not then, but the moment thou art in possession of
the talismans which are to open to thee the mineral kingdoms, and
the centre of the earth itself, fail not to dispatch some trusty genius
to take me and my cabinet, for the oil of the serpents I have pinched
to death will be a pretty present to the Giaour, who cannot but be
charmed with such dainties.”
Scarcely had Carathis ended this edifying discourse, when the sun,
setting behind the mountain of the Four Fountains, gave place to the
rising moon. This planet being that evening at full, appeared of
unusual beauty and magnitude in the eyes of the women, the
eunuchs, and the pages, who were all impatient to set forward. The
city re-echoed with shouts of joy and flourishing of trumpets.
Nothing was visible but plumes nodding on pavilions, and aigrets
shining in the mild lustre of the moon. The spacious square
resembled an immense parterre, variegated with the most stately
tulips of the east.
Arrayed in the robes which were only worn at the most distinguished
ceremonials, and supported by his vizier and Bababalouk, the Caliph
descended the grand staircase of the tower in the sight of all his
people. He could not forbear pausing at intervals to admire the
superb appearance which everywhere courted his view, whilst the
whole multitude, even to the camels with their sumptuous burdens,
knelt down before him. For some time a general stillness prevailed,
which nothing happened to disturb, but the shrill screams of some
eunuchs in the rear. These vigilant guards having remarked certain
cages of the ladies swagging somewhat awry, and discovered that a
few adventurous gallants had contrived to get in, soon dislodged the
enraptured culprits, and consigned them with good commendations,
to the surgeons of the serail. The majesty of so magnificent a
spectacle was not, however, violated by incidents like these. Vathek,
meanwhile, saluted the moon with an idolatrous air, that neither
pleased Morakanabad nor the doctors of the law, any more than the
viziers and grandees of his court, who were all assembled to enjoy
the last view of their sovereign.
At length the clarions and trumpets from the top of the tower
announced the prelude of departure. Though the instruments were
in unison with each other, yet a singular dissonance was blended
with their sounds. This proceeded from Carathis, who was singing
her direful orisons to the Giaour, whilst the negresses and mutes
supplied thorough bass without articulating a word. The good
Mussulmans fancied that they heard the sullen hum of those
nocturnal insects which presage evil, and importuned Vathek to
beware how he ventured his sacred person.
On a given signal the great standard of the Califat was displayed;
twenty thousand lances shone around it; and the Caliph, treading
royally on the cloth of gold which had been spread for his feet,
ascended his litter amidst the general awe that possessed his
subjects.
The expedition commenced with the utmost order, and so entire a
silence, that even the locusts were heard from the thickets on the
plain of Catoul. Gaiety and good humour prevailing, six good
leagues were past before the dawn; and the morning star was still
glittering in the firmament when the whole of this numerous train
had halted on the banks of the Tigris, where they encamped to
repose for the rest of the day.
The three days that followed were spent in the same manner, but on
the fourth the heavens looked angry, lightnings broke forth in
frequent flashes, re-echoing peals of thunder succeeded, and the
trembling Circassians clung with all their might to their ugly
guardians. The Caliph himself was greatly inclined to take shelter in
the large town of Gulchissar, the governor of which came forth to
meet him, and tendered every kind of refreshment the place could
supply. But having examined his tablets, he suffered the rain to
soak him almost to the bone, notwithstanding the importunity of his
first favourites. Though he began to regret the palace of the senses,
yet he lost not sight of his enterprise, and his sanguine expectations
confirmed his resolution. His geographers were ordered to attend
him, but the weather proved so terrible, that these poor people
exhibited a lamentable appearance; and as no long journeys had
been undertaken since the time of Haroun al Raschid, their maps of
the different countries were in a still worse plight than themselves.
Every one was ignorant which way to turn; for Vathek, though well
versed in the course of the heavens, no longer knew his situation on
earth. He thundered even louder than the elements, and muttered
forth certain hints of the bowstring which were not very soothing to
literary ears. Disgusted at the toilsome weariness of the way, he
determined to cross over the craggy heights, and follow the
guidance of a peasant, who undertook to bring him, in four days, to
Rocnabad. Remonstrances were all to no purpose, his resolution
was fixed, and an invasion commenced on the province of the goats,
who sped away in large troops before them. It was curious to view
on these half calcined rocks camels richly caparisoned, and pavilions
of gold and silk waving on their summits, which till then had never
been covered, but with sapless thistles and fern.
The females and eunuchs uttered shrill wailings at the sight of the
precipices below them, and the dreary prospects that opened in the
vast gorges of the mountains. Before they could reach the ascent of
the steepest rock night overtook them, and a boisterous tempest
arose, which having rent the awnings of the palanquins and cages,
exposed to the raw gusts the poor ladies within, who had never
before felt so piercing a cold. The dark clouds that overcast the face
of the sky deepened the horrors of this disastrous night, insomuch
that nothing could be heard distinctly but the mewling of pages, and
lamentations of sultanas.
To increase the general misfortune, the frightful uproar of wild
beasts resounded at a distance, and there were soon perceived in
the forest they were skirting the glaring of eyes which could belong
only to devils or tigers. The pioneers, who as well as they could,
had marked out a track, and a part of the advanced guard were
devoured before they had been in the least apprised of their danger.
The confusion that prevailed was extreme. Wolves, tigers, and other
carnivorous animals, invited by the howling of their companions,
flocked together from every quarter. The crushing of bones was
heard on all sides, and a fearful rush of wings over head, for now
vultures also began to be of the party.
The terror at length reached the main body of the troops which
surrounded the monarch and his harem, at the distance of two
leagues from the scene. Vathek (voluptuously reposed in his
capacious litter upon cushions of silk, with two little pages beside
him, of complexions more fair than the enamel of Franguestan, who
were occupied in keeping off flies) was soundly asleep, and
contemplating in his dreams the treasures of Soliman. The shrieks,
however, of his wives awoke him with a start, and instead of the
Giaour with his key of gold, he beheld Bababalouk full of
consternation.
“Sire,” exclaimed this good servant of the most potent of monarchs,
“misfortune has arrived at its height; wild beasts, who entertain no
more reverence for your sacred person than for that of a dead ass,
have beset your camels and their drivers: thirty of the richest laden
are already become their prey, as well as all your confectioners, your
cooks, and purveyors, and unless our holy prophet should protect
us, we shall have all eaten our last meal.”
At the mention of eating, the Caliph lost all patience. He began to
bellow, and even beat himself, for there was no seeing in the dark.
The rumour every instant increased, and Bababalouk finding no
good could be done with his master stopped both his ears against
the hurly-burly of the harem, and called out aloud:
“Come, ladies and brothers! all hands to work! strike light in a
moment! never shall it be said that the commander of the faithful
served to regale these infidel brutes.”
Though there wanted not in this bevy of beauties a sufficient
number of capricious and wayward, yet, on the present occasion
they were all compliance. Fires were visible in a twinkling in all their
cages. Ten thousand torches were lighted at once. The Caliph
himself seized a large one of wax; every person followed his
example; and by kindling ropes ends dipped in oil and fastened on
poles, an amazing blaze was spread. The rocks were covered with
the splendour of sunshine. The trails of sparks wafted by the wind,
communicated to the dry fern, of which there was plenty. Serpents
were observed to crawl forth from their retreats with amazement
and hissings, whilst the horses snorted, stamped the ground, tossed
their noses in the air, and plunged about without mercy.
One of the forests of cedar that bordered their way took fire, and
the branches that overhung the path extending their flames to the
muslins and chintzes which covered the cages of the ladies, obliged
them to jump out at the peril of their necks. Vathek, who vented on
the occasion a thousand blasphemies, was himself compelled to
touch with his sacred feet the naked earth.
Never had such an incident happened before. Full of mortification,
shame and despondence, and not knowing how to walk, the ladies
fell into the dirt.
“Must I go on foot,” said one.
“Must I wet my feet,” cried another.
“Must I soil my dress,” asked a third.
“Execrable Bababalouk,” exclaimed all; “Outcast of hell! what hadst
thou to do with torches? Better were it to be eaten by tigers than to
fall into our present condition; we are for ever undone. Not a porter
is there in the army, nor a currier of camels but hath seen some part
of our bodies, and what is worse, our very faces!”
On saying this, the most bashful amongst them hid their foreheads
on the ground, whilst such as had more boldness flew at
Bababalouk, but he, well apprised of their humour, and not wanting
in shrewdness, betook himself to his heels along with his comrades,
all dropping their torches and striking their tymbals.
It was not less light than in the brightest of the dog-days, and the
weather was hot in proportion; but how degrading was the
spectacle, to behold the Caliph bespattered like an ordinary mortal!
As the exercise of his faculties seemed to be suspended, one of his
Ethiopian wives (for he delighted in variety) clasped him in her arms,
threw him upon her shoulder like a sack of dates, and finding that
the fire was hemming them in, set off with no small expedition,
considering the weight of her burden. The other ladies who had just
learned the use of their feet followed her; their guards galloped
after; and the camel drivers brought up the rear as fast as their
charge would permit.
They soon reached the spot where the wild beasts had commenced
the carnage, and which they had too much spirit to leave,
notwithstanding the approaching tumult, and the luxurious supper
they had made. Bababalouk nevertheless seized on a few of the
plumpest, which were unable to budge from the place, and began to
flay them with admirable adroitness. The cavalcade being got so far
from the conflagration as that the heat felt rather grateful than
violent, it was immediately resolved on to halt. The tattered
chintzes were picked up; the scraps left by the wolves and tigers
interred; and vengeance was taken on some dozens of vultures that
were too much glutted to rise on the wing. The camels which had
been left unmolested to make sal-ammoniac being numbered, and
the ladies once more inclosed in their cages, the imperial tent was
pitched on the levellest ground they could find.
Vathek, reposing upon a matress of down, and tolerably recovered
from the jolting of the Ethiopian, who, to his feelings seemed the
roughest trotting jade he had hitherto mounted, called out for
something to eat; but alas! those delicate cakes which had been
baked in silver ovens for his royal mouth, those rich manchets,
amber comfits, flaggons of Schiraz wine, porcelain vases of snow,
and grapes from the banks of the Tigris, were all irremediably lost;
and nothing had Bababalouk to present in their stead, but a roasted
wolf, vultures à la daube, aromatic herbs of the most acrid
poignancy, rotten truffles, boiled thistles, and such other wild plants
as must ulcerate the throat and parch up the tongue. Nor was he
better provided in the article of drink, for he could procure nothing
to accompany these irritating viands but a few phials of abominable
brandy, which had been secreted by the scullions in their slippers.
Vathek made wry faces at so savage a repast, and Bababalouk
answered them with shrugs and contortions. The Caliph however
ate with tolerable appetite, and fell into a nap that lasted six hours.
The splendour of the sun, reflected from the white cliffs of the
mountains in spite of the curtains that inclosed him, at length
disturbed his repose. He awoke terrified, and stung to the quick by
those wormwood-coloured flies which emit from their wings a
suffocating stench. The miserable monarch was perplexed how to
act, though his wits were not idle in seeking expedients, whilst
Bababalouk lay snoring amidst a swarm of those insects, that busily
thronged to pay court to his nose. The little pages, famished with
hunger, had dropped their fans on the ground, and exerted their
dying voices in bitter reproaches on the Caliph, who now for the first
time heard the language of truth.
Thus stimulated, he renewed his imprecations against the Giaour,
and bestowed upon Mahomet some soothing expressions.
“Where am I?” cried he; “What are these dreadful rocks; these
valleys of darkness? Are we arrived at the horrible Kaf? [67a] Is the
Simurgh [67b] coming to pluck out my eyes as a punishment for
undertaking this impious enterprise?”
Having said this, he bellowed like a calf, and turned himself towards
an outlet in the side of his pavilion. But alas! what objects occurred
to his view! on one side a plain of black sand that appeared to be
unbounded, and on the other perpendicular crags bristled over with
those abominable thistles which had so severely lacerated his
tongue. He fancied, however, that he perceived amongst the
brambles and briars some gigantic flowers, but was mistaken, for
these were only the dangling palampores and variegated tatters of
his gay retinue. As there were several clefts in the rock from
whence water seemed to have flowed, Vathek applied his ear with
the hope of catching the sound of some latent runnel, but could only
distinguish the low murmurs of his people, who were repining at
their journey, and complaining for the want of water.
“To what purpose,” asked they, “have we been brought hither? Hath
our Caliph another tower to build? or have the relentless Afrits [67c]
whom Carathis so much loves, fixed in this place their abode?”
At the name of Carathis, Vathek recollected the tablets he had
received from his mother, who assured him they were fraught with
preternatural qualities, and advised him to consult them as
emergencies might require. Whilst he was engaged in turning them
over, he heard a shout of joy, and a loud clapping of hands. The
curtains of his pavilion were soon drawn back, and he beheld
Bababalouk, followed by a troop of his favourites, conducting two
dwarfs, each a cubit high, who brought between them a large basket
of melons, oranges, and pomegranites. They were singing in the
sweetest tones the words that follow:
“We dwell on the top of these rocks, in a cabin of rushes and canes;
the eagles envy us our nest; a small spring supplies us with abdest,
and we daily repeat prayers which the prophet approves. We love
you, O commander of the faithful! our master, the good emir
Fakreddin, loves you also; he reveres in your person the vicegerent
of Mahomet. Little as we are, in us he confides; he knows our
hearts to be good, as our bodies are contemptible, and hath placed
us here to aid those who are bewildered on these dreary
mountains. Last night, whilst we were occupied within our cell in
reading the holy koran, a sudden hurricane blew out our lights and
rocked our habitation. For two whole hours a palpable darkness
prevailed: but we heard sounds at a distance which we conjectured
to proceed from the bells of a cafila, passing over the rocks. Our
ears were soon filled with deplorable shrieks, frightful roarings, and
the sound of tymbals. Chilled with terror, we concluded that the
Deggial [68] with his exterminating angels had sent forth their
plagues on the earth. In the midst of these melancholy reflections,
we perceived flames of the deepest red glow in the horizon, and
found ourselves in a few moments covered with flakes of fire.
Amazed at so strange an appearance, we took up the volume
dictated by the blessed intelligence, and kneeling by the light of the
fire that surrounded us, we recited the verse which says: ‘Put no
trust in any thing but the mercy of heaven; there is no help save in
the holy prophet; the mountain of Kaf itself may tremble; it is the
power of Alla only that cannot be moved.’ After having pronounced
these words, we felt consolation, and our minds were hushed into a
sacred repose. Silence ensued, and our ears clearly distinguished a
voice in the air, saying: ‘Servants of my faithful servant, go down to
the happy valley of Fakreddin; tell him that an illustrious opportunity
now offers to satiate the thirst of his hospitable heart. The
commander of true believers is this day bewildered amongst these
mountains, and stands in need of thy aid.’ We obeyed with joy the
angelic mission, and our master, filled with pious zeal, hath culled
with his own hands these melons, oranges, and pomegranites. He is
following us with a hundred dromedaries laden with the purest
waters of his fountains, and is coming to kiss the fringe of your
consecrated robe, and implore you to enter his humble habitation,
which, placed amidst these barren wilds, resembles an emerald set
in lead.”
The dwarfs having ended their address, remained still standing, and
with hands crossed upon their bosoms, preserved a respectful
silence.
Vathek, in the midst of this curious harangue seized the basket, and
long before it was finished, the fruits had dissolved in his mouth. As
he continued to eat, his piety increased, and in the same breath
which recited his prayers, he called for the koran and sugar.
Such was the state of his mind when the tablets, which were thrown
by at the approach of the dwarfs, again attracted his eye. He took
them up, but was ready to drop on the ground when he beheld, in
large red characters, these words inscribed by Carathis, which were
indeed enough to make him tremble.
“Beware of thy old doctors, and their puny messengers of but one
cubit high; distrust their pious frauds; and instead of eating their
melons, impale on a spit the bearers of them. Shouldst thou be
such a fool as to visit them, the portal of the subterranean palace
will be shut in thy face, and with such force as shall shake thee
asunder; thy body shall be spit upon, and bats will engender in thy
belly.”
“To what tends this ominous rhapsody?” cries the Caliph; “and must
I then perish in these deserts with thirst, whilst I may refresh myself
in the valley of melons and cucumbers? Accursed be the Giaour with
his portal of ebony! he hath made me dance attendance too long
already. Besides, who shall prescribe laws to me? I, forsooth, must
not enter any one’s habitation! Be it so, but what one can I enter
that is not my own.”
Bababalouk, who lost not a syllable of this soliloquy, applauded it
with all his heart; and the ladies, for the first time, agreed with him
in opinion. The dwarfs were entertained, caressed, and seated with
great ceremony on little cushions of satin. The symmetry of their
persons was the subject of criticism; not an inch of them was
suffered to pass unexamined. Nick-nacks and dainties were offered
in profusion, but all were declined with respectful gravity. They
clambered up the sides of the Caliph’s seat, and placing themselves
each on one of his shoulders, began to whisper prayers in his ears.
Their tongues quivered like the leaves of a poplar, and the patience
of Vathek was almost exhausted, when the acclamations of the
troops announced the approach of Fakreddin, who was come with a
hundred old grey-beards, and as many korans and dromedaries.
They instantly set about their ablutions, and began to repeat the
Bismillah. Vathek, to get rid of these officious monitors, followed
their example, for his hands were burning.
The good Emir, who was punctiliously religious, and likewise a great
dealer in compliments, made an harangue five times more prolix and
insipid than his harbingers had already delivered. The Caliph,
unable any longer to refrain, exclaimed:
“For the love of Mahomet, my dear Fakreddin, have done! let us
proceed to your valley, and enjoy the fruits that heaven hath
vouchsafed you.” The hint of proceeding put all into motion. The
venerable attendants of the emir set forward somewhat slowly, but
Vathek having ordered his little pages, in private, to goad on the
dromedaries, loud fits of laughter broke forth from the cages, for the
unwieldy curvetting of these poor beasts, and the ridiculous distress
of their superannuated riders afforded the ladies no small
entertainment.
They descended, however, unhurt into the valley, by the large steps
which the emir had cut in the rock; and already the murmuring of
streams and the rustling of leaves began to catch their attention.
The cavalcade soon entered a path, which was skirted by flowering
shrubs, and extended to a vast wood of palm-trees whose branches
overspread a building of hewn stone. This edifice was crowned with
nine domes, and adorned with as many portals of bronze, on which
was engraven the following inscription:
“This is the asylum of pilgrims, the refuge of travellers, and the
depository of secrets for all parts of the world.”
Nine pages beautiful as the day, and clothed in robes of Egyptian
linen, very long and very modest, were standing at each door. They
received the whole retinue with an easy and inviting air. Four of the
most amiable placed the Caliph on a magnificent taktrevan; four
others, somewhat less graceful, took charge of Bababalouk, who
capered for joy at the snug little cabin that fell to his share; the
pages that remained, waited on the rest of the train.
When every thing masculine was gone out of sight, the gate of a
large inclosure on the right turned on its harmonious hinges, and a
young female of a slender form came forth. Her light brown hair
floated in the hazy breeze of the twilight. A troop of young maidens,
like the Pleiades, attended her on tip-toe. They hastened to the
pavilions that contained the sultanas; and the young lady gracefully
bending said to them:
“Charming princesses, every thing is ready; we have prepared beds
for your repose, and strewed your apartments with jasamine; no
insects will keep off slumber from visiting your eyelids; we will dispel
them with a thousand plumes. Come then, amiable ladies! refresh
your delicate feet and your ivory limbs in baths of rose water, and by
the light of perfumed lamps your servants will amuse you with tales.”
The sultanas accepted with pleasure these obliging offers, and
followed the young lady to the emir’s harem, where we must for a
moment leave them and return to the Caliph.
Vathek found himself beneath a vast dome illuminated by a
thousand lamps of rock crystal, as many vases of the same material
filled with excellent sherbet sparkled on a large table, where a
profusion of viands were spread. Amongst others were sweetbreads
stewed in milk of almonds, saffron soups, and lamb à la crême, of all
of which the Caliph was amazingly fond. He took of each as much
as he was able; testified his sense of the emir’s friendship by the
gaiety of his heart; and made the dwarfs dance against their will; for
these little devotees durst not refuse the commander of the faithful.
At last he spread himself on the sofa and slept sounder than he had
ever before.
Beneath this dome a general silence prevailed, for there was nothing
to disturb it but the jaws of Bababalouk, who had untrussed himself
to eat with greater advantage, being anxious to make amends for
his fast in the mountains. As his spirits were too high to admit of his
sleeping, and not loving to be idle, he proposed with himself to visit
the harem, and repair to his charge of the ladies, to examine if they
had been properly lubricated with the balm of Mecca, if their eye-
brows and tresses were in order, and in a word, to perform all the
little offices they might need. He sought for a long time together,
but without being able to find out the door. He durst not speak
aloud for fear of disturbing the Caliph, and not a soul was stirring in
the precincts of the palace. He almost despaired of effecting his
purpose, when a low whispering just reached his ear: it came from
the dwarfs, who were returned to their old occupation, and for the
nine hundred and ninety-ninth time in their lives were reading over
the koran. They very politely invited Bababalouk to be of their party,
but his head was full of other concerns. The dwarfs, though
scandalized at his dissolute morals, directed him to the apartments
he wanted to find. His way thither lay through a hundred dark
corridors, along which he groped as he went, and at last began to
catch, from the extremity of a passage, the charming gossiping of
women, which not a little delighted his heart.
“Ah, ah! what not yet asleep?” cried he, and taking long strides as
he spoke, “did you not suspect me of abjuring my charge? I stayed
but to finish what my master had left.”
Two of the black eunuchs on hearing a voice so loud detached a
party in haste, sabre in hand, to discover the cause, but presently
was repeated on all sides:
“’Tis only Bababalouk, no one but Bababalouk!”
This circumspect guardian having gone up to a thin veil of carnation
colour silk that hung before the doorway, distinguished by means of
a softened splendour that shone through it, an oval bath of dark
porphyry surrounded by curtains festooned in large folds. Through
the apertures between them, as they were not drawn close, groups
of young slaves were visible, amongst whom Bababalouk perceived
his pupils indulgingly expanding their arms, as if to embrace the
perfumed water, and refresh themselves after their fatigues. The
looks of tender languor, their confidential whispers, and the
enchanting smiles with which they were imparted, the exquisite
fragrance of the roses, all combined to inspire a voluptuousness
which even Bababalouk himself was scarce able to withstand.
He summoned up, however, his usual solemnity, and in the
peremptory tone of authority commanded the ladies instantly to
leave the bath. Whilst he was issuing these mandates, the young
Nouronihar, daughter of the emir, who was sprightly as an antelope,
and full of wanton gaiety, beckoned one of her slaves to let down
the great swing, which was suspended to the ceiling by cords of silk,
and whilst this was doing winked to her companions in the bath,
who chagrined to be forced from so soothing a state of indolence,
began to twist it round Bababalouk, and teaze him with a thousand
vagaries.
When Nouronihar perceived that he was exhausted with fatigue, she
accosted him with an arch air of respectful concern, and said:
“My lord, it is not by any means decent that the chief eunuch of the
Caliph our sovereign should thus continue standing, deign but to
recline your graceful person upon this sofa, which will burst with
vexation if it have not the honour to receive you.”
Caught by these flattering accents, Bababalouk gallantly replied:
“Delight of the apple of my eye! I accept the invitation of thy honied
lips, and to say truth, my senses are dazzled with the radiance that
beams from thy charms.”
“Repose, then, at your ease,” replied the beauty, and placed him on
the pretended sofa, which, quicker than lightning, gave way all at
once. The rest of the women having aptly conceived her design,
sprang naked from the bath and plied the swing with such
unmerciful jerks, that it swept through the whole compass of a very
lofty dome, and took from the poor victim all power of respiration.
Sometimes his feet rased the surface of the water, and at others the
skylight almost flattened his nose. In vain did he pierce the air with
the cries of a voice that resembled the ringing of a cracked basin, for
their peals of laughter were still more predominant.
Nouronihar in the inebriety of youthful spirits being used only to
eunuchs of ordinary harems, and having never seen any thing so
royal and disgusting, was far more diverted than all of the rest. She
began to parody some Persian verses, and sung with an accent most
demurely piquant:
 “O gentle white dove as thou soar’st through the air,
Vouchsafe one kind glance on the mate of thy love:
Melodious Philomel I am thy rose;
Warble some couplet to ravish my heart!”

The sultanas and their slaves stimulated by these pleasantries

persevered at the swing with such unremitted assiduity, that at
length the cord which had secured it snapped suddenly asunder, and
Bababalouk fell floundering like a turtle to the bottom of the bath.
This accident occasioned a universal shout. Twelve little doors till
now unobserved flew open at once, and the ladies in an instant
made their escape, after throwing all the towels on his head, and
putting out the lights that remained.
The deplorable animal, in water to the chin, overwhelmed with
darkness, and unable to extricate himself from the warp that
embarrassed him, was still doomed to hear for his further
consolation, the fresh bursts of merriment his disaster occasioned.
He bustled but in vain to get from the bath, for the margin was
become so slippery with the oil spilt in breaking the lamps, that at
every effort he slid back with a plunge, which resounded aloud
through the hollow of the dome. These cursed peals of laughter at
every relapse were redoubled, and he, who thought the place
infested rather by devils than women, resolved to cease groping,
and abide in the bath, where he amused himself with soliloquies
interspersed with imprecations, of which his malicious neighbours,
reclining on down, suffered not an accent to escape. In this
delectable plight the morning surprised him. The Caliph, wondering
at his absence, had caused him to be everywhere sought for. At last
he was drawn forth almost smothered from the whisp of linen, and
wet even to the marrow. Limping, and chattering his teeth, he
appeared before his master, who inquired what was the matter, and
how he came soused in so strange a pickle.
“And why did you enter this cursed lodge?” answered Bababalouk,
gruffly. “Ought a monarch like you to visit with his harem the abode
of a grey bearded emir who knows nothing of life? And with what
gracious damsels does the place too abound! Fancy to yourself how
they have soaked me like a burnt crust, and made me dance like a
jack-pudding the live-long night through on their damnable swing.
What an excellent lesson for your sultanas to follow, into whom I
have instilled such reserve and decorum!”
Vathek, comprehending not a syllable of all this invective, obliged
him to relate minutely the transaction; but instead of sympathising
with the miserable sufferer, he laughed immoderately at the device
of the swing, and the figure of Bababalouk mounting upon it. The
stung eunuch could scarcely preserve the semblance of respect.
“Aye, laugh my lord! laugh,” said he, “but I wish this Nouronihar
would play some trick on you; she is too wicked to spare even
majesty itself.”
These words made for the present but a slight impression on the
Caliph, but they not long after recurred to his mind.
This conversation was cut short by Fakreddin, who came to request
that Vathek would join in the prayers and ablutions to be solemnized
on a spacious meadow, watered by innumerable streams. The
Caliph found the waters refreshing, but the prayers abominably
irksome. He diverted himself however with the multitude of
Calenders, [79a] Santons, [79b] and Dervises [79c] who were
continually coming and going, but especially with the Brahmins, [79d]
Faquirs, [79e] and other enthusiasts, who had travelled from the
heart of India, and halted on their way with the emir. These latter
had each of them some mummery peculiar to himself. One dragged
a huge chain where ever he went, another an ourang-outang, whilst
a third was furnished with scourges, and all performed to a charm.
Some clambered up trees, holding one foot in the air; others poised
themselves over a fire, and without mercy fillipped their noses.
There were some amongst them that cherished vermin, which were
not ungrateful in requiting their caresses. These rambling fanatics
revolted the hearts of the Dervises, the Calenders, and Santons;
however the vehemence of their aversion soon subsided under the
hope that the presence of the Caliph would cure their folly, and
convert them to the Mussulman faith. But alas! how great was their
disappointment! for Vathek, instead of preaching to them, treated
them as buffoons; bade them present his compliments to Visnow
and Ixhora, and discovered a predilection for a squat old man from
the Isle of Serendib, who was more ridiculous than any of the rest.
“Come,” said he, “for the love of your gods, bestow a few slaps on
your chops to amuse me.”
The old fellow offended at such an address began loudly to weep;
but as he betrayed a villainous drivelling in his tears, the Caliph
turned his back and listened to Bababalouk, who whispered, whilst
he held the umbrella over him:
“Your majesty should be cautious of this odd assembly, which hath
been collected I know not for what. Is it necessary to exhibit such
spectacles to a mighty potentate, with interludes of talapoins more
mangy than dogs? Were I you, I would command a fire to be
kindled, and at once purge the earth of the emir, his harem, and all
his menagery.”
“Tush, dolt,” answered Vathek, “and know that all this infinitely
charms me. Nor shall I leave the meadow till I have visited every
hive of these pious mendicants.”
Where ever the Caliph directed his course, objects of pity were sure
to swarm round him: the blind, the purblind, smarts without noses,
damsels without ears, each to extol the munificence of Fakreddin,
who, as well as his attendant grey-beards, dealt about gratis plasters
and cataplasms to all that applied. At noon a superb corps of
cripples made its appearance; and soon after advanced by platoons
on the plain the completest association of invalids that had ever
been embodied till then. The blind went groping with the blind; the
lame limped on together; and the maimed made gestures to each
other with the only arm that remained. The sides of a considerable
waterfall were crowded by the deaf, amongst whom were some from
Pegu, with ears uncommonly handsome and large, but were still less
able to hear than the rest. Nor were there wanting others in
abundance with hump backs, wenny necks, and even horns of an
exquisite polish.
The emir, to aggrandize the solemnity of the festival in honour of his
illustrious visitant, ordered the turf to be spread on all sides with
skins and table cloths, upon which were served up for the good
mussulmans pilaus of every hue, with other orthodox dishes, and by
the express order of Vathek, who was shamefully tolerant, small
plates of abominations for regaling the rest. This prince on seeing
so many mouths put in motion began to think it time for employing
his own. In spite, therefore, of every remonstrance from the chief of
his eunuchs, he resolved to have a dinner dressed on the spot. The
complaisant emir immediately gave orders for a table to be placed in
the shade of the willows. The first service consisted of fish, which
they drew from a river flowing over sands of gold, at the foot of a
lofty hill: these were broiled as fast as taken, and served up with a
sauce of vinegar and small herbs that grew on Mount Sinai; for
everything with the emir was excellent and pious.
The dessert was not quite set on when the sound of lutes from the
hill was repeated by the echoes of the neighbouring mountains. The
Caliph with an emotion of pleasure and surprise, had no sooner
raised up his head than a handful of jasamine dropped on his face.
An abundance of tittering succeeded this frolic, and instantly
appeared through the bushes the elegant forms of several young
females, skipping and bounding like roes. The fragrance diffused
from their hair struck the sense of Vathek, who in an ecstasy,
suspending his repast, said to Bababalouk:

“Are the Peries [82] come down from their spheres? Note her in
particular whose form is so perfect, venturously running on the brink
of the precipice, and turning back her head as regardless of nothing
but the graceful flow of her robe. With what captivating impatience
doth she contend with the bushes for her veil? Could it be she who
threw the jasamine at me?”
“Aye, she it was; and you too would she throw from the top of the
rock,” answered Bababalouk, “for that is my good friend Nouronihar,
who so kindly lent me her swing. My dear lord and master,” added
he, twisting a twig that hung by the rind from a willow, “let me
correct her for her want of respect: the emir will have no reason to
complain, since (bating what I owe to his piety) he is much to be
censured for keeping a troop of girls on the mountains, whose sharp
air gives their blood too brisk a circulation.”
“Peace, blasphemer!” said the Caliph: “speak not thus of her who
over her mountains leads my heart a willing captive. Contrive,
rather, that my eyes may be fixed upon hers—that I may respire her
sweet breath, as she bounds panting along these delightful wilds!”
On saying these words, Vathek extended his arms towards the hill,
and directing his eyes with an anxiety unknown to him before,
endeavoured to keep within view the object that enthralled his soul;
but her course was as difficult to follow as the flight of one of those
beautiful blue butterflies of Cachmere, which are at once so volatile
and rare.
The Caliph, not satisfied with seeing, wished also to hear
Nouronihar, and eagerly turned to catch the sound of her voice. At
last he distinguished her whispering to one of her companions
behind the thicket from whence she had thrown the jasamine:
“A Caliph, it must be owned, is a fine thing to see, but my little
Gulchenrouz is much more amiable; one lock of his hair is of more
value to me than the richest embroidery of the Indies. I had rather
that his teeth should mischievously press my finger, than the richest
ring of the imperial treasure. Where have you left him, Sutlememe?
and why is he now not here?”
The agitated Caliph still wished to hear more, but she immediately
retired with all her attendants. The fond monarch pursued her with
his eyes till she was gone out of sight, and then continued like a
bewildered and benighted traveller, from whom the clouds had
obscured the constellation that guided his way. The curtain of night
seemed dropped before him—everything appeared discoloured. The
falling waters filled his soul with dejection, and his tears trickled
down the jasamines he had caught from Nouronihar, and placed in
his inflamed bosom. He snatched up a shining pebble to remind him
of the scene where he felt the first tumults of love. Two hours were
elapsed, and evening drew on before he could resolve to depart
from the place. He often, but in vain, attempted to go: a soft
languor enervated the powers of his mind. Extending himself on the
brink of the stream, he turned his eyes towards the blue summits of
the mountain, and exclaimed:
“What concealest thou behind thee? what is passing in thy
solitudes? Whither is she gone? O heaven! perhaps she is now
wandering in the grottoes with her happy Gulchenrouz!”
In the mean time the damps began to descend, and the emir,
solicitous for the health of the Caliph, ordered the imperial litter to
be brought. Vathek, absorbed in his reveries, was imperceptibly
removed and conveyed back to the saloon that received him the
evening before.
But let us leave the Caliph immersed in his new passion, and attend
Nouronihar beyond the rocks, where she had again joined her
beloved Gulchenrouz. This Gulchenrouz was the son of Ali Hassan,
brother to the emir, and the most delicate and lovely creature in the
world. Ali Hassan, who had been absent ten years on a voyage to
the unknown seas, committed at his departure this child, the only
survivor of many, to the care and protection of his brother.
Gulchenrouz could write in various characters with precision, and
paint upon vellum the most elegant arabesques that fancy could
devise. His sweet voice accompanied the lute in the most
enchanting manner; and when he sung the loves of Megnoun and
Leileh, or some unfortunate lovers of ancient days, tears insensibly
overflowed the cheeks of his auditors. The verses he composed (for
like Megnoun, he too was a poet) inspired that unresisting languor
so frequently fatal to the female heart. The women all doated upon
him, for though he had passed his thirteenth year, they still detained
him in the harem. His dancing was light as the gossamer waved by
the zephyrs of spring; but his arms which twined so gracefully with
those of the young girls in the dance, could neither dart the lance in
the chase, nor curb the steeds that pastured his uncle’s domains.
The bow, however, he drew with a certain aim, and would have
excelled his competitors in the race, could he have broken the ties
that bound him to Nouronihar.
The two brothers had mutually engaged their children to each other;
and Nouronihar loved her cousin more than her eyes. Both had the
same tastes and amusements; the same long languishing looks; the
same tresses; the same fair complexions; and when Gulchenrouz
appeared in the dress of his cousin, he seemed to be more feminine
than even herself. If at any time he left the harem to visit
Fakreddin, it was with all the bashfulness of a fawn that consciously
ventures from the lair of its dam; he was however wanton enough to
mock the solemn old grey-beards to whom he was subject, though
sure to be rated without mercy in return. Whenever this happened,
he would plunge into the recesses of the harem, and sobbing take
refuge in the arms of Nouronihar, who loved even his faults beyond
the virtues of others.
It fell out this evening that after leaving the Caliph in the meadow,
she ran with Gulchenrouz over the green sward of the mountain that
sheltered the vale, where Fakreddin had chosen to reside. The sun
was dilated on the edge of the horizon; and the young people,
whose fancies were lively and inventive, imagined they beheld in the
gorgeous clouds of the west the domes of Shadukiam and
Ambreabad, where the Peries have fixed their abode. Nouronihar,
sitting on the slope of the hill, supported on her knees the perfumed
head of Gulchenrouz. The air was calm, and no sound stirred but
the voices of other young girls who were drawing cool water from
the streams below. The unexpected arrival of the Caliph, and the
splendour that marked his appearance, had already filled with
emotion the ardent soul of Nouronihar. Her vanity irresistibly
prompted her to pique the prince’s attention, and this she before
took good care to effect whilst he picked up the jasamine she had
thrown upon him. But when Gulchenrouz asked after the flowers he
had culled for her bosom, Nouronihar was all in confusion. She
hastily kissed his forehead, arose in a flutter, and walked with
unequal steps on the border of the precipice. Night advanced, and
the pure gold of the setting sun had yielded to a sanguine red, the
glow of which, like the reflection of a burning furnace, flushed
Nouronihar’s animated countenance. Gulchenrouz alarmed at the
agitation of his cousin, said to her with a supplicating accent:
“Let us be gone; the sky looks portentious: the tamarisks tremble
more than common; and the raw wind chills my very heart. Come,
let us be gone, ’tis a melancholy night.”
Then taking hold of her hand he drew it towards the path he
besought her to go. Nouronihar unconsciously followed the
attraction, for a thousand strange imaginations occupied her spirit.
She passed the large round of honeysuckles, her favourite resort,
without ever vouchsafing it a glance, yet Gulchenrouz could not help
snatching off a few shoots in his way, though he ran as if a wild
beast were behind.
The young females seeing him approach in such haste, and
according to custom expecting a dance, instantly assembled in a
circle and took each other by the hand, but Gulchenrouz coming up
out of breath, fell down at once on the grass. This accident struck
with consternation the whole of this frolicsome party, whilst
Nouronihar, half distracted, and overcome both by the violence of
her exercise and the tumult of her thoughts, sunk feebly down at his
side, cherished his cold hands in her bosom, and chafed his temples
with a fragrant unguent. At length he came to himself, and
wrapping up his head in the robe of his cousin, entreated that she
would not return to the harem. He was afraid of being snapped at
by Shaban his tutor, a wrinkled old eunuch of a surly disposition, for
having interrupted the stated walk of Nouronihar, he dreaded lest
the churl should take it amiss. The whole of this sprightly group,
sitting round upon a mossy knole, began to entertain themselves
with various pastimes, whilst their superintendents the eunuchs
were gravely conversing at a distance. The nurse of the emir’s
daughter observing her pupil sit ruminating with her eyes on the
ground, endeavoured to amuse her with diverting tales, to which
Gulchenrouz, who had already forgotten his inquietudes, listened
with a breathless attention. He laughed; he clapped his hands; and
passed a hundred little tricks on the whole of the company, without
omitting the eunuchs, whom he provoked to run after him, in spite
of their age and decrepitude.
During these occurrences the moon arose, the wind subsided, and
the evening became so serene and inviting that a resolution was
taken to sup on the spot. Sutlememe, who excelled in dressing a
salad, having filled large bowls of porcelain with eggs of small birds,
curds turned with citron juice, slices of cucumber, and the inmost
leaves of delicate herbs, handed it round from one to another, and
gave each their shares in a large spoon of cocknos. Gulchenrouz
nestling as usual in the bosom of Nouronihar, pouted out his
vermillion little lips against the offer of Sutlememe, and would take it
only from the hand of his cousin, on whose mouth he hung like a
bee inebriated with the quintessence of flowers. One of the eunuchs
ran to fetch melons, whilst others were employed in showering down
almonds from the branches that overhung this amiable party.
In the midst of this festive scene there appeared a light on the top
of the highest mountain, which attracted the notice of every eye.
This light was not less bright than the moon when at full, and might
have been taken for her had it not been that the moon was already
risen. The phenomenon occasioned a general surprise, and no one
could conjecture the cause. It could not be a fire, for the light was
clear and bluish; nor had meteors ever been seen of that magnitude
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dramatis
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Title: Dramatis Personæ

Author: Arthur Symons

Release date: May 29, 2020 [eBook #62270]

Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRAMATIS

PERSONÆ ***
 DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
BY

ARTHUR SYMONS

INDIANAPOLIS

THE BOOBS-MERRILL COMPANY

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Although it would be presumptuous to introduce the work of Arthur

Symons, a word or two about this particular collection may not be
out of place. A number of these essays have appeared in
representative American and English periodicals, but their
preservation here needs no apology as they have already earned a
meritorious place in the bibliography of English criticism. The
publisher believes, also, that the critical reader must realize the
futility of any attempt to correct discrepancies due to the death of
contemporaries, or augmentations to their work, lest the essays as
originally conceived by the author suffer in spirit.

CONTENTS

CONRAD
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
EMILY BRONTË
ON ENGLISH AND FRENCH FICTION
ON CRITICISM
THE DECADENT MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE
THE ROSSETTIS
CONFESSIONS AND COMMENTS
FRANCIS THOMPSON
COVENTRY PATMORE
SIR WILLIAM WATSON
EMIL VERHAEREN
A NEGLECTED GENIUS: SIR RICHARD BURTON
EDGAR SALTUS
RECOLLECTIONS OF RÉJANE
THE RUSSIAN BALLETS
ON HAMLET AND HAMLETS
LEONARDO DA VINCI
IMPRESSIONISTIC WRITING
PARADOXES ON POETS

DRAMATIS PERS0NÆ

CONRAD

"The Earth is a Temple where there is going on a Mystery Play,

childish and poignant, ridiculous and awful enough in all
conscience."

Conrad's inexplicable mind has created for itself a secret world to

live in, some corner stealthily hidden away from view, among
impenetrable forests, on the banks of untraveled rivers. From that
corner, like a spider in his web, he throws out tentacles into the
darkness; he gathers in his spoils, he collects them like a miser,
stripping from them their dreams and visions to decorate his web
magnificently. He chooses among them, and sends out into the
world shadowy messengers, for the troubling of the peace of man,
self-satisfied in his ignorance of the invisible. At the center of his
web sits an elemental sarcasm discussing human affairs with a calm
and cynical ferocity; "that particular field whose mission is to jog the
memories of men, lest they should forget the meaning of life."
Behind that sarcasm crouches some ghastly influence, outside
humanity, some powerful devil, invisible, poisonous, irresistible,
spawning evil for his delight. They guard this secret corner of the
world with mists and delusions, so that very few of those to whom
the shadowy messengers have revealed themselves can come nearer
than the outer edge of it.
Beyond and below this obscure realm, beyond and below human
nature itself, Conrad is seen through the veil of the persons of his
drama, living a hidden, exasperated life. And it is by his sympathy
with these unpermitted things, the "aggravated witch-dance" in his
brain, that Conrad is severed from all material associations, as if
stupendously uncivilized, consumed by a continual protest, an
insatiable thirst, unsatisfied to be condemned to the mere exercise
of a prodigious genius.
Conrad's depth of wisdom must trouble and terrify those who read
him for entertainment. There are few secrets in the mind of men or
in the pitiless heart of nature that he has not captured and made his
plaything. He calls up all the dreams and illusions by which men
have been destroyed and saved, and lays them mockingly naked. He
is the master of dreams, the interpreter of illusions, the chronicler of
memory. He shows the bare side of every virtue, the hidden heroism
of every vice or crime. He calls up before him all the injustices that
have come to birth out of ignorance and self-love. He shows how
failure is success, and success failure, and that the sinner can be
saved. His meanest creatures have in them a touch of honor, of
honesty, or of heroism; his heroes have always some error,
weakness, a mistake, some sin or crime, to redeem. And in all this
there is no judgment, only an implacable comprehension, as of one
outside nature, to whom joy and sorrow, right and wrong, savagery
and civilization, are equal and indifferent.
Reality, to Conrad, is non-existent; he sees through it into a realm of
illusion of the unknown: a world that is comforting and bewildering,
filled with ghosts and devils, a world of holy terror. Always is there
some suggestion of a dark region, within and around one; the
consciousness that "They made a whole that had features, shades of
expression, a complicated aspect that could be remembered by the
eye, and something else besides, something invisible, a directing
spirit of perdition that dwells within, like a malevolent soul in a
detestable body."
"This awful activity of mind" is seen at work on every page, torturing
familiar words into strange meanings, clutching at cobwebs, in a
continual despair before the unknown. Something must be found, in
the most unlikely quarter; a word, a hint, something unsaid but
guessed at in a gesture, a change of face. "He turned upon me his
eyes suddenly amazed and full of pain, with a bewildered, startled
face, as though he had tumbled down from a star." There is a
mental crisis in that look: the unknown has suddenly opened.
Memory, that inner voice, stealthy, an inveterate follower; memory,
Conrad has found out, is the great secret, the ecstasy and despair
which weave the texture of life. A motto from Amiel in one of his
books faintly suggests it: "Qui de nous n'a eu sa terre promise, son
jour d'extase et sa fin en exil?" And the book, Almayer's Folly, his
first, a rare and significant book, is just that. An Outcast of the
Islands has the despairing motto from Calderon, that better is it for a
man had he never been born. Lord Jim is the soul's tragedy, ending
after a long dim suffusion in clouds, in a great sunset, sudden and
final glory. No man lives wholly in his day; every hour of these
suspensive and foreboding days and nights is a part of the past or of
the future. Even in a splendid moment, a crisis, like the love scene of
Nina and Dain in the woods, there is no forgetfulness. "In the
sublime vanity of her kind she was thinking already of moulding a
god out of the clay at her feet. ... He spoke of his forefathers." Lord
Jim, as he dies, remembers why he is letting himself be killed, and in
that remembrance tastes heaven. How is it that no one except
Conrad has got to this hidden depth, where the soul really lives and
dies, where, in an almost perpetual concealment, it works out its
plan, its own fate? Tolstoy, Hawthorne, know something of it; but
the one turns aside into moral tracts, and the other to shadows and
things spiritual. Conrad gives us the soul's own dream of itself, as if
a novelist of adventure had turned Neo-Platonist.
A woman once spoke to me in a phrase I have never forgotten, of
Conrad's sullen subjective vision. Sullen is a fine word for the aspect
under which he sees land and sea; sullen clouds, a sullen sea. And
some of that quality has come to form part of his mind, which is
protesting, supremely conscious. He is never indifferent to his
people, rarely kind. He sees them for the most part as they reveal
themselves in suffering. Now and then he gives them the full price,
the glory, but rarely in this life, or for more than a moment. How can
those who live in suspense, between memory and foreboding, ever
be happy, except for some little permitted while? The world for those
who live in it, is a damp forest, where savagery and civilization meet,
and in vain try to mingle. Only the sea, when they are out of sight of
land, sometimes gives them freedom.
It is strange but true that Conrad's men are more subtly
comprehended and more magnificent than his women. There are
few men who are seen full length, and many of them are nameless
shadows. Aissa and Nina in the earliest books have the fierce charm
of the unknown. In Lord Jim there is only one glimpse of the painful
mystery of a woman's ignorant heart. In Nostromo the women are
secondary, hardly alive; there is no woman in The Nigger of the
Narcissus, nor in Typhoon, nor in Youth. There are some women,
slightly seen, in Tales of Unrest, and only one of them, the woman of
The Return, is actually characterized.
Is there not something of an achievement in this stern rejection of
the obvious love-story, the material of almost every novel? Not in a
single tale, even when a man dies of regret for a woman, is the
woman prominent in the action. Almayer, and not Nina, is the center
of the book named after him. And yet Nina is strange, mysterious,
enchanting, as no other woman is to be. Afterward they are thrust
back out of the story; they come and go like spinners of Destiny,
unconscious, ignorant, turning idle wheels, like the two women
knitting black wool in the waiting room of the Trading Company's
office, "guarding the door of Darkness."
Now, can we conjecture why a woman has never been the center of
any of these stories? Conrad chooses his tools and his materials; he
realizes that men are the best materials for his tools. It is only men
who can be represented heroically upon the stage of life; who can
be seen adventuring doggedly, irresistibly, by sheer will and purpose;
it is only given to men to attain a visible glory of achievement. He
sees woman as a parasite or an idol, one of the illusions of men. He
asks wonderingly how the world can look at them. He shows men
fearing them, hating them, captivated, helpless, cruel, conquering.
He rarely indicates a great passion between man and woman; his
men are passionate after fame, power, success; they embrace the
sea in a love-wrestle; they wander down unsounded rivers and
succumb to "the spell of the wilderness;" they are gigantic in failure
and triumph; they are the children of the mightiness of the earth;
but their love is the love of the impossible. What room is there, in
this unlimited world, for women? "Oh, she is out of it—completely.
They—the women I mean—are out of it—should be out of it. We
must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own, lets ours
gets worse. Oh, she had to be out of it."
There is Karain, "clothed in the vision of unavoidable success," flying
before a shadow, comforting himself with the certainty of a charm.
There is Kurtz, who returns to barbarism, and Tuan Jim with his
sacrifice of life to honor, and even the dying nigger steersman who,
shot through by a spear, looks once on his master, "and the intimate
profundity of that look which he gave me when he received his hurt
remains to this day in my memory—like a claim of distant kinship
affirmed in a supreme moment." It is with this agonizing clearness,
this pitiless mercy, that Conrad shows us human beings. He loves
them for their discontent, for their revolt against reality, for their
failure, their atonement, their triumphs. And he loves them best
because their love is the love of the impossible; he loves them
because they are part of the unknown.
And so, it is Lord Jim in which his genius has attained its zenith with
Karain and Heart of Darkness close after it. Consider the marvelous
art, the suspense, the evasion of definite statement, the
overpowering profundity of it. To begin with, there is the trick, one
of Conrad's inextricable tricks of art, by which suspense is scarcely
concerned with action, but with a gradually revealed knowledge of
what might have happened in the making of a man. Take an
instance in Nostromo. There is Doctor Monyngham who comes in at
the beginning of the book comes and goes briefly up to the three
hundredth page; and then suddenly, à propos of nothing, the whole
history of his troubles, the whole explanation of what has seemed
mysterious to him, is given in four pages; whereupon the last
sentence, four pages back, is caught up and continued with the
words: "That is why he hobbled in distress in the Casa Gould on that
morning." Now why is there this kind of hesitation? Why is a disguise
kept up so long and thrown off for no apparent reason? It is merely
one of his secrets, which is entirely his own; but another of them he
has learned from Balzac: the method of doubling or trebling the
interest by setting action within action, as a picture is set within a
frame. In Youth the man who is telling the story to more or less
indifferent hearers, times his narrative with a kind of refrain. ... "Pass
the bottle," he says whenever a pause seems to be necessary; and,
as the tale is ending, the final harmony is struck by an unexpected
and satisfying chord: "He drank.... He drank again."
To find a greater novel than Lord Jim, we might have to go back to
Don Quixote. Like that immortal masterpiece, it is more than a
novel; it is life itself, and it is a criticism of life. Like Don Quixote,
Lord Jim, in his followings of a dream, encounters many rough
handlings. He has the same egoism, isolation, and conviction; the
same interrupting world about him, the same contempt of reality,
the same unconsciousness of the nature of windmills. In Marlow, he
has quite a modern Sancho Panza, disillusioned, but following his
master. Certainly this narrator of Jim's failures and successes
represents them under the obscure guidance of "a strange and
melancholy illusion, evolved half-unconsciously like all our illusions,
which I suspect only to be visions of remote unattainable truth, seen
dimly." He is a soul "drunk with the divine philtre of an unbounded
confidence in himself." That illusion is suddenly put to the test; he
fails, he goes into the cloud, emerges out of it, is struck gloriously
dead.
In Lord Jim Conrad has revealed, more finally than elsewhere, his
ideal: the ideal of an applauded heroism, the necessity of adding to
one's own conviction the world's acceptance and acclamation. In this
stupendous work, what secret of humanity is left untold? Only told,
is too definite a word. Here is Conrad's creed, his statement of
things as they are:

It is when we try to grapple with another man's need that we

perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the
beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth
of the sun. It is as if loneliness were a hard and absolute
condition of existence; the envelope of flesh and blood on which
our eyes are fixed melts before the outstretched hand, and
there remains only the capricious, unconsolable, and elusive
spirit that no eye can follow, no hand can grasp.

"Man is amazing, but he is not a masterpiece," says some one in the

book, one of the many types and illustrations of men who have
fallen into a dream, all with some original sin to proclaim or conceal
or justify, men of honor, tottering phantoms clinging to a foul
existence, one crowding on another, disappearing, unrealized. All
have their place, literally or symbolically, in the slow working-out of
the salvation of Tuan Jim. Amazing they may be, but Jim
"approaching greatness as genuine as any man ever achieved," with
the shame of his "jump" from a sinking ship and his last fearless
jump "into the unknown," his last "extraordinary success," when, in
one proud and unflinching glance, he beholds "the face of that
opportunity which, like an Eastern bride, had come veiled to his
side": amazing he may be, but a masterpiece, proved, authentic,
justifying Man.
Next after this triumph, Karain is the greatest. It is mysterious, a
thing that haunts one by its extreme fascination; and in this, as in all
Conrad, there is the trial of life: first the trial, then the failure, finally
(but not quite always) the redemption. "As to Karain, nothing could
happen to him unless what happens to all—failure and death; but his
quality was to appear clothed in the illusion of unavoidable success."
And on what a gorgeous and barbaric and changing stage is this
obscure tragedy of the soul enacted! There is in it grave splendor. In
Conrad's imagination three villages on a narrow plain become a
great empire and their ruler a monarch.
To read Conrad is to shudder on the edge of a gulf, in a silent
darkness. Karain is full of mystery, Heart of Darkness of an unholy
magic. "The fascination of the abomination—you know," the teller of
the story says for him, and "droll thing life is." The whole narrative is
an evocation of that "stillness of an implacable brooding over an
incalculable intention," and of the monstrous Kurtz who has been
bewitched by the "heavy mute spell of the wilderness that seems to
draw him to its pitiless breast by the awakening of forgotten and
brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous passions;
and this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of
permitted aspiration." And it all ends with the cry: "The horror! The
horror!" called out in his last despair by a dying man. Gloomy,
tremendous, this has a deeper, because more inexplicable, agony
than the tragedy of Karain. Here, the darkness is unbroken; there is
no remedy; body and soul are drawn slowly and inevitably down
under the yielding and pestilent swamp. The failure seems
irretrievable. We see nature casting out one who had gone beyond
nature. We see "the meanness, the torment, the tempestuous
anguish of a soul" that, in its last moment of earthly existence, had
peeped over the edge of the gulf, with a stare "that could not see
the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole
universe."
With Nostromo we get a new manner and new scenery. The scene is
laid in Colombia, the Nuevo Granada of the Spaniards, and the silver
mine is its center, and around that fatal treasure-house the whole
action moves. The Spanish streets, glittering with heat, with their
cool patios, peopled by the Indians, the "whites," a cross between
Spanish and native, the Italians, the English, the Indian girls with
long dark hair, the Mozenitas with golden combs, are seen under
strong sunlight with a vivid actuality more accentuated than in any
other of Conrad's scenes. A sinister masquerade is going on in the
streets, very unreal and very real. There is the lingering death of
Decoud on a deserted island ("he died from solitude, the enemy
known to few on this earth, and whom only the simplest of us are fit
to withstand"); the horrible agonies of Hirsch; the vile survival of
Doctor Monyngham. It is by profound and futile seriousness that
these persons and events take on an air of irony, and are so comic
as they endure the pains of tragedy.
This strange novel is oddly constructed. It is a narrative in which
episode follows episode with little apparent connection. The first half
is a lengthy explanation of what the second part is to put into action.
It drags and seems endless, and might be defined by a sentence out
of the book, where some one "recognized a wearisome
impressiveness in the pompous manner of his narrative." Suddenly,
with Nostromo's first actualized adventure the story begins, the
interest awakens, and it is only now that Nostromo himself becomes
actual. He has been suggested by hints, indicated in faint outline.
We have been told of his power and influence, we see the
admiration which surrounds him, but the man walks veiled. His
vanity, evident at the first, becomes colossal: "The man remained
astonishingly simple in the jealous greatness of his conceit." Then,
as he awakens one morning under the sky, he rises "as natural and
free from evil in the moment of waking as a magnificent and
unconscious wild beast." The figure greatens in his allegiance to the
shining spectre of the treasure, which makes him afraid because "he
belonged body and soul to the unlawfulness of his audacity." His
death is accidental, but, in Conrad's merciful last words, he has,
after his death, the "greatest, the most enviable, the most sinister of
his successes. In that true cry of love and grief that seemed to ring
aloud from Punta Mala to Azuera and away to the bright line of the
horizon, overhung by a big white cloud shining like a mass of solid
silver, the genius of the magnificent Capataz de Caegadores
dominated the dark gulf containing his conquests of treasure and
love."

II

Conrad's first fame was made by his sea-novels, and the sea is never
quite out of any of his books. Who, before or since, could have
evoked this picture of heat, stillness and solitude?
In Typhoon we are cast into the midst of a terrible outrage of the
destructive force of nature:

something formidable and swift, like the sudden smashing of a

vial of wrath. It seemed to explode all round the ship with an
overpowering concussion and a rush of great waters, as if an
immense dam had been blown up to windward. In an instant
the men lost touch of each other. This is the disintegrating
power of a great wind; it isolates one from one's kind. ... The
motion of the ship was extravagant. Her lurches had an
appalling helplessness; she pitched as if taking a header into a
void, and seemed to find a wall to hit every time. ... The seas in
the dark seemed to rush from all sides to keep her back where
she might perish. There was hate in the way she was handled,
and a ferocity in the blows that fell. She was like a living
creature thrown to the rage of a mob! hustled terribly, struck at,
borne up, flung down, leaped upon. ... At last she rose slowly,
staggering, as if she had to lift a mountain with her bows.

There have been many writers about the sea, but only Conrad has
loved it with so profound and yet untrustful a love. His storms have
sublimity, made out of intense attention to detail, often trivial or
ludicrous, but heightened into tragedy by the shifting floor and
changing background on which is represented the vast struggle of
man with the powers of nature. And as he loves the earth only in its
extravagances, so he loves the sea most in storm, where love and
fear mingle. The tropics, the Malay Archipelago, and the sea in a
continual tempest, the ship suffering through a typhoon, or burning
itself out on the waters: these are his scenes, these he cherishes in
his faithful and unquiet memory. How much is memory, how much is
imagination, no one need know or care. They are one; he does not
distinguish between them.
Once, in one of the pages of Lord Jim, Conrad has confessed himself
with perfect frankness. He represents himself receiving a packet of
letters which are to tell him the last news of Lord Jim. He goes to
the window and draws the heavy curtains.

The light of his shaded reading-lamp slept like a sheltered pool,

his footfalls made no sound on the carpet, his wandering days
were over. No more horizons as boundless as hope, no more
twilights within the forests as solemn as temples, in the hot
quest for the Ever-undiscovered Country over the hill, across the
stream, beyond the wave. The hour was striking! No more! No
more!—but the opened packet under the lamp brought back the
sounds, the visions, the very savor of the past—a multitude of
fading faces, a tumult of low voices, dying away upon the
shores of distant seas under a passionate and unconsoling
sunshine. He sighed and sat down to read.

That is the confession of one who, of foreign race, is an alien,

solitary among his memories.

III

Conrad's stories have no plots, and they do not need them. They are
a series of studies in temperaments, deduced from slight incidents;
studies in emotion, with hardly a rag to hold together the one or two
scraps of action, out of which they are woven. A spider hanging by
one leg to his web, or sitting motionless outside it: that is the image
of some of these tales, which are made to terrify, bewilder and grip
you. No plot ever made a thing so vital as Lord Jim, where there is
no plot; merely episodes, explanations, two or three events only
significant for the inner meaning by which they are darkened or
illuminated. I would call this invention, creation; the evasion of what
is needless in the plots of most novels. But Conrad has said, of
course, the right thing, in a parenthesis: "It had that mysterious,
almost miraculous, power of producing striking effects by means
impossible of detection, which is the last word of the highest art."
Conrad conceals his astonishing invention under many disguises.
What has seemed to some to be untidy in construction will be found
to be a mere matter of subtlety, a skilful arresting of the attention, a
diverting of it by a new interest thrust in sideways. Lord Jim is a
model of intelligent disarray.
In the strict sense Conrad is not a novelist: he writes by instinct. And
his art is unlike the art of every other novelist. For instance,
Meredith or Stendhal make great things out of surface material; they
give us life through its accidents, one brilliantly, the other with
scrupulous care. Conrad uses detail as illustrations of his ideas, as
veils of life, not as any essential part of it. The allusion to him is
more real than the fact; and, when he deals with the low or trivial,
with Mr. Verloc's dubious shop in the backstreet, it is always a
symbol.
Conrad, writing in English, does not always think in English. For, in
this man, who is pure Polish, there is a brooding mind, an exalted
soul, a fearless intelligence, a merciful judgment. And he has
voyaged through many seas of the soul, in which he finds that
fascination, the fascination of fear, splendor, and uncertainty, which
the water that surrounds the earth had to give him. And he has
made for himself a style which is personal, unique, naked English,
and which brings into English literature an audacious and profound
English speech.
In his sarcasm Conrad is elemental. He is a fatalist, and might say
with Sidi Ali Ismayem, in the Malay Annals: "It is necessary that
what has been ordained should take place in all creatures." But in
his fatalism there is a furious revolt against all those evils that must
be accepted, those material and mental miseries that will never be
removed. His hatred of rule, measure, progress, civilization is
unbounded. He sits and laughs with an inhuman laughter, outside
the crowd, in a chair of wisdom; and his mockery, persuaded of the
incurable horrors of existence, can achieve monstrosity, both logical
and ghastly.
In the "simple tale" of The Secret Agent, which is a story of horror,
in our London of to-day, the central motive is the same as that of
the other romances: memory as Nemesis. The man comes to his
death because he can not get a visible fear out of his eyes; and the
woman kills him because she can not get a more terrible, more
actual thing, which she has not seen, but which has been thrust into
her brain, out of her eyes. "That particular fiend" drives him into a
cruel blunder and her into a madness, a murder, a suicide, which
combine into one chain, link after link, inevitably.
The blood-thirstiness of Conrad's "simple story" of modern life, a
horror as profound as that of Poe, and manipulated with the same
careful and attentive skill, is no form of cruelty, but of cold
observation. What is common enough among the half-civilized
population of that Malay Peninsula, which forms so much of the
material of the earlier novels, has to be transported, by a choice of
subject and the search for what is horrible in it, when life comes to
be studied in a modern city. The interest is still in the almost less
civilized savagery of the Anarchists; and it is around the problem of
blood-shedding that the whole story revolves. The same lust of
slaughter, brought from Asia to Europe, seems cruder and less
interesting as material. There the atmosphere veiled what the
gaslight of the disreputable shop and its back-parlor do but make
more visible. It is an experiment in realism which comes dangerously
near to being sensational, only just avoids it.
The whole question depends upon whether the material horror
surpasses that horror of the soul which is never absent from it;
whether the dreadful picture of the woman's hand holding the
carving-knife, seen reflected on the ceiling by the husband in the
last conscious moment before death, is more evident to us than the
man's sluggish acquiescence in his crime and the woman's slow
intoxication by memory into a crime more direct and perhaps more
excusable. It seems, while you are reading it, impossible that the
intellect should overcome the pang given to the senses; and yet, on
reflection, there is the same mind seen at work, more ruthlessly,
more despairingly than ever, turning the soul inside out, in the
outwardly "respectable" couple who commit murder, because they
"refrained from going to the bottom of facts and motives." Conrad
has made a horrible, forgivable, admirable work of art out of a bright
tin can, a befouled shovel, and a stained carving knife. He has made
of these three domestic objects the symbols of that destroying
element, "red in tooth and claw," which turns the wheel on which
the world is broken.

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

Often, mostly at night, a wheel of memory seems to turn in my head

like a kaleidoscope, flashing out the pictures and the visions of my
own that I keep there. The same wheel turned in my head when I
was in Dieppe with Charles Conder, and it turned into these verses:
There's a tune burns, bums in my head,
And I hear it beat to the sound of my feet,
For that was the tune we used to walk to
In the days that are over and dead.

Another tune turns under and over.

And it turns in my brain as I think again
 Of the days that are dead, and the ways she walks now,
To the self-same tune, with her lover.
I see, for instance, Mallarmé, with his exquisite manner of welcome,
as he opens the door to me on the fourth floor of the Rue de Rome;
I hear Jean Moréas thunder out some verses of his own to a
waitress in a Bouillon Duval, whose name was Celimène, who
pretended to understand them; Stuart Mérill at the Rue Ballier, Henri
de Regnier silent under his eye-glass in one of the rooms of the
Mercerie de France; Maurice Maeterlinck in all the hurry of a
departure, between two portmanteaux. That was, I suppose, one of
the most surprising meetings I ever had; for, as a matter of fact, one
night in Fountain Court, it was in 1894—I was equally surprised
when I opened his Alladine et Palamides which he had sent me with
a dedication. After that time I saw him, during several years, fairly
often in Paris and once in Rome, in 1903, when one performance
was given of his Joyzelle—the most unsatisfactory performance I
ever saw, and of certainly an unsatisfactory play. Nervous as he
always was—he used, for one thing, to keep a loaded revolver
always beside him in his bedroom—he shirked the occasion and
went to Naples. I have never forgotten the afternoon when he read
to me in his house in Paris whole pages of Monna Vanna. After I had
left the house, I said to a certain lady who was with me: "Rhetoric,
nothing but rhetoric! It may be obviously dramatic; but the worst of
it is, all the magic and mystery of his earlier plays had vanished:
there is logic rather than life."
It is very unfortunate for a man to be compared to Shakespeare
even by his enemies, when he is only twenty-seven and has time
before him. That is what has happened to Maurice Maeterlinck. Two
years ago the poet of Serres Chaudes was known to only a small
circle of amateurs of the new; he was known as a young Belgian of
curious talent who had published a small volume of vague poems in
monotone. On the appearance of La Princesse maleine, in the early
part of 1890, Maeterlinck had an unexpected "greatness thrust upon
him" by a flaming article of Octave Mirbeau, the author of that
striking novel Sébastian Roch in the Figaro of August 24th. "Maurice
Maeterlinck," said this uncompromising enthusiast,

"nous a donné l'oeuvre la plus géniale de ce temps, et la plus

extraordinaire et la plus naive aussi, comparable—et oserai-je le
dire?—supérieure en beauté à ce qu'il y a de plus beau dans
Shakespeare.... plus tragique que 'Macbeth,' plus extraordinaire
de pensée que 'Hamlet.'"

In short, there was no Shakespearean merit in which La Princesse

Maleine was lacking, and it followed that the author of La Princesse
Maleine was the Shakespeare of our age—the Belgian Shakespeare.
The merits of Maeterlinck were widely discussed in France and
Belgium, and it was not long before the five-act drama was followed
by two pieces, each in one act, called L'Intruse and Les Aveugles. In
May, 1891, L'Intruse was given by the Théâtre d'Art at the Vaudeville
on the occasion of the benefit of Paul Verlaine and Paul Gauguin.
He is not entirely the initiator of this impressionistic drama; first in
order of talent, he is second in order of time to another Belgian,
Charles van Lerberghe, to whom Les Aveugles is dedicated. It was
Van Lerberghe (in Les Flaireurs, for example) who discovered the
effect which might be obtained on the stage by certain appeals to
the sense of hearing and of sight, newly directed and with new
intentions. But what is crude and even distracting in Les Flaireurs
becomes an exquisite subtlety in L'Intruse. In La Princesse Maleine,
in L'Intruse, in Les Aveugles, in Les Sept Princesses, Maeterlinck has
but one note, that of fear—the "vague spiritual fear" of imaginative
childhood, of excited nerves, of morbid apprehension. In La
Princesse Maleine there is a certain amount of action—action which
is certainly meant to reinvest the terrors of Macbeth and of Lear. In
L'Intruse and Les Aveugles the scene is stationary, the action but
reflected upon the stage, as if from some other plane. In Les Sept
Princesses the action, such as it is, is "such stuff as dreams are
made of," and is literally, in great part, seen through a window. From
first to last it is not the play, but the atmosphere of the play, that is
"the thing." In the creation of this atmosphere Maeterlinck shows his
particular skill; it is here that he communicates to us the nouveau
frisson, here that he does what no one has done before.
La Princesse Maleine, it is said, was written for a theater of
marionettes, and it is, certainly, with the effect of marionettes that
these sudden, exclamatory people come and go. Maleine, Hjalmar,
Uglyane—these are no characters, these are no realizable persons;
they are a mask of shadows, a dance of silhouettes behind the white
sheet of the "Chat Noir," and they have the fantastic charm of these
enigmatical semblances—"luminous, gem-like, ghost-like"—with,
also, their somewhat mechanical eeriness. Maeterlinck has recorded
his intellectual debt to Villiers de l'Isle Adam, but it was not from the
author of Axel that he learned his method. The personages of
Maeterlinck—are only too eloquent, too volubly poetical. In their
mystical aim Villiers and Maeterlinck are at one; in their method
there is all the difference in the world. This is how Sara, in Axel,
speaks:—

Songe! Des coeurs condamnés à ce supplice de pas m'aimer! ne

sont-ils pas assez infortunés d'être d'une telle nature?

But Maleine has nothing more impressive to say than this:—

Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! comme je suis malade! Et je ne sais pas

ce que j'ai;—et personne ne sait ce que le médecin ne sait pas
ce que j'ai; ma nourrice ne sait pas ce que j'ai; Hjalmar ne sait
pas ce que j'ai.

That these repetitions lend themselves to parody is obvious; that

they are sometimes ridiculous is certain; but the principle which
underlies them is at the root of much of the finest Eastern poetry—
notably in the Bible. The charm and the impressiveness of monotony
is one of the secrets of the East; we see it in their literature, in their
dances, we hear it in their music. The desire of the West is after
variety, but as variety is the most tiring of all excesses, we are in the