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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32996-8.txt b/32996-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc2da8b --- /dev/null +++ b/32996-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3770 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ten-foot Chain, by +Achmed Abdullah and Max Brand and E. K. Means and P. P. Sheehan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Ten-foot Chain + or, Can Love Survive the Shackles? A Unique Symposium + +Author: Achmed Abdullah + Max Brand + E. K. Means + P. P. Sheehan + +Release Date: June 27, 2010 [EBook #32996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TEN-FOOT CHAIN *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE TEN-FOOT CHAIN + +OR CAN LOVE SURVIVE THE SHACKLES? + + + + +[Illustration: "WHEN I LOOK INTO YOUR FACE THE SUN RISES AND THE BOAT OF +MY LIFE ROCKS ON THE DANCING WAVES OF PASSION."] + + + + + THE + TEN-FOOT CHAIN + + OR + + CAN LOVE SURVIVE + THE SHACKLES? + + A UNIQUE SYMPOSIUM + + BY + + ACHMED ABDULLAH + MAX BRAND + E. K. MEANS + P. P. SHEEHAN + + REYNOLDS PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. + NEW YORK + 1920 + + + _Copyright 1920_ + REYNOLDS PUB. CO. Inc. + + _Copyright 1920_ + THE FRANK A. MUNSEY CO. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION 11 + + FIRST TALE + AN INDIAN JATAKA 17 + _By Achmed Abdullah_ + + SECOND TALE + OUT OF THE DARK 45 + _By Max Brand_ + + THIRD TALE + PLUMB NAUSEATED 81 + _By E. K. Means_ + + FOURTH TALE + PRINCESS OR PERCHERON 127 + _By Perley P. Sheehan_ + + + + +_INTRODUCTION_ + + +Some time ago I was dining with four distinguished writers. Needless to +say where two or three authors are gathered together with a sympathetic +editor in their midst, the flood-gates of fancy are opened wide. + +In an inspired moment, Dr. Means tossed this "tremendous trifle" into +the center of the table: "What mental and emotional reaction would a man +and a woman undergo, linked together by a ten-foot chain, for three days +and nights?" The query precipitated an uproar. + +Captain Abdullah stepped into the arena at once, and with that élan of +the heart, which is bred only in the Orient, declared if the man and the +woman really loved one another, no chain could be riveted too close or +too enduring to render onerous its existence. For through this world and +the next, love would hold these twain in ever deeper and tenderer +embrace. + +Then the doctor, who claims he cuts nearer to the realities, insisted no +emotion could bear such a physical impact. The reaction from such an +imposed contact would leave love bereft of life, strangled in its own +golden mesh. Max Brand begged to differ with both of his fellow +craftsmen. With the cold detachment of a mind prepared to see all four +sides of an object and with no personal animus of either prejudice or +prepossession, Mr. Brand averred no blanker conclusion covered the case +in question but in any given instance, the multiple factors of heredity, +environment, habit, and temperament, would largely determine the final +state of both the man and the woman. + +Hereupon, Perley Poore Sheehan, the fourth member of the writing +fraternity present, insisted on a hearing. Mr. Sheehan, nothing daunted +by the naturally polygamous instincts of the male heart, insisted a good +man, once in love, would and could discount the handicap of a ten-foot +chain, since love was after all, as others have contended, not the whole +of a man's life. To be sure it was an integral need, a recurrent +appetite; the glamour and the glory, if you like, enfolding with its +overshadowing wings his house of happiness. As for the woman--well, we +will let Mr. Sheehan report, in person, his conviction as to the +stability of her attachment. + +The editor, whose business it is to keep an open mind, scarcely felt +equal to the responsibility of passing judgment, where experts differed. +But the discussion presented an opportunity which he felt called upon to +develop. Therefore, each of the four authors was invited to present his +conclusions in fiction form, the four stories to be published under the +general caption "The Ten-Foot Chain." Herewith we are printing this +unique symposium, one of the most original series ever presented. + +Naturally, the stories are bound to provoke opinion and raise +discussion. The thesis in the form presented by Dr. Means is quite +novel, but the underlying problem of the stability of human affections, +is as old as the heart of man. Wasn't it that prosaic but wise old poet, +Alexander Pope, who compared our minds to our watches? "No two go just +alike, yet each believes his own." + + + + +FIRST TALE + +AN INDIAN JATAKA + +BY ACHMED ABDULLAH + + _This is the tale which Jehan Tugluk Khan, a wise man in + Tartary, and milk brother to Ghengiz Khan, Emperor of the East + and the North, and Captain General of the Golden Horde, + whispered to the Foolish Virgin who came to him, bringing the + purple, spiked flower of the Kadam-tree as an offering, and + begging him for a love potion with which to hold Haydar Khan, a + young, red-faced warrior from the west who had ridden into camp, + a song on his lips, a woman's breast scarf tied to his tufted + bamboo lance, a necklace of his slain foes' skulls strung about + his massive chest, and sitting astride a white stallion whose + mane was dyed crimson in sign of strife and whose dainty, + dancing feet rang on the rose-red marble pavement of the + emperor's courtyard like crystal bells in the wind of spring._ + + _This is a tale of passion, and, by the same token, a tale of + wisdom. For, in the yellow, placid lands east of the Urals and + west of harsh, sneering Pekin, it is babbled by the toothless + old women who know life, that wisdom and desire are twin sisters + rocked in the same cradle: one speaks while the other sings. + They say that it is the wisdom of passion which makes eternal + the instinct of love._ + + _This is the tale of Vasantasena, the slave who was free in her + own heart, and of Madusadan, a captain of horse, who plucked the + white rose without fearing the thorns._ + + _This, finally, is the tale of Vikramavati, King of Hindustan in + the days of the Golden Age, when Surya, the Sun, warmed the + fields without scorching; when Vanyu, the Wind, filled the air + with the pollen of the many flowers without stripping the trees + bare of leaves; when Varuna, Regent of Water, sang through the + land without destroying the dykes or drowning the lowing cattle + and the little naked children who played at the river's bank; + when Prithwi, the Earth, sustained all and starved none; when + Chandra, the Moon, was as bright and ripening as his elder + brother, the Sun._ + + _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_ + + +Vasantasena was the girl's name, and she came to young King +Vikramavati's court on the tenth day of the dark half of the month +Bhadra. She came as befitted a slave captured in war, with her +henna-stained feet bound together by a thin, golden chain, her white +hands tied behind her back with ropes of pearls, her slim young body +covered with a silken robe of the sad hue of the tamala flower, in sign +of mourning for Dharma, her father, the king of the south, who had +fallen in battle beneath the steel-shod tusks of the war elephants. + +She knelt before the peacock throne, and Vikramavati saw that her face +was as beautiful as the moon on the fourteenth day, that her black locks +were like female snakes, her waist like the waist of a she-lion, her +arms like twin marble columns blue-veined, her skin like the sweetly +scented champaka flower, and her breasts as the young tinduka fruit. + +He looked into her eyes and saw that they were of a deep bronze color, +gold flecked, and with pupils that were black and opaque--eyes that +seemed to hold all the wisdom, all the secret mockery, the secret +knowledge of womanhood--and his hand trembled, and he thought in his +soul that the bountiful hand of Sravanna, the God of Plenty, had been +raised high in the western heaven at the hour of her birth. + +"Remember the words of the Brahmin," grumbled Deo Singh, his old prime +minister who had served his father before him and who was watching him +anxiously, jealously. "'Woman is the greatest robber of all. For other +robbers steal property which is spiritually worthless, such as gold and +diamonds; while woman steals the best--a man's heart, and soul, and +ambition, and strength.' Remember, furthermore, the words of--" + +"Enough croakings for the day, Leaky-Tongue!" cut in Vikramavati, with +the insolent rashness of his twenty-four years. "Go home to your +withered beldame of a wife and pray with her before the altar of unborn +children, and help her clean the household pots. This is the season when +I speak of love!" + +"Whose love--yours or the girl's?" smilingly asked Madusadan, captain of +horse, a man ten years the king's senior, with a mocking, bitter eye, a +great, crimson mouth, a crunching chest, massive, hairy arms, the honey +of eloquence on his tongue, and a mind that was a deer in leaping, a cat +in climbing. Men disliked him because they could not beat him in joust +or tournament; and women feared him because the purity of his life, +which was an open book, gave the lie to his red lips and the +slow-eddying flame in his hooded, brown eyes. "Whose love, wise king?" + +But the latter did not hear. + +He dismissed the soldiers and ministers and courtiers with an impatient +gesture, and stepped down from his peacock throne. + +"Fool!" said Madusadan, as he looked through a slit in the curtain from +an inner room and saw that the king was raising Vasantasena to her feet; +saw, too, the derisive patience in her golden eyes. + +"A fool--though a king versed in statecraft!" he whispered into the ear +of Shivadevi, Vasantasena's shriveled, gnarled hill nurse who had +followed her mistress into captivity. + +"Thee! A fool indeed!" cackled the old nurse as, side by side with the +captain of horse, she listened to the tale of love the king was +spreading before the slave girl's narrow, white feet, as Kama-Deva, the +young God of Passion, spread the tale of his longing before Rati, his +wife, with the voice of the cuckoo, the humming-bee in mating time, and +the southern breeze laden with lotus. + +"You came to me a slave captured among the crackling spears of battle," +said Vikramavati, "and behold, it is I who am the slave. For your sake I +would sin the many sins. For the sake of one of your precious eyelashes +I would spit on the names of the gods and slaughter the holy cow. You +are a light shining in a dark house. Your body is a garden of strange +and glorious flowers which I gather in the gloom. I feel the savor and +shade of your dim tresses, and think of the home land where the hill +winds sweep. + +"My love for you is as the soft sweetness of wild honey which the bees +of the forest have gathered among the perfumed asoka flowers--sweet and +warm, but with a sharp after-taste to prick the tongue and set the body +eternally longing. To hold you I would throw a noose around the far +stars. I give you all I have, all I am, all I shall ever be, and it +would not be the thousandth part of my love for you. See! My heart is a +carpet for your little lisping feet. Step gently, child!" + +Vasantasena replied never a word. With unwinking, opaque eyes, she +stared beyond the king, at a slit in the curtain which separated the +throne-room from the inner apartment. For through the embroidered folds +of the brocade, a great, hairy, brown, high-veined hand was thrust, the +broad thumb wagging mockingly, meaningly, like a shadow of fate. + +And she remembered the huge star sapphire set in hammered silver that +twinkled on the thumb like a cresset of passion. She remembered how that +hand had plucked her from amidst the horse's trampling feet and the +sword-rimmed wheels of the war-chariots as she crouched low above her +father's body. She remembered the voice that had come to her, clear +through the clamor and din of battle, the braying of the conches, the +neighing of the stallions, the shrill, angry trumpeting of the +elephants-- + +A voice sharp, compelling, bitter-- + +"Captive to my bow and spear, little flower, but a slave for the king, +my master. For such is the law of Hind. He will love you--not being +altogether a fool. But perhaps you will not love him. Being but a +stammering virgin boy, perhaps he will heap your lap with all the +treasures in the world. Being an honest gentleman, perhaps he will treat +you with respect and tenderness, with the sweet fairness of the blessed +gods. And perhaps--even then--you will not love him, little flower. + +"Perhaps you will turn to the captain of horse as the moon rises like a +bubble of passion from the deep red of the sunset. Perhaps you will read +the meaning of the koel-bird's love-cry, the secret of the jessamine's +scent, the sweet, throbbing, winglike call of all the unborn children in +the heart and body and soul of Madusadan, captain of horse." + +"A bold man, this captain of horse!" Vasantasena had smiled through her +tears, through the savage clang of battle. + +"A reckless man--yet a humble man, little flower. Reckless and humble as +the moist spring monsoon that sweeps over the young shoots of +bluish-white rice. For"--here he had put her in front of him, on the +curve of the peaked, bossed saddle--"will the rice ripen to the touch of +the savage, clamoring monsoon?" + +And he had drawn slightly away from her. He had not even kissed her, +though they were shielded from all the world by the folds of the great +battle flag that was stiff with gold, stiffer with darkening gore. In +the fluttering heart of Vasantasena rose a great longing for this +insolent warrior who spoke of love--and touched her not. + + _This is the tale of the grape that is never pressed, that never + loses its sweetness, though white hands squeeze its pulp, day + after day, night after night._ + + _This is the tale of the book that is never read to the end, + though eyes, moist and smarting with longing, read its pages + till the candles gutter out in the gray dawn wind and the young + sun sings its cosmic song out of the East, purple and golden._ + + _This is the tale of love which rises like a mist of ineffable + calm, then sweeps along on the red wings of eternal desire--the + tale of love that is a chain forged of steel and scent, a chain + of unbreakable steel mated to the pollen of the glistening + areka-flower._ + + _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_ + +"See!" said Shivadevi, the old nurse, to Vasantasena, who shimmered +among the green, silken cushions of her couch like a tiger-beetle in a +nest of fresh leaves. "Vikramavati, the king, has bowed low before you. +He has removed from your hands and ankles the pearl and gold fetters. He +has taken off your robe of mourning and has thrown about your shoulders +a sari woven of moonbeams and running water. He has seated you beside +him on the peacock throne, as a free woman--not a slave." + +"Yes," replied Vasantasena. "He has placed his head and his heart on the +sill of the door of love. He brought me his soul as an offering. And +I"--she yawned--"I love him not." + +"He has heaped your lap with many treasures," went on the old woman. +"Jasper from the Punjab has he brought to you, rubies from Burma, +turquoises from Thibet, star-sapphires and alexandrites from Ceylon, +flawless emeralds from Afghanistan, white crystal from Malwa, onyx from +Persia, amethyst from Tartary, green jade and white jade from Amoy, +garnets from Bundelkhand, red corals from Socotra, chalcedon from Syria, +malachite from Kafiristan, pearls from Ramesvaram, lapis lazuli from +Jaffra, yellow diamonds from Poonah, black agate from Dynbhulpoor!" + +Vasantasena shrugged her slim shoulders disdainfully. + +"Yes," she said. "He put the nightingale in a cage of gold and +exclaimed: 'Behold, this is thy native land!' Then he opened the +door--and the nightingale flew away to the green land, the free land, +never regretting the golden cage." + +"He grovels before you in the dust of humility. He says that his life is +a blackened crucible of sin and vanity and regret, but that his love +for you is the golden bead at the bottom of the crucible. He has given +you freedom. He has given you friendship. He has given you tenderness +and affection and respect." + +"Yes," smiled Vasantasena. "He has given me his everything, his all. +Without cavil, without stint. Freedom he has given me, keeping the +bitter water of humility as his own portion. But all his generosity, his +fairness, his humility, his decency--all his love has not opened the +inner door to the shrine of my heart. In the night he comes, with the +flaming torches of his passion; but my heart is as cold as clay, as cold +as freezing water when the snow wind booms down from the Himalayas. The +madness of the storm and the waves is upon him, but there is no +answering surge in the tide of my soul. In my heart he sees the world +golden and white and flashing with laughter. In his heart I see the +world grim and drab and haggard and seamed with tears. For--generous, +fair, unstinting--he is also selfish and foolish, being a man unwise in +the tortuous, glorious ways of love. Daily he tells me that I am the +well of his love. But never does he ask me if his love is the stone of +my contentment." + +"Perhaps he does not dare," cackled the old nurse. + +"Being modest?" + +"Yes." + +"Only the selfish are modest, caring naught for the answering spark in +the heart of the loved one. And the love of woman is destroyed by humble +selfishness as the religion of a Brahmin by serving kings, the milk of a +cow by distant pasturage, and wealth by committing injustice. There is +no worth in such wealth--nor in such love. This is Veda-truth." + +And in a high, proud voice she added: + +"I love Madusadan, captain of horse. I will kiss his red, mocking lips +and bend to the thrill of his strong body. Pure he is to all the world, +to all women--so the bazaar gossip says--but I, and I alone, shall light +the lamp of passion in his heart. Free am I! But the unsung music in his +heart shall be a loved fetter around mine. Clasped in his arms, life and +death shall unite in me in an unbreakable chain. + +"I will bury my hands deep in the savage, tangled forest that is his +soul and follow therein the many trails. I will read the message of his +hooded, brown eyes, the trembling message of his great, hairy hands. His +heart is a crimson malati-flower, and mine the tawny orchid spotted with +purple that winds around its roots." + +"Gray is the hair on his temples. He is the king's senior by ten years." + +"Years of wisdom," laughed Vasantasena. "Years of waiting. Years of +garnering strength." + +"He is not as kindly as Vikramavati, nor as great, nor as generous." + +"But he is wise--wise! He knows the heart of woman--the essence, the +innermost secret of woman." + +"And that is--" + +"Patience in achieving. Strength in holding. Wisdom in--_not_ demanding +unless the woman offers and gives sign." + +And she went out into the garden that stretched back of the palace in +wild, scented profusion, bunching its majestic, columnar aisles of +banyan figs as a foil for the dainty, pale green tracery of the +nim-trees, the quivering, crimson domes of the peepals bearded to the +waist with gray and orange moss, where the little, bold-eye gekko +lizards slipped like narrow, green flags through the golden, perfumed +fretwork of the chandela bushes and wild parrots screeched overhead with +burnished wings; and there she met Madusadan, captain of horse, whom she +had summoned by a scribbled note earlier in the day, and her veil +slipped, and her white feet were like trembling flowers, and she pressed +her red mouth on his and rested in his arms like a tired child. + + _The road of desire runs beneath the feet all day and all night, + says the tale. There is no beginning to this road, nor end. Out + of the nowhere it comes, vanishing, yet never vanishing in the + nowhere; renewing each morning, after nights of love, the + eternal miracle, the never-ending virginity of passion._ + + _You cannot end the endless chain of it, says the tale. You + cannot hush the murmur of the sea which fills the air, rising + to the white, beckoning finger of Chandra, the Moon._ + + _Love's play is worship._ + + _Love's achievement is a rite._ + + _Love's secret is never read._ + + _Always around the corner is another light, a new light--golden, + twinkling, mocking, like the will-o'-the-wisp._ + + _Reach to it--as you never will--and there is the end of the + chain, the end of the tale._ + + _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_ + +"You broke your faith, faithless woman!" said Vikramavati as he saw +Vasantasena in the arms of Madusadan, captain of horse. + +The girl smiled. + +"It was you who spoke of love," she replied, "not I." + +"I tried to conquer your love by the greatness of my own love." + +"As a fool tries to take out a thorn in his foot by a thorn in his +hand." + +"I gave you freedom. I gave you the wealth of all Hindustan, the wealth +of the outer lands. I gave you my soul, my heart, my body, my strength, +my ambition, my faith, my secret self." + +"You gave me everything--because you love me. I gave you +nothing--because I do not love you." + +"Love can do the impossible," gravely said the captain of horse, while +Vasantasena nestled more closely to his arms. "It was because of love +that Vishnu, the Creator, changed into a dwarf and descended to the +lowermost regions, and there captured Bali, the Raja of Heaven and of +Earth. It was because of love that, as Ramachandra, helped by the monkey +folk, he built a bridge between India and Ceylon, and that, as Krishna, +he lifted up the great mountain Golonddhan in the palm of his hand as an +umbrella with which to shield his loved one against the splintering, +merciless rays of Surya, the Sun, the jealous, yellow god. + +"Love can do all things--except one. For love can never create love, +wise king. Love can force the stream to flow up-hill, but it cannot +create the stream when there is no water." + +Silence dropped like a shadow of fate, and Vikramavati turned slowly +and walked toward the palace. + +"To-morrow," he said over his shoulder, in an even, passionless voice, +"you shall die a death of lingering agony." + +Madusadan laughed lightly. + +"There is neither to-day nor to-morrow nor yesterday for those who +love," he replied. "There is only the pigeon-blue of the sunlit sky, the +crimson and gold of the harvest-fields, the laughter of the far waters. +Love fills the cup of infinity." + +"To-morrow you will be dead," the king repeated dully. + +And again Madusadan laughed lightly. + +"And what then, O wise king, trained in the rigid logic of Brahmin and +Parohitas?" he asked. "Will our death do away with the fact that once we +lived and, living, loved each other? Will the scarlet of our death wipe +out the streaked gray of your jealousy? Will our death give you the love +of Vasantasena, which never was yours in life? Will our death rob our +souls of the memory of the great sweetness which was ours, the beauty, +the glory, the never-ending thrill of fulfillment?" + +"Love ceases with death." + +"Love, wise king, is unswayed by the rhythm of either life--or death. +Love--that surges day after day, night after night, as year after year +the breast of the earth heaves to the spring song of the ripening rice, +to the golden fruit of the mango groves. + +"Death? A fig for it, wise king! + +"Let me but live until to-morrow in the arms of my loved one, and the +sweetness of our love shall be an unbreakable chain--on through a +thousand deaths, a thousand new births, straight into Nirvana--into +Brahm's silver soul!" + +"Ahee!" echoed Vasantasena. "Let death come and the wind of life lull; +let the light fail and the flowers wilt and droop; let the stars gutter +out one by one and the cosmos crumble in the gray storm of final +oblivion--yet will our love be an unbreakable chain, defying you, O +king--defying the world--defying the very gods--" + +"But not defying the laws of nature, as interpreted by a wise Brahmin!" +a shrill, age-cracked voice broke in, and Deo Singh, the old prime +minister who had come down the garden trail on silent, slippered feet, +stepped into the open. + +"No! By Shiva and by Shiva! Not the laws of nature, the eternal laws of +logic, as interpreted by a priest well versed in Sruti and Smriti--in +revelation and tradition. Not the laws of nature, rational and +evidential, physical and metaphysical, analytical and synthetical, +philosophical, and philological, as expounded by a Parohita familiar +with the Vedas and the blessed wisdom of the ancient Upanishads of +Hind!" + +He salaamed low before Vikramavati. + +"It is written in the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Books, the Lay of Brahm +the Lord, that each crime shall find condign punishment, be it committed +by high caste or low caste, by prince or peasant, by raja or ryot. To +each his punishment, says the Karma, which is fate!" + +"And--these two?" demanded Vikramavati. "What punishment shall be meted +out to the faithless woman and the faithless captain of horse, Brahmin?" + +Deo Singh spread out his fingers like the sticks of a fan. + +"They have chosen their own sentence, these worshipers of Kartikeya, God +of Rogues and Rascals," he chuckled. "Of a chain they spoke. An +unbreakable chain that defies all laws, except belike"--again he laughed +deep in his throat--"the wise laws of nature. Weld them together with +such a chain, forged by a master smith, made so strong that not even a +tough-thewed captain of horse may break it with the clouting muscles of +his arms and back. A chain, ten feet long, so that they may never be far +away from each other, so that they may always be able to slake the hot, +turbulent thirst of love, so that they may never have to wait for the +thrill of fulfillment as a beggar waits at life's feast, so that day and +night, each hour, each minute, each second they may revel in the +sunshine of their love, so that never they may have to stand helpless +before the flood-tide of their desire. + +"Grant them their wish, O king, being wise and merciful; and then lock +them into a room containing the choicest food, the sweetest drinks, the +whitest flowers, the softest, silkenest couch draped with purple and +gold. A room such as lovers dream of--and fools! Leave them there +together for three days, three nights, three sobbing, crunching, killing +eternities! With no sound, no touch, no scent, no taste, but their own +voices, their own hearts and souls and minds and bodies! And at the end +of the three days----" + +"Yes?" asked Vikramavati. + +"They will have suffered the worst punishment, the worst agony on earth. +Slowly, slowly for three days, three nights, three eternities, they will +have watched the honey of their love turn, drop by drop, into gall. +Their passion--slowly, slowly--will turn into loathing; their desire +into disgust. For no love in the world can survive the chain of +monotony!" + + * * * * * + +Thus it was done. + +A chain of unbreakable steel, ten feet long, was welded to the girl's +right wrist and the man's left, and they were locked into a house--a +house such as lovers dream of--that was guarded day and night by armed +warriors, who let none within hailing distance, whose windows were +shuttered and curtained so that not even the golden eye of the sun might +look in, and around which a vast circular clearing had been made with +torch and spade and scimitar so that neither bird nor insect nor beast +of forest and jungle might live there and no sound drift into the +lovers' room except, perhaps, the crooning sob of the dawn wind; and at +the end of the third night carefully, stealthily, silently the king and +the Brahmin walked up to the house and pressed their ears against the +keyhole, and they heard the man's voice saying: + +"I love you, little flower of my happiness! I love you--you who are all +my dreams come true! When I look into your face the sun rises, and the +waters bring the call of the deep, and the boat of my life rocks on the +dancing waves of passion!" + +And then the girl's answer, clear, serene: + +"And I love _you_, Madusadan, captain of horse! You have broken the +fetters of my loneliness, the shackles of my longing! I waited, waited, +waited--but you came, and I shall never let you go again! You have +banished all the drab, sad dreams of the past! You have made your heart +a prison for my love, and you have tossed away the key into the +turbulent whirlpool of my eternal desire!" + + _"Did the chain gall them?" asked the Foolish Virgin, who had + come to Jehan Tugluk Khan, a wise man in Tartary and milk + brother to Ghengiz Khan, Emperor of the East and the North and + Captain General of the Golden Horde._ + + _"No, Foolish Virgin," replied Jehan Tugluk Khan. "Their love + could not have lived without the chain. It was their love which + WAS the chain--made it, held it, welded it, eternal, unbreaking, + unbreakable. Ten feet long was the chain. Each foot of + steel--eternal, unbreaking, unbreakable--was a link of their + love, and these links were: Passion, patience, completion, + friendship, tolerance, understanding, tenderness, forgiveness, + service, humor."_ + + _This is the end of the tale of Vasantasena, the slave who was + free in her own heart, and of Madusadan, a captain of horse, who + plucked the white rose without fearing the thorns._ + + _And, says the tale, if you would make your chain doubly + unbreakable, add another foot to it, another link. There is no + word for it. But, by the strength and sense of it, you must + never lull your love to sleep in the soft cradle of too great + security._ + + _For love demands eternal vigilance._ + + _LISTEN, O AZZIA, O BELOVED, TO MY JATAKA!_ + + + + +SECOND TALE + +OUT OF THE DARK + +BY MAX BRAND + + +The principality of Pornia is not a large country and in the ordinary +course of history it should have been swallowed entire, centuries ago, +by one of the kingdoms which surround it. Its situation has saved it +from this fate, for it is the buffer state between two great monarchies +whose jealousy has preserved for Pornia an independent existence. + +Despite its independence, Pornia has never received much consideration +from the rest of Europe, and the aim of its princes for many generations +has been to foist it into the great councils by a strong alliance with +one of the two kingdoms to which it serves as a buffer. + +The long-desired opportunity came at last in the reign of Alexander VI, +who, one morning, commanded Rudolph of Herzvina to appear at the palace. +As soon as the worthy old baron appeared, Alexander spoke to him as +follows: "Rudolph, you are an old and respected counselor, a devoted +servant of the State, and therefore I am delighted to announce that the +greatest honor is about to descend upon your family, an honor so great +that the entire State of Pornia will be elevated thereby. The Crown +Prince Charles wishes to make your daughter his wife!" + +At this he stepped back, the better to note the joy with which old +Rudolph would receive this announcement, but, to his astonishment, the +baron merely bowed his head and sighed. + +"Your highness," said Rudolph of Herzvina, "I have long known of the +attachment which the crown prince has for my daughter, Bertha, but I +fear that the marriage can never be consummated." + +"Come, come!" said the prince genially. "It is a far leap indeed from +Baron of Herzvina to father-in-law to Prince Charles, but there have +been stranger things in history than this, though never anything that +could so effectually elevate Pornia. Have no fear of Charles. He loves +your daughter; he is strong-minded as the very devil; he will override +any opposition from his father. As a matter of fact, it is no secret +that Charles is already practically the ruler over his kingdom. So +rejoice, Herzvina, and I will rejoice with you!" + +But the baron merely shook his head sadly and repeated: "I fear the +marriage can never be consummated." + +"Why not?" said the prince in some heat. "I tell you, his royal highness +loves the girl. I could read passion even in the stilted language of his +ambassador's message. Why not?" + +"I was not thinking of his royal highness, but of the girl. She will not +marry him." + +The prince dropped into a chair with jarring suddenness. + +Rudolph continued hastily: "I have talked with Bertha many times and +seriously of the matter; I have tried to convince her of her duty; but +she will not hear me. The foolish girl says she does not love his +highness." + +The prince smote his hands together in an ecstasy of impatience. + +"Love! Love! In the name of God, Herzvina, what has love to do with +this? This is the thing for which Pornia has waited during centuries. +Through this alliance I can make a treaty that will place Pornia once +and forever upon the map of the diplomatic powers. Love!" + +"I have said all this to her, but she is obdurate." + +"Does she expect some fairy prince? She is not a child; she is not +even--forgive me--beautiful." + +"True. She is not even pretty, but even homely women, your highness, +will sometimes think of love. It is a weakness of the sex." + +He was not satirical; he was very earnest indeed. He continued: "I have +tried every persuasion. She only says in reply: 'He is too old. I cannot +love him.'" + +An inspiration came to Alexander of Pornia. Under the stress of it he +rose and so far forgot himself as to clap a hand upon the shoulder of +Herzvina. In so doing he had to reach up almost as high as his head, for +the princes of Pornia have been small men, time out of mind. + +"Baron," he said, "will you let me try my hand at persuasion?" + +"It would be an honor, sire. My family is ever at the disposal of my +prince." + +He answered with a touch of emotion: "I know it, Rudolph; but will you +trust the girl in my hands for a number of days? A thought has come to +me. I know I can convince her that this love of which she dreams is a +thing of the flesh alone, a physical necessity. Come, send her to me, +and I shall tear away her illusions. She will not thank me for it, but +she will marry the crown prince." + +"I will send her to the palace to-day." + +"Very good; and first tell her why I wish to speak with her. It may be +that of herself she will change her mind when she learns the wishes of +her prince. Farewell." + +And the prince rode off to a review of the troops of the city guard. So +it was that Bertha of Herzvina sat for a long time in a lonely room, +after her arrival at the palace before the door opened, a man in livery +bowed for the entrance of the prince, and she found herself alone with +her sovereign. + +Automatically she curtsied, and he let her remain bowed while he slowly +drew off his white gloves. He still wore his general's uniform with the +stiff padding which would not allow his body to grow old, for a prince +of Pornia must always look the soldier. + +"Sit down," he ordered, and as she obeyed he commenced to walk the room. + +He never sat quietly through an interview if he could avoid it; a +constitutional weakness of the nerves made it almost impossible for him +to meet another person's eyes. The pacing up and down gave a plausible +reason for the continual shifting of his glance. + +"A good day, a very good day," he said. "The hussars were wonderful." + +His shoulders strained further back. The prince himself always rode at +the head of the hussars; in her childhood she had admired him. He +stopped at a window and hummed a marching air. That was a planned +maneuver, for his back was far more royal than his face, with its tall +forehead and diminutive mouth and chin. She felt as if she were in the +presence of a uniformed automaton. + +He broke off his humming and spoke without turning. + +"Well?" + +"My decision is unchanged." + +"Impossible! In the length of a whole day even a woman must think +twice." + +"Yes, many times." + +"You will not marry him?" + +"I cannot love him." + +He whirled, and the pale blue eyes flashed at her a brief glance which +made her cringe. It was as if an X-ray had been turned on her heart. + +"Love!" he said softly, and she shuddered again. "Because he is old? +Bertha, you are no longer a child. Other women marry for what they may +term love. It is your privilege to marry for the State. That is the +nobler thing." + +He smiled and nodded, repeating for his own ear: "The nobler thing! What +is greater than such service--what is more glorious than to forget self +and marry for the good of the thousands?" + +"I have an obligation to myself." + +"Who has filled you with so many childish ideas?" + +"They have grown of themselves, sire." + +The pacing up and down the room recommenced. "Child, have you no desire +to serve me? I mean, your country?" + +She answered slowly, as if feeling for her words: "It is impossible that +I should be able to serve you through my dishonor. If I should marry +the crown prince, my life would be one long sleep, sire. I would not +dare awaken to the reality." + +His head tilted and he laughed noiselessly. A weakness of the throat +prevented him from raising his voice even in times of the greatest +excitement. + +"A soul that sleeps, eh? The kiss of love will awaken it?" + +He surveyed her with brief disdain. + +"My dear, you scorn titles, and yet as an untitled woman you are not a +match for the first red-faced tradesman's daughter. Stand up!" + +She rose and he led her in front of a pier glass. Solemnly he studied +her pale image. + +"A sleeping soul!" he repeated. + +She covered her face. + +"Will that bait catch the errant lover, Bertha?" + +"God will make up the difference." + +He cursed softly. She had not known he could be so moved. + +"Poor child, let me talk with you." + +He led her back to a chair almost with kindness and sat somewhat behind +her so that he need not meet her eyes. + +"This love you wait for--it is not a full-grown god, dear girl, but a +blind child. Given a man and a woman and a certain propinquity, and +nature does the rest. We put a mask on nature and call it love, we name +an abstraction and call it God. Love! Love! Love! It is a pretty +disguise--no more. Do you understand?" + +"I will not." + +She listened to his quick breathing. + +"Bertha, if I were to chain you with a ten-foot chain to the first man +off the streets and leave you alone with him for three days, what would +happen?" + +Her hand closed on the arm of the chair. He rose and paced the room as +his idea grew. + +"Your eyes would criticize him and your shame would fight in behalf of +your--soul? And the sight of your shame would keep the man in check. But +suppose the room were dark--suppose you could not see his face and +merely knew that a man was there--suppose _he_ could not see and merely +knew that a woman was there? What would happen? Would it be love? Pah! +Love is no more deified than hunger. If it is satisfied, it goes to +sleep; if it is satiated, it turns to loathing. Aye, at the end of the +three days you would be glad enough to have the ten-foot chain cut. But +first what would happen?" + +The vague terror grew coldly in her, for she could see the idea taking +hold of him like a hand. + +"If I were to do this, the world might term it a shameful thing, but I +act for Pornia--not for myself. I consider only the good of the State. +By this experiment I prove to you that love is not God, but blind +nature. Yes, and if you knew it as it is, would you oppose me longer? +The thought grows upon me! Speak!" + +Her smile made her almost beautiful. + +"Sire, in all the world there is only one man for every woman." + +"Book talk." + +He set his teeth because he could not meet her eyes. + +"And who will bring you this one man?" + +"God." + +Once more the soundless laugh. + +"Then I shall play the part of God. Bertha, you must now make your +decision: a marriage for the good of the State, or the ten-foot chain, +the dark room--and love!" + +"Even you will not dare this, sire." + +"Bertha, there is nothing I do not dare. What would be known? I give +orders that this room be utterly darkened; I send secret police to seize +a man from the city at random and fetter him to a chain in that room; +then I bring you to the room and fasten you to the other end of the +chain, and for three days I have food introduced into the room. Results? +For the man, death; for you, a knowledge first of yourself and, +secondly, of love. The State will benefit." + +"It is bestial--incredible." + +"Bestial? Tut! I play the part of God and even surpass Him. I put you +face to face with a temptation through which you shall come to know +yourself. You lose a dream; you gain a fact. It is well. Shame will +guard the secret in your heart--and the State will benefit. Still you +see that I am paternal--merciful. I do not punish you for your past +obstinacy. I still give you a choice. Bertha, will you marry as I wish, +or will you force me to play the part of God?" + +"I shall not marry." + +"Ah, you will wait for God to make up the difference. It is well--very +well; _le Dieu c'est moi_. Ha! That is greater than the phrase of Louis +XIV. You shall have still more time, but the moment the sun goes down, +if I do not hear from you, I shall ring a bell that will send my secret +police out to seize a man indiscriminately from the masses of the city. +I shall not even stipulate that he be young. My trust in nature +is--absolute. _Adieu!_" + +She made up her mind the moment he left the room. She drew on her cloak. +Before the pier glass she paused. + +"Aye," she murmured, "I could not match the first farmer's daughter. But +still there must be one man in the world--and God will make up the +difference!" + +She threw open the door which gave on a passage leading to a side +entrance. A grenadier of the palace guard jumped to attention and +presented arms. + +"Pardon," he said. + +He completely blocked the hall; the prince had left nothing to chance. +She started to turn back and then hesitated and regarded the man +carefully. + +"Fritz!" she said at last, for she recognized the peasant who had been a +stable-boy on her father's estate before he took service in the +grenadiers. "You are Fritz Barr!" + +He flushed with pleasure. + +"_Madame_ remembers me?" + +"And my little black pony you used to take care of?" + +"Yes, yes!" + +He grinned and nodded; and then she noted a revolver in the holster at +his side. + +"What are your orders, Fritz?" + +"To let no one pass down this hall. I am sorry, _madame_." + +"But if I were to ask you for your revolver?" + +He stirred uneasily and she took money from her purse and gave it to +him. + +"With this you could procure another weapon?" + +He drew a long breath; the temptation was great. + +"I could, _madame_." + +"Then do so. It will never be known from whom I received the gun--and my +need is desperate--desperate!" + +He unbuckled the weapon without a word, and with it in her hand she +returned to the room. + +There was a tall western window, and before this she drew up a chair to +watch the setting of the sun. + +"Will he ring the bell when the edge of the sun touches the hills or +when it is completely set?" she thought. + +The white circle grew yellow; then it took on a taint of orange, bulging +oddly at the sides into a clumsy oval. From the gardens below came a +stir of voices and then the thrill of a girl's laughter. She smiled as +she listened, and, leaning from the window, the west wind blew to her +the scent of flowers. She sat there for a long time, breathing deeply of +the fragrance and noting all the curves of the lawn with a still, sad +pleasure. The green changed from bright to dark; when she looked up the +sun had set. + +As she turned from the gay western sky, the room was doubly dim and the +breeze of the evening set the curtains rustling and whispering. Silence +she was prepared for, but not those ghostly voices, not the shift and +sweep of the shadows. She turned the electric switch, closing her eyes +to blur the shock of the sudden deluge of light. The switch clicked, but +when she opened her eyes the room was still dark; they had cut the +connecting wires. + +Thereafter her mind went mercifully blank, for what she faced was, like +birth and death, beyond comprehension. Noise at the windows roused her +from the daze at last and she found that a number of workmen were +sealing the room so that neither light nor sound could enter or escape. +The only air would be from the ventilator. And still she could not +realize what had happened, what was to happen, until the last sounds of +the workmen ceased and the deep, dread silence began; silence that had a +pulse in it--the beating of her heart. + +She was standing in the middle of the room when the first shapes formed +in the black night, and terror hovered about her suddenly, touching her +as with cold fingers. She felt her way back to a corner and crouched +there against the wall, waiting, waiting. They had seized the doomed +man long before this. They must have bound and gagged him and carried +him to the palace. + +A thousand types of men passed before her inward eye--thin-faced clerks, +men as pale as the belly of a dead fish; bearded monsters, gross and +thick-lipped, with thunderous laughter; laborers, stamped with patient +weariness--and all whom she saw carried the sign of the beast in their +eyes. She tried to pray, but the voice of the prince rang in her ears: +"_Le Dieu, c'est moi!_" and when she named God in her prayers, she +visualized Alexander's face, the pale, small eyes, the colorless hair, +the lofty brow, the mouth whose tight lips could not be disguised by +even the careful mustache. When a key turned in a door, she sprang to +her feet with a cry of horror. + +"It is I," said the prince. + +"I am dying; I cannot stay here; I will marry whom and when you will." + +"Ah, my dear, you should have spoken before sunset. I warned you, and I +never change my mind. It is only for three days, remember. Also, it is +in the interest of science. Beyond that, I have quite taken a fancy to +playing God for you for three days. Do you understand?" + +The even, mocking tones guided her to him. She fell at his feet and +strained his thin knees against her breast. + +"Come! Be reasonable, Bertha. This is justice." + +"Sire, I want no justice. For God's sake, be merciful." + +She heard the shaken breath of his soundless laughter. + +"Is it so? You should be grateful to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing +you the love of which you have dreamed. Ha! Ha! _Le Dieu, c'est moi!_" + +The clanking of the chain which he carried stilled her voice. It hushed +even the thunder of her heart. She rose and waited patiently while the +manacle was affixed to her wrist. The prince crossed the room and tapped +on the door, which opened, and by a faint light from without Bertha +discovered two men carrying a third into the room. She strained her +eyes, but could make out no faces. The burden was laid on the floor; a +metallic sound told her that she was fettered to the unknown. + +The prince said: "You are a brave girl. All may yet be well. Then human +nature is finer than I think. We shall see. As for your lover, your gift +from God, he is sleeping soundly now. It may be an hour before the +effects of the drug wear away. During that time you can think of love. +Food will be placed three times a day within the door yonder. You can +readily find it by feeling your way around the wall. Farewell." + +When the door closed she started to retreat to her corner, but the chain +instantly drew taut with a rattle. Strangely enough, much of her fear +left her now that she was face to face with the danger; temptation, the +prince had called it. She smiled as she remembered. When the man awoke +and learned their situation, she had no doubt as to how he would act. +She had seen the sign of the beast in the eyes of many men, great and +small; she had seen it and understood. The revolver might save her for a +time, but what if she slept? She knew it would be almost impossible to +remain awake during three days and nights. + +The moment her eyes closed the end would come. It seemed better that she +should fire the bullet now. + +When he recovered his senses, it would be difficult to shoot effectively +in the dark, for this was not the gloom of night--it was an absolute +void, black, thick, impenetrable. She could not make out her hand at the +slightest distance from her eyes. He might even attack her from behind +and knock the revolver from her hand before she could shoot. Sooner or +later the man must die. Even if she did not kill him it would be +accomplished by the command of the prince at the end of the three days. + +Far better that it should be done at once--that he should never awaken +from his sleep. She reached the decision calmly and crept forward to +him. Very lightly she passed her hand over his clothes. She had to move +his arm to uncover the breast over his heart; the arm was a limp weight, +but the muscles were firm, round, and solid. The first qualm troubled +her as she realized that this must be a young man, at least a man in the +prime of his physical strength. + +Then it occurred to her that often bullets fired into the breast are +deflected from the heart by bones; it would be far more certain to lay +the muzzle against the temple--press the trigger--the soul would depart. + +The soul! She paused with a thrill of wonder. A little touch would loose +the swift spirit. The soul! For the first time she saw the tragedy from +the viewpoint of the unknown man. His life was cut in the middle; truly +a blind fate had reached out and chosen him from a whole city. Yet she +was merely hastening the inevitable. She reached out and found his +forehead. + +It was broad and high. Tracing it lightly with the tips of her fingers +she discovered two rather prominent lumps of bony structure over the +eyes. Some one had told her that this represented a strong power of +memory. She tried to visualize that feature alone, and very suddenly, as +a face shows when a man lights his cigarette on the street at night, she +saw in memory the figure of Rembrandt's "Portrait of a Young Painter." +He sits at his drawing board, his pencil poised, ready for the stroke +which shall give vital character to his sketch. There is only one high +light, falling on the lower part of the face. Inspiration has tightened +the sensitive mouth; the questing eyes peer out from the shadow of the +soft cap. She broke off from her vision to realize with a start that +when she touched the trigger she would be stepping back through the +centuries and killing her dream of the original of Rembrandt's picture. +A foolish fancy, truly, but in the dark a dream may be as true, as vivid +as reality. + +The unconscious man sighed. She leaned close and listened to his +breathing, soft, hurried, irregular as if he struggled in his sleep, as +if the subconscious mind were calling to the conscious: "Awake! Death is +here!" + +At least there was plenty of time. She need not fire the shot until he +moved. She laid the revolver on her lap and absently allowed her hands +to wander over his face, lingering lightly on each feature. She grew +more alert after a moment. Every particle of her energy was concentrated +on seeing that face--on seeing it through her sense of touch. The blind, +she knew, grow so dextrous that the delicate nerves of their finger tips +record faces almost as accurately as the eyes of the normal person. + +Ah, for one moment of that power! She tried her best. The nose, she told +herself, was straight and well modeled. The eyes, for she traced the +bony structure around them, must be large; the cheek bones high, a sign +of strength; the chin certainly square and prominent; the lips full and +the mouth rather large; the hair waving and thick; the throat large. One +by one she traced each detail and then, moving both hands rather swiftly +over the face, she strove to build the mental picture of the whole--and +she achieved one, but still it was always the young painter whom great +Rembrandt had drawn. The illusion would not go out of her mind. + +An artist's hands, it is said, must be strong and sinewy. She took these +hands and felt the heavy bones of the wrist and strove to estimate the +length of the fingers. It seemed to her that this was an ideal hand for +a painter--it must be both strong and supple. + +He sighed again and stirred; she caught up the weapon with feverish +haste and poised it. + +"Ah, it is well," said the sleeper in his dream. + +She made sure that he was indeed unconscious and then leaned low, +whispering: "Adieu, my dear." + +At some happy vision he laughed softly. His breath touched her face. +Surely he could never know; he had so short a moment left for living; +perhaps this would pass into his latest dream on earth and make it +happy. + +"Adieu!" she whispered again, and her lips pressed on his. + +She laid the muzzle of the revolver against his temple, and, summoning +all her will power, she pressed the trigger. It seemed as if she were +pulling against it with her full strength, and yet there was no report. +Then she realized that all her might was going into an inward struggle. +She summoned to her aid the voice of the prince as he had said: "We put +a mask on nature and call it love; we name an abstraction and call it +God. _Le Dieu, c'est moi!_" She placed the revolver against the temple +of the sleeper; he stirred and disturbed the surety of her direction. +She adjusted the weapon again. + +Up sprang the man, shouting: "Treason! Help!" + +Then he stood silent a long moment; perhaps he was rehearsing the scene +of his seizure. + +"This is death," he muttered at last, "and I am in hell. I have always +known what it would be--dark--utter and bitter loss of light." + +As his hand moved, the chain rattled. He sprang back with such violence +that his lunging weight jerked her to her feet. + +"It is useless to struggle," she cried. + +"A woman! Where am I?" + +"You are lost." + +"But what has happened? In God's name, _madame_, are we chained +together?" + +"We are." + +"By whose power? By whose right and command?" + +"By one against whom we cannot appeal." + +"My crime?" + +"None." + +"For how long--" + +"Three days." + +He heaved a great sigh of relief. + +"It is merely some practical joke, I see. That infernal Franz, I knew he +was meditating mischief! Three days--and then free?" + +"Yes, for then you die." + +Once more he was silent. + +Then: "This is a hideous dream. I will waken from it at once--at once. +My dear lady--" + +She heard him advancing. + +"Keep the chain taut, sir, I am armed; I will fire at the slightest +provocation." + +He stopped and laughed. + +"Come, come! This is not so bad. You have been smiling in your sleep at +me. Up with the lights, my dear. If Franz has engaged you for this +business, let me tell you that I'm a far better fellow than he must have +advertised me. But what a devil he is to rig up such an elaborate hoax! +By Jove, this chain--this darkness--it's enough to turn a fellow's hair +white! The black night gets on my nerves. Lights! Lights! I yearn to see +you; I prophesy your beauty by your voice! Still coy? Then we'll try +persuasion!" + +His breast struck the muzzle of the revolver. + +She said quietly: "If I move my finger a fraction of an inch you die, +sir. And every word I have spoken to you is the truth." + +"Well, well! You do this finely. I shall compliment Franz on rehearsing +you so thoroughly. Is this the fair Daphne of whom he told me--" + +And his hand touched her shoulder. + +"By everything that is sacred, I will fire unless you stand back--back +to the end of the chain." + +"Is it possible? The Middle Ages have returned!" + +He moved back until the light chain was taut. + +"My mind whirls. I try to laugh, but your voice convinces me. _Madame_, +will you explain my situation in words of one syllable?" + +"I have explained it already. You are imprisoned in a place from which +you cannot escape. You will be confined here, held to me by this chain, +for three days. At the end of that time you die." + +"Will you swear this is the truth?" + +"Name any oath and I will repeat it." + +"There's no need," he said. "No, it cannot be a jest. Franz would never +risk the use of a drug, wild as he is. Some other power has taken me. +What reason lies behind my arrest?" + +"Think of it as a blind and brutal hand which required a victim and +reached out over the city to find one. The hand fell upon you. There is +no more to say. You can only resign yourself to die an unknown death." + +He said at last: "Not unknown, thank God. I have something which will +live after me." + +Her heart leaped, for she was seeing once more the artist from +Rembrandt's brush. + +"Yes, your paintings will not be forgotten." + +"I feel that they will not, and the name of--" + +"Do not speak of it!" + +"Why?" + +"I must not hear your name." + +"But you know it already. You spoke of my painting." + +"I have never seen your face; I have never heard your name; you were +brought to me in this room darkened as you find it now." + +"Yet you knew--" + +Her voice was marvelously low: "I touched your face, sir, and in some +way I knew." + +After a time he said: "I believe you. This miracle is no greater than +the others. But why do you not wish to know my name?" + +"I may live after you, and when I see your pictures I do not wish to +say: 'This is his work; this is his power; this is his limitation.' Can +you understand?" + +"I will try to." + +"I sat beside you while you were unconscious, and I pictured your face +and your mind for myself. I will not have that picture reduced to +reality." + +"It is a delicate fancy. You are blind? You see by the touch of your +hands?" + +"I am not blind, but I think I have seen your face through the touch." + +"Here! I have stumbled against two chairs. Let us sit down and talk. I +will slide this chair farther away if you wish. Do you fear me?" + +"No, I think I am not afraid. I am only very sad for you. Listen: I have +laid down the revolver. Is that rash?" + +"_Madame_, my life has been clean. Would I stain it now? No, no! Sit +here--so! My hand touches yours--you are not afraid?--and a thrill leaps +through me. Is it the dark that changes all things and gives eyes to +your imagination, or are you really very beautiful?" + +"How shall I say?" + +"Be very frank, for I am a dying man, am I not? And I should hear the +truth." + +"You are a profound lover of the beautiful?" + +"I am a painter, _madame_." + +She called up the image of her face--the dingy brown hair, long and +silken, to be sure; the colorless, small eyes; the common features which +the first red-skinned farmer's daughter could overmatch. + +"Describe me as you imagine me. I will tell you when you are wrong." + +"May I touch you, _madame_, as you touched me? Or would that trouble +you?" + +She hesitated, but it seemed to her that the questing eyes of +Rembrandt's portrait looked upon her through the dark--eyes reverent and +eager at once. + +She said: "You may do as you will." + +His unmanacled hand went up, found her hair, passed slowly over its +folds. + +"It is like silk to the touch, but far more delicate, for there is life +in every thread of it. It is abundant and long. Ah, it must shine when +the sun strikes upon it! It is golden hair, _madame_, no pale-yellow +like sea-sand, but glorious gold, and when it hangs across the +whiteness of your throat and bosom the hearts of men stir. Speak! Tell +me I have named it!" + +She waited till the sob grew smaller in her throat. + +"Yes, it is golden hair," she said. + +"I could not be wrong." + +His hand passed down her face, fluttering lightly, and she sensed the +eagerness of every touch. Cold fear took hold of her lest those +searching fingers should discover the truth. + +"Your eyes are blue. Yes, yes! Deep-blue for golden hair. It cannot be +otherwise. Speak." + +"God help me!" + +"_Madame?_" + +"I have been too vain of my eyes, sir. Yes, they are blue." + +The fingers were on her cheeks, trembling on her lips, touching chin and +throat. + +"You are divine. It was foredoomed that this should be! Yes, my life has +been one long succession of miracles, but the greatest was reserved +until the end. I have followed my heart through the world in search of +perfect beauty and now I am about to die, I find it. Oh, God! For one +moment with canvas, brush, and the blessed light of the sun! It cannot +be! No miracle is complete; but I carry out into the eternal night one +perfect picture. Canvas and paint? No, no! Your picture must be drawn in +the soul and colored with love. The last miracle and the greatest! Three +days? No, three ages, three centuries of happiness, for are you not +here?" + +Who will say that there is not an eye with which we pierce the night? To +each of these two sitting in the utter dark there came a vision. +Imagination became more real than reality. He saw his ideal of the +woman, that picture which every man carries in his heart to think of in +the times of silence, to see in every void. And she saw her ideal of +manly power. The dark pressed them together as if with the force of +physical hands. For a moment they waited, and in that moment each knew +the heart of the other, for in that utter void of light and sound, they +saw with the eyes of the soul and they heard the music of the spheres. + +Then she seemed to hear the voice of the prince: "You should be grateful +to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing you that love of which you +dreamed. _Le Dieu, c'est moi!_" + +Yes, it was the voice of doom which had spoken from those sardonic lips. +The dark which annihilates time made their love a century old. + +"In all the world," she whispered, "there is one man for every woman. It +is the hand of Heaven which gives me to you." + +"Come closer--so! And here I have your head beside mine as God +foredoomed. Listen! I have power to look through the dark and to see +your eyes--how blue they are!--and to read your soul beneath them. We +have scarcely spoken a hundred words and yet I see it all. Through a +thousand centuries our souls have been born a thousand times and in +every life we have met, and known--" + +And through the utter dark, the merciful dark, the deep, strong music of +his voice went on, and she listened, and forgot the truth and closed her +eyes against herself. + + * * * * * + +On the night which closed the third day the prince approached the door +of the sealed room. To the officer of the secret police, who stood on +guard, he said: "Nothing has been heard." + +"Early this afternoon there were two shots, I think." + +"Nonsense. There are carpenters doing repair work on the floor above. +You mistook the noise of their hammers." + +He waved the man away, and as he fitted the key into the lock he was +laughing softly to himself: "Now for the revelation, the downward head, +the shame. Ha! Ha! Ha!" + +He opened the door and flashed on his electric lantern. They lay upon a +couch wrapped in each other's arms. He had shot her through the heart +and then turned the weapon on himself; his last effort must have been to +draw her closer. About them was wrapped the chain, idle and loose. +Surely death had no sting for them and the grave no victory, for the +cold features were so illumined that the prince could hardly believe +them dead. + +He turned the electric torch on the painter. He was a man about fifty, +with long, iron-gray hair, and a stubble of three days' growth covering +his face. It was a singularly ugly countenance, strong, but savagely +lined, and the forehead corrugated with the wrinkles of long, mental +labor. But death had made Bertha beautiful. Her eyes under the shadow +of her lashes, seemed a deep-sea blue, and her loose, brown hair, +falling across the white throat and breast, seemed almost golden under +the light of the torch. A draft from the open door moved the hair and +the heart of the prince stirred in him. + +He strove to loosen the arms of the painter, but they were frozen stiff +by death. + +"She was a fool, and the loss is small," sighed the prince. "After all, +perhaps God was nearer than I thought. I bound them together with a +chain. He saw my act and must have approved, for see! He has locked them +together forever. Well, after all--_le Dieu, c'est moi!_" + + + + +THIRD TALE + +PLUMB NAUSEATED + +BY E. K. MEANS + + +I. + +"Yes, suh, I feels plum' qualified to take on a wife." + +The black negro blushed to a darker hue and his face shone like polished +ebony in the blazing August sun. In his embarrassment he twisted his +shapeless wool hat into a wad, thrust it under his arm like a bundle, +turned his back upon the white man's quizzical eyes, and sat down upon +the lowest step of the porch. + +At the feet of the white man lay half a dozen pairs of handcuffs. He +stooped and picked up a pair which showed rusty in the bright light, +rubbed the rust off with sand-paper, squirted some oil into the +mechanism from a little can, and busied himself for a few minutes seeing +that his police hardware was in good condition. + +The sheriff remained silent for so long that the negro imagined he had +been forgotten. Then Flournoy fired a question so unexpectedly that the +black man winced: "What's your name?" + +"Dey calls me Plaster Sickety." + +"Gosh!" the sheriff exploded. "Can any woman be induced to exchange a +perfectly decent name for a smear like that?" + +"Suttinly," the negro grinned. "Dat gal's name ain't so awful cute. Dey +calls her Pearline Flunder." + +"Plaster Sickety and Pearline Flunder--help, everybody! What sort of +children will issue from a matrimonial alliance of such names?" + +"I reckin our chillun will all be borned Huns, Marse John; but I cain't +he'p it." + +Under his manipulation the sheriff's worn handcuffs took on a polish +like new. At intervals he glanced up from his task to see the sunlight +spraying from the pecan-trees like water and the heat rising from the +ground, visible as a boiling cloud. Once he heard an eagle scream, and +glanced toward the Little Mocassin swamp to behold a black speck sail +into the haze that hung like a curtain of purple and gold upon the +horizon. The negro sat motionless except for glowing black eyes +restless as mercury and all-perceiving. + +Suddenly the bear-trap mouth of the big sheriff twisted into a little +smile. + +"How'd you like to give your girl one of these things for a +wedding-present, Plaster?" he asked, as he tossed a polished pair of +handcuffs on the step beside the negro. + +"I's kinder pestered in my mind 'bout gittin' a fitten weddin'-present, +Marse John, but--" Plaster rose to his feet and returned the manacles +without completing his sentence. + +"How much money have you got?" Flournoy asked. + +"I ain't got none till yit." + +"How you going to buy the license? How you going to pay the preacher?" +Flournoy asked. + +"Dat's whut I come to git a view from you about, Marse John. All de +cullud folks gives you a rep dat you is powerful good to niggers an' I +figgered dat you an' me mought fix up some kind of shake-down so I could +git married 'thout costin' me nothin'." + +"Don't you ever read the Bible?" Flournoy growled. "Even Adam's wife +cost him a bone." + +"Yes, suh," the negro grinned. "But I figger ef Sheriff Flournoy had +been aroun' anywheres at dat time, maybe Adam would 'a' got off a whole +lot cheaper." + +"Have you got a job to support your wife?" Flournoy asked. + +"Naw, suh." + +"Have you got a house to live in?" + +"Naw, suh." + +"Where are you going to live with her--in a hollow sycamore-tree?" + +"Yes, suh, I reckin so--dat is, excusin' ef you don't he'p us none." + +"Where are you two idiots going to derive your sustenance--from the +circumambient atmosphere?" + +"Dat's de word, Marse John--dat is, excusin' ef you don't loant us a +hand in our troubles," the negro murmured, wondering what the sheriff's +big talk meant. + +"Do you love this black girl very much?" the sheriff asked with that odd +turn of tone with which every man speaks of love when he is in love with +love. + +"Boss," the black man answered in a voice which throbbed, "I been lovin' +dat gal ever since she warn't no bigger dan--dan--dan a June-bug whut +had visited accidental a woodpecker prayer-meetin'." + +"Is she good to look at, Plaster?" Flournoy smiled. + +"Well, suh, I cain't lie to no white man, Marse John; an' I tells you +honest--she looks a whole heap better at night in de dark of de moon." + +"If she ain't a good-looker, why do you love her?" Flournoy asked +without a smile. + +"She's good sense an' jedgment, Marse John," the black man answered +earnestly. "An'--an'--I jes' nachelly loves her." + +Flournoy studied a moment, twisting a pair of steel handcuffs in his +giant hands. Finally he spoke: + +"Plaster, I have a cabin down on the Coolie Bayou which I have given to +three young married couples in succession on the condition that they +live there in peace and amity one year." + +"Yes, suh." + +"Every couple broke up and got a divorce within nine months." + +"Too bad, Marse John, dat's mighty po' luck." + +"You niggers think you love each other until you get hitched and then +you don't stay hitched." + +"Some shorely don't--dey don't fer a fack." + +"Now I make you and Pearline Flunder this offer. I will buy your +marriage license, pay Vinegar Atts to marry you, bear all the expense of +a church wedding, give you a job so you can support your wife, and I +will make you a present of that cabin down on the Coolie Bayou if you +and your wife will live together for three days without busting up in a +row." + +"Three days, Marse John!" the negro howled. "Boss, I motions to make it +thurty years!" + +"No!" Flournoy snapped. "Three days!" + +"I's willin', Marse John," the negro laughed, cutting a caper on the +grass. + +"All right!" the sheriff said as he stooped and picked up a pair of +handcuffs. "Now listen: I intend to cut the little chain on these two +manacles and attach each cuff to a ten-foot chain. When you and Pearline +are married, I am going to put one of these manacles around her wrist +and one around your wrist"--the negro showed the whites of his +eyes--"and bind you two honey-loves together with a ten-foot chain." +The negro looked behind him toward the gate and the public highway, took +a tighter grip upon his hat, and made a furtive step backward. "You are +to remain bound together for three days." The negro smiled and stepped +forward. "At the end of that time you are to come here and report, and +if you agree to spend the remainder of your life together, the cabin is +yours!" + +"Make it a two-feets chain, Marse John, so us kin git clost to each +yuther," Plaster pleaded. + +"What I have spoken I have spoken," Flournoy proclaimed autocratically. +"Now, go tell your sweetheart all about it." + + +II. + +The Big Four of Tickfall sat around a much bewhittled pine table in the +Hen-Scratch saloon. The room was hazy with their tobacco smoke. +Conversation languished. The session was about to adjourn until +to-morrow at the same hour. Figger Bush laid his cigarette upon the edge +of the table, lifted his head like a dog baying the moon, and chanted: + + "O you muss be a lover of de landlady's daughter + Or you cain't git a secont piece of pie!" + +Before the other could catch the tune, the green-baize doors of the +saloon were thrown open and a white man entered. Every negro looked up +into that granite face with its deep-set eyes, iron jaw, and rugged +lines of strength and purpose, and smiled a joyful welcome: + +"Mawnin', Marse John. 'Tain't no use to come sheriffin' down dis way. No +niggers ain't done nothin'." + +"I am hunting for a Methodist clergyman of color," Flournoy grinned. + +"Boss," Vinegar Atts chuckled as he rose to his feet, "I's de blackest +an' best nigger preacher whut is, an' I b'lieves in de Mefdis doctrine +of fallin' from grace an' grease. Ef you misdoubts my words, ax my wife. +Dat ole woman admits dat fack herse'f." + +"I want you to perform a wedding ceremony at the Shoofly Church to-night +at seven o'clock," the sheriff announced. + +Instantly the Rev. Vinegar Atts thrust both hands into the pockets of +his trousers and brought his hands out, turning out the pockets and +showing them empty. + +"Dar now, Figger Bush!" Vinegar bellowed. "I tole you dat de good Lawd +would pervide a way fer me to pay fer dem near-booze grape-juices I been +guzzlin' in yo' sinful saloom! Five dollars will sottle wid you an' +leave a few change over fer seegaws." + +"Who's cormittin' mattermony, Marse John?" Mustard Prophet wanted to +know. "Is it one of dese here shotgun weddin's?" + +"Plaster Sickety wishes to wed Pearline Flunder." + +"I knows 'em," Hitch Diamond rumbled from his big chest. "De good Lawd +will shore got to pervide fer dem coons like He do fer Vinegar +Atts--nary one is got git-up enough to make a livin'." + +"Those young colored honey-birds are under my special care and +protection," Flournoy announced, smiling. "I intend to house them and +take care of them and get them work. They are an experiment." + +"De trouble wid experiments is dis, Marse John," Mustard chuckled, +"sometimes dey bust in yo' face." + +"My plan is this," Flournoy told them. "I am going to tie those two +negroes together with a ten-foot chain and they are to live in peace and +amity for three days." + +"Lawdymussy, Marse John!" the Rev. Vinegar Atts bellowed. "Did you ever +tie two cats to each yuther an' hang 'em over de limb of a tree?" + +"Yes." + +"Does you recommember how quick dem cats got tired of each yuther's +sawsiety an' fell out wid theirselves?" + +"Certainly." + +Vinegar jerked a yellow bandana handkerchief from the tail of his coat +and mopped the top of his bald head. + +"You mought care fer dem niggers ef you ties em togedder, Marse John. +But you ain't gwine be able to pertection 'em--not from each yuther," +Vinegar announced as he slapped at his face with his kerchief. "I +wouldn't be tied to my nigger wife wid a telephone-wire long enough to +conversation de man in de moon. Naw, suh! Dat ole gal would be yankin' +on dat line a catfish all de time. Whoosh!" + +"I agrees wid dem religium sentiments," Hitch Diamond rumbled. "Now you +example Goldie, my own wife. Dat little yeller gal's maw is a lunatic, +an' Goldie ain't no lunatic, but she ain't got her right mind. I +wouldn't mind bein' a Dandylion in de lion's den, like de Bible tells +about--dat would gib me a chance to fight fer my gizzard. But chained up +to Goldie--" + +Hitch broke off, shook his head in earnest negation, rubbed one giant +hand around his iron-thewed wrist as if he could feel the holy bonds of +matrimony and gave utterance to one expressive word: "Gawd!" + +"Hol' on, niggers!" Figger Bush exclaimed. "I don't foller you-alls in +dem sentiments. Now I been married to Scootie gwine on two year an' I +ain't never got too much of dat gal yit. I cherishes de opinion dat +Marse John could tie our heads togedder an' I wouldn't complain none." + +"I sides wid Figger Bush," Mustard Prophet grinned. "I been livin' off +an' on wid Hopey fer twenty year, an' dat gal is busted stovewood over +my head off an' on plenty of times, but I don't bear her no grouch. She +kin always make peace by givin' me some hot biskits an' a few sirup." + +"You four niggers talk too much," Flournoy grinned. "I want you to get +busy and decorate that Shoofly Church and pull the biggest Tickfall +church wedding ever seen in the social sets of our colored circles. I'll +pay for everything." + +"Us fo' niggers will git our wifes an' pull some kind of nice stunt +ourselfs, too, Marse John," Vinegar howled. "We'll fix up a good +send-off fer 'em." + +At seven o'clock that evening the Flournoy automobile conveyed the happy +pair to the Shoofly Church. The Rev. Vinegar Atts proceeded with the +ceremony until the bride sported a new ring and the two were pronounced +man and wife with the solemn admonition: + +"Whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!" + +Thereupon Sheriff Flournoy stepped forward and with the ease of long +practice slipped a manacle upon the right wrist of the bride and another +upon the left wrist of the groom and snapped the handcuffs shut. + +Figger Bush stooped and lifted a long bottle from a bucket of ice. There +was a loud pop, the cork struck against the ceiling, ricochetted around +the walls of the room and caused a commotion by falling on Vinegar's +bald head. Figger advanced with a tray containing three glasses and the +sheriff toasted the bride and groom. + +The ten-foot chain rattled as the bride raised her manacled hand to +drink. + +When they marched out of the church the entire congregation formed a +procession and accompanied them to their cabin on the Coolie Bayou. They +noticed that Plaster Sickety picked up the chain and wrapped a turn +around his bride's neck and one about his own, thus shortening the bond +and bringing them close together. They clamped their arms around each +other's waists, and plodded solemnly through the deep dust of the +crooked highway. + +"Dat nigger cain't park his wife like a new automobile an' walk off an' +leave her," Vinegar chuckled. + +"He ain't actin' anxious to git away--now," Hitch rumbled +pessimistically. + +"Not yit, but soon," Vinegar agreed. + +Approaching the cabin, Plaster Sickety's voice broke into exultant song, +and through the negro's wonderful gift of improvisation, he produced +this neat bit: + + "Dar's a Pearline pearl of price untold, + An' dat Pearline pearl cain't be bought wid gold; + An' dat Pearline pearl am good to see, + Fer dat Pearline pearl b'longs to me!" + +"Listen to dat fool!" Hitch Diamond chuckled. "He's singin' like a +little black angel whut had swiped de pearliest pearl offen de pearly +gates!" + +The bride and groom entered their cabin and softly closed the door. + +Good night! + + +III. + +"Looky here, Pearline, I ain't used to totin' dis ole steel band on my +wrist an' it hurts my feelin's," Plaster complained as he sat at the +breakfast-table before a meal which had been left on the door-step a few +minutes before by Hitch Diamond. + +"Don't begin to howl an' pull back like a dawg tied under a wagin, +Plaster," Pearline urged prettily, as she helped herself to liberal +portions of the breakfast prepared in Sheriff Flournoy's kitchen. "You +won't kick about wearin' it as long as you loves me, will you?" + +"No'm," Plaster said, as he lifted the chain to a more comfortable place +upon the dining-table. "But I shore wish dat white man hadn't choosed +such a heavy chain." + +"Dis chain ain't heavy, Plaster," Pearline protested. "You hadn't +oughter talk dat way. Excusin' dat, I likes dis chain--it ties us to +each yuther. Don't you like it?" + +"Yes'm, I shore does." + +"How come you complains about it fer?" + +"I ain't got no lament, Pearline--dat is, I ain't mean it dat way." + +The bridegroom filled his mouth with food and for the next ten minutes +ate voraciously. One watching him would draw the inference that he was +not eating to enjoy the food so much as to find some occupation for his +mouth beside speech. + +Pearline reached out with her free hand and toyed with the chain, +twisting it about her fingers lovingly, a dreamy light in her coal-black +eyes. + +"Us had de biggest weddin' in cullud circles, Plaster," she murmured. + +"I ain't no cullud circle," Plaster mumbled, his mouth full of food. +"But I reckin I got to run circles aroun' you 'slong as dis ole chain +stays on. Don't rattle dat chain so loud, Pearly! Gosh! It makes a heap +of racket fer its little size." + +"You jes' now said it wus a big, heavy chain fer its size," his wife +reminded him in a sweetly argumentative tone. + +"Yes'm, it am--dis chain is bofe little an' big--fer its size," the +groom amended hastily. "Stop talkin' about dis chain!" + +"You started dis talk," she reminded him reproachfully. "You said it +hurted yo' wrist." + +There was a loud knock upon the door. Plaster sprang up to answer. The +chain jerked at his wrist. + +"Good gawsh!" he snorted. "Come to de door wid me, honey, so I kin open +up." + +"I cain't, Plaster," the bride exclaimed in a panic. "I ain't dressed +fer comp'ny dis soon in de mawnin." + +"You's got on all de clothes you owns," the groom reminded her. + +"Suttinly, but I ain't got no white powder on my black nose," she +giggled. "Come back in de nex' room an' let me fresh up befo' we opens +de door." + +"I stayed in dar a plum' hour while you wus freshin' up fer yo' +viteles," Plaster grumbled. + +"Don't git grumped up, Plaster," Pearline urged. "You ack like yo' love +is commenced to wilt aroun' de edges." + +Meekly the man followed her to the bedroom and stood for fifteen minutes +while the bride primped her hair, powdered her nose, adjusted her +collar, fiddled with her belt, put pins in her shirt-waist, took them +out and deposited them in her mouth, put them back into her waist, +turned around and looked at herself in the mirror, hunted for a fresh +handkerchief and could not find it, located it at last in the bosom of +her waist, wondered where she had left her chewing-gum, found it on top +of the box of face-powder, and finally said: + +"Come on--less hurry up. Dat comp'ny will git tired waitin' fer us!" + +"Dat comp'ny is gone done it," Plaster sighed. "I peeped through de +crack in de door an' seed 'em. Hitch Diamond knocked fo' times, den +opened de door an' picked up dem breakfast-dishes an' trod out." + +"Dat's too bad," Pearline remarked with no interest whatever. She was +looking at herself in the mirror. "I'd like to seen Hitchie. He use to +be one of my ole sweethearts." + +"Come out an' set under de tree wid me an' mebbe dat ole sweetheart of +yourn will come back," Plaster suggested. + +"I don't like to git out in de sunshine," the girl replied. "Dar's too +much glare." + +"Too much--which?" Plaster asked. + +"Glare." + +"Yes'm." + +Plaster stood looking at her helplessly, wondering where they were going +from there. + +"Does you love me, Plaster?" the girl asked, siding up to him and +stepping on the chain. + +"Yes'm," Plaster answered as he pulled the chain from under her feet and +rubbed his wrist. "Don't step on dat chain no mo'. You might break it." + +"How come you don't tell me you loves me?" + +"I done tole you 'bout fawty times dis mawnin'," Plaster reminded her. + +"But you ain't never tole me onless I axed you." + +"Less go somewhar an' set down an' I'll tell you a millyum times," +Plaster said eagerly. + +"Bless Gawd, I knows you loves me a plum' plenty, but I likes to hear +you tell dem words. Wait a minute till I puts--er--I b'lieve I oughter +change de collar on dis dress. A clean one would make me look mo' +fresher." + +Plaster lingered until the woman was dressed to her fancy, resting his +weight first on one impatient leg, then upon the other. + +"You wastes a heap of time fixin' yo'se'f, Pearly," he sighed at last. +"I hopes you'll soon git dressed up fer de day." + +"You wants yo' wife to look nice, don't you?" she asked reproachfully. + +"Yes'm." + +"How kin I look nice 'thout takin' de time to dress?" + +They went out and sat down under the pecan-tree in the "glare." Pearline +seemed to have forgotten the glare. Plaster lighted a cigarette, smoked +it to the end, lighted another, smoked it to the end, and lighted +another. Then Pearline remarked: + +"Honey, does you love me more dan you loves dem cigareets?" + +"I shore does"--with moderate fervor. + +"Does you love me a millyum times mo' dan you loves cigareets?" + +"Suttinly." + +"Den, fer gossake, throw dem cigareets away! Dey smells like some kind +o' fumigate." + +"I cain't do that, Pearly. Dese here smokes costes money. An' I couldn't +affode to buy 'em ef I had to wuck fer de money. Dey's a weddin' +present." + +"Is you gwine smoke all yo' married life?" + +"Yes'm." + +"But you ain't gwine smoke no mo' fer de nex' three days, is you?" + +"No'm." + +Pearline thrust her hand into Plaster's pocket and brought forth his +precious smokes. She concealed them in the mysterious recesses of her +attire and Plaster sighed deeply. + +Ten minutes later the girl straightened up with a fierceness that nearly +snapped her spinal column. + +"Fer mussy sake, Plaster Sickety! Whut is you got in yo' mouf?" + +"I's nibblin' a few crumbs of terbacker, honey," Plaster said +apologetically. + +"My gawsh! You aim to tell me dat you _chaws_?" + +"Yes'm. I chaws a little bit now an' den. It kinder helps my brains to +think an' sottles my stomick." + +There was a long silence. Plaster stared straight ahead of him, his +jaws moving with the regularity of a ruminant cow, his eyes counting +the leaves on the trees, the pickets on the broken-down fence, and +estimating the number of ants crawling out of a hill. Then, +unconsciously, he reached into his pocket for another cigarette. +He did not find it. + +He heard a suspicious sound beside him and looked at Pearline. + +"Whut you cryin' about honey?" + +"You tole me you loved me more dan cigareets, an' yit you cain't set by +me a minute 'thout chawin' terbacker," she wailed. "You is blood kin +brudder to a worm an' a goat--nothin' else chaws!" + +"Lawd!" Plaster sighed in desperation. "I sees now dat I'm got to learn +how to suck eggs an' hide de shells." + +Suddenly a loud whoop was heard near at hand and out of the swamp came +Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, Mustard Prophet and Hitch Diamond. + +"Hey, niggers!" Plaster bawled. "Come up an' set down. Lawd, I nefer wus +so glad to see nobody in my whole life." + +"Good mawnin', Sister Pearline!" Vinegar chuckled. "How is yo'-alls +enjoyin' mattermony life by now?" + +"Fine," the bride smiled, with a suspicion of tears still in her eyes. + +"Praise de Lawd!" exclaimed Vinegar. "I wus skeart you niggers would be +fightin' by now, an' mebbe one of yous would be draggin' de yuther on de +end o' dat chain--dead!" + +"Naw, suh!" Plaster howled, as he snatched a cigar out of Hitch +Diamond's pocket and stuck it in his mouth. "Us is gittin' along +puffeckly." + +Plaster snatched his cigar from his lips with his manacled hand and +flourished it with a motion of broad contentment. Pearline gave the +chain a quick jerk and the smoke flew from Plaster's fingers and fell +over in the high grass. + +"You two idjits look like a holy show to me," Figger Bush cackled. "How +come you don't charge admissions to de show an' git rich?" + +"Us wouldn't git rich quick," Pearline giggled. Hitch Diamond had +retrieved the cigar, and Pearline had taken it from him and stuck it in +her hair. "You-all is de onlies' comp'ny we is had till yit." + +"I hopes you niggers will stay wid us all day, brudders," Plaster +exclaimed earnestly. "We wus feelin' kinder--er--me an' Pearline wus +feelin' sorter--er--" + +"Uh-huh," Hitch Diamond grunted knowingly. "Dat's a fack. We ole married +folks onderstan's dem feelin's. I'd feel dat way mese'f ef I wus in yo' +fix. I'd whet up my teeth on a brick-bat an' bite myse'f in my own +gizzard an' die." + +"Not me!" Figger Bush howled. "Ef I wus chained to dat little gal, I'd +git me a plow-line an' wrop it aroun' our necks." + +"I would, too," Vinegar bellowed. "But I'd tie de yuther eend of dat +plow-line to a tree an' jump off de worl'." + +"I bet Pearline don't hanker to jump offen no worl'," Mustard Prophet +proclaimed. "Look at her--she's jes' as happy as ef she had sense." + +The eyes of the four men turned upon the girl appraisingly. Then +Pearline remembered that a few moments before she had been sniffling and +shedding tears. She was sure her eyes were red, and she knew the tears +had washed all the white powder off her black nose. Quickly she rose to +her feet, giving the ten-foot chain a sharp jerk. + +"I hates to take you from yo' frien's, Plaster," she exclaimed, "but I'm +got to go in. I cain't stand de glare." + +Side by side they entered the cabin and the chain rattled as they shut +the door. + +And the evening and the morning were the first day. + + +IV. + +"Stop scatterin' dem shavin's all over de floor, Plaster," Pearline +commanded. "Ef folks comes to see us, I don't want dis house all +literated up wid trash." + +"I got to whittle while you sews, honey," Plaster said patiently. "I +wanted to sot out in the yard, but you kep' me in de house all yistiddy +afternoon because you said you had de headache from de glare." + +"You kin whittle 'thout messin' up dis room," Pearline snapped. + +"I likes a messy room," the man declared. "It looks like folks lived in +it an' wus tol'able comfer'ble." + +"You cain't mess up my house ef I got to come atter you an' clean up," +the woman replied in a tone of finality. + +A hound-dog stuck his wistful face into the door, seeking an invitation +to enter. + +"Dar's a frien' in need," the bridegroom proclaimed happily. "Come here, +dawg!" + +"Git out o' here!" the woman shrieked, kicking at the hound and sending +him out with a howl. "I don't want dat houn' in dis house scratchin' his +fleas all over de rooms. Look at de mud dat dawg tracked in. Come wadin' +through de bayou an' den come trackin' through de house!" + +"Dar's some advantages in livin' a dawg's life, Pearline," Plaster +sighed. "Even excusin' de fleas, dar's plenty advantage. A dawg, even a +married dawg, he ain't tied up all de time an' kin run aroun' some." + +"You aims to say you's gittin' tired stayin' here wid me?" Pearline +snapped. + +"No'm. Nothin' like dat. I's happy as a mosquiter on a pickaninny's +nose." + +"Ef you feels tied up like a houn'-dawg in de middle of de secont day, +how does you expeck to feel in de middle of de secont year?" + +Plaster thought it best not to venture a reply. He looked through the +open door at the hound, lying under the china-berry tree in the glare, +placidly scratching fleas, bumping the elbow of his hind leg on the soft +ground as he scratched. + +"Don't you never answer no 'terrogations when I axes you?" Pearline +asked sharply. "How you gwine feel in de middle of de secont year?" + +Out of sheer perversity Plaster was disposed to tell her that he would +feel dead and buried for at least a year before the time she mentioned, +but instead he swallowed hard three times. His throat was dry and his +tongue rasped his mouth like sandpaper. His answer, finally, was a song: + + "She'll be sweeter as de days go by; + She'll git sweeter as de moments fly; + She'll git sweeter an' be dearer + As to me she draws mo' nearer-- + Sweeter as de days go by." + +Thereupon Pearline jumped from her chair, got strangle-hold upon her +husband, sat down on him, and impressed him forcibly in the next +half-hour that his wife was a heavyweight and the day was extremely +warm. + +Plaster made such a hit with his improvised song that he repeated it +three times, then gradually eased his wife off his lap and onto a chair. + +"Don't you never shave yo' face, Plaster?" the lady asked when the love +scene ended. "You feels like a stubby shoe-brush." + +"No'm, my whiskers don't pester me none." + +"But dey looks so bad," the woman urged. + +"I cain't see 'em," Plaster grinned. + +"I wants you to shave eve'y day while you is married to me." + +"Huh," Plaster grunted. + +"An I wants you to brush up yo' clothes, Plaster," the woman told him. +"You looks scandalous dusty." + +"I looks as good as you does," Plaster retorted. "I's got powdered dirt +on my clothes an' you's got powdered chalk on yo' nose. You looks to +dang dressy fer me anyhow. I favors bein' dusty an' easy-feelin'." + +The discussion ended by the appearance of three women who came to the +open door from the highroad. + +"Look at dat, now!" Plaster exclaimed. "Here comes three ole gals of +mine. I co'ted 'em all servigerous but it didn't git me nothin'." + +"Whut dey buttin' in here fer?" Pearline asked in sharp tones. + +"Mebbe dey'll tell us when dey comes in," Plaster chuckled. + +The three women were the wives of Hitch Diamond, Figger Bush, and +Vinegar Atts. When they entered they came straight to the point. + +"Plaster, us ladies wants to talk to Sister Pearline Flunder Sickety in +privut." + +"Dat cain't be did, sisters," Plaster answered, looking them over +suspiciously. "Whut does you want to tell my wife in privut?" + +"Dat's a secret," Scootie Bush giggled. + +Plaster looked at the women with an earnest effort to read their +intentions. He recalled certain incidents in his association with the +three in the old days of happy courtship that he preferred his wife +should not know. He thought he saw mischief in the eyes of each of the +women, especially Scootie and Goldie, and he shook his head. + +"Nothin' ain't told in privut, sisters," he announced. "Leastwise, not +till after de third day." + +"Does you aim to say dat I cain't conversation in privut wid my +frien's?" Pearline snapped. + +"No'm not perzackly dat," Plaster hastened to explain. "But it looks +kinder onpossible to me as long as I'm tied up wid you on dis chain." + +"Git over again dat wall while dese ladies whispers to me," Pearline +replied, giving him a push. + +Plaster sat down and strained his ears to hear. What he heard was +spasmodic giggles. He saw mischievous glances directed to himself. Once +he saw his wife look straight at him reproachfully, as if she suspected +that he was trying to overhear. There was half an hour of this, then the +three giggling women took their departure. + +"Whut did dem nigger women want, Pearline?" Plaster demanded. + +"Dat's a fambly secret," Pearline giggled. + +"Does you think you oughter hab any secrets from yo' cote-house +husbunt?" Plaster demanded belligerently. + +"Naw, suh. Not no secrets dat stays secrets, but dis here little myst'ry +will git public powerful soon." + +Coming through the medium of Plaster's troubled conscience, this answer +sounded ominous. Pearline picked up some sewing and Plaster reached for +his unwhittled stick. He spent one half-hour in deep thought. He was +sorry he had told Pearline that those three women were old sweethearts +of his. He recalled that his courtship of each woman had broken up in a +row and a fist-fight. It had been one-sided, the women conducting the +row and doing all the fighting while Plaster endeavored to escape. Now +Plaster had no other idea than that they were hot on his trail. They +were planning to make his life miserable through the jealousy of his +wife. + +There was a loud knock on the front door. The two arose and the door +opened to Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, and Hitch Diamond. + +"Sister Sickety, us three niggers is a cormittee of three app'inted to +wait in privut on Brudder Plaster Sickety an' hol' a secret confab wid +him," Vinegar announced pompously. + +"I don't allow my husbunt to hab no secrets from me," Pearline answered +looking suspiciously at her old sweetheart, Hitch Diamond. + +"Dis am a man's pussonal bizzness, Pearline," Hitch Diamond rumbled. "A +nigger woman is got to butt out." + +"But I's chained up wid Plaster," Pearline protested. + +"Git over agin dat wall while dese gen'lemens whispers to me," Plaster +remarked, giving her a push toward the chair which he had occupied under +similar circumstances a short time before. + +The three committeemen walked up close to Plaster, draped their arms +over his shoulders, and talked in whispers, but guffawed out loud. +Because Pearline was present their eyes irresistibly sought hers, +especially when they laughed--what man can keep from looking at the +woman in a room?--and Pearline inferred that they were talking and +laughing about her. She strained her ears to hear, but not a word +enlightened her ignorance. Then with a loud laugh the three men +patted Plaster on the back and took themselves off. + +"Whut did them niggers want, Plaster?" Pearline demanded in irate tones. + +"Dat's a fambly secret," Plaster quoted mockingly. + +"I felt like a fool wid dem mens lookin' at me an' snickerin'," the +woman complained. "Wus dey talkin' about me?" + +"Yes'm," the man chuckled. + +This remark set Pearline to thinking about certain incidents. Hitch had +been an old sweetheart, Figger Bush and Vinegar Atts had paid her +courtly attentions, and some things had happened that she would rather +not have to explain to her husband. There was a dismal depthless gulf of +painful silence between the honeymooners for a long time. Then Pearline +said with difficulty: + +"I don't like de nigger mens you 'socheates wid. Dem three niggers ain't +fitten comp'ny fer my husbunt." + +"Dat's whut I thinks about dem three womens dat come to see you," +Plaster answered. "Ef you runs wid dat color of petticoats I shore will +disrespeck you mo' dan I does now." + +"I runs wid anybody I chooses," Pearline snapped. + +"Me, too," Plaster retorted. + +They pulled apart and the chain rattled. + +They stepped back from the entrance and closed the door. + +And the evening and the morning were the second day. + + +V. + +By sleeping until the noon-hour the two love-captives shortened the +third day by half. + +In the two days past they had exhausted every theme of conversation, had +wearied of every kind of amusement they could devise, and had pumped +their hearts dry of language to proclaim and protest their affection for +each other to lubricate the machinery of existence amid the friction of +their disposition and temperament. + +The day before Plaster had made a hit with a song, so he decided to fill +every moment of that day until the sun sank below the horizon with vocal +music, for song banishes conversation and song is not provocative of +difference of opinion and argument--so he thought. While he and his wife +were dressing, Plaster began: + + "Does you know dat I am dyin' + Fer a little bit of love? + Everywhar dey hears me sighin' + Fer a little bit of love. + Fer dat love dat grows mo' strong, + Fills de heart wid hope and song, + I has waited--oh, so long-- + Fer a little bit of love." + +"Whut makes you sing so dang loud, Plaster?" Pearline asked wearily, as +she rested her head upon her hands. "You sounds like a brayin' jackace +mournin' because he done tumbled down a open well." + +"One time you said you liked my singin'," Plaster retorted. + +"I couldn't tell you whut I really thought about it in dem sad days," +Pearline remarked. + +They ate their noon meal in silence because neither could think of +anything to say. Plaster had got the hook at the very beginning of his +musical career, and the things he thought of to say were not fit for +utterance or publication. + +As they rose from the table, they looked with surprise out of the +window. + +A long procession of negroes approached the cabin. All were dressed in +their best clothes and the Rev. Vinegar Atts was in the lead. + +The bridal pair suddenly remembered something, and they stepped out on +the porch to receive them as they filled the space in front of the +house. + +Vinegar took his famous preaching attitude in front of the porch, +inflated his lungs and began: + +"Brudder an' Sister Sickety, us is all rejoiced dat you two honey-loves +is got mighty nigh through wid yo' honey-tower widout no fuss or fight. +We welcomes you back to our sawsiety wid glad arms. We hopes dat you +will love each yuther mo' or less an' off an' on ferever! We knows dat +you has well earnt dis house an' lot dat Marse John Flournoy has gib you +an' we cullud folks wants to make you a present of a few change so you +kin buy some nice house-furnicher an' start out fresh an' new." + +Thereupon Vinegar laid his stove-pipe hat upside down upon the floor of +the porch, turned and surveyed the assembly while he mopped his bald +head with a yellow bandana handkerchief. + +"Walk right up, brudders an' sisters, an' drap yo' few change in dis +stove-pipe preachin'-hat!" + +They came up one by one, laughingly depositing their money, and pausing +to shake hands with the bride and groom. + +When the ceremony ended, Vinegar emptied his hat upon the floor of the +porch, placed it upon his head with a farewell flourish, and led the +negroes out of the yard. + +"Dis money is de fambly secret dem three nigger womens whispered to me, +honey," Pearline giggled. + +"Dat's de myst'ry dem three committee fellers tole me," Plaster +chuckled. + +The two sat down and counted the money--twenty-five dollars and thirty +cents! + +"Dat thuty cents is yourn to spend foolish, Pearline," Plaster said +generously as he pushed three dimes toward her and clutched with both +hands at the rest. + +"Hol' on nigger!" Pearline snapped. "I ain't no bayou minnow to git jes' +a little nibble of dat money--half of dat cash spondulix is mine." + +"Yes'm, but I is de man of de fambly an' I oughter keep it an' han' it +out to you as you needs it." + +"I needs my half right now," Pearline snapped, placing both her hands +upon the clutching paws of Plaster Sickety. + +"Whut you gwine do wid twelve dollars an' fo' bits?" Plaster demanded in +irate tones. + +"Buy me a hat!" Pearline told him. + +"You's a fool!" Plaster informed her. "Female hats ain't furnicher." + +"Dis money furnishes me wid a hat," she announced positively. + +Then they sat for a few minutes in silence, both keeping their hands +spread out over the money. + +"Whut you gwine do wid yo' twelve dollars an' fo' bits?" Pearline +demanded at last. + +"I figgers on buyin' a fiddle," Plaster told her. "Plenty money kin be +made playin' fiddles, an' I b'lieves I could learn to fiddle ef I had a +good chance." + +"I ain't gwine hab no fiddlin' nigger in my house," Pearline snorted. +"I's druther be married to a phoneygraft." + +"You ain't gwine be married to nothin' very long ef you don't leggo dis +money, nigger!" Plaster snarled. + +"I is." + +"You ain't." + +"Don't gimme no sass." + +"You sassed me fust." + +The woman raised one hand from the money and made an unexpected +sideswipe at Plaster's jaw with her open palm. The blow landed with a +smack that jarred the very marrow of his bones and keeled him over the +edge of the porch to the ground. As he fell sprawling, the chain +tightened and jerked Pearline off her perch and she fell to the ground +with a squall. Then for ten minutes there was a Kilkenny cat scrap on +the front lawn. + +Pearline bit and scratched and pulled hair and tore clothes. She had +decidedly the best of the rookus until her unusual activities caused her +to get a twist of the chain around her neck. Plaster thanked the Lord +and choked her into inaction and submission by the simple process of +pretending to escape from her and thus tightening the chain. + +When she was choked almost to suffocation, he edged her to the porch, +lifted the twenty-five dollars and thirty cents into his own pockets, +and released the chain. + +[Illustration: "THE BLOW LANDED WITH A SMACK THAT JARRED THE VERY MARROW +OF HIS BONES AND KEELED HIM OVER THE EDGE OF THE PORCH TO THE GROUND."] + +When Pearline recovered her breath she dropped flat upon the ground at +her feet and howled like a Comanche until the going down of the sun. + +Plaster did not attempt to console or quiet her. When he spoke again, he +reached out and touched the bawling woman with his foot. + +"Git up idjit!" he exclaimed. "Marse John expecks us to come an' repote +to him an' git dese here handcuffs tuck off." + +Sheriff John Flournoy was waiting for them as they came across his lawn +to the porch where he sat. + +Then for half an hour he listened to a tirade of crimination and +recrimination which crackled with profane expletives like thorns under a +pot. When Plaster paused to breathe, Pearline took up the complaint. +When Pearline stopped from exhaustion, Plaster resumed his lamentations. + +When the storm of vituperation subsided, Flournoy sat in his chair like +a man who had been pounded over the head with a brick. It was some time +before he could formulate his ideas. Then he spoke with difficulty. + +"I judge from what I have heard that your three days' experience +together has convinced you that your tastes are entirely dissimilar and +your natures incompatible." + +"Yes, suh, dat's c'reck." + +"The information you offer conveys to me the impression that a woman +loves shadows, but a man loves sunshine and glare; a woman loves dress, +but a man loves tobacco; a woman desires daintiness and neatness +attended with any degree of discomfort, but a man prefers comfort with +no matter how much litter and mess; a woman loves indoor sports, like +sewing, and a man loves outdoor sports, like whittling sticks and making +the acquaintance of a hound-dog with fleas on his body and mud on his +feet; a man loves to sing and hear himself sing, and the woman prefers +to hear some other man sing; a woman wants her female companions with +their confidences and their secrets, and a man desires his male +companions and their secrets, but neither party to the matrimonial +alliance is willing that the partner should keep a secret. Am I right as +far as I've gone?" + +"Dat's right!" they said in positive tones. + +"But de fuss part, Marse John, is de money!" the woman shrieked. + +"Certainly," Flournoy agreed softly. "Matrimony is always a matter of +money." + +Then Flournoy took a key from his pocket and opened the bracelets on +their wrists. The chain fell at their feet. The bride and bridegroom +looked away, each ignoring the presence of the other. + +Plaster Sickety thrust both hands into his pockets, brought out +twenty-five dollars and thirty cents and laid it into the open palm of +the sheriff. + +"Fer Gawd's sake, git me a deevo'ce!" he pleaded. + +"Make it two, Marse John," the girl urged. "I's plum' nauseated wid dat +nigger man." + +The bride and bridegroom turned and walked away, choosing different +paths and going in opposite directions. They did not look back. + +The sheriff stooped and picked up the rattling chain. + +Then he went into the house and slammed the door. + +The evening and the morning were the third day, and-- + + + + +FOURTH TALE + +PRINCESS OR PERCHERON + +BY PERLEY POORE SHEEHAN + + +I. + +Some queer things had taken place in this same hall--some very queer +things; but there were indications that this present affair was going to +be queerer yet. + +The old duke always had been a worthy descendant of his ancestors; like +them, a little mad, with flashes of genius, very fine, very brutal, a +murderer at heart, with a love for poetry and philosophic speculation. + +The guests were already in a smiling tremor of curiosity when they +arrived. Some of them whispered among themselves: + +"It's on account of the Princess Gabrielle." + +"They say the duke is furious." + +"Not astonishing. But--a marriage! How can there be a marriage?" + +Yet it looked as if a marriage there would be. Manifestly, the hall had +been prepared for some such event. + +It was a chamber long, lofty and broad, walled and floored with the +native Burgundy rock, richly carpeted, hung with tapestry. And down a +portion of the length of this ran a wide table already spread with the +viands of a wedding-feast--huge cold pasties, hams and boarheads +beautifully jellied, fresh and candied fruits from Spain and Sicily, +flagons and goblets of crystal, silver, and gold. + +What aroused curiosity and conjecture to the highest point, however, was +the discovery that the immense fireplace of the hall had been +transformed into a forge. It was a forge complete--bellows and hearth, +anvil and tub, hammers and tongs. There was even a smutty-faced imp +there to tend the forge fire, which already hissed and glowed as he +worked the bellows. + +"Aha! So there _was_ a smith mixed up in the affair, after all!" + +"_Mais oui!_ Gaspard, the smith, whose forge is down there on the banks +of the Rhone." + +"But what does the duke intend to do?" + +It was a question which more than one was asking. There was never any +forecasting what a whim of the duke might lead him to do even in +ordinary circumstances--declare war on France, call a new Crusade. And +now, with this menace of scandal in his family! + +There in front of the fireplace where the forge had been set up, the +valets had placed the ducal chair. All the same, the arrangements had +something sinister about them. There fell a period of silence touched +with panic. But not for long. Curiosity was too acute and powerful to be +long suppressed. The whispering resumed: + +"The duke surprised them together--the princess and her smith." + +"It looks like the torture for one or both." + +"They say the fellow's an Apollo, a Hercules." + +"You wait until the duke--" + +"Silence! He comes." + +One of the large doors toward the farther end of the hall was thrown +open, and through this there came a surge of music--hautboys, viols, and +flutes. Two guardsmen came in, helmeted, swords drawn, and took up their +stations at either side of the door. + +There entered the duke. + +He looked the philosopher, perhaps, if not the student--tall, bent, +bony; a brush of white hair bristling over the top of his high and +narrow head; a fleshless face, sardonic and humorous. The guests were +pleased to see that his mood was amiable. He came forward smiling, waved +his musicians into retreat; and half a dozen valets were assisting him +into his chair as he greeted his guests. They all bent the knee to him. +Some kissed his hand--and some he kissed, especially those who were fair +and of the opposite sex. + +If Princess Gabrielle had shown herself fragile in the matter of her +affections, well, she had come by her failing honestly. + +Seated in his chair, the duke delivered himself of a little pun which +convulsed his audience--something about "court and courtship": "_Je +fais--la cour._" + +And with no other preliminary he spoke to a page: + +"Summon _mademoiselle_." + +Then to another: + +"Fetch in the smith." + +There was a bitter smile on his face as he sank back into his chair and +studied the forge set up in the fireplace. The imp went white under his +smudge and worked the bellows until the fire on the hearth was spouting +like a miniature Vesuvius. + +The wait was brief. + +Once more the musicians struck into the royal march of Burgundy, and +there was the Princess Gabrielle. + +Every one who looked at her must have experienced some thrill of the +heart--envy, desire, pure admiration. It was impossible to look at her +without some emotion; for she was eighteen, slender, white and +passionate; with dusky, copper-colored hair hanging in two heavy curls +forward over her brilliantly tender shoulders; and she had a broad, red +mouth, and slightly dilated nostrils; dark eyes, liquid and heavily +fringed, with disquieting shadows under them. + +She came forward with a number of maidens in her train, but she so +dominated them that she appeared to be alone. She took her time. She was +a trifle rebellious, perhaps. But she was brave, not to say bold. She +tossed her head slightly. She smiled. She and her maidens, familiar with +the duke's intentions, grouped themselves at one side of the improvised +forge. Every one present was still looking at her when there came a +rough command: + +"Stand aside!" + +A good many of the guests were not in the habit of hearing orders except +from the duke himself; but the command came again: + +"Stand aside! Let me pass--me and my people!" + +At that there was a rapid shifting of the crowd and a whispered cry: + +"The smith! It's Gaspard the smith!" + +And he attracted even more attention than the princess had done; for, +manifestly, here was not only a man who could play the game of love, but +could play the game of life and death as well--to shout out like this, +and come striding like this into the presence of his ruler. + +But he looked the part. + +He was all of six feet tall, blond and supple and beautifully fleshed. +He was wearing his blacksmith's outfit of doeskin and leather, but he +was scoured and shaven to the pink. His great arms were bare; and the +exquisitely sculptured muscles of these slipped and played under a skin +as white as a woman's. + +He stood there with his shoulders back, his arms folded, feet apart. +But, curiously, there was no insolence in the posture. Insolence is a +quality of the little heart, the little soul, and shows itself in the +eyes. Gaspard the smith had gentle blue eyes, large, dark, fearless, and +with a certain brooding pride in them. There may have been even a hint +of virgin bashfulness in them as well, during that moment he glanced at +the Princess Gabrielle. Then he had looked at the duke, and all his +courage had come back to him, perhaps also a suggestion of challenge. + +But neither had the smith come into the ducal presence alone. + +There were two old people--a man and a woman, peasants, both of them +very poor, very humble, so frightened that they could breathe only with +their mouths open; and so soon as they were inside the circle of guests, +they had dropped to their knees. The other member of the smith's party +would have done the same had he permitted. This was a girl of twenty or +so, likewise a peasant, healthy, painfully abashed, but otherwise not +notable. To her the smith had given a nudge and a word of encouragement, +so that now she stood close to him and back of him. + +"Our friends," said the duke, with studied nonchalance, "we are about to +present to you the initial operation of scientific experiment. Like all +scientific research, this also should be judged solely by its possible +contribution to the advancement of human happiness. Ourself, we feel +that this contribution will be great. God knows it is concerned with a +problem that is both elusive and poignant." + +All this was rather above Gaspard's head. He turned to the imp at the +bellows. + +"Stop blowing that fire so hard," he whispered. "You're wasting +charcoal." + +The duke smiled grimly. + +"The problem," he continued, "is this: Can any man and woman, however +devoted, continue to love each other if they are too closely held +together?" + +There was a slight movement among some of the younger gentlemen and +ladies present--a few knowing smiles. + +"There have always been those who answered _No_; there have always been +those who answered _Yes_," the duke went on. "Which were right?" No +answer. "My granddaughter here, while having her horse shod some weeks +ago, became enamored of this worthy subject of mine." He nodded toward +the smith. "She would have him. She would have no one else. We knew how +hopeless would be any attempt to impose our will--in an affair of the +heart." He smiled gallantly. "We are familiar with the breed." + +"Long live the House of Burgundy," cried the chivalrous young Vicomte de +Mâcon. But the duke silenced him with a look. + +"And now," said the duke, "we wish to test this so great passion of +hers--test it under conditions that while apparently extraordinary are +none the less classical and scientific. Our experiment is this--" + +For the first time since he began to speak the duke now leaned forward, +and both his face and his voice took on that quality which made his name +a source of trembling from Spain to Denmark. + +"Our experiment is this: + +"_To have the princess and her smith, whom she is so sure she loves, +handcuffed and linked together by a ten-foot chain._" + + +II. + +There was a gasp from the audience. Every one stared at the princess. +Even the duke himself. Without turning his head he took her in with his +furtive eyes. + +"_Mlle. la Princess_," he said icily, "was good enough to insist upon +the sacrifice." + +At this, a stain of richer color slowly crept up the throat of the +Princess Gabrielle; there came a touch of extra fire to her eyes. +Perhaps she would have spoken. But the duke hadn't finished yet. + +"We'll see whether she loves him so much or not," said the duke. "We'll +give them three days of it--three days to go and come as they wish--and +to do as they wish--together--always together--bound to each other by +their ten-foot chain." + +But while the excitement caused by the duke's announcement was still +crisping the nerves of every one present, the smith had cast one more +glance in the direction of the Princess Gabrielle. And this time their +eyes met. There were those who saw a glint of terror--of delicious +terror--in the eyes of the princess; and in the eyes of Gaspard a look +intended to be reassuring. + +Then the smith had unfolded his arms, thrust them forward. + +"Wait," he cried. + +At that there was a fresh sensation. + +For it was seen that one of his wrists--his left--was already encircled +by a bracelet of shining steel, forged there of a single piece, and that +to the bracelet itself there was forged a link, fine but powerful, and +that other links ran back over his shoulder. + +"Ha!" snarled the duke. "So you've come prepared!" + +"By the grace of God!" replied Gaspard the smith, unafraid. He cast a +look about him, brought his eyes back to the duke. "_Moi_, Gaspard," he +said, "I forge my own chains--always! I'm a smith, I am." + +The two old people kneeling just back of him began to sob and to groan. +Gaspard turned and looked down at them. + +"Shut up," he ordered; "I'm talking." + +He smiled at the duke. He explained. + +"You see, they're frightened," he said. "When I found out what your +highness and your highness's lady-granddaughter were planning up here +in the castle, why, I went to these old folks and told them that I +wanted their daughter Susette." + +"I suppose you loved her," the duke put in with ironical intent. + +But the smith saw no reason for irony. + +"Eh, _bon Dieu_!" he ejaculated. "And save your highness's respect, +we've loved each other ever since we were out of the cradle, we have. So +I made the old folks consent. I'm a smith, I am. I forge my own chains. +Stand around, Susette! His highness won't hurt you. Look!" + +He stepped aside. He gave a gentle thrust to the girl who had been +sheltering back of him. The chain rattled. + +And there was another cry of surprise. + +One of the girl's wrist's also was ornamented with a steel handcuff +tightly welded. Not only that, but to this also was attached a chain. +The smith threw up his arm. It was the same chain that was welded to his +own handcuff--ten feet of it, glistening steel, unbreakable. + +"There's your ten-foot chain, highness," cried Gaspard. "And it's no +trick-chain, either," he added. "It's a chain that will hold. You bet +it will. I forged it myself, and I know. It's a chain you couldn't buy. +Why? Because--because the iron of it's mixed with love. Nor can it be +cut, nor filed, nor broken. I'm a smith, I am. And each link of it I +tempered myself--with sweat and blood." + +There for a time it was a question--possibly a question in the mind of +the duke himself--just how many minutes the smith still had to live. +Many a valet had been executed for less. During a period of about thirty +seconds the duke's face went black. Then the blackness dispersed. He +slowly smiled. + +After all, he wasn't to be cheated of his experiment. + +But he answered the question that was in his own mind and the minds of +all the others there as he looked at the smith and said: + +"Fool, you'll be sufficiently punished--by your own device." + +He let his eyes drift again to the Princess Gabrielle. + +"And thou," he said, "art sufficiently punished already." + + +III. + +It happened to be a day of late spring; and as Gaspard and this +strangely wedded bride of his and her parents came out of the castle, +both fed and forgiven, it must have seemed to all of them that this was +the most auspicious moment of their lives. The old folks, who had +partaken freely of the generous wines pressed upon them, had now passed +from their trembling terror to a spirit of frolic. Arm in arm, their +sabots clogging, they did a rigadoon down the winding road. It was a +spirit of tender elation, though, that dominated Gaspard and Susette. +They were like two beings distilled complete from the mild and fragrant +air, the sweet mistiness of the verdant valley, the purpling solemnity +of the Juras. + +"What did he mean, his highness?" asked Susette as she pressed the +smith's arm closer to her side. "What did he mean that you'd be punished +by your own device?" + +Gaspard looked down at her, pressed her manacled wrist to his lips, took +thought. + +"I don't know," he answered gently. "He must be crazy. It's like calling +it punishment when a true believer receives the reward of paradise." + +"You love me so much as that?" + +"_Pardi!_" he ejaculated. "And thou?" + +"So much," she palpitated, "so much that when you looked at the princess +like that--I wished you were blind!" + +At the bottom of the hill, the old folks, Burgundians to the souls of +them, happily bade the young couple to be off about their own affairs. +They knew how it was with young married people. The old were +obstacles--so they themselves well recalled--albeit that was more than +twenty years ago. + +Said Gaspard fondly: "This business has put me back in my work; but +we'll call this a holiday. Shall we go to my cottage or into the forest? +I know of a secret place--" + +"Into the forest," whispered Susette. "I don't like the forge. It makes +me think--think of that cursed princess--and of the work that almost +lost you to me." Her blue eyes filmed as she looked up at him. "Oh, +Gaspard, I also have dreamed so much--of love--a life of love with +thee!" + +There was no one there to see. Some day, perhaps, in the far distant +future, this part of the world would be thickly populated. But this was +not yet the case. Gaspard brought his bride close to his breast, smiled +gravely into her upturned face. He kissed her tears away. Sweet Susette! +She was such a child! How little she knew of life! + +And yet what was that fragile, fluttering, elusive, tiny suggestion of a +regret in the back of his brain? Now he saw it; now it was gone--a +silver moth of a thought, yet one, some instinct warned him, was there +to gnaw a hole in his happiness. + +He said nothing about this to Susette, of course; he chased it from his +own joy. And this joy was a beautiful, tumultuous thing. + +"It's like the source of the Rhone, which I saw one time--this joy of +ours," he said with placid rapture. "All sparkling it was, and wild +cataracts, and deep places, clean and full of mystery." + +"Ah, I want it to be always like this," said Susette. + +Gaspard let himself go in clear-sighted thought. They were seated on a +grassy shelf that overhung the great river. The forest hemmed them in +on three sides like a wedding-bower fashioned to order; but here they +could follow the Rhone for miles--with its drifting barges, its +red-sailed shallops, its hamlets, and villages. + +"Yes, ever like the Rhone," he said; "but growing, like the Rhone, until +it's broad and majestic and strong to carry burdens--" + +Susette interrupted him. + +"Kiss me," she said. "Kiss me again. No--not like that; like you did a +while ago." + +And Gaspard, laughing, did as he was bidden. But what was that silver +glint of something like a regret, something like a loss, that came +fluttering once more across the atmosphere of his thought? Susette, +though, kept him diverted. She was forever popping in upon his +reflections with innocent, childish questions; and he found this +infinitely amusing. + +"Did you desire me--more than the princess?" + +"Beloved, I have desired you for years." + +"Did you think me more beautiful--than she?" + +Again Gaspard laughed; but it set him to thinking. He liked to think. He +thought at his forge, at his meals, nights when he happened to be +awake. + +"Love and beauty," he said, "these are created by desire. As a +stone-cutter desires what is hidden in the rock, and hews it out and +loves the thing he shapes, though it be as ugly as a gargoyle, because +of the desire that brought it forth--" + +"Do you think that I'm a gargoyle?" queried Susette hastily. + +"Certainly not." + +"Then, why did you call me one?" + +So he had to console her again, and took a certain joy in it, although +she protracted the dear, silly dispute by telling him that he had +chained her to him simply so that he could torture her, and that he had +wanted to spare the princess such suffering, and that therefore it was +clear that he loved the princess more. + +"Why, no," said Gaspard; "as for that, she's really in love with that +young Sieur de Mâcon." + +But thereupon Susette wanted to know how he came to be so well informed +as to the contents of the lady's heart. So the smith gave over any +attempt to reason, except in the silences of his brain; and just +confined his outer activities to cooings and caresses, as Susette would +have him do. + +Yet his thought would persist. + +That was the trail of a great truth he had almost stated back there, +about the place held by desire in the origins of love and beauty. He had +watched a certain Italian named Botticelli do a mural painting in the +duke's private chapel. Lord, there was a passion! He had helped in the +building of the cathedral at Sens. Lord, what fervor the builders put +into their work! They were all like young lovers. + +The smith sat up. It was almost as if he had cornered that glinting moth +of doubt. + +Yes, they had been like young lovers--Sieur Botticelli, in pursuit of +the beautiful; the church-builders in pursuit of God. But--and here was +the point--what if their desire had been satisfied? The quest would have +stopped. The vision of the artist would have faded. The steeple would +have fallen down. For desire would have ceased to exist. + +"I'm hungry and I'm thirsty," said Susette. + +He kissed her pensively. They started home. + + +IV. + +"Gaspard! Gaspard!" + +The smith sat up swiftly on his couch. + +"What's the matter?" he demanded. + +All the same, in spite of certain disquieting dreams, it struck him as +sweet and curious to be awakened like that by Susette. But he perceived +that she was alarmed. + +"Some one hammers at the door," she said. + +Then he heard it himself, that thing he had already been hearing +obscurely in his sleep. + +"Coming!" he yelled. And he smilingly explained to Susette: "It's my +old friend, Joseph, the carter. He'd bring his work to me if he had +to travel five leagues." And he was for jumping up and running to +the door. + +"Wait," cried Susette. "I'll have to go with you, and I can't be seen +like this." + +"That's right," said Gaspard. "That confounded chain! I'd forgotten all +about it." So he called out again to his friend, and the two of them +held quite a conversation while Susette tried to make herself +presentable. But Gaspard turned to her as she shook her hair out for the +third time, starting to rearrange it. "Quick!" he urged. "He's in a +hurry. One of his horses has cast a shoe." + +"You can't show yourself like that, either," cried Susette, playing for +time. + +"Me?" laughed Gaspard. "I'm a smith. I'd like to see a smith who +couldn't show himself in singlet and apron!" + +"You look like a brigand." + +But he merely laughed: "Joseph won't mind." + +And, indeed, Joseph the carter did appear to have but little thought for +anything except the work in hand. For that matter, neither, apparently, +did Gaspard. After the first few brief civilities and the inevitable +jests about the chain, their attention was absorbed at once by the +horses. There were four of these--Percherons, huge monsters with shaggy +fetlocks and massive feet; yet Joseph and Gaspard went about lifting +these colossal hoofs, and considering them as tenderly as if the two had +been young mothers concerned with the feet of babes. + +At last Susette let out a little cry, and both men turned to look at +her. + +"I faint," she said weakly. + +And Gaspard sprang over and caught her in his arms. He was filled with +pity. He was all gentleness. + +"Are you sick?" he asked. + +"It was the odor of the horses," Susette replied in her small voice. + +Joseph the carter seemed to take this as some aspersion on himself. +"Those horses don't smell," he asserted stoutly. + +But Gaspard signaled him to hold his place. "You'll be all right in a +second or so," he told his wife. He spoke gently; although, as a matter +of fact, he himself could find nothing about those magnificent animals +to offend the most delicate sensibility. "You'll be all right. You can +come into the forge and sit down while I shoe the big gray." + +"That will be worse than ever," wailed Susette. + +Joseph the carter was an outspoken man, gruff and honest. + +"And there's a woman for you," he said, "to be not only wed but welded +to a smith! _Nom d'un tonnerre!_ Say, then, Gaspard, I'm in a hurry. +Shall we start with the gray?" + +"Yes," Gaspard answered softly, as he continued to support Susette. + +"No, no, no!" cried Susette. "Not to-day! I'm too sick." + +"_Mais, chérie_," Gaspard began. + +"You love your work better than you do me," sobbed Susette. + +"_Nom d'un pourceau!_" droned Joseph. + +"But this work is important," Gaspard argued desperately. "The gray has +not only cast a shoe, but the shoes on the others are loose. They've got +to be attended to. It's work that will bring me in a whole _écu_." + +"I don't care," said Susette. "I can't stand the smell of those horses, +and I could never, never bear the smell of the hot iron on their hoofs." + +"But I'm a smith," argued Gaspard. + +It was his ultimate appeal. + +"I told you that you loved your work more than you did me," whimpered +Susette, beginning to cry. "'_I'm a smith; I'm a smith_'--that's all +you've talked about since you got me in your power." + +Joseph the carter went away. He did so shaking his head, followed by his +shining Percherons, which were as majestic as elephants, but as gentle +as sheep. There was a tugging at Gaspard's heart as he saw them go. +Such horses! And no one could shoe a horse as could he. He looked down +at Susette's bowed head as she lay there cuddled in his arms. That +despairing cry was again swelling in his chest: "But I'm a smith." He +silenced it. He stroked the girl's head. + +As he did so, he was mindful as never before of the clink and jangle of +the chain. + + +V. + +"What do you want me to do?" he asked that afternoon as they lay out in +the shade of the poplars along the river bank. + +"I want you to love me," she answered. + +"I do love you. But we can't live on love--can we, Susette?--however +pleasant that would be. I've got to work." + +"Ah, your _sacré_ work!" + +"Still, you'll admit that you can't pick up _écus_ in the road." + +"You're thinking still of that miserable carter." + +"No; but I'm thinking of his horses. Somebody's got to shoe them. You +can't let them go lame--or be lamed by a bungler. I could have done +that job as it should have been done." + +"But I tell you," declared Susette, pronouncing each word with an +individual stress, "I can't support the grime and the odors and the +racket of your forge. You ought to find some work that I do like. We +could collect wild salads together--pick wild-flowers and sell +them--something like that." + +Gaspard sighed. + +"But a man's work is his work," he averred. + +"There you go again," said Susette, and the accusation was all the more +damning in that it was spoken not in anger, but in grief. "Now that I've +given myself to you--done all that you wished--you want to get rid of +me; you want me to die." + +"Haven't I told you a thousand times," cried Gaspard softly and +passionately, "that I love you more than any man has ever loved any +woman? Haven't I spent whole days and nights--yes, years--of my life +desiring you? Haven't I proven it? Come into my arms, Susette. Ah, when +I have you in my arms like this--" + +"And it's only like this that I know happiness, my love," breathed the +girl. "Yes; I'm jealous! Jealous of everything that can take you from +me, body or spirit, if even for a moment. All women are like that. We +live in jealousy. What's work? What's ambition, honor, duty, gold as +compared with love?" + +But late that night Gaspard the smith roused himself softly from his +couch. He lay there leaning on his elbow and stared out of the window of +his cottage. Susette stirred at his side, undisturbed by the metallic +clinking. Otherwise the night was one of engulfing, mystical silence. + +Just outside the cottage the great river Rhone flowed placid and free in +the light of the young moon. Up from the river-bottoms ran the vine-clad +slopes of Burgundy as fragrant as gardens. There was no wind. It was all +swoon and mystery. + +"Lord God!" cried Gaspard the smith in his heart. + +It was a prayer as much as anything--an inspiration that he couldn't get +otherwise into words. + +He was of that race of artist-craftsmen whose forged iron and fretted +steel would continue to stir all lovers of beauty for centuries to come. + +"It's true," that inner voice of his spoke again, "that desire is the +driving force of the world. 'Twas desire in the heart of God that led to +creation. 'Tis so with us, His creatures--desire that makes us love and +embellish. But when desire is satisfied, then desire is dead, and +then--and then--" + +And yet, as he lay there, buffeted by an emotion which he either would +not or could not express, his eyes gradually focused on the castle of +the great Duke of Burgundy up there on top of the hill--washed in +moonlight, dim and vast; and it was as if he could see the Princess +Gabrielle at her casement, kneeling there, communing with the night as +he was doing. + +Did she weep? + +He had caught that message in her eyes as she had looked at him up there +in the castle hall--had seen the same message before. + +But never had she looked so beautiful--or as she looked now in +retrospect--skin so white, mouth so tender, shape so stately, yet so +slim and graceful. Oddly enough, thought of her now filled him with a +vibrancy, with a longing. + +And brave! Hadn't she shown herself to be brave though--to stand up like +that there before her grandfather, him whom all Europe called Louis the +Terrible, and declare herself ready to be welded to the man of her +choice! She wouldn't faint in the presence of horses! And where couldn't +a man go if led by a guardian angel like that? Slaves had become +emperors; blacksmiths had forged armies, become the architects of +cathedrals. + +His breathing went deep, then deeper yet. The sweat was on his brow. He +sat up. He seized the chain in his powerful hands, made as if he were +going to tear it asunder. + +But after that moment of straining silence he again lifted his face. + +"_Seigneur-Dieu_," he panted; "if--if I only had it to do over again!" + + +VI. + +"It's Gaspard the smith," said the frightened page. "He craves the honor +of an interview." + +The duke looked up from his parchment. + +"Gaspard the smith?" + +The duke was seated before the fireplace in the hall. The forge had +been removed; and instead there were some logs smoldering there, for the +morning was cool. But his glance recalled the circumstances of his last +encounter with the smith. The watchful page was quick to seize his cue. + +"He comes alone," the page announced. + +The duke gave a start, then began to chuckle. + +"_Tiens! Tiens!_ He comes alone! 'Tis true, this is the time limit I +set. Send the creature in." + +And his highness continued to laugh all the time that the page was gone. +But he laughed softly, for he was alone. Presently he heard a subdued +clinking of steel. He greeted his subject with a sly smile. + +Most subjects of Louis the Terrible would have been overjoyed to be +received by their sovereign so graciously. But Gaspard the smith showed +no special joy. He wasn't nearly so proud, either, as he had been that +other time he had appeared before his lord. He bent his knee. He +remained kneeling until the duke told him to get up. The duke was still +smiling. + +"So my three days were enough," said his highness. + +"Enough and sufficient," quoth the smith. + +Now that he was on his feet again he was once more the man. He and the +duke looked at each other almost as equals. + +"Tell me about it," said Louis. + +"Well, I'll tell you," Gaspard began; "you see, I'm a smith." + +"But incapable of forging a chain strong enough to hold a woman." + +"I'm not so sure," Gaspard replied. "It was a good chain." + +He put out his left wrist and examined it. The steel handcuff was still +there. Up and back from it ran the chain which the smith had been +carrying over his shoulder. He hauled the chain down. He displayed the +other end of it, still ornamented by the companion bracelet. + +"What happened? How did she get out of it?" queried the duke. + +"She got thin," Gaspard responded with melancholy. "She didn't want me +to work. She wanted the money that I could earn. Yes. She even wanted me +to work. But it had to be her kind of work; something--something--how +shall I say it?--something that wouldn't interfere with our love." + +"And you didn't love her?" + +"Sure I loved her," flared the smith. "Eh--_bon Dieu_! I wouldn't have +coupled up with her if I hadn't loved her; but, also, I loved something +else. I loved my work. I'm a smith. I'm a shoer of horses, a forger of +iron, a worker in steel. I'm what the good God made me, and I've the +good God's work to do! + +"So after a certain amount of honeymoon I had to get back to my forge. +Joseph the carter, his Percherons; who could shoe them but me?" + +"And she didn't like that?" + +"No. When I made her sit in my forge she pined and whined and refused to +eat. I was crazy. But I did my work. And this morning when I awoke I +found that she had slipped away." + +"You were already enchained," said his highness, "by your work." + +The smith misunderstood. + +"You can see it was no trick chain," he said, holding up the chain he +himself had forged and playing with the links. + +"Aye," said the duke, for he loved these philosophic disquisitions, when +he was in the mood for them. "Aye, chains are the nature of the +universe. The planets are chained. The immortal soul is chained to the +mortal body. The body itself is chained to its lusts and frailties." + +"I'm a smith," said Gaspard, "and I want to work." + +"We're not happy when we are chained," the duke continued to reflect +aloud. "But I doubt that we'd be happier were our chains to disappear. +No matter." He regarded Gaspard the smith with real benignancy. "At +least you've proven the fatal quality of one particular chain--the +thing I wanted to prove. And--you've saved the princess." + +"'Twas of her I wanted to speak," Gaspard spoke up. "This is a good +chain. I forged it myself." + +"Yes, I know you're a smith," said the duke. + +"Well, then," said Gaspard, "I've been thinking. Suppose--now that I've +still got it on me--that we try it on the princess, after all." He +noticed the duke's look of amazement. "I'm willing," said Gaspard. "I'm +willing to have another try--" + +"_Dieu de bon Dieu!_" quoth the duke. "Never content!" He recovered +himself. He felt kindly toward the smith. "Haven't you heard?" he +demanded. "The princess has forged a chain of her own. She eloped with +that young Sieur de Mâcon the same day you declined to chain her to +yourself." + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Spelling, punctuation and grammar have been retained except as follows: + + Page 18 + bear of leaves _changed to_ + bare of leaves + + Page 36 + enternal laws of logic _changed to_ + eternal laws of logic + + Page 47 + what has love to _changed to_ + what has love to do + + Page 56 + completely locked the hall _changed to_ + completely blocked the hall + + Page 76 + borne a thousand times _changed to_ + born a thousand times + + Page 78 + but the were frozen _changed to_ + but they were frozen + + Page 85 + Flourney studied a moment _changed to_ + Flournoy studied a moment + + Page 86 + "No!" Flourney snapped _changed to_ + "No!" Flournoy snapped + + Page 111 + enlightened her igorance _changed to_ + enlightened her ignorance + + Page 116 + I ain't no bayou _changed to_ + "I ain't no bayou + + Page 145 + Its my old friend _changed to_ + It's my old friend + + Page 158 + No, matter. _changed to_ + No matter. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ten-foot Chain, by +Achmed Abdullah and Max Brand and E. K. Means and P. P. 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K. Means, Perley P. 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K. Means and P. P. Sheehan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Ten-foot Chain + or, Can Love Survive the Shackles? A Unique Symposium + +Author: Achmed Abdullah + Max Brand + E. K. Means + P. P. Sheehan + +Release Date: June 27, 2010 [EBook #32996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TEN-FOOT CHAIN *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<hr /> + +<h1>THE TEN-FOOT CHAIN<br /> +<br /> +<small><span class="smcap">or Can Love Survive the Shackles</span>?</small></h1> + + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="581" alt="Cover" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> +<img src="images/gs01.jpg" width="400" height="616" alt="" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"WHEN I LOOK INTO YOUR FACE THE SUN RISES AND THE BOAT OF +MY LIFE ROCKS ON THE DANCING WAVES OF PASSION."</span> +</div> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<div class="box"> +<p class="center"><span class="tp1">THE<br /> +TEN-FOOT CHAIN</span><br /> +<br /> + +<span class="tp2">OR</span><br /> +<br /> + +<span class="smcap tp4">Can Love Survive<br /> +the Shackles?</span><br /> +<br /> + +<span class="tp2">A UNIQUE SYMPOSIUM</span><br /> +<br /> + +<span class="tp2">BY</span><br /> +<br /> + +<span class="tp4">ACHMED ABDULLAH</span><br /> +<span class="tp4">MAX BRAND</span><br /> +<span class="tp4">E. K. MEANS</span><br /> +<span class="tp4">P. P. SHEEHAN</span><br /> +<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + +<span class="tp2">REYNOLDS PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.<br /> +NEW YORK<br /> +1920</span></p> +</div> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<p class="center tp2"><i>Copyright 1920</i><br /> +REYNOLDS PUB. CO. Inc.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Copyright 1920</i><br /> +THE FRANK A. MUNSEY CO.</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="Contents"> +<tr> +<th class="thr" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></th> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#intro">11</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">First Tale</span><br /> + <span class="smcap four">An Indian Jataka</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 4em"><i>By Achmed Abdullah</i></span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#i">17</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Second Tale</span><br /> + <span class="smcap four">Out of the Dark</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 6em;"><i>By Max Brand</i></span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#ii">45</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Third Tale</span><br /> + <span class="smcap four">Plumb Nauseated</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 6em;"><i>By E. K. Means</i></span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#iii">81</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Fourth Tale</span><br /> + <span class="smcap four">Princess or Percheron</span><br /> + <span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>By Perley P. Sheehan</i></span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#iv">127</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +<a name="intro" id="intro"></a><i>INTRODUCTION</i></h2> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<p class="cap">SOME time ago I was dining with four distinguished writers. Needless to +say where two or three authors are gathered together with a sympathetic +editor in their midst, the flood-gates of fancy are opened wide.</p> + +<p>In an inspired moment, Dr. Means tossed this "tremendous trifle" into +the center of the table: "What mental and emotional reaction would a man +and a woman undergo, linked together by a ten-foot chain, for three days +and nights?" The query precipitated an uproar.</p> + +<p>Captain Abdullah stepped into the arena at once, and with that élan of +the heart, which is bred only in the Orient, declared if the man and the +woman really loved one another, no chain could be riveted too close or +too enduring to render onerous its existence. For through this world and +the next, love would hold these twain in ever deeper and tenderer +embrace.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>Then the doctor, who claims he cuts nearer to the realities, insisted no +emotion could bear such a physical impact. The reaction from such an +imposed contact would leave love bereft of life, strangled in its own +golden mesh. Max Brand begged to differ with both of his fellow +craftsmen. With the cold detachment of a mind prepared to see all four +sides of an object and with no personal animus of either prejudice or +prepossession, Mr. Brand averred no blanker conclusion covered the case +in question but in any given instance, the multiple factors of heredity, +environment, habit, and temperament, would largely determine the final +state of both the man and the woman.</p> + +<p>Hereupon, Perley Poore Sheehan, the fourth member of the writing +fraternity present, insisted on a hearing. Mr. Sheehan, nothing daunted +by the naturally polygamous instincts of the male heart, insisted a good +man, once in love, would and could discount the handicap of a ten-foot +chain, since love was after all, as others have contended, not the whole +of a man's life. To be sure it was an integral need, a recurrent +appetite; the glamour and the glory, if you like, enfolding with its +overshadowing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> wings his house of happiness. As for the woman—well, we +will let Mr. Sheehan report, in person, his conviction as to the +stability of her attachment.</p> + +<p>The editor, whose business it is to keep an open mind, scarcely felt +equal to the responsibility of passing judgment, where experts differed. +But the discussion presented an opportunity which he felt called upon to +develop. Therefore, each of the four authors was invited to present his +conclusions in fiction form, the four stories to be published under the +general caption "The Ten-Foot Chain." Herewith we are printing this +unique symposium, one of the most original series ever presented.</p> + +<p>Naturally, the stories are bound to provoke opinion and raise +discussion. The thesis in the form presented by Dr. Means is quite +novel, but the underlying problem of the stability of human affections, +is as old as the heart of man. Wasn't it that prosaic but wise old poet, +Alexander Pope, who compared our minds to our watches? "No two go just +alike, yet each believes his own."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[15–17]</a></span> +<a name="i" id="i"></a>FIRST TALE<br /> +<br /> +<big>AN INDIAN JATAKA</big><br /> +<br /> +<small>BY ACHMED ABDULLAH</small></h2> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>This is the tale which Jehan Tugluk Khan, a wise man in +Tartary, and milk brother to Ghengiz Khan, Emperor of the East +and the North, and Captain General of the Golden Horde, +whispered to the Foolish Virgin who came to him, bringing the +purple, spiked flower of the Kadam-tree as an offering, and +begging him for a love potion with which to hold Haydar Khan, a +young, red-faced warrior from the west who had ridden into camp, +a song on his lips, a woman's breast scarf tied to his tufted +bamboo lance, a necklace of his slain foes' skulls strung about +his massive chest, and sitting astride a white stallion whose +mane was dyed crimson in sign of strife and whose dainty, +dancing feet rang on the rose-red marble pavement of the +emperor's courtyard like crystal bells in the wind of spring.</i></p> + +<p><i>This is a tale of passion, and, by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> same token, a tale of +wisdom. For, in the yellow, placid lands east of the Urals and +west of harsh, sneering Pekin, it is babbled by the toothless +old women who know life, that wisdom and desire are twin sisters +rocked in the same cradle: one speaks while the other sings. +They say that it is the wisdom of passion which makes eternal +the instinct of love.</i></p> + +<p><i>This is the tale of Vasantasena, the slave who was free in her +own heart, and of Madusadan, a captain of horse, who plucked the +white rose without fearing the thorns.</i></p> + +<p><i>This, finally, is the tale of Vikramavati, King of Hindustan in +the days of the Golden Age, when Surya, the Sun, warmed the +fields without scorching; when Vanyu, the Wind, filled the air +with the pollen of the many flowers without stripping the trees +<a name="bare" id="bare"></a><ins title="Original has bear">bare</ins> of leaves; when Varuna, Regent of Water, sang +through the land without destroying the dykes or drowning the +lowing cattle and the little naked children who played at the +river's bank; when Prithwi, the Earth, sustained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> all and +starved none; when Chandra, the Moon, was as bright and ripening +as his elder brother, the Sun.</i></p> + +<p><i>LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!</i></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<p class="cap2">VASANTASENA was the girl's name, and she came to young King +Vikramavati's court on the tenth day of the dark half of the month +Bhadra. She came as befitted a slave captured in war, with her +henna-stained feet bound together by a thin, golden chain, her white +hands tied behind her back with ropes of pearls, her slim young body +covered with a silken robe of the sad hue of the tamala flower, in sign +of mourning for Dharma, her father, the king of the south, who had +fallen in battle beneath the steel-shod tusks of the war elephants.</p> + +<p>She knelt before the peacock throne, and Vikramavati saw that her face +was as beautiful as the moon on the fourteenth day, that her black locks +were like female snakes, her waist like the waist of a she-lion, her +arms like twin marble columns blue-veined, her skin like the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> sweetly +scented champaka flower, and her breasts as the young tinduka fruit.</p> + +<p>He looked into her eyes and saw that they were of a deep bronze color, +gold flecked, and with pupils that were black and opaque—eyes that +seemed to hold all the wisdom, all the secret mockery, the secret +knowledge of womanhood—and his hand trembled, and he thought in his +soul that the bountiful hand of Sravanna, the God of Plenty, had been +raised high in the western heaven at the hour of her birth.</p> + +<p>"Remember the words of the Brahmin," grumbled Deo Singh, his old prime +minister who had served his father before him and who was watching him +anxiously, jealously. "'Woman is the greatest robber of all. For other +robbers steal property which is spiritually worthless, such as gold and +diamonds; while woman steals the best—a man's heart, and soul, and +ambition, and strength.' Remember, furthermore, the words of—"</p> + +<p>"Enough croakings for the day, Leaky-Tongue!" cut in Vikramavati, with +the insolent rashness of his twenty-four years. "Go home to your +withered beldame of a wife and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> pray with her before the altar of unborn +children, and help her clean the household pots. This is the season when +I speak of love!"</p> + +<p>"Whose love—yours or the girl's?" smilingly asked Madusadan, captain of +horse, a man ten years the king's senior, with a mocking, bitter eye, a +great, crimson mouth, a crunching chest, massive, hairy arms, the honey +of eloquence on his tongue, and a mind that was a deer in leaping, a cat +in climbing. Men disliked him because they could not beat him in joust +or tournament; and women feared him because the purity of his life, +which was an open book, gave the lie to his red lips and the +slow-eddying flame in his hooded, brown eyes. "Whose love, wise king?"</p> + +<p>But the latter did not hear.</p> + +<p>He dismissed the soldiers and ministers and courtiers with an impatient +gesture, and stepped down from his peacock throne.</p> + +<p>"Fool!" said Madusadan, as he looked through a slit in the curtain from +an inner room and saw that the king was raising Vasantasena to her feet; +saw, too, the derisive patience in her golden eyes.</p> + +<p>"A fool—though a king versed in statecraft!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> he whispered into the ear +of Shivadevi, Vasantasena's shriveled, gnarled hill nurse who had +followed her mistress into captivity.</p> + +<p>"Thee! A fool indeed!" cackled the old nurse as, side by side with the +captain of horse, she listened to the tale of love the king was +spreading before the slave girl's narrow, white feet, as Kama-Deva, the +young God of Passion, spread the tale of his longing before Rati, his +wife, with the voice of the cuckoo, the humming-bee in mating time, and +the southern breeze laden with lotus.</p> + +<p>"You came to me a slave captured among the crackling spears of battle," +said Vikramavati, "and behold, it is I who am the slave. For your sake I +would sin the many sins. For the sake of one of your precious eyelashes +I would spit on the names of the gods and slaughter the holy cow. You +are a light shining in a dark house. Your body is a garden of strange +and glorious flowers which I gather in the gloom. I feel the savor and +shade of your dim tresses, and think of the home land where the hill +winds sweep.</p> + +<p>"My love for you is as the soft sweetness of wild honey which the bees +of the forest have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> gathered among the perfumed asoka flowers—sweet and +warm, but with a sharp after-taste to prick the tongue and set the body +eternally longing. To hold you I would throw a noose around the far +stars. I give you all I have, all I am, all I shall ever be, and it +would not be the thousandth part of my love for you. See! My heart is a +carpet for your little lisping feet. Step gently, child!"</p> + +<p>Vasantasena replied never a word. With unwinking, opaque eyes, she +stared beyond the king, at a slit in the curtain which separated the +throne-room from the inner apartment. For through the embroidered folds +of the brocade, a great, hairy, brown, high-veined hand was thrust, the +broad thumb wagging mockingly, meaningly, like a shadow of fate.</p> + +<p>And she remembered the huge star sapphire set in hammered silver that +twinkled on the thumb like a cresset of passion. She remembered how that +hand had plucked her from amidst the horse's trampling feet and the +sword-rimmed wheels of the war-chariots as she crouched low above her +father's body. She remembered the voice that had come to her, clear +through the clamor and din of battle, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> braying of the conches, the +neighing of the stallions, the shrill, angry trumpeting of the +elephants—</p> + +<p>A voice sharp, compelling, bitter—</p> + +<p>"Captive to my bow and spear, little flower, but a slave for the king, +my master. For such is the law of Hind. He will love you—not being +altogether a fool. But perhaps you will not love him. Being but a +stammering virgin boy, perhaps he will heap your lap with all the +treasures in the world. Being an honest gentleman, perhaps he will treat +you with respect and tenderness, with the sweet fairness of the blessed +gods. And perhaps—even then—you will not love him, little flower.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you will turn to the captain of horse as the moon rises like a +bubble of passion from the deep red of the sunset. Perhaps you will read +the meaning of the koel-bird's love-cry, the secret of the jessamine's +scent, the sweet, throbbing, winglike call of all the unborn children in +the heart and body and soul of Madusadan, captain of horse."</p> + +<p>"A bold man, this captain of horse!" Vasantasena had smiled through her +tears, through the savage clang of battle.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>"A reckless man—yet a humble man, little flower. Reckless and humble as +the moist spring monsoon that sweeps over the young shoots of +bluish-white rice. For"—here he had put her in front of him, on the +curve of the peaked, bossed saddle—"will the rice ripen to the touch of +the savage, clamoring monsoon?"</p> + +<p>And he had drawn slightly away from her. He had not even kissed her, +though they were shielded from all the world by the folds of the great +battle flag that was stiff with gold, stiffer with darkening gore. In +the fluttering heart of Vasantasena rose a great longing for this +insolent warrior who spoke of love—and touched her not.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>This is the tale of the grape that is never pressed, that never +loses its sweetness, though white hands squeeze its pulp, day +after day, night after night.</i></p> + +<p><i>This is the tale of the book that is never read to the end, +though eyes, moist and smarting with longing, read its pages +till the candles gutter out in the gray dawn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> wind and the young +sun sings its cosmic song out of the East, purple and golden.</i></p> + +<p><i>This is the tale of love which rises like a mist of ineffable +calm, then sweeps along on the red wings of eternal desire—the +tale of love that is a chain forged of steel and scent, a chain +of unbreakable steel mated to the pollen of the glistening +areka-flower.</i></p> + +<p><i>LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!</i></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<p>"See!" said Shivadevi, the old nurse, to Vasantasena, who shimmered +among the green, silken cushions of her couch like a tiger-beetle in a +nest of fresh leaves. "Vikramavati, the king, has bowed low before you. +He has removed from your hands and ankles the pearl and gold fetters. He +has taken off your robe of mourning and has thrown about your shoulders +a sari woven of moonbeams and running water. He has seated you beside +him on the peacock throne, as a free woman—not a slave."</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Vasantasena. "He has placed his head and his heart on the +sill of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> the door of love. He brought me his soul as an offering. And +I"—she yawned—"I love him not."</p> + +<p>"He has heaped your lap with many treasures," went on the old woman. +"Jasper from the Punjab has he brought to you, rubies from Burma, +turquoises from Thibet, star-sapphires and alexandrites from Ceylon, +flawless emeralds from Afghanistan, white crystal from Malwa, onyx from +Persia, amethyst from Tartary, green jade and white jade from Amoy, +garnets from Bundelkhand, red corals from Socotra, chalcedon from Syria, +malachite from Kafiristan, pearls from Ramesvaram, lapis lazuli from +Jaffra, yellow diamonds from Poonah, black agate from Dynbhulpoor!"</p> + +<p>Vasantasena shrugged her slim shoulders disdainfully.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "He put the nightingale in a cage of gold and +exclaimed: 'Behold, this is thy native land!' Then he opened the +door—and the nightingale flew away to the green land, the free land, +never regretting the golden cage."</p> + +<p>"He grovels before you in the dust of humility. He says that his life is +a blackened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> crucible of sin and vanity and regret, but that his love +for you is the golden bead at the bottom of the crucible. He has given +you freedom. He has given you friendship. He has given you tenderness +and affection and respect."</p> + +<p>"Yes," smiled Vasantasena. "He has given me his everything, his all. +Without cavil, without stint. Freedom he has given me, keeping the +bitter water of humility as his own portion. But all his generosity, his +fairness, his humility, his decency—all his love has not opened the +inner door to the shrine of my heart. In the night he comes, with the +flaming torches of his passion; but my heart is as cold as clay, as cold +as freezing water when the snow wind booms down from the Himalayas. The +madness of the storm and the waves is upon him, but there is no +answering surge in the tide of my soul. In my heart he sees the world +golden and white and flashing with laughter. In his heart I see the +world grim and drab and haggard and seamed with tears. For—generous, +fair, unstinting—he is also selfish and foolish, being a man unwise in +the tortuous, glorious ways of love. Daily he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> tells me that I am the +well of his love. But never does he ask me if his love is the stone of +my contentment."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he does not dare," cackled the old nurse.</p> + +<p>"Being modest?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Only the selfish are modest, caring naught for the answering spark in +the heart of the loved one. And the love of woman is destroyed by humble +selfishness as the religion of a Brahmin by serving kings, the milk of a +cow by distant pasturage, and wealth by committing injustice. There is +no worth in such wealth—nor in such love. This is Veda-truth."</p> + +<p>And in a high, proud voice she added:</p> + +<p>"I love Madusadan, captain of horse. I will kiss his red, mocking lips +and bend to the thrill of his strong body. Pure he is to all the world, +to all women—so the bazaar gossip says—but I, and I alone, shall light +the lamp of passion in his heart. Free am I! But the unsung music in his +heart shall be a loved fetter around mine. Clasped in his arms, life and +death shall unite in me in an unbreakable chain.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>"I will bury my hands deep in the savage, tangled forest that is his +soul and follow therein the many trails. I will read the message of his +hooded, brown eyes, the trembling message of his great, hairy hands. His +heart is a crimson malati-flower, and mine the tawny orchid spotted with +purple that winds around its roots."</p> + +<p>"Gray is the hair on his temples. He is the king's senior by ten years."</p> + +<p>"Years of wisdom," laughed Vasantasena. "Years of waiting. Years of +garnering strength."</p> + +<p>"He is not as kindly as Vikramavati, nor as great, nor as generous."</p> + +<p>"But he is wise—wise! He knows the heart of woman—the essence, the +innermost secret of woman."</p> + +<p>"And that is—"</p> + +<p>"Patience in achieving. Strength in holding. Wisdom in—<i>not</i> demanding +unless the woman offers and gives sign."</p> + +<p>And she went out into the garden that stretched back of the palace in +wild, scented profusion, bunching its majestic, columnar aisles of +banyan figs as a foil for the dainty,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> pale green tracery of the +nim-trees, the quivering, crimson domes of the peepals bearded to the +waist with gray and orange moss, where the little, bold-eye gekko +lizards slipped like narrow, green flags through the golden, perfumed +fretwork of the chandela bushes and wild parrots screeched overhead with +burnished wings; and there she met Madusadan, captain of horse, whom she +had summoned by a scribbled note earlier in the day, and her veil +slipped, and her white feet were like trembling flowers, and she pressed +her red mouth on his and rested in his arms like a tired child.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>The road of desire runs beneath the feet all day and all night, +says the tale. There is no beginning to this road, nor end. Out +of the nowhere it comes, vanishing, yet never vanishing in the +nowhere; renewing each morning, after nights of love, the +eternal miracle, the never-ending virginity of passion.</i></p> + +<p><i>You cannot end the endless chain of it, says the tale. You +cannot hush the murmur of the sea which fills the air, rising<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +to the white, beckoning finger of Chandra, the Moon.</i></p> + +<p><i>Love's play is worship.</i></p> + +<p><i>Love's achievement is a rite.</i></p> + +<p><i>Love's secret is never read.</i></p> + +<p><i>Always around the corner is another light, a new light—golden, +twinkling, mocking, like the will-o'-the-wisp.</i></p> + +<p><i>Reach to it—as you never will—and there is the end of the +chain, the end of the tale.</i></p> + +<p><i>LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!</i></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<p>"You broke your faith, faithless woman!" said Vikramavati as he saw +Vasantasena in the arms of Madusadan, captain of horse.</p> + +<p>The girl smiled.</p> + +<p>"It was you who spoke of love," she replied, "not I."</p> + +<p>"I tried to conquer your love by the greatness of my own love."</p> + +<p>"As a fool tries to take out a thorn in his foot by a thorn in his +hand."</p> + +<p>"I gave you freedom. I gave you the wealth of all Hindustan, the wealth +of the outer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> lands. I gave you my soul, my heart, my body, my strength, +my ambition, my faith, my secret self."</p> + +<p>"You gave me everything—because you love me. I gave you +nothing—because I do not love you."</p> + +<p>"Love can do the impossible," gravely said the captain of horse, while +Vasantasena nestled more closely to his arms. "It was because of love +that Vishnu, the Creator, changed into a dwarf and descended to the +lowermost regions, and there captured Bali, the Raja of Heaven and of +Earth. It was because of love that, as Ramachandra, helped by the monkey +folk, he built a bridge between India and Ceylon, and that, as Krishna, +he lifted up the great mountain Golonddhan in the palm of his hand as an +umbrella with which to shield his loved one against the splintering, +merciless rays of Surya, the Sun, the jealous, yellow god.</p> + +<p>"Love can do all things—except one. For love can never create love, +wise king. Love can force the stream to flow up-hill, but it cannot +create the stream when there is no water."</p> + +<p>Silence dropped like a shadow of fate, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> Vikramavati turned slowly +and walked toward the palace.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow," he said over his shoulder, in an even, passionless voice, +"you shall die a death of lingering agony."</p> + +<p>Madusadan laughed lightly.</p> + +<p>"There is neither to-day nor to-morrow nor yesterday for those who +love," he replied. "There is only the pigeon-blue of the sunlit sky, the +crimson and gold of the harvest-fields, the laughter of the far waters. +Love fills the cup of infinity."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow you will be dead," the king repeated dully.</p> + +<p>And again Madusadan laughed lightly.</p> + +<p>"And what then, O wise king, trained in the rigid logic of Brahmin and +Parohitas?" he asked. "Will our death do away with the fact that once we +lived and, living, loved each other? Will the scarlet of our death wipe +out the streaked gray of your jealousy? Will our death give you the love +of Vasantasena, which never was yours in life? Will our death rob our +souls of the memory of the great sweetness which was ours, the beauty, +the glory, the never-ending thrill of fulfillment?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>"Love ceases with death."</p> + +<p>"Love, wise king, is unswayed by the rhythm of either life—or death. +Love—that surges day after day, night after night, as year after year +the breast of the earth heaves to the spring song of the ripening rice, +to the golden fruit of the mango groves.</p> + +<p>"Death? A fig for it, wise king!</p> + +<p>"Let me but live until to-morrow in the arms of my loved one, and the +sweetness of our love shall be an unbreakable chain—on through a +thousand deaths, a thousand new births, straight into Nirvana—into +Brahm's silver soul!"</p> + +<p>"Ahee!" echoed Vasantasena. "Let death come and the wind of life lull; +let the light fail and the flowers wilt and droop; let the stars gutter +out one by one and the cosmos crumble in the gray storm of final +oblivion—yet will our love be an unbreakable chain, defying you, O +king—defying the world—defying the very gods—"</p> + +<p>"But not defying the laws of nature, as interpreted by a wise Brahmin!" +a shrill, age-cracked voice broke in, and Deo Singh, the old prime +minister who had come down the garden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> trail on silent, slippered feet, +stepped into the open.</p> + +<p>"No! By Shiva and by Shiva! Not the laws of nature, the +<a name="eternal" id="eternal"></a><ins title="Original has enternal">eternal</ins> laws of logic, as interpreted by a priest well +versed in Sruti and Smriti—in revelation and tradition. Not the laws of +nature, rational and evidential, physical and metaphysical, analytical +and synthetical, philosophical, and philological, as expounded by a +Parohita familiar with the Vedas and the blessed wisdom of the ancient +Upanishads of Hind!"</p> + +<p>He salaamed low before Vikramavati.</p> + +<p>"It is written in the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Books, the Lay of Brahm +the Lord, that each crime shall find condign punishment, be it committed +by high caste or low caste, by prince or peasant, by raja or ryot. To +each his punishment, says the Karma, which is fate!"</p> + +<p>"And—these two?" demanded Vikramavati. "What punishment shall be meted +out to the faithless woman and the faithless captain of horse, Brahmin?"</p> + +<p>Deo Singh spread out his fingers like the sticks of a fan.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>"They have chosen their own sentence, these worshipers of Kartikeya, God +of Rogues and Rascals," he chuckled. "Of a chain they spoke. An +unbreakable chain that defies all laws, except belike"—again he laughed +deep in his throat—"the wise laws of nature. Weld them +together with such a chain, forged by a master smith, made so strong +that not even a tough-thewed captain of horse may break it with the +clouting muscles of his arms and back. A chain, ten feet long, so that +they may never be far away from each other, so that they may always be +able to slake the hot, turbulent thirst of love, so that they may never +have to wait for the thrill of fulfillment as a beggar waits at life's +feast, so that day and night, each hour, each minute, each second they +may revel in the sunshine of their love, so that never they may have to +stand helpless before the flood-tide of their desire.</p> + +<p>"Grant them their wish, O king, being wise and merciful; and then lock +them into a room containing the choicest food, the sweetest drinks, the +whitest flowers, the softest, silkenest couch draped with purple and +gold. A room such as lovers dream of—and fools!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> Leave them there +together for three days, three nights, three sobbing, crunching, killing +eternities! With no sound, no touch, no scent, no taste, but their own +voices, their own hearts and souls and minds and bodies! And at the end +of the three days——"</p> + +<p>"Yes?" asked Vikramavati.</p> + +<p>"They will have suffered the worst punishment, the worst agony on earth. +Slowly, slowly for three days, three nights, three eternities, they will +have watched the honey of their love turn, drop by drop, into gall. +Their passion—slowly, slowly—will turn into loathing; their desire +into disgust. For no love in the world can survive the chain of +monotony!"</p> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Thus</span> it was done.</p> + +<p>A chain of unbreakable steel, ten feet long, was welded to the girl's +right wrist and the man's left, and they were locked into a house—a +house such as lovers dream of—that was guarded day and night by armed +warriors, who let none within hailing distance, whose windows were +shuttered and curtained so that not even the golden eye of the sun might +look in, and around which a vast circular clearing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> had been made with +torch and spade and scimitar so that neither bird nor insect nor beast +of forest and jungle might live there and no sound drift into the +lovers' room except, perhaps, the crooning sob of the dawn wind; and at +the end of the third night carefully, stealthily, silently the king and +the Brahmin walked up to the house and pressed their ears against the +keyhole, and they heard the man's voice saying:</p> + +<p>"I love you, little flower of my happiness! I love you—you who are all +my dreams come true! When I look into your face the sun rises, and the +waters bring the call of the deep, and the boat of my life rocks on the +dancing waves of passion!"</p> + +<p>And then the girl's answer, clear, serene:</p> + +<p>"And I love <i>you</i>, Madusadan, captain of horse! You have broken the +fetters of my loneliness, the shackles of my longing! I waited, waited, +waited—but you came, and I shall never let you go again! You have +banished all the drab, sad dreams of the past! You have made your heart +a prison for my love, and you have tossed away the key into the +turbulent whirlpool of my eternal desire!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>"Did the chain gall them?" asked the Foolish Virgin, who had +come to Jehan Tugluk Khan, a wise man in Tartary and milk +brother to Ghengiz Khan, Emperor of the East and the North and +Captain General of the Golden Horde.</i></p> + +<p><i>"No, Foolish Virgin," replied Jehan Tugluk Khan. "Their love +could not have lived without the chain. It was their love which +WAS the chain—made it, held it, welded it, eternal, unbreaking, +unbreakable. Ten feet long was the chain. Each foot of +steel—eternal, unbreaking, unbreakable—was a link of their +love, and these links were: Passion, patience, completion, +friendship, tolerance, understanding, tenderness, forgiveness, +service, humor."</i></p> + +<p><i>This is the end of the tale of Vasantasena, the slave who was +free in her own heart, and of Madusadan, a captain of horse, who +plucked the white rose without fearing the thorns.</i></p> + +<p><i>And, says the tale, if you would make your chain doubly +unbreakable, add another foot to it, another link. There is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> no +word for it. But, by the strength and sense of it, you must +never lull your love to sleep in the soft cradle of too great +security.</i></p> + +<p><i>For love demands eternal vigilance.</i></p> + +<p><i>LISTEN, O AZZIA, O BELOVED, TO MY JATAKA!</i></p> +</blockquote> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[42–45]</a></span> +<a name="ii" id="ii"></a>SECOND TALE<br /> +<br /> +<big>OUT OF THE DARK</big><br /> +<br /> +<small>BY MAX BRAND</small></h2> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<p class="cap">THE principality of Pornia is not a large country and in the ordinary +course of history it should have been swallowed entire, centuries ago, +by one of the kingdoms which surround it. Its situation has saved it +from this fate, for it is the buffer state between two great monarchies +whose jealousy has preserved for Pornia an independent existence.</p> + +<p>Despite its independence, Pornia has never received much consideration +from the rest of Europe, and the aim of its princes for many generations +has been to foist it into the great councils by a strong alliance with +one of the two kingdoms to which it serves as a buffer.</p> + +<p>The long-desired opportunity came at last in the reign of Alexander VI, +who, one morning, commanded Rudolph of Herzvina to appear at the palace. +As soon as the worthy old baron appeared, Alexander spoke to him as +follows: "Rudolph, you are an old and respected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> counselor, a devoted +servant of the State, and therefore I am delighted to announce that the +greatest honor is about to descend upon your family, an honor so great +that the entire State of Pornia will be elevated thereby. The Crown +Prince Charles wishes to make your daughter his wife!"</p> + +<p>At this he stepped back, the better to note the joy with which old +Rudolph would receive this announcement, but, to his astonishment, the +baron merely bowed his head and sighed.</p> + +<p>"Your highness," said Rudolph of Herzvina, "I have long known of the +attachment which the crown prince has for my daughter, Bertha, but I +fear that the marriage can never be consummated."</p> + +<p>"Come, come!" said the prince genially. "It is a far leap indeed from +Baron of Herzvina to father-in-law to Prince Charles, but there have +been stranger things in history than this, though never anything that +could so effectually elevate Pornia. Have no fear of Charles. He loves +your daughter; he is strong-minded as the very devil; he will override +any opposition from his father. As a matter of fact, it is no secret +that Charles is already practically the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> ruler over his kingdom. So +rejoice, Herzvina, and I will rejoice with you!"</p> + +<p>But the baron merely shook his head sadly and repeated: "I fear the +marriage can never be consummated."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" said the prince in some heat. "I tell you, his royal highness +loves the girl. I could read passion even in the stilted language of his +ambassador's message. Why not?"</p> + +<p>"I was not thinking of his royal highness, but of the girl. She will not +marry him."</p> + +<p>The prince dropped into a chair with jarring suddenness.</p> + +<p>Rudolph continued hastily: "I have talked with Bertha many times and +seriously of the matter; I have tried to convince her of her duty; but +she will not hear me. The foolish girl says she does not love his +highness."</p> + +<p>The prince smote his hands together in an ecstasy of impatience.</p> + +<p>"Love! Love! In the name of God, Herzvina, what has love to +<a name="do" id="do"></a><ins title="Original does not have 'do'">do</ins> with this? This is the thing for which Pornia has waited during +centuries. Through this alliance I can make a treaty that will place +Pornia once and forever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> upon the map of the diplomatic powers. Love!"</p> + +<p>"I have said all this to her, but she is obdurate."</p> + +<p>"Does she expect some fairy prince? She is not a child; she is not +even—forgive me—beautiful."</p> + +<p>"True. She is not even pretty, but even homely women, your highness, +will sometimes think of love. It is a weakness of the sex."</p> + +<p>He was not satirical; he was very earnest indeed. He continued: "I have +tried every persuasion. She only says in reply: 'He is too old. I cannot +love him.'"</p> + +<p>An inspiration came to Alexander of Pornia. Under the stress of it he +rose and so far forgot himself as to clap a hand upon the shoulder of +Herzvina. In so doing he had to reach up almost as high as his head, for +the princes of Pornia have been small men, time out of mind.</p> + +<p>"Baron," he said, "will you let me try my hand at persuasion?"</p> + +<p>"It would be an honor, sire. My family is ever at the disposal of my +prince."</p> + +<p>He answered with a touch of emotion: "I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> know it, Rudolph; but will you +trust the girl in my hands for a number of days? A thought has come to +me. I know I can convince her that this love of which she dreams is a +thing of the flesh alone, a physical necessity. Come, send her to me, +and I shall tear away her illusions. She will not thank me for it, but +she will marry the crown prince."</p> + +<p>"I will send her to the palace to-day."</p> + +<p>"Very good; and first tell her why I wish to speak with her. It may be +that of herself she will change her mind when she learns the wishes of +her prince. Farewell."</p> + +<p>And the prince rode off to a review of the troops of the city guard. So +it was that Bertha of Herzvina sat for a long time in a lonely room, +after her arrival at the palace before the door opened, a man in livery +bowed for the entrance of the prince, and she found herself alone with +her sovereign.</p> + +<p>Automatically she curtsied, and he let her remain bowed while he slowly +drew off his white gloves. He still wore his general's uniform with the +stiff padding which would not allow his body to grow old, for a prince +of Pornia must always look the soldier.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>"Sit down," he ordered, and as she obeyed he commenced to walk the room.</p> + +<p>He never sat quietly through an interview if he could avoid it; a +constitutional weakness of the nerves made it almost impossible for him +to meet another person's eyes. The pacing up and down gave a plausible +reason for the continual shifting of his glance.</p> + +<p>"A good day, a very good day," he said. "The hussars were wonderful."</p> + +<p>His shoulders strained further back. The prince himself always rode at +the head of the hussars; in her childhood she had admired him. He +stopped at a window and hummed a marching air. That was a planned +maneuver, for his back was far more royal than his face, with its tall +forehead and diminutive mouth and chin. She felt as if she were in the +presence of a uniformed automaton.</p> + +<p>He broke off his humming and spoke without turning.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"My decision is unchanged."</p> + +<p>"Impossible! In the length of a whole day even a woman must think +twice."</p> + +<p>"Yes, many times."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>"You will not marry him?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot love him."</p> + +<p>He whirled, and the pale blue eyes flashed at her a brief glance which +made her cringe. It was as if an X-ray had been turned on her heart.</p> + +<p>"Love!" he said softly, and she shuddered again. "Because he is old? +Bertha, you are no longer a child. Other women marry for what they may +term love. It is your privilege to marry for the State. That is the +nobler thing."</p> + +<p>He smiled and nodded, repeating for his own ear: "The nobler thing! What +is greater than such service—what is more glorious than to forget self +and marry for the good of the thousands?"</p> + +<p>"I have an obligation to myself."</p> + +<p>"Who has filled you with so many childish ideas?"</p> + +<p>"They have grown of themselves, sire."</p> + +<p>The pacing up and down the room recommenced. "Child, have you no desire +to serve me? I mean, your country?"</p> + +<p>She answered slowly, as if feeling for her words: "It is impossible that +I should be able<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> to serve you through my dishonor. If I should marry +the crown prince, my life would be one long sleep, sire. I would not +dare awaken to the reality."</p> + +<p>His head tilted and he laughed noiselessly. A weakness of the throat +prevented him from raising his voice even in times of the greatest +excitement.</p> + +<p>"A soul that sleeps, eh? The kiss of love will awaken it?"</p> + +<p>He surveyed her with brief disdain.</p> + +<p>"My dear, you scorn titles, and yet as an untitled woman you are not a +match for the first red-faced tradesman's daughter. Stand up!"</p> + +<p>She rose and he led her in front of a pier glass. Solemnly he studied +her pale image.</p> + +<p>"A sleeping soul!" he repeated.</p> + +<p>She covered her face.</p> + +<p>"Will that bait catch the errant lover, Bertha?"</p> + +<p>"God will make up the difference."</p> + +<p>He cursed softly. She had not known he could be so moved.</p> + +<p>"Poor child, let me talk with you."</p> + +<p>He led her back to a chair almost with kindness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> and sat somewhat behind +her so that he need not meet her eyes.</p> + +<p>"This love you wait for—it is not a full-grown god, dear girl, but a +blind child. Given a man and a woman and a certain propinquity, and +nature does the rest. We put a mask on nature and call it love, we name +an abstraction and call it God. Love! Love! Love! It is a pretty +disguise—no more. Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>"I will not."</p> + +<p>She listened to his quick breathing.</p> + +<p>"Bertha, if I were to chain you with a ten-foot chain to the first man +off the streets and leave you alone with him for three days, what would +happen?"</p> + +<p>Her hand closed on the arm of the chair. He rose and paced the room as +his idea grew.</p> + +<p>"Your eyes would criticize him and your shame would fight in behalf of +your—soul? And the sight of your shame would keep the man in check. But +suppose the room were dark—suppose you could not see his face and +merely knew that a man was there—suppose <i>he</i> could not see and merely +knew that a woman was there? What would happen? Would it be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> love? Pah! +Love is no more deified than hunger. If it is satisfied, it goes to +sleep; if it is satiated, it turns to loathing. Aye, at the end of the +three days you would be glad enough to have the ten-foot chain cut. But +first what would happen?"</p> + +<p>The vague terror grew coldly in her, for she could see the idea taking +hold of him like a hand.</p> + +<p>"If I were to do this, the world might term it a shameful thing, but I +act for Pornia—not for myself. I consider only the good of the State. +By this experiment I prove to you that love is not God, but blind +nature. Yes, and if you knew it as it is, would you oppose me longer? +The thought grows upon me! Speak!"</p> + +<p>Her smile made her almost beautiful.</p> + +<p>"Sire, in all the world there is only one man for every woman."</p> + +<p>"Book talk."</p> + +<p>He set his teeth because he could not meet her eyes.</p> + +<p>"And who will bring you this one man?"</p> + +<p>"God."</p> + +<p>Once more the soundless laugh.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>"Then I shall play the part of God. Bertha, you must now make your +decision: a marriage for the good of the State, or the ten-foot chain, +the dark room—and love!"</p> + +<p>"Even you will not dare this, sire."</p> + +<p>"Bertha, there is nothing I do not dare. What would be known? I give +orders that this room be utterly darkened; I send secret police to seize +a man from the city at random and fetter him to a chain in that room; +then I bring you to the room and fasten you to the other end of the +chain, and for three days I have food introduced into the room. Results? +For the man, death; for you, a knowledge first of yourself and, +secondly, of love. The State will benefit."</p> + +<p>"It is bestial—incredible."</p> + +<p>"Bestial? Tut! I play the part of God and even surpass Him. I put you +face to face with a temptation through which you shall come to know +yourself. You lose a dream; you gain a fact. It is well. Shame will +guard the secret in your heart—and the State will benefit. Still you +see that I am paternal—merciful. I do not punish you for your past +obstinacy. I still give you a choice. Bertha, will you marry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> as I wish, +or will you force me to play the part of God?"</p> + +<p>"I shall not marry."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you will wait for God to make up the difference. It is well—very +well; <i>le Dieu c'est moi</i>. Ha! That is greater than the phrase of Louis +XIV. You shall have still more time, but the moment the sun goes down, +if I do not hear from you, I shall ring a bell that will send my secret +police out to seize a man indiscriminately from the masses of the city. +I shall not even stipulate that he be young. My trust in nature +is—absolute. <i>Adieu!</i>"</p> + +<p>She made up her mind the moment he left the room. She drew on her cloak. +Before the pier glass she paused.</p> + +<p>"Aye," she murmured, "I could not match the first farmer's daughter. But +still there must be one man in the world—and God will make up the +difference!"</p> + +<p>She threw open the door which gave on a passage leading to a side +entrance. A grenadier of the palace guard jumped to attention and +presented arms.</p> + +<p>"Pardon," he said.</p> + +<p>He completely <a name="blocked" id="blocked"></a><ins title="Original has locked">blocked</ins> the hall; the prince<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> had left nothing +to chance. She started to turn back and then hesitated and regarded the +man carefully.</p> + +<p>"Fritz!" she said at last, for she recognized the peasant who had been a +stable-boy on her father's estate before he took service in the +grenadiers. "You are Fritz Barr!"</p> + +<p>He flushed with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"<i>Madame</i> remembers me?"</p> + +<p>"And my little black pony you used to take care of?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes!"</p> + +<p>He grinned and nodded; and then she noted a revolver in the holster at +his side.</p> + +<p>"What are your orders, Fritz?"</p> + +<p>"To let no one pass down this hall. I am sorry, <i>madame</i>."</p> + +<p>"But if I were to ask you for your revolver?"</p> + +<p>He stirred uneasily and she took money from her purse and gave it to +him.</p> + +<p>"With this you could procure another weapon?"</p> + +<p>He drew a long breath; the temptation was great.</p> + +<p>"I could, <i>madame</i>."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>"Then do so. It will never be known from whom I received the gun—and my +need is desperate—desperate!"</p> + +<p>He unbuckled the weapon without a word, and with it in her hand she +returned to the room.</p> + +<p>There was a tall western window, and before this she drew up a chair to +watch the setting of the sun.</p> + +<p>"Will he ring the bell when the edge of the sun touches the hills or +when it is completely set?" she thought.</p> + +<p>The white circle grew yellow; then it took on a taint of orange, bulging +oddly at the sides into a clumsy oval. From the gardens below came a +stir of voices and then the thrill of a girl's laughter. She smiled as +she listened, and, leaning from the window, the west wind blew to her +the scent of flowers. She sat there for a long time, breathing deeply of +the fragrance and noting all the curves of the lawn with a still, sad +pleasure. The green changed from bright to dark; when she looked up the +sun had set.</p> + +<p>As she turned from the gay western sky, the room was doubly dim and the +breeze of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> evening set the curtains rustling and whispering. Silence +she was prepared for, but not those ghostly voices, not the shift and +sweep of the shadows. She turned the electric switch, closing her eyes +to blur the shock of the sudden deluge of light. The switch clicked, but +when she opened her eyes the room was still dark; they had cut the +connecting wires.</p> + +<p>Thereafter her mind went mercifully blank, for what she faced was, like +birth and death, beyond comprehension. Noise at the windows roused her +from the daze at last and she found that a number of workmen were +sealing the room so that neither light nor sound could enter or escape. +The only air would be from the ventilator. And still she could not +realize what had happened, what was to happen, until the last sounds of +the workmen ceased and the deep, dread silence began; silence that had a +pulse in it—the beating of her heart.</p> + +<p>She was standing in the middle of the room when the first shapes formed +in the black night, and terror hovered about her suddenly, touching her +as with cold fingers. She felt her way back to a corner and crouched +there against the wall, waiting, waiting. They had seized the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> doomed +man long before this. They must have bound and gagged him and carried +him to the palace.</p> + +<p>A thousand types of men passed before her inward eye—thin-faced clerks, +men as pale as the belly of a dead fish; bearded monsters, gross and +thick-lipped, with thunderous laughter; laborers, stamped with patient +weariness—and all whom she saw carried the sign of the beast in their +eyes. She tried to pray, but the voice of the prince rang in her ears: +"<i>Le Dieu, c'est moi!</i>" and when she named God in her prayers, she +visualized Alexander's face, the pale, small eyes, the colorless hair, +the lofty brow, the mouth whose tight lips could not be disguised by +even the careful mustache. When a key turned in a door, she sprang to +her feet with a cry of horror.</p> + +<p>"It is I," said the prince.</p> + +<p>"I am dying; I cannot stay here; I will marry whom and when you will."</p> + +<p>"Ah, my dear, you should have spoken before sunset. I warned you, and I +never change my mind. It is only for three days, remember. Also, it is +in the interest of science. Beyond that, I have quite taken a fancy to +playing God<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> for you for three days. Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>The even, mocking tones guided her to him. She fell at his feet and +strained his thin knees against her breast.</p> + +<p>"Come! Be reasonable, Bertha. This is justice."</p> + +<p>"Sire, I want no justice. For God's sake, be merciful."</p> + +<p>She heard the shaken breath of his soundless laughter.</p> + +<p>"Is it so? You should be grateful to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing +you the love of which you have dreamed. Ha! Ha! <i>Le Dieu, c'est moi!</i>"</p> + +<p>The clanking of the chain which he carried stilled her voice. It hushed +even the thunder of her heart. She rose and waited patiently while the +manacle was affixed to her wrist. The prince crossed the room and tapped +on the door, which opened, and by a faint light from without Bertha +discovered two men carrying a third into the room. She strained her +eyes, but could make out no faces. The burden was laid on the floor; a +metallic sound told her that she was fettered to the unknown.</p> + +<p>The prince said: "You are a brave girl.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> All may yet be well. Then human +nature is finer than I think. We shall see. As for your lover, your gift +from God, he is sleeping soundly now. It may be an hour before the +effects of the drug wear away. During that time you can think of love. +Food will be placed three times a day within the door yonder. You can +readily find it by feeling your way around the wall. Farewell."</p> + +<p>When the door closed she started to retreat to her corner, but the chain +instantly drew taut with a rattle. Strangely enough, much of her fear +left her now that she was face to face with the danger; temptation, the +prince had called it. She smiled as she remembered. When the man awoke +and learned their situation, she had no doubt as to how he would act. +She had seen the sign of the beast in the eyes of many men, great and +small; she had seen it and understood. The revolver might save her for a +time, but what if she slept? She knew it would be almost impossible to +remain awake during three days and nights.</p> + +<p>The moment her eyes closed the end would come. It seemed better that she +should fire the bullet now.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>When he recovered his senses, it would be difficult to shoot effectively +in the dark, for this was not the gloom of night—it was an absolute +void, black, thick, impenetrable. She could not make out her hand at the +slightest distance from her eyes. He might even attack her from behind +and knock the revolver from her hand before she could shoot. Sooner or +later the man must die. Even if she did not kill him it would be +accomplished by the command of the prince at the end of the three days.</p> + +<p>Far better that it should be done at once—that he should never awaken +from his sleep. She reached the decision calmly and crept forward to +him. Very lightly she passed her hand over his clothes. She had to move +his arm to uncover the breast over his heart; the arm was a limp weight, +but the muscles were firm, round, and solid. The first qualm troubled +her as she realized that this must be a young man, at least a man in the +prime of his physical strength.</p> + +<p>Then it occurred to her that often bullets fired into the breast are +deflected from the heart by bones; it would be far more certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> to lay +the muzzle against the temple—press the trigger—the soul would depart.</p> + +<p>The soul! She paused with a thrill of wonder. A little touch would loose +the swift spirit. The soul! For the first time she saw the tragedy from +the viewpoint of the unknown man. His life was cut in the middle; truly +a blind fate had reached out and chosen him from a whole city. Yet she +was merely hastening the inevitable. She reached out and found his +forehead.</p> + +<p>It was broad and high. Tracing it lightly with the tips of her fingers +she discovered two rather prominent lumps of bony structure over the +eyes. Some one had told her that this represented a strong power of +memory. She tried to visualize that feature alone, and very suddenly, as +a face shows when a man lights his cigarette on the street at night, she +saw in memory the figure of Rembrandt's "Portrait of a Young Painter." +He sits at his drawing board, his pencil poised, ready for the stroke +which shall give vital character to his sketch. There is only one high +light, falling on the lower part of the face. Inspiration has tightened +the sensitive mouth; the questing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> eyes peer out from the shadow of the +soft cap. She broke off from her vision to realize with a start that +when she touched the trigger she would be stepping back through the +centuries and killing her dream of the original of Rembrandt's picture. +A foolish fancy, truly, but in the dark a dream may be as true, as vivid +as reality.</p> + +<p>The unconscious man sighed. She leaned close and listened to his +breathing, soft, hurried, irregular as if he struggled in his sleep, as +if the subconscious mind were calling to the conscious: "Awake! Death is +here!"</p> + +<p>At least there was plenty of time. She need not fire the shot until he +moved. She laid the revolver on her lap and absently allowed her hands +to wander over his face, lingering lightly on each feature. She grew +more alert after a moment. Every particle of her energy was concentrated +on seeing that face—on seeing it through her sense of touch. The blind, +she knew, grow so dextrous that the delicate nerves of their finger tips +record faces almost as accurately as the eyes of the normal person.</p> + +<p>Ah, for one moment of that power! She tried her best. The nose, she told +herself, was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> straight and well modeled. The eyes, for she traced the +bony structure around them, must be large; the cheek bones high, a sign +of strength; the chin certainly square and prominent; the lips full and +the mouth rather large; the hair waving and thick; the throat large. One +by one she traced each detail and then, moving both hands rather swiftly +over the face, she strove to build the mental picture of the whole—and +she achieved one, but still it was always the young painter whom great +Rembrandt had drawn. The illusion would not go out of her mind.</p> + +<p>An artist's hands, it is said, must be strong and sinewy. She took these +hands and felt the heavy bones of the wrist and strove to estimate the +length of the fingers. It seemed to her that this was an ideal hand for +a painter—it must be both strong and supple.</p> + +<p>He sighed again and stirred; she caught up the weapon with feverish +haste and poised it.</p> + +<p>"Ah, it is well," said the sleeper in his dream.</p> + +<p>She made sure that he was indeed unconscious and then leaned low, +whispering: "Adieu, my dear."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>At some happy vision he laughed softly. His breath touched her face. +Surely he could never know; he had so short a moment left for living; +perhaps this would pass into his latest dream on earth and make it +happy.</p> + +<p>"Adieu!" she whispered again, and her lips pressed on his.</p> + +<p>She laid the muzzle of the revolver against his temple, and, summoning +all her will power, she pressed the trigger. It seemed as if she were +pulling against it with her full strength, and yet there was no report. +Then she realized that all her might was going into an inward struggle. +She summoned to her aid the voice of the prince as he had said: "We put +a mask on nature and call it love; we name an abstraction and call it +God. <i>Le Dieu, c'est moi!</i>" She placed the revolver against the temple +of the sleeper; he stirred and disturbed the surety of her direction. +She adjusted the weapon again.</p> + +<p>Up sprang the man, shouting: "Treason! Help!"</p> + +<p>Then he stood silent a long moment; perhaps he was rehearsing the scene +of his seizure.</p> + +<p>"This is death," he muttered at last, "and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> am in hell. I have always +known what it would be—dark—utter and bitter loss of light."</p> + +<p>As his hand moved, the chain rattled. He sprang back with such violence +that his lunging weight jerked her to her feet.</p> + +<p>"It is useless to struggle," she cried.</p> + +<p>"A woman! Where am I?"</p> + +<p>"You are lost."</p> + +<p>"But what has happened? In God's name, <i>madame</i>, are we chained +together?"</p> + +<p>"We are."</p> + +<p>"By whose power? By whose right and command?"</p> + +<p>"By one against whom we cannot appeal."</p> + +<p>"My crime?"</p> + +<p>"None."</p> + +<p>"For how long—"</p> + +<p>"Three days."</p> + +<p>He heaved a great sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>"It is merely some practical joke, I see. That infernal Franz, I knew he +was meditating mischief! Three days—and then free?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, for then you die."</p> + +<p>Once more he was silent.</p> + +<p>Then: "This is a hideous dream. I will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> waken from it at once—at once. +My dear lady—"</p> + +<p>She heard him advancing.</p> + +<p>"Keep the chain taut, sir, I am armed; I will fire at the slightest +provocation."</p> + +<p>He stopped and laughed.</p> + +<p>"Come, come! This is not so bad. You have been smiling in your sleep at +me. Up with the lights, my dear. If Franz has engaged you for this +business, let me tell you that I'm a far better fellow than he must have +advertised me. But what a devil he is to rig up such an elaborate hoax! +By Jove, this chain—this darkness—it's enough to turn a fellow's hair +white! The black night gets on my nerves. Lights! Lights! I yearn to see +you; I prophesy your beauty by your voice! Still coy? Then we'll try +persuasion!"</p> + +<p>His breast struck the muzzle of the revolver.</p> + +<p>She said quietly: "If I move my finger a fraction of an inch you die, +sir. And every word I have spoken to you is the truth."</p> + +<p>"Well, well! You do this finely. I shall compliment Franz on rehearsing +you so thoroughly. Is this the fair Daphne of whom he told me—"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>And his hand touched her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"By everything that is sacred, I will fire unless you stand back—back +to the end of the chain."</p> + +<p>"Is it possible? The Middle Ages have returned!"</p> + +<p>He moved back until the light chain was taut.</p> + +<p>"My mind whirls. I try to laugh, but your voice convinces me. <i>Madame</i>, +will you explain my situation in words of one syllable?"</p> + +<p>"I have explained it already. You are imprisoned in a place from which +you cannot escape. You will be confined here, held to me by this chain, +for three days. At the end of that time you die."</p> + +<p>"Will you swear this is the truth?"</p> + +<p>"Name any oath and I will repeat it."</p> + +<p>"There's no need," he said. "No, it cannot be a jest. Franz would never +risk the use of a drug, wild as he is. Some other power has taken me. +What reason lies behind my arrest?"</p> + +<p>"Think of it as a blind and brutal hand which required a victim and +reached out over the city to find one. The hand fell upon you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> There is +no more to say. You can only resign yourself to die an unknown death."</p> + +<p>He said at last: "Not unknown, thank God. I have something which will +live after me."</p> + +<p>Her heart leaped, for she was seeing once more the artist from +Rembrandt's brush.</p> + +<p>"Yes, your paintings will not be forgotten."</p> + +<p>"I feel that they will not, and the name of—"</p> + +<p>"Do not speak of it!"</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I must not hear your name."</p> + +<p>"But you know it already. You spoke of my painting."</p> + +<p>"I have never seen your face; I have never heard your name; you were +brought to me in this room darkened as you find it now."</p> + +<p>"Yet you knew—"</p> + +<p>Her voice was marvelously low: "I touched your face, sir, and in some +way I knew."</p> + +<p>After a time he said: "I believe you. This miracle is no greater than +the others. But why do you not wish to know my name?"</p> + +<p>"I may live after you, and when I see your pictures I do not wish to +say: 'This is his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> work; this is his power; this is his limitation.' Can +you understand?"</p> + +<p>"I will try to."</p> + +<p>"I sat beside you while you were unconscious, and I pictured your face +and your mind for myself. I will not have that picture reduced to +reality."</p> + +<p>"It is a delicate fancy. You are blind? You see by the touch of your +hands?"</p> + +<p>"I am not blind, but I think I have seen your face through the touch."</p> + +<p>"Here! I have stumbled against two chairs. Let us sit down and talk. I +will slide this chair farther away if you wish. Do you fear me?"</p> + +<p>"No, I think I am not afraid. I am only very sad for you. Listen: I have +laid down the revolver. Is that rash?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Madame</i>, my life has been clean. Would I stain it now? No, no! Sit +here—so! My hand touches yours—you are not afraid?—and a thrill leaps +through me. Is it the dark that changes all things and gives eyes to +your imagination, or are you really very beautiful?"</p> + +<p>"How shall I say?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>"Be very frank, for I am a dying man, am I not? And I should hear the +truth."</p> + +<p>"You are a profound lover of the beautiful?"</p> + +<p>"I am a painter, <i>madame</i>."</p> + +<p>She called up the image of her face—the dingy brown hair, long and +silken, to be sure; the colorless, small eyes; the common features which +the first red-skinned farmer's daughter could overmatch.</p> + +<p>"Describe me as you imagine me. I will tell you when you are wrong."</p> + +<p>"May I touch you, <i>madame</i>, as you touched me? Or would that trouble +you?"</p> + +<p>She hesitated, but it seemed to her that the questing eyes of +Rembrandt's portrait looked upon her through the dark—eyes reverent and +eager at once.</p> + +<p>She said: "You may do as you will."</p> + +<p>His unmanacled hand went up, found her hair, passed slowly over its +folds.</p> + +<p>"It is like silk to the touch, but far more delicate, for there is life +in every thread of it. It is abundant and long. Ah, it must shine when +the sun strikes upon it! It is golden hair, <i>madame</i>, no pale-yellow +like sea-sand, but glorious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> gold, and when it hangs across the +whiteness of your throat and bosom the hearts of men stir. Speak! Tell +me I have named it!"</p> + +<p>She waited till the sob grew smaller in her throat.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is golden hair," she said.</p> + +<p>"I could not be wrong."</p> + +<p>His hand passed down her face, fluttering lightly, and she sensed the +eagerness of every touch. Cold fear took hold of her lest those +searching fingers should discover the truth.</p> + +<p>"Your eyes are blue. Yes, yes! Deep-blue for golden hair. It cannot be +otherwise. Speak."</p> + +<p>"God help me!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Madame?</i>"</p> + +<p>"I have been too vain of my eyes, sir. Yes, they are blue."</p> + +<p>The fingers were on her cheeks, trembling on her lips, touching chin and +throat.</p> + +<p>"You are divine. It was foredoomed that this should be! Yes, my life has +been one long succession of miracles, but the greatest was reserved +until the end. I have followed my heart through the world in search of +perfect beauty and now I am about to die, I find it. Oh, God!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> For one +moment with canvas, brush, and the blessed light of the sun! It cannot +be! No miracle is complete; but I carry out into the eternal night one +perfect picture. Canvas and paint? No, no! Your picture must be drawn in +the soul and colored with love. The last miracle and the greatest! Three +days? No, three ages, three centuries of happiness, for are you not +here?"</p> + +<p>Who will say that there is not an eye with which we pierce the night? To +each of these two sitting in the utter dark there came a vision. +Imagination became more real than reality. He saw his ideal of the +woman, that picture which every man carries in his heart to think of in +the times of silence, to see in every void. And she saw her ideal of +manly power. The dark pressed them together as if with the force of +physical hands. For a moment they waited, and in that moment each knew +the heart of the other, for in that utter void of light and sound, they +saw with the eyes of the soul and they heard the music of the spheres.</p> + +<p>Then she seemed to hear the voice of the prince: "You should be grateful +to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing you that love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> of which you +dreamed. <i>Le Dieu, c'est moi!</i>"</p> + +<p>Yes, it was the voice of doom which had spoken from those sardonic lips. +The dark which annihilates time made their love a century old.</p> + +<p>"In all the world," she whispered, "there is one man for every woman. It +is the hand of Heaven which gives me to you."</p> + +<p>"Come closer—so! And here I have your head beside mine as God +foredoomed. Listen! I have power to look through the dark and to see +your eyes—how blue they are!—and to read your soul beneath them. We +have scarcely spoken a hundred words and yet I see it all. Through a +thousand centuries our souls have been <a name="born" id="born"></a><ins title="Original has borne">born</ins> a +thousand times and in every life we have met, and known—"</p> + +<p>And through the utter dark, the merciful dark, the deep, strong music of +his voice went on, and she listened, and forgot the truth and closed her +eyes against herself.</p> + +<hr class="hr2" /> + +<p>On the night which closed the third day the prince approached the door +of the sealed room. To the officer of the secret police, who stood on +guard, he said: "Nothing has been heard."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>"Early this afternoon there were two shots, I think."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. There are carpenters doing repair work on the floor above. +You mistook the noise of their hammers."</p> + +<p>He waved the man away, and as he fitted the key into the lock he was +laughing softly to himself: "Now for the revelation, the downward head, +the shame. Ha! Ha! Ha!"</p> + +<p>He opened the door and flashed on his electric lantern. They lay upon a +couch wrapped in each other's arms. He had shot her through the heart +and then turned the weapon on himself; his last effort must have been to +draw her closer. About them was wrapped the chain, idle and loose. +Surely death had no sting for them and the grave no victory, for the +cold features were so illumined that the prince could hardly believe +them dead.</p> + +<p>He turned the electric torch on the painter. He was a man about fifty, +with long, iron-gray hair, and a stubble of three days' growth covering +his face. It was a singularly ugly countenance, strong, but savagely +lined, and the forehead corrugated with the wrinkles of long, mental +labor. But death had made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> Bertha beautiful. Her eyes under the shadow +of her lashes, seemed a deep-sea blue, and her loose, brown hair, +falling across the white throat and breast, seemed almost golden under +the light of the torch. A draft from the open door moved the hair and +the heart of the prince stirred in him.</p> + +<p>He strove to loosen the arms of the painter, but <a name="they" id="they"></a><ins title="Original has the">they</ins> were frozen +stiff by death.</p> + +<p>"She was a fool, and the loss is small," sighed the prince. "After all, +perhaps God was nearer than I thought. I bound them together with a +chain. He saw my act and must have approved, for see! He has locked them +together forever. Well, after all—<i>le Dieu, c'est moi!</i>"</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[79–81]</a></span> +<a name="iii" id="iii"></a>THIRD TALE<br /> +<br /> +<big>PLUMB NAUSEATED</big><br /> +<br /> +<small>BY E. K. MEANS</small></h2> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<h3><big>I.</big></h3> + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/quote.png" width="8" height="7" alt="open quote" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="cap">YES, suh, I feels plum' qualified to take on a wife."</p> + +<p>The black negro blushed to a darker hue and his face shone like polished +ebony in the blazing August sun. In his embarrassment he twisted his +shapeless wool hat into a wad, thrust it under his arm like a bundle, +turned his back upon the white man's quizzical eyes, and sat down upon +the lowest step of the porch.</p> + +<p>At the feet of the white man lay half a dozen pairs of handcuffs. He +stooped and picked up a pair which showed rusty in the bright light, +rubbed the rust off with sand-paper, squirted some oil into the +mechanism from a little can, and busied himself for a few minutes seeing +that his police hardware was in good condition.</p> + +<p>The sheriff remained silent for so long that the negro imagined he had +been forgotten.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> Then Flournoy fired a question so unexpectedly that the +black man winced: "What's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Dey calls me Plaster Sickety."</p> + +<p>"Gosh!" the sheriff exploded. "Can any woman be induced to exchange a +perfectly decent name for a smear like that?"</p> + +<p>"Suttinly," the negro grinned. "Dat gal's name ain't so awful cute. Dey +calls her Pearline Flunder."</p> + +<p>"Plaster Sickety and Pearline Flunder—help, everybody! What sort of +children will issue from a matrimonial alliance of such names?"</p> + +<p>"I reckin our chillun will all be borned Huns, Marse John; but I cain't +he'p it."</p> + +<p>Under his manipulation the sheriff's worn handcuffs took on a polish +like new. At intervals he glanced up from his task to see the sunlight +spraying from the pecan-trees like water and the heat rising from the +ground, visible as a boiling cloud. Once he heard an eagle scream, and +glanced toward the Little Mocassin swamp to behold a black speck sail +into the haze that hung like a curtain of purple and gold upon the +horizon. The negro sat motionless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> except for glowing black eyes +restless as mercury and all-perceiving.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the bear-trap mouth of the big sheriff twisted into a little +smile.</p> + +<p>"How'd you like to give your girl one of these things for a +wedding-present, Plaster?" he asked, as he tossed a polished pair of +handcuffs on the step beside the negro.</p> + +<p>"I's kinder pestered in my mind 'bout gittin' a fitten weddin'-present, +Marse John, but—" Plaster rose to his feet and returned the manacles +without completing his sentence.</p> + +<p>"How much money have you got?" Flournoy asked.</p> + +<p>"I ain't got none till yit."</p> + +<p>"How you going to buy the license? How you going to pay the preacher?" +Flournoy asked.</p> + +<p>"Dat's whut I come to git a view from you about, Marse John. All de +cullud folks gives you a rep dat you is powerful good to niggers an' I +figgered dat you an' me mought fix up some kind of shake-down so I could +git married 'thout costin' me nothin'."</p> + +<p>"Don't you ever read the Bible?" Flournoy growled. "Even Adam's wife +cost him a bone."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>"Yes, suh," the negro grinned. "But I figger ef Sheriff Flournoy had +been aroun' anywheres at dat time, maybe Adam would 'a' got off a whole +lot cheaper."</p> + +<p>"Have you got a job to support your wife?" Flournoy asked.</p> + +<p>"Naw, suh."</p> + +<p>"Have you got a house to live in?"</p> + +<p>"Naw, suh."</p> + +<p>"Where are you going to live with her—in a hollow sycamore-tree?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, suh, I reckin so—dat is, excusin' ef you don't he'p us none."</p> + +<p>"Where are you two idiots going to derive your sustenance—from the +circumambient atmosphere?"</p> + +<p>"Dat's de word, Marse John—dat is, excusin' ef you don't loant us a +hand in our troubles," the negro murmured, wondering what the sheriff's +big talk meant.</p> + +<p>"Do you love this black girl very much?" the sheriff asked with that odd +turn of tone with which every man speaks of love when he is in love with +love.</p> + +<p>"Boss," the black man answered in a voice which throbbed, "I been lovin' +dat gal ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> since she warn't no bigger dan—dan—dan a June-bug whut +had visited accidental a woodpecker prayer-meetin'."</p> + +<p>"Is she good to look at, Plaster?" Flournoy smiled.</p> + +<p>"Well, suh, I cain't lie to no white man, Marse John; an' I tells you +honest—she looks a whole heap better at night in de dark of de moon."</p> + +<p>"If she ain't a good-looker, why do you love her?" Flournoy asked +without a smile.</p> + +<p>"She's good sense an' jedgment, Marse John," the black man answered +earnestly. "An'—an'—I jes' nachelly loves her."</p> + +<p><a name="Flournoy1" id="Flournoy1"></a><ins title="Original has Flourney">Flournoy</ins> studied a moment, twisting a pair of steel +handcuffs in his giant hands. Finally he spoke:</p> + +<p>"Plaster, I have a cabin down on the Coolie Bayou which I have given to +three young married couples in succession on the condition that they +live there in peace and amity one year."</p> + +<p>"Yes, suh."</p> + +<p>"Every couple broke up and got a divorce within nine months."</p> + +<p>"Too bad, Marse John, dat's mighty po' luck."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>"You niggers think you love each other until you get hitched and then +you don't stay hitched."</p> + +<p>"Some shorely don't—dey don't fer a fack."</p> + +<p>"Now I make you and Pearline Flunder this offer. I will buy your +marriage license, pay Vinegar Atts to marry you, bear all the expense of +a church wedding, give you a job so you can support your wife, and I +will make you a present of that cabin down on the Coolie Bayou if you +and your wife will live together for three days without busting up in a +row."</p> + +<p>"Three days, Marse John!" the negro howled. "Boss, I motions to make it +thurty years!"</p> + +<p>"No!" <a name="Flournoy2" id="Flournoy2"></a><ins title="Original has Flourney">Flournoy</ins> snapped. "Three days!"</p> + +<p>"I's willin', Marse John," the negro laughed, cutting a caper on the +grass.</p> + +<p>"All right!" the sheriff said as he stooped and picked up a pair of +handcuffs. "Now listen: I intend to cut the little chain on these two +manacles and attach each cuff to a ten-foot chain. When you and Pearline +are married, I am going to put one of these manacles around her wrist +and one around your wrist"—the negro showed the whites of his +eyes—"and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> bind you two honey-loves together with a ten-foot chain." +The negro looked behind him toward the gate and the public highway, took +a tighter grip upon his hat, and made a furtive step backward. "You are +to remain bound together for three days." The negro smiled and stepped +forward. "At the end of that time you are to come here and report, and +if you agree to spend the remainder of your life together, the cabin is +yours!"</p> + +<p>"Make it a two-feets chain, Marse John, so us kin git clost to each +yuther," Plaster pleaded.</p> + +<p>"What I have spoken I have spoken," Flournoy proclaimed autocratically. +"Now, go tell your sweetheart all about it."</p> + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<h3><big>II.</big></h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Big Four of Tickfall sat around a much bewhittled pine table in the +Hen-Scratch saloon. The room was hazy with their tobacco smoke. +Conversation languished. The session was about to adjourn until +to-morrow at the same hour. Figger Bush laid his cigarette upon the edge +of the table, lifted his head like a dog baying the moon, and chanted:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"O you muss be a lover of de landlady's daughter</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or you cain't git a secont piece of pie!"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Before the other could catch the tune, the green-baize doors of the +saloon were thrown open and a white man entered. Every negro looked up +into that granite face with its deep-set eyes, iron jaw, and rugged +lines of strength and purpose, and smiled a joyful welcome:</p> + +<p>"Mawnin', Marse John. 'Tain't no use to come sheriffin' down dis way. No +niggers ain't done nothin'."</p> + +<p>"I am hunting for a Methodist clergyman of color," Flournoy grinned.</p> + +<p>"Boss," Vinegar Atts chuckled as he rose to his feet, "I's de blackest +an' best nigger preacher whut is, an' I b'lieves in de Mefdis doctrine +of fallin' from grace an' grease. Ef you misdoubts my words, ax my wife. +Dat ole woman admits dat fack herse'f."</p> + +<p>"I want you to perform a wedding ceremony at the Shoofly Church to-night +at seven o'clock," the sheriff announced.</p> + +<p>Instantly the Rev. Vinegar Atts thrust both hands into the pockets of +his trousers and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> brought his hands out, turning out the pockets and +showing them empty.</p> + +<p>"Dar now, Figger Bush!" Vinegar bellowed. "I tole you dat de good Lawd +would pervide a way fer me to pay fer dem near-booze grape-juices I been +guzzlin' in yo' sinful saloom! Five dollars will sottle wid you an' +leave a few change over fer seegaws."</p> + +<p>"Who's cormittin' mattermony, Marse John?" Mustard Prophet wanted to +know. "Is it one of dese here shotgun weddin's?"</p> + +<p>"Plaster Sickety wishes to wed Pearline Flunder."</p> + +<p>"I knows 'em," Hitch Diamond rumbled from his big chest. "De good Lawd +will shore got to pervide fer dem coons like He do fer Vinegar +Atts—nary one is got git-up enough to make a livin'."</p> + +<p>"Those young colored honey-birds are under my special care and +protection," Flournoy announced, smiling. "I intend to house them and +take care of them and get them work. They are an experiment."</p> + +<p>"De trouble wid experiments is dis, Marse John," Mustard chuckled, +"sometimes dey bust in yo' face."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>"My plan is this," Flournoy told them. "I am going to tie those two +negroes together with a ten-foot chain and they are to live in peace and +amity for three days."</p> + +<p>"Lawdymussy, Marse John!" the Rev. Vinegar Atts bellowed. "Did you ever +tie two cats to each yuther an' hang 'em over de limb of a tree?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Does you recommember how quick dem cats got tired of each yuther's +sawsiety an' fell out wid theirselves?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>Vinegar jerked a yellow bandana handkerchief from the tail of his coat +and mopped the top of his bald head.</p> + +<p>"You mought care fer dem niggers ef you ties em togedder, Marse John. +But you ain't gwine be able to pertection 'em—not from each yuther," +Vinegar announced as he slapped at his face with his kerchief. "I +wouldn't be tied to my nigger wife wid a telephone-wire long enough to +conversation de man in de moon. Naw, suh! Dat ole gal would be yankin' +on dat line a catfish all de time. Whoosh!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>"I agrees wid dem religium sentiments," Hitch Diamond rumbled. "Now you +example Goldie, my own wife. Dat little yeller gal's maw is a lunatic, +an' Goldie ain't no lunatic, but she ain't got her right mind. I +wouldn't mind bein' a Dandylion in de lion's den, like de Bible tells +about—dat would gib me a chance to fight fer my gizzard. But chained up +to Goldie—"</p> + +<p>Hitch broke off, shook his head in earnest negation, rubbed one giant +hand around his iron-thewed wrist as if he could feel the holy bonds of +matrimony and gave utterance to one expressive word: "Gawd!"</p> + +<p>"Hol' on, niggers!" Figger Bush exclaimed. "I don't foller you-alls in +dem sentiments. Now I been married to Scootie gwine on two year an' I +ain't never got too much of dat gal yit. I cherishes de opinion dat +Marse John could tie our heads togedder an' I wouldn't complain none."</p> + +<p>"I sides wid Figger Bush," Mustard Prophet grinned. "I been livin' off +an' on wid Hopey fer twenty year, an' dat gal is busted stovewood over +my head off an' on plenty of times, but I don't bear her no grouch. She +kin always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> make peace by givin' me some hot biskits an' a few sirup."</p> + +<p>"You four niggers talk too much," Flournoy grinned. "I want you to get +busy and decorate that Shoofly Church and pull the biggest Tickfall +church wedding ever seen in the social sets of our colored circles. I'll +pay for everything."</p> + +<p>"Us fo' niggers will git our wifes an' pull some kind of nice stunt +ourselfs, too, Marse John," Vinegar howled. "We'll fix up a good +send-off fer 'em."</p> + +<p>At seven o'clock that evening the Flournoy automobile conveyed the happy +pair to the Shoofly Church. The Rev. Vinegar Atts proceeded with the +ceremony until the bride sported a new ring and the two were pronounced +man and wife with the solemn admonition:</p> + +<p>"Whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!"</p> + +<p>Thereupon Sheriff Flournoy stepped forward and with the ease of long +practice slipped a manacle upon the right wrist of the bride and another +upon the left wrist of the groom and snapped the handcuffs shut.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>Figger Bush stooped and lifted a long bottle from a bucket of ice. There +was a loud pop, the cork struck against the ceiling, ricochetted around +the walls of the room and caused a commotion by falling on Vinegar's +bald head. Figger advanced with a tray containing three glasses and the +sheriff toasted the bride and groom.</p> + +<p>The ten-foot chain rattled as the bride raised her manacled hand to +drink.</p> + +<p>When they marched out of the church the entire congregation formed a +procession and accompanied them to their cabin on the Coolie Bayou. They +noticed that Plaster Sickety picked up the chain and wrapped a turn +around his bride's neck and one about his own, thus shortening the bond +and bringing them close together. They clamped their arms around each +other's waists, and plodded solemnly through the deep dust of the +crooked highway.</p> + +<p>"Dat nigger cain't park his wife like a new automobile an' walk off an' +leave her," Vinegar chuckled.</p> + +<p>"He ain't actin' anxious to git away—now," Hitch rumbled +pessimistically.</p> + +<p>"Not yit, but soon," Vinegar agreed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>Approaching the cabin, Plaster Sickety's voice broke into exultant song, +and through the negro's wonderful gift of improvisation, he produced +this neat bit:</p> + +<div class="block2"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Dar's a Pearline pearl of price untold,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">An' dat Pearline pearl cain't be bought wid gold;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">An' dat Pearline pearl am good to see,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Fer dat Pearline pearl b'longs to me!"</span><br /> +</div></div></div> + +<p>"Listen to dat fool!" Hitch Diamond chuckled. "He's singin' like a +little black angel whut had swiped de pearliest pearl offen de pearly +gates!"</p> + +<p>The bride and groom entered their cabin and softly closed the door.</p> + +<p>Good night!</p> + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<h3><big>III.</big></h3> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Looky</span> here, Pearline, I ain't used to totin' dis ole steel band on my +wrist an' it hurts my feelin's," Plaster complained as he sat at the +breakfast-table before a meal which had been left on the door-step a few +minutes before by Hitch Diamond.</p> + +<p>"Don't begin to howl an' pull back like a dawg tied under a wagin, +Plaster," Pearline<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> urged prettily, as she helped herself to liberal +portions of the breakfast prepared in Sheriff Flournoy's kitchen. "You +won't kick about wearin' it as long as you loves me, will you?"</p> + +<p>"No'm," Plaster said, as he lifted the chain to a more comfortable place +upon the dining-table. "But I shore wish dat white man hadn't choosed +such a heavy chain."</p> + +<p>"Dis chain ain't heavy, Plaster," Pearline protested. "You hadn't +oughter talk dat way. Excusin' dat, I likes dis chain—it ties us to +each yuther. Don't you like it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm, I shore does."</p> + +<p>"How come you complains about it fer?"</p> + +<p>"I ain't got no lament, Pearline—dat is, I ain't mean it dat way."</p> + +<p>The bridegroom filled his mouth with food and for the next ten minutes +ate voraciously. One watching him would draw the inference that he was +not eating to enjoy the food so much as to find some occupation for his +mouth beside speech.</p> + +<p>Pearline reached out with her free hand and toyed with the chain, +twisting it about her fingers lovingly, a dreamy light in her coal-black +eyes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>"Us had de biggest weddin' in cullud circles, Plaster," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"I ain't no cullud circle," Plaster mumbled, his mouth full of food. +"But I reckin I got to run circles aroun' you 'slong as dis ole chain +stays on. Don't rattle dat chain so loud, Pearly! Gosh! It makes a heap +of racket fer its little size."</p> + +<p>"You jes' now said it wus a big, heavy chain fer its size," his wife +reminded him in a sweetly argumentative tone.</p> + +<p>"Yes'm, it am—dis chain is bofe little an' big—fer its size," the +groom amended hastily. "Stop talkin' about dis chain!"</p> + +<p>"You started dis talk," she reminded him reproachfully. "You said it +hurted yo' wrist."</p> + +<p>There was a loud knock upon the door. Plaster sprang up to answer. The +chain jerked at his wrist.</p> + +<p>"Good gawsh!" he snorted. "Come to de door wid me, honey, so I kin open +up."</p> + +<p>"I cain't, Plaster," the bride exclaimed in a panic. "I ain't dressed +fer comp'ny dis soon in de mawnin."</p> + +<p>"You's got on all de clothes you owns," the groom reminded her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>"Suttinly, but I ain't got no white powder on my black nose," she +giggled. "Come back in de nex' room an' let me fresh up befo' we opens +de door."</p> + +<p>"I stayed in dar a plum' hour while you wus freshin' up fer yo' +viteles," Plaster grumbled.</p> + +<p>"Don't git grumped up, Plaster," Pearline urged. "You ack like yo' love +is commenced to wilt aroun' de edges."</p> + +<p>Meekly the man followed her to the bedroom and stood for fifteen minutes +while the bride primped her hair, powdered her nose, adjusted her +collar, fiddled with her belt, put pins in her shirt-waist, took them +out and deposited them in her mouth, put them back into her waist, +turned around and looked at herself in the mirror, hunted for a fresh +handkerchief and could not find it, located it at last in the bosom of +her waist, wondered where she had left her chewing-gum, found it on top +of the box of face-powder, and finally said:</p> + +<p>"Come on—less hurry up. Dat comp'ny will git tired waitin' fer us!"</p> + +<p>"Dat comp'ny is gone done it," Plaster sighed. "I peeped through de +crack in de door an' seed 'em. Hitch Diamond knocked fo' times, den<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> +opened de door an' picked up dem breakfast-dishes an' trod out."</p> + +<p>"Dat's too bad," Pearline remarked with no interest whatever. She was +looking at herself in the mirror. "I'd like to seen Hitchie. He use to +be one of my ole sweethearts."</p> + +<p>"Come out an' set under de tree wid me an' mebbe dat ole sweetheart of +yourn will come back," Plaster suggested.</p> + +<p>"I don't like to git out in de sunshine," the girl replied. "Dar's too +much glare."</p> + +<p>"Too much—which?" Plaster asked.</p> + +<p>"Glare."</p> + +<p>"Yes'm."</p> + +<p>Plaster stood looking at her helplessly, wondering where they were going +from there.</p> + +<p>"Does you love me, Plaster?" the girl asked, siding up to him and +stepping on the chain.</p> + +<p>"Yes'm," Plaster answered as he pulled the chain from under her feet and +rubbed his wrist. "Don't step on dat chain no mo'. You might break it."</p> + +<p>"How come you don't tell me you loves me?"</p> + +<p>"I done tole you 'bout fawty times dis mawnin'," Plaster reminded her.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>"But you ain't never tole me onless I axed you."</p> + +<p>"Less go somewhar an' set down an' I'll tell you a millyum times," +Plaster said eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Bless Gawd, I knows you loves me a plum' plenty, but I likes to hear +you tell dem words. Wait a minute till I puts—er—I b'lieve I oughter +change de collar on dis dress. A clean one would make me look mo' +fresher."</p> + +<p>Plaster lingered until the woman was dressed to her fancy, resting his +weight first on one impatient leg, then upon the other.</p> + +<p>"You wastes a heap of time fixin' yo'se'f, Pearly," he sighed at last. +"I hopes you'll soon git dressed up fer de day."</p> + +<p>"You wants yo' wife to look nice, don't you?" she asked reproachfully.</p> + +<p>"Yes'm."</p> + +<p>"How kin I look nice 'thout takin' de time to dress?"</p> + +<p>They went out and sat down under the pecan-tree in the "glare." Pearline +seemed to have forgotten the glare. Plaster lighted a cigarette, smoked +it to the end, lighted another, smoked it to the end, and lighted +another. Then Pearline remarked:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>"Honey, does you love me more dan you loves dem cigareets?"</p> + +<p>"I shore does"—with moderate fervor.</p> + +<p>"Does you love me a millyum times mo' dan you loves cigareets?"</p> + +<p>"Suttinly."</p> + +<p>"Den, fer gossake, throw dem cigareets away! Dey smells like some kind +o' fumigate."</p> + +<p>"I cain't do that, Pearly. Dese here smokes costes money. An' I couldn't +affode to buy 'em ef I had to wuck fer de money. Dey's a weddin' +present."</p> + +<p>"Is you gwine smoke all yo' married life?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm."</p> + +<p>"But you ain't gwine smoke no mo' fer de nex' three days, is you?"</p> + +<p>"No'm."</p> + +<p>Pearline thrust her hand into Plaster's pocket and brought forth his +precious smokes. She concealed them in the mysterious recesses of her +attire and Plaster sighed deeply.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later the girl straightened up with a fierceness that nearly +snapped her spinal column.</p> + +<p>"Fer mussy sake, Plaster Sickety! Whut is you got in yo' mouf?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>"I's nibblin' a few crumbs of terbacker, honey," Plaster said +apologetically.</p> + +<p>"My gawsh! You aim to tell me dat you <i>chaws</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm. I chaws a little bit now an' den. It kinder helps my brains to +think an' sottles my stomick."</p> + +<p>There was a long silence. Plaster stared straight ahead of him, his jaws +moving with the regularity of a ruminant cow, his eyes counting the +leaves on the trees, the pickets on the broken-down fence, and +estimating the number of ants crawling out of a hill. Then, +unconsciously, he reached into his pocket for another cigarette. He did +not find it.</p> + +<p>He heard a suspicious sound beside him and looked at Pearline.</p> + +<p>"Whut you cryin' about honey?"</p> + +<p>"You tole me you loved me more dan cigareets, an' yit you cain't set by +me a minute 'thout chawin' terbacker," she wailed. "You is blood kin +brudder to a worm an' a goat—nothin' else chaws!"</p> + +<p>"Lawd!" Plaster sighed in desperation. "I sees now dat I'm got to learn +how to suck eggs an' hide de shells."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>Suddenly a loud whoop was heard near at hand and out of the swamp came +Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, Mustard Prophet and Hitch Diamond.</p> + +<p>"Hey, niggers!" Plaster bawled. "Come up an' set down. Lawd, I nefer wus +so glad to see nobody in my whole life."</p> + +<p>"Good mawnin', Sister Pearline!" Vinegar chuckled. "How is yo'-alls +enjoyin' mattermony life by now?"</p> + +<p>"Fine," the bride smiled, with a suspicion of tears still in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Praise de Lawd!" exclaimed Vinegar. "I wus skeart you niggers would be +fightin' by now, an' mebbe one of yous would be draggin' de yuther on de +end o' dat chain—dead!"</p> + +<p>"Naw, suh!" Plaster howled, as he snatched a cigar out of Hitch +Diamond's pocket and stuck it in his mouth. "Us is gittin' along +puffeckly."</p> + +<p>Plaster snatched his cigar from his lips with his manacled hand and +flourished it with a motion of broad contentment. Pearline gave the +chain a quick jerk and the smoke flew from Plaster's fingers and fell +over in the high grass.</p> + +<p>"You two idjits look like a holy show to me,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> Figger Bush cackled. "How +come you don't charge admissions to de show an' git rich?"</p> + +<p>"Us wouldn't git rich quick," Pearline giggled. Hitch Diamond had +retrieved the cigar, and Pearline had taken it from him and stuck it in +her hair. "You-all is de onlies' comp'ny we is had till yit."</p> + +<p>"I hopes you niggers will stay wid us all day, brudders," Plaster +exclaimed earnestly. "We wus feelin' kinder—er—me an' Pearline wus +feelin' sorter—er—"</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh," Hitch Diamond grunted knowingly. "Dat's a fack. We ole married +folks onderstan's dem feelin's. I'd feel dat way mese'f ef I wus in yo' +fix. I'd whet up my teeth on a brick-bat an' bite myse'f in my own +gizzard an' die."</p> + +<p>"Not me!" Figger Bush howled. "Ef I wus chained to dat little gal, I'd +git me a plow-line an' wrop it aroun' our necks."</p> + +<p>"I would, too," Vinegar bellowed. "But I'd tie de yuther eend of dat +plow-line to a tree an' jump off de worl'."</p> + +<p>"I bet Pearline don't hanker to jump offen no worl'," Mustard Prophet +proclaimed. "Look at her—she's jes' as happy as ef she had sense."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>The eyes of the four men turned upon the girl appraisingly. Then +Pearline remembered that a few moments before she had been sniffling and +shedding tears. She was sure her eyes were red, and she knew the tears +had washed all the white powder off her black nose. Quickly she rose to +her feet, giving the ten-foot chain a sharp jerk.</p> + +<p>"I hates to take you from yo' frien's, Plaster," she exclaimed, "but I'm +got to go in. I cain't stand de glare."</p> + +<p>Side by side they entered the cabin and the chain rattled as they shut +the door.</p> + +<p>And the evening and the morning were the first day.</p> + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<h3><big>IV.</big></h3> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Stop</span> scatterin' dem shavin's all over de floor, Plaster," Pearline +commanded. "Ef folks comes to see us, I don't want dis house all +literated up wid trash."</p> + +<p>"I got to whittle while you sews, honey," Plaster said patiently. "I +wanted to sot out in the yard, but you kep' me in de house all yistiddy +afternoon because you said you had de headache from de glare."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>"You kin whittle 'thout messin' up dis room," Pearline snapped.</p> + +<p>"I likes a messy room," the man declared. "It looks like folks lived in +it an' wus tol'able comfer'ble."</p> + +<p>"You cain't mess up my house ef I got to come atter you an' clean up," +the woman replied in a tone of finality.</p> + +<p>A hound-dog stuck his wistful face into the door, seeking an invitation +to enter.</p> + +<p>"Dar's a frien' in need," the bridegroom proclaimed happily. "Come here, +dawg!"</p> + +<p>"Git out o' here!" the woman shrieked, kicking at the hound and sending +him out with a howl. "I don't want dat houn' in dis house scratchin' his +fleas all over de rooms. Look at de mud dat dawg tracked in. Come wadin' +through de bayou an' den come trackin' through de house!"</p> + +<p>"Dar's some advantages in livin' a dawg's life, Pearline," Plaster +sighed. "Even excusin' de fleas, dar's plenty advantage. A dawg, even a +married dawg, he ain't tied up all de time an' kin run aroun' some."</p> + +<p>"You aims to say you's gittin' tired stayin' here wid me?" Pearline +snapped.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>"No'm. Nothin' like dat. I's happy as a mosquiter on a pickaninny's +nose."</p> + +<p>"Ef you feels tied up like a houn'-dawg in de middle of de secont day, +how does you expeck to feel in de middle of de secont year?"</p> + +<p>Plaster thought it best not to venture a reply. He looked through the +open door at the hound, lying under the china-berry tree in the glare, +placidly scratching fleas, bumping the elbow of his hind leg on the soft +ground as he scratched.</p> + +<p>"Don't you never answer no 'terrogations when I axes you?" Pearline +asked sharply. "How you gwine feel in de middle of de secont year?"</p> + +<p>Out of sheer perversity Plaster was disposed to tell her that he would +feel dead and buried for at least a year before the time she mentioned, +but instead he swallowed hard three times. His throat was dry and his +tongue rasped his mouth like sandpaper. His answer, finally, was a song:</p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"She'll be sweeter as de days go by;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">She'll git sweeter as de moments fly;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">She'll git sweeter an' be dearer</span><br /> +<span class="i0">As to me she draws mo' nearer—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Sweeter as de days go by."</span><br /> +</div></div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>Thereupon Pearline jumped from her chair, got strangle-hold upon her +husband, sat down on him, and impressed him forcibly in the next +half-hour that his wife was a heavyweight and the day was extremely +warm.</p> + +<p>Plaster made such a hit with his improvised song that he repeated it +three times, then gradually eased his wife off his lap and onto a chair.</p> + +<p>"Don't you never shave yo' face, Plaster?" the lady asked when the love +scene ended. "You feels like a stubby shoe-brush."</p> + +<p>"No'm, my whiskers don't pester me none."</p> + +<p>"But dey looks so bad," the woman urged.</p> + +<p>"I cain't see 'em," Plaster grinned.</p> + +<p>"I wants you to shave eve'y day while you is married to me."</p> + +<p>"Huh," Plaster grunted.</p> + +<p>"An I wants you to brush up yo' clothes, Plaster," the woman told him. +"You looks scandalous dusty."</p> + +<p>"I looks as good as you does," Plaster retorted. "I's got powdered dirt +on my clothes an' you's got powdered chalk on yo' nose. You looks to +dang dressy fer me anyhow. I favors bein' dusty an' easy-feelin'."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>The discussion ended by the appearance of three women who came to the +open door from the highroad.</p> + +<p>"Look at dat, now!" Plaster exclaimed. "Here comes three ole gals of +mine. I co'ted 'em all servigerous but it didn't git me nothin'."</p> + +<p>"Whut dey buttin' in here fer?" Pearline asked in sharp tones.</p> + +<p>"Mebbe dey'll tell us when dey comes in," Plaster chuckled.</p> + +<p>The three women were the wives of Hitch Diamond, Figger Bush, and +Vinegar Atts. When they entered they came straight to the point.</p> + +<p>"Plaster, us ladies wants to talk to Sister Pearline Flunder Sickety in +privut."</p> + +<p>"Dat cain't be did, sisters," Plaster answered, looking them over +suspiciously. "Whut does you want to tell my wife in privut?"</p> + +<p>"Dat's a secret," Scootie Bush giggled.</p> + +<p>Plaster looked at the women with an earnest effort to read their +intentions. He recalled certain incidents in his association with the +three in the old days of happy courtship that he preferred his wife +should not know. He thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> he saw mischief in the eyes of each of the +women, especially Scootie and Goldie, and he shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Nothin' ain't told in privut, sisters," he announced. "Leastwise, not +till after de third day."</p> + +<p>"Does you aim to say dat I cain't conversation in privut wid my +frien's?" Pearline snapped.</p> + +<p>"No'm not perzackly dat," Plaster hastened to explain. "But it looks +kinder onpossible to me as long as I'm tied up wid you on dis chain."</p> + +<p>"Git over again dat wall while dese ladies whispers to me," Pearline +replied, giving him a push.</p> + +<p>Plaster sat down and strained his ears to hear. What he heard was +spasmodic giggles. He saw mischievous glances directed to himself. Once +he saw his wife look straight at him reproachfully, as if she suspected +that he was trying to overhear. There was half an hour of this, then the +three giggling women took their departure.</p> + +<p>"Whut did dem nigger women want, Pearline?" Plaster demanded.</p> + +<p>"Dat's a fambly secret," Pearline giggled.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>"Does you think you oughter hab any secrets from yo' cote-house +husbunt?" Plaster demanded belligerently.</p> + +<p>"Naw, suh. Not no secrets dat stays secrets, but dis here little myst'ry +will git public powerful soon."</p> + +<p>Coming through the medium of Plaster's troubled conscience, this answer +sounded ominous. Pearline picked up some sewing and Plaster reached for +his unwhittled stick. He spent one half-hour in deep thought. He was +sorry he had told Pearline that those three women were old sweethearts +of his. He recalled that his courtship of each woman had broken up in a +row and a fist-fight. It had been one-sided, the women conducting the +row and doing all the fighting while Plaster endeavored to escape. Now +Plaster had no other idea than that they were hot on his trail. They +were planning to make his life miserable through the jealousy of his +wife.</p> + +<p>There was a loud knock on the front door. The two arose and the door +opened to Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, and Hitch Diamond.</p> + +<p>"Sister Sickety, us three niggers is a cormittee of three app'inted to +wait in privut on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> Brudder Plaster Sickety an' hol' a secret confab wid +him," Vinegar announced pompously.</p> + +<p>"I don't allow my husbunt to hab no secrets from me," Pearline answered +looking suspiciously at her old sweetheart, Hitch Diamond.</p> + +<p>"Dis am a man's pussonal bizzness, Pearline," Hitch Diamond rumbled. "A +nigger woman is got to butt out."</p> + +<p>"But I's chained up wid Plaster," Pearline protested.</p> + +<p>"Git over agin dat wall while dese gen'lemens whispers to me," Plaster +remarked, giving her a push toward the chair which he had occupied under +similar circumstances a short time before.</p> + +<p>The three committeemen walked up close to Plaster, draped their arms +over his shoulders, and talked in whispers, but guffawed out loud. +Because Pearline was present their eyes irresistibly sought hers, +especially when they laughed—what man can keep from looking at the +woman in a room?—and Pearline inferred that they were talking and +laughing about her. She strained her ears to hear, but not a word +enlightened her <a name="ignorance" id="ignorance"></a><ins title="Original has igorance">ignorance</ins>. Then with a loud laugh the three +men patted Plaster on the back and took themselves off.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>"Whut did them niggers want, Plaster?" Pearline demanded in irate tones.</p> + +<p>"Dat's a fambly secret," Plaster quoted mockingly.</p> + +<p>"I felt like a fool wid dem mens lookin' at me an' snickerin'," the +woman complained. "Wus dey talkin' about me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes'm," the man chuckled.</p> + +<p>This remark set Pearline to thinking about certain incidents. Hitch had +been an old sweetheart, Figger Bush and Vinegar Atts had paid her +courtly attentions, and some things had happened that she would rather +not have to explain to her husband. There was a dismal depthless gulf of +painful silence between the honeymooners for a long time. Then Pearline +said with difficulty:</p> + +<p>"I don't like de nigger mens you 'socheates wid. Dem three niggers ain't +fitten comp'ny fer my husbunt."</p> + +<p>"Dat's whut I thinks about dem three womens dat come to see you," +Plaster answered. "Ef you runs wid dat color of petticoats I shore will +disrespeck you mo' dan I does now."</p> + +<p>"I runs wid anybody I chooses," Pearline snapped.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>"Me, too," Plaster retorted.</p> + +<p>They pulled apart and the chain rattled.</p> + +<p>They stepped back from the entrance and closed the door.</p> + +<p>And the evening and the morning were the second day.</p> + +<hr class="white" /> + +<h3><big>V.</big></h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">By</span> sleeping until the noon-hour the two love-captives shortened the +third day by half.</p> + +<p>In the two days past they had exhausted every theme of conversation, had +wearied of every kind of amusement they could devise, and had pumped +their hearts dry of language to proclaim and protest their affection for +each other to lubricate the machinery of existence amid the friction of +their disposition and temperament.</p> + +<p>The day before Plaster had made a hit with a song, so he decided to fill +every moment of that day until the sun sank below the horizon with vocal +music, for song banishes conversation and song is not provocative of +difference of opinion and argument—so he thought. While he and his wife +were dressing, Plaster began:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> + +<div class="block"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Does you know dat I am dyin'</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Fer a little bit of love?</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Everywhar dey hears me sighin'</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Fer a little bit of love.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Fer dat love dat grows mo' strong,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Fills de heart wid hope and song,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I has waited—oh, so long—</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Fer a little bit of love."</span><br /> +</div></div></div> + +<p>"Whut makes you sing so dang loud, Plaster?" Pearline asked wearily, as +she rested her head upon her hands. "You sounds like a brayin' jackace +mournin' because he done tumbled down a open well."</p> + +<p>"One time you said you liked my singin'," Plaster retorted.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't tell you whut I really thought about it in dem sad days," +Pearline remarked.</p> + +<p>They ate their noon meal in silence because neither could think of +anything to say. Plaster had got the hook at the very beginning of his +musical career, and the things he thought of to say were not fit for +utterance or publication.</p> + +<p>As they rose from the table, they looked with surprise out of the +window.</p> + +<p>A long procession of negroes approached the cabin. All were dressed in +their best clothes and the Rev. Vinegar Atts was in the lead.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>The bridal pair suddenly remembered something, and they stepped out on +the porch to receive them as they filled the space in front of the +house.</p> + +<p>Vinegar took his famous preaching attitude in front of the porch, +inflated his lungs and began:</p> + +<p>"Brudder an' Sister Sickety, us is all rejoiced dat you two honey-loves +is got mighty nigh through wid yo' honey-tower widout no fuss or fight. +We welcomes you back to our sawsiety wid glad arms. We hopes dat you +will love each yuther mo' or less an' off an' on ferever! We knows dat +you has well earnt dis house an' lot dat Marse John Flournoy has gib you +an' we cullud folks wants to make you a present of a few change so you +kin buy some nice house-furnicher an' start out fresh an' new."</p> + +<p>Thereupon Vinegar laid his stove-pipe hat upside down upon the floor of +the porch, turned and surveyed the assembly while he mopped his bald +head with a yellow bandana handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"Walk right up, brudders an' sisters, an' drap yo' few change in dis +stove-pipe preachin'-hat!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>They came up one by one, laughingly depositing their money, and pausing +to shake hands with the bride and groom.</p> + +<p>When the ceremony ended, Vinegar emptied his hat upon the floor of the +porch, placed it upon his head with a farewell flourish, and led the +negroes out of the yard.</p> + +<p>"Dis money is de fambly secret dem three nigger womens whispered to me, +honey," Pearline giggled.</p> + +<p>"Dat's de myst'ry dem three committee fellers tole me," Plaster +chuckled.</p> + +<p>The two sat down and counted the money—twenty-five dollars and thirty +cents!</p> + +<p>"Dat thuty cents is yourn to spend foolish, Pearline," Plaster said +generously as he pushed three dimes toward her and clutched with both +hands at the rest.</p> + +<p>"Hol' on nigger!" Pearline snapped. <a name="quote" id="quote"></a><ins title="Opening quotation mark added">"I</ins> ain't no bayou minnow to git +jes' a little nibble of dat money—half of dat cash spondulix is mine."</p> + +<p>"Yes'm, but I is de man of de fambly an' I oughter keep it an' han' it +out to you as you needs it."</p> + +<p>"I needs my half right now," Pearline<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> snapped, placing both her hands +upon the clutching paws of Plaster Sickety.</p> + +<p>"Whut you gwine do wid twelve dollars an' fo' bits?" Plaster demanded in +irate tones.</p> + +<p>"Buy me a hat!" Pearline told him.</p> + +<p>"You's a fool!" Plaster informed her. "Female hats ain't furnicher."</p> + +<p>"Dis money furnishes me wid a hat," she announced positively.</p> + +<p>Then they sat for a few minutes in silence, both keeping their hands +spread out over the money.</p> + +<p>"Whut you gwine do wid yo' twelve dollars an' fo' bits?" Pearline +demanded at last.</p> + +<p>"I figgers on buyin' a fiddle," Plaster told her. "Plenty money kin be +made playin' fiddles, an' I b'lieves I could learn to fiddle ef I had a +good chance."</p> + +<p>"I ain't gwine hab no fiddlin' nigger in my house," Pearline snorted. +"I's druther be married to a phoneygraft."</p> + +<p>"You ain't gwine be married to nothin' very long ef you don't leggo dis +money, nigger!" Plaster snarled.</p> + +<p>"I is."</p> + +<p>"You ain't."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>"Don't gimme no sass."</p> + +<p>"You sassed me fust."</p> + +<p>The woman raised one hand from the money and made an unexpected +sideswipe at Plaster's jaw with her open palm. The blow landed with a +smack that jarred the very marrow of his bones and keeled him over the +edge of the porch to the ground. As he fell sprawling, the chain +tightened and jerked Pearline off her perch and she fell to the ground +with a squall. Then for ten minutes there was a Kilkenny cat scrap on +the front lawn.</p> + +<p>Pearline bit and scratched and pulled hair and tore clothes. She had +decidedly the best of the rookus until her unusual activities caused her +to get a twist of the chain around her neck. Plaster thanked the Lord +and choked her into inaction and submission by the simple process of +pretending to escape from her and thus tightening the chain.</p> + +<p>When she was choked almost to suffocation, he edged her to the porch, +lifted the twenty-five dollars and thirty cents into his own pockets, +and released the chain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> +<img src="images/gs02.jpg" width="400" height="617" alt="" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"THE BLOW LANDED WITH A SMACK THAT JARRED THE VERY MARROW +OF HIS BONES AND KEELED HIM OVER THE EDGE OF THE PORCH TO THE GROUND."</span> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +When Pearline recovered her breath she dropped flat upon the ground at +her feet and howled like a Comanche until the going down of the sun.</p> + +<p>Plaster did not attempt to console or quiet her. When he spoke again, he +reached out and touched the bawling woman with his foot.</p> + +<p>"Git up idjit!" he exclaimed. "Marse John expecks us to come an' repote +to him an' git dese here handcuffs tuck off."</p> + +<p>Sheriff John Flournoy was waiting for them as they came across his lawn +to the porch where he sat.</p> + +<p>Then for half an hour he listened to a tirade of crimination and +recrimination which crackled with profane expletives like thorns under a +pot. When Plaster paused to breathe, Pearline took up the complaint. +When Pearline stopped from exhaustion, Plaster resumed his lamentations.</p> + +<p>When the storm of vituperation subsided, Flournoy sat in his chair like +a man who had been pounded over the head with a brick. It was some time +before he could formulate his ideas. Then he spoke with difficulty.</p> + +<p>"I judge from what I have heard that your three days' experience +together has convinced you that your tastes are entirely dissimilar and +your natures incompatible."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>"Yes, suh, dat's c'reck."</p> + +<p>"The information you offer conveys to me the impression that a woman +loves shadows, but a man loves sunshine and glare; a woman loves dress, +but a man loves tobacco; a woman desires daintiness and neatness +attended with any degree of discomfort, but a man prefers comfort with +no matter how much litter and mess; a woman loves indoor sports, like +sewing, and a man loves outdoor sports, like whittling sticks and making +the acquaintance of a hound-dog with fleas on his body and mud on his +feet; a man loves to sing and hear himself sing, and the woman prefers +to hear some other man sing; a woman wants her female companions with +their confidences and their secrets, and a man desires his male +companions and their secrets, but neither party to the matrimonial +alliance is willing that the partner should keep a secret. Am I right as +far as I've gone?"</p> + +<p>"Dat's right!" they said in positive tones.</p> + +<p>"But de fuss part, Marse John, is de money!" the woman shrieked.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," Flournoy agreed softly. "Matrimony is always a matter of +money."</p> + +<p>Then Flournoy took a key from his pocket<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> and opened the bracelets on +their wrists. The chain fell at their feet. The bride and bridegroom +looked away, each ignoring the presence of the other.</p> + +<p>Plaster Sickety thrust both hands into his pockets, brought out +twenty-five dollars and thirty cents and laid it into the open palm of +the sheriff.</p> + +<p>"Fer Gawd's sake, git me a deevo'ce!" he pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Make it two, Marse John," the girl urged. "I's plum' nauseated wid dat +nigger man."</p> + +<p>The bride and bridegroom turned and walked away, choosing different +paths and going in opposite directions. They did not look back.</p> + +<p>The sheriff stooped and picked up the rattling chain.</p> + +<p>Then he went into the house and slammed the door.</p> + +<p>The evening and the morning were the third day, and—</p> + + + +<hr /> + +<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[124–127]</a></span> +<a name="iv" id="iv"></a>FOURTH TALE<br /> +<br /> +<big>PRINCESS OR PERCHERON</big><br /> +<br /> +<small>BY PERLEY POORE SHEEHAN</small></h2> + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<h3><big>I.</big></h3> + +<p class="cap">SOME queer things had taken place in this same hall—some very queer +things; but there were indications that this present affair was going to +be queerer yet.</p> + +<p>The old duke always had been a worthy descendant of his ancestors; like +them, a little mad, with flashes of genius, very fine, very brutal, a +murderer at heart, with a love for poetry and philosophic speculation.</p> + +<p>The guests were already in a smiling tremor of curiosity when they +arrived. Some of them whispered among themselves:</p> + +<p>"It's on account of the Princess Gabrielle."</p> + +<p>"They say the duke is furious."</p> + +<p>"Not astonishing. But—a marriage! How can there be a marriage?"</p> + +<p>Yet it looked as if a marriage there would be. Manifestly, the hall had +been prepared for some such event.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>It was a chamber long, lofty and broad, walled and floored with the +native Burgundy rock, richly carpeted, hung with tapestry. And down a +portion of the length of this ran a wide table already spread with the +viands of a wedding-feast—huge cold pasties, hams and boarheads +beautifully jellied, fresh and candied fruits from Spain and Sicily, +flagons and goblets of crystal, silver, and gold.</p> + +<p>What aroused curiosity and conjecture to the highest point, however, was +the discovery that the immense fireplace of the hall had been +transformed into a forge. It was a forge complete—bellows and hearth, +anvil and tub, hammers and tongs. There was even a smutty-faced imp +there to tend the forge fire, which already hissed and glowed as he +worked the bellows.</p> + +<p>"Aha! So there <i>was</i> a smith mixed up in the affair, after all!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais oui!</i> Gaspard, the smith, whose forge is down there on the banks +of the Rhone."</p> + +<p>"But what does the duke intend to do?"</p> + +<p>It was a question which more than one was asking. There was never any +forecasting what a whim of the duke might lead him to do even in +ordinary circumstances—declare war on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> France, call a new Crusade. And +now, with this menace of scandal in his family!</p> + +<p>There in front of the fireplace where the forge had been set up, the +valets had placed the ducal chair. All the same, the arrangements had +something sinister about them. There fell a period of silence touched +with panic. But not for long. Curiosity was too acute and powerful to be +long suppressed. The whispering resumed:</p> + +<p>"The duke surprised them together—the princess and her smith."</p> + +<p>"It looks like the torture for one or both."</p> + +<p>"They say the fellow's an Apollo, a Hercules."</p> + +<p>"You wait until the duke—"</p> + +<p>"Silence! He comes."</p> + +<p>One of the large doors toward the farther end of the hall was thrown +open, and through this there came a surge of music—hautboys, viols, and +flutes. Two guardsmen came in, helmeted, swords drawn, and took up their +stations at either side of the door.</p> + +<p>There entered the duke.</p> + +<p>He looked the philosopher, perhaps, if not the student—tall, bent, +bony; a brush of white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> hair bristling over the top of his high and +narrow head; a fleshless face, sardonic and humorous. The guests were +pleased to see that his mood was amiable. He came forward smiling, waved +his musicians into retreat; and half a dozen valets were assisting him +into his chair as he greeted his guests. They all bent the knee to him. +Some kissed his hand—and some he kissed, especially those who were fair +and of the opposite sex.</p> + +<p>If Princess Gabrielle had shown herself fragile in the matter of her +affections, well, she had come by her failing honestly.</p> + +<p>Seated in his chair, the duke delivered himself of a little pun which +convulsed his audience—something about "court and courtship": "<i>Je +fais—la cour.</i>"</p> + +<p>And with no other preliminary he spoke to a page:</p> + +<p>"Summon <i>mademoiselle</i>."</p> + +<p>Then to another:</p> + +<p>"Fetch in the smith."</p> + +<p>There was a bitter smile on his face as he sank back into his chair and +studied the forge set up in the fireplace. The imp went white under his +smudge and worked the bellows until<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> the fire on the hearth was spouting +like a miniature Vesuvius.</p> + +<p>The wait was brief.</p> + +<p>Once more the musicians struck into the royal march of Burgundy, and +there was the Princess Gabrielle.</p> + +<p>Every one who looked at her must have experienced some thrill of the +heart—envy, desire, pure admiration. It was impossible to look at her +without some emotion; for she was eighteen, slender, white and +passionate; with dusky, copper-colored hair hanging in two heavy curls +forward over her brilliantly tender shoulders; and she had a broad, red +mouth, and slightly dilated nostrils; dark eyes, liquid and heavily +fringed, with disquieting shadows under them.</p> + +<p>She came forward with a number of maidens in her train, but she so +dominated them that she appeared to be alone. She took her time. She was +a trifle rebellious, perhaps. But she was brave, not to say bold. She +tossed her head slightly. She smiled. She and her maidens, familiar with +the duke's intentions, grouped themselves at one side of the improvised +forge. Every one present was still looking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> at her when there came a +rough command:</p> + +<p>"Stand aside!"</p> + +<p>A good many of the guests were not in the habit of hearing orders except +from the duke himself; but the command came again:</p> + +<p>"Stand aside! Let me pass—me and my people!"</p> + +<p>At that there was a rapid shifting of the crowd and a whispered cry:</p> + +<p>"The smith! It's Gaspard the smith!"</p> + +<p>And he attracted even more attention than the princess had done; for, +manifestly, here was not only a man who could play the game of love, but +could play the game of life and death as well—to shout out like this, +and come striding like this into the presence of his ruler.</p> + +<p>But he looked the part.</p> + +<p>He was all of six feet tall, blond and supple and beautifully fleshed. +He was wearing his blacksmith's outfit of doeskin and leather, but he +was scoured and shaven to the pink. His great arms were bare; and the +exquisitely sculptured muscles of these slipped and played under a skin +as white as a woman's.</p> + +<p>He stood there with his shoulders back, his arms folded, feet apart. +But, curiously, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> was no insolence in the posture. Insolence is a +quality of the little heart, the little soul, and shows itself in the +eyes. Gaspard the smith had gentle blue eyes, large, dark, fearless, and +with a certain brooding pride in them. There may have been even a hint +of virgin bashfulness in them as well, during that moment he glanced at +the Princess Gabrielle. Then he had looked at the duke, and all his +courage had come back to him, perhaps also a suggestion of challenge.</p> + +<p>But neither had the smith come into the ducal presence alone.</p> + +<p>There were two old people—a man and a woman, peasants, both of them +very poor, very humble, so frightened that they could breathe only with +their mouths open; and so soon as they were inside the circle of guests, +they had dropped to their knees. The other member of the smith's party +would have done the same had he permitted. This was a girl of twenty or +so, likewise a peasant, healthy, painfully abashed, but otherwise not +notable. To her the smith had given a nudge and a word of encouragement, +so that now she stood close to him and back of him.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>"Our friends," said the duke, with studied nonchalance, "we are about to +present to you the initial operation of scientific experiment. Like all +scientific research, this also should be judged solely by its possible +contribution to the advancement of human happiness. Ourself, we feel +that this contribution will be great. God knows it is concerned with a +problem that is both elusive and poignant."</p> + +<p>All this was rather above Gaspard's head. He turned to the imp at the +bellows.</p> + +<p>"Stop blowing that fire so hard," he whispered. "You're wasting +charcoal."</p> + +<p>The duke smiled grimly.</p> + +<p>"The problem," he continued, "is this: Can any man and woman, however +devoted, continue to love each other if they are too closely held +together?"</p> + +<p>There was a slight movement among some of the younger gentlemen and +ladies present—a few knowing smiles.</p> + +<p>"There have always been those who answered <i>No</i>; there have always been +those who answered <i>Yes</i>," the duke went on. "Which were right?" No +answer. "My granddaughter here, while having her horse shod some weeks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +ago, became enamored of this worthy subject of mine." He nodded toward +the smith. "She would have him. She would have no one else. We knew how +hopeless would be any attempt to impose our will—in an affair of the +heart." He smiled gallantly. "We are familiar with the breed."</p> + +<p>"Long live the House of Burgundy," cried the chivalrous young Vicomte de +Mâcon. But the duke silenced him with a look.</p> + +<p>"And now," said the duke, "we wish to test this so great passion of +hers—test it under conditions that while apparently extraordinary are +none the less classical and scientific. Our experiment is this—"</p> + +<p>For the first time since he began to speak the duke now leaned forward, +and both his face and his voice took on that quality which made his name +a source of trembling from Spain to Denmark.</p> + +<p>"Our experiment is this:</p> + +<p>"<i>To have the princess and her smith, whom she is so sure she loves, +handcuffed and linked together by a ten-foot chain.</i>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<h3><big>II.</big></h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was a gasp from the audience. Every one stared at the princess. +Even the duke himself. Without turning his head he took her in with his +furtive eyes.</p> + +<p>"<i>Mlle. la Princess</i>," he said icily, "was good enough to insist upon +the sacrifice."</p> + +<p>At this, a stain of richer color slowly crept up the throat of the +Princess Gabrielle; there came a touch of extra fire to her eyes. +Perhaps she would have spoken. But the duke hadn't finished yet.</p> + +<p>"We'll see whether she loves him so much or not," said the duke. "We'll +give them three days of it—three days to go and come as they wish—and +to do as they wish—together—always together—bound to each other by +their ten-foot chain."</p> + +<p>But while the excitement caused by the duke's announcement was still +crisping the nerves of every one present, the smith had cast one more +glance in the direction of the Princess Gabrielle. And this time their +eyes met. There were those who saw a glint of terror—of delicious +terror—in the eyes of the princess;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> and in the eyes of Gaspard a look +intended to be reassuring.</p> + +<p>Then the smith had unfolded his arms, thrust them forward.</p> + +<p>"Wait," he cried.</p> + +<p>At that there was a fresh sensation.</p> + +<p>For it was seen that one of his wrists—his left—was already encircled +by a bracelet of shining steel, forged there of a single piece, and that +to the bracelet itself there was forged a link, fine but powerful, and +that other links ran back over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Ha!" snarled the duke. "So you've come prepared!"</p> + +<p>"By the grace of God!" replied Gaspard the smith, unafraid. He cast a +look about him, brought his eyes back to the duke. "<i>Moi</i>, Gaspard," he +said, "I forge my own chains—always! I'm a smith, I am."</p> + +<p>The two old people kneeling just back of him began to sob and to groan. +Gaspard turned and looked down at them.</p> + +<p>"Shut up," he ordered; "I'm talking."</p> + +<p>He smiled at the duke. He explained.</p> + +<p>"You see, they're frightened," he said. "When I found out what your +highness and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> your highness's lady-granddaughter were planning up here +in the castle, why, I went to these old folks and told them that I +wanted their daughter Susette."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you loved her," the duke put in with ironical intent.</p> + +<p>But the smith saw no reason for irony.</p> + +<p>"Eh, <i>bon Dieu</i>!" he ejaculated. "And save your highness's respect, +we've loved each other ever since we were out of the cradle, we have. So +I made the old folks consent. I'm a smith, I am. I forge my own chains. +Stand around, Susette! His highness won't hurt you. Look!"</p> + +<p>He stepped aside. He gave a gentle thrust to the girl who had been +sheltering back of him. The chain rattled.</p> + +<p>And there was another cry of surprise.</p> + +<p>One of the girl's wrist's also was ornamented with a steel handcuff +tightly welded. Not only that, but to this also was attached a chain. +The smith threw up his arm. It was the same chain that was welded to his +own handcuff—ten feet of it, glistening steel, unbreakable.</p> + +<p>"There's your ten-foot chain, highness," cried Gaspard. "And it's no +trick-chain, either," he added. "It's a chain that will hold.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> You bet +it will. I forged it myself, and I know. It's a chain you couldn't buy. +Why? Because—because the iron of it's mixed with love. Nor can it be +cut, nor filed, nor broken. I'm a smith, I am. And each link of it I +tempered myself—with sweat and blood."</p> + +<p>There for a time it was a question—possibly a question in the mind of +the duke himself—just how many minutes the smith still had to live. +Many a valet had been executed for less. During a period of about thirty +seconds the duke's face went black. Then the blackness dispersed. He +slowly smiled.</p> + +<p>After all, he wasn't to be cheated of his experiment.</p> + +<p>But he answered the question that was in his own mind and the minds of +all the others there as he looked at the smith and said:</p> + +<p>"Fool, you'll be sufficiently punished—by your own device."</p> + +<p>He let his eyes drift again to the Princess Gabrielle.</p> + +<p>"And thou," he said, "art sufficiently punished already."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p> + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<h3><big>III.</big></h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> happened to be a day of late spring; and as Gaspard and this +strangely wedded bride of his and her parents came out of the castle, +both fed and forgiven, it must have seemed to all of them that this was +the most auspicious moment of their lives. The old folks, who had +partaken freely of the generous wines pressed upon them, had now passed +from their trembling terror to a spirit of frolic. Arm in arm, their +sabots clogging, they did a rigadoon down the winding road. It was a +spirit of tender elation, though, that dominated Gaspard and Susette. +They were like two beings distilled complete from the mild and fragrant +air, the sweet mistiness of the verdant valley, the purpling solemnity +of the Juras.</p> + +<p>"What did he mean, his highness?" asked Susette as she pressed the +smith's arm closer to her side. "What did he mean that you'd be punished +by your own device?"</p> + +<p>Gaspard looked down at her, pressed her manacled wrist to his lips, took +thought.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he answered gently. "He must be crazy. It's like calling +it punishment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> when a true believer receives the reward of paradise."</p> + +<p>"You love me so much as that?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Pardi!</i>" he ejaculated. "And thou?"</p> + +<p>"So much," she palpitated, "so much that when you looked at the princess +like that—I wished you were blind!"</p> + +<p>At the bottom of the hill, the old folks, Burgundians to the souls of +them, happily bade the young couple to be off about their own affairs. +They knew how it was with young married people. The old were +obstacles—so they themselves well recalled—albeit that was more than +twenty years ago.</p> + +<p>Said Gaspard fondly: "This business has put me back in my work; but +we'll call this a holiday. Shall we go to my cottage or into the forest? +I know of a secret place—"</p> + +<p>"Into the forest," whispered Susette. "I don't like the forge. It makes +me think—think of that cursed princess—and of the work that almost +lost you to me." Her blue eyes filmed as she looked up at him. "Oh, +Gaspard, I also have dreamed so much—of love—a life of love with +thee!"</p> + +<p>There was no one there to see. Some day,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> perhaps, in the far distant +future, this part of the world would be thickly populated. But this was +not yet the case. Gaspard brought his bride close to his breast, smiled +gravely into her upturned face. He kissed her tears away. Sweet Susette! +She was such a child! How little she knew of life!</p> + +<p>And yet what was that fragile, fluttering, elusive, tiny suggestion of a +regret in the back of his brain? Now he saw it; now it was gone—a +silver moth of a thought, yet one, some instinct warned him, was there +to gnaw a hole in his happiness.</p> + +<p>He said nothing about this to Susette, of course; he chased it from his +own joy. And this joy was a beautiful, tumultuous thing.</p> + +<p>"It's like the source of the Rhone, which I saw one time—this joy of +ours," he said with placid rapture. "All sparkling it was, and wild +cataracts, and deep places, clean and full of mystery."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I want it to be always like this," said Susette.</p> + +<p>Gaspard let himself go in clear-sighted thought. They were seated on a +grassy shelf that overhung the great river. The forest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> hemmed them in +on three sides like a wedding-bower fashioned to order; but here they +could follow the Rhone for miles—with its drifting barges, its +red-sailed shallops, its hamlets, and villages.</p> + +<p>"Yes, ever like the Rhone," he said; "but growing, like the Rhone, until +it's broad and majestic and strong to carry burdens—"</p> + +<p>Susette interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me," she said. "Kiss me again. No—not like that; like you did a +while ago."</p> + +<p>And Gaspard, laughing, did as he was bidden. But what was that silver +glint of something like a regret, something like a loss, that came +fluttering once more across the atmosphere of his thought? Susette, +though, kept him diverted. She was forever popping in upon his +reflections with innocent, childish questions; and he found this +infinitely amusing.</p> + +<p>"Did you desire me—more than the princess?"</p> + +<p>"Beloved, I have desired you for years."</p> + +<p>"Did you think me more beautiful—than she?"</p> + +<p>Again Gaspard laughed; but it set him to thinking. He liked to think. He +thought at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> his forge, at his meals, nights when he happened to be +awake.</p> + +<p>"Love and beauty," he said, "these are created by desire. As a +stone-cutter desires what is hidden in the rock, and hews it out and +loves the thing he shapes, though it be as ugly as a gargoyle, because +of the desire that brought it forth—"</p> + +<p>"Do you think that I'm a gargoyle?" queried Susette hastily.</p> + +<p>"Certainly not."</p> + +<p>"Then, why did you call me one?"</p> + +<p>So he had to console her again, and took a certain joy in it, although +she protracted the dear, silly dispute by telling him that he had +chained her to him simply so that he could torture her, and that he had +wanted to spare the princess such suffering, and that therefore it was +clear that he loved the princess more.</p> + +<p>"Why, no," said Gaspard; "as for that, she's really in love with that +young Sieur de Mâcon."</p> + +<p>But thereupon Susette wanted to know how he came to be so well informed +as to the contents of the lady's heart. So the smith gave over any +attempt to reason, except in the silences<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> of his brain; and just +confined his outer activities to cooings and caresses, as Susette would +have him do.</p> + +<p>Yet his thought would persist.</p> + +<p>That was the trail of a great truth he had almost stated back there, +about the place held by desire in the origins of love and beauty. He had +watched a certain Italian named Botticelli do a mural painting in the +duke's private chapel. Lord, there was a passion! He had helped in the +building of the cathedral at Sens. Lord, what fervor the builders put +into their work! They were all like young lovers.</p> + +<p>The smith sat up. It was almost as if he had cornered that glinting moth +of doubt.</p> + +<p>Yes, they had been like young lovers—Sieur Botticelli, in pursuit of +the beautiful; the church-builders in pursuit of God. But—and here was +the point—what if their desire had been satisfied? The quest would have +stopped. The vision of the artist would have faded. The steeple would +have fallen down. For desire would have ceased to exist.</p> + +<p>"I'm hungry and I'm thirsty," said Susette.</p> + +<p>He kissed her pensively. They started home.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p> + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<h3><big>IV.</big></h3> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Gaspard!</span> Gaspard!"</p> + +<p>The smith sat up swiftly on his couch.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>All the same, in spite of certain disquieting dreams, it struck him as +sweet and curious to be awakened like that by Susette. But he perceived +that she was alarmed.</p> + +<p>"Some one hammers at the door," she said.</p> + +<p>Then he heard it himself, that thing he had already been hearing +obscurely in his sleep.</p> + +<p>"Coming!" he yelled. And he smilingly explained to Susette: +<a name="it" id="it"></a><ins title="Original has Its">It's</ins> +my old friend, Joseph, the carter. He'd bring his work to me if he had +to travel five leagues." And he was for jumping up and running to the +door.</p> + +<p>"Wait," cried Susette. "I'll have to go with you, and I can't be seen +like this."</p> + +<p>"That's right," said Gaspard. "That confounded chain! I'd forgotten all +about it." So he called out again to his friend, and the two of them +held quite a conversation while Susette tried to make herself +presentable. But Gaspard turned to her as she shook her hair out for the +third time, starting to rearrange it. "Quick!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> he urged. "He's in a +hurry. One of his horses has cast a shoe."</p> + +<p>"You can't show yourself like that, either," cried Susette, playing for +time.</p> + +<p>"Me?" laughed Gaspard. "I'm a smith. I'd like to see a smith who +couldn't show himself in singlet and apron!"</p> + +<p>"You look like a brigand."</p> + +<p>But he merely laughed: "Joseph won't mind."</p> + +<p>And, indeed, Joseph the carter did appear to have but little thought for +anything except the work in hand. For that matter, neither, apparently, +did Gaspard. After the first few brief civilities and the inevitable +jests about the chain, their attention was absorbed at once by the +horses. There were four of these—Percherons, huge monsters with shaggy +fetlocks and massive feet; yet Joseph and Gaspard went about lifting +these colossal hoofs, and considering them as tenderly as if the two had +been young mothers concerned with the feet of babes.</p> + +<p>At last Susette let out a little cry, and both men turned to look at +her.</p> + +<p>"I faint," she said weakly.</p> + +<p>And Gaspard sprang over and caught her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> in his arms. He was filled with +pity. He was all gentleness.</p> + +<p>"Are you sick?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"It was the odor of the horses," Susette replied in her small voice.</p> + +<p>Joseph the carter seemed to take this as some aspersion on himself. +"Those horses don't smell," he asserted stoutly.</p> + +<p>But Gaspard signaled him to hold his place. "You'll be all right in a +second or so," he told his wife. He spoke gently; although, as a matter +of fact, he himself could find nothing about those magnificent animals +to offend the most delicate sensibility. "You'll be all right. You can +come into the forge and sit down while I shoe the big gray."</p> + +<p>"That will be worse than ever," wailed Susette.</p> + +<p>Joseph the carter was an outspoken man, gruff and honest.</p> + +<p>"And there's a woman for you," he said, "to be not only wed but welded +to a smith! <i>Nom d'un tonnerre!</i> Say, then, Gaspard, I'm in a hurry. +Shall we start with the gray?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Gaspard answered softly, as he continued to support Susette.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>"No, no, no!" cried Susette. "Not to-day! I'm too sick."</p> + +<p>"<i>Mais, chérie</i>," Gaspard began.</p> + +<p>"You love your work better than you do me," sobbed Susette.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nom d'un pourceau!</i>" droned Joseph.</p> + +<p>"But this work is important," Gaspard argued desperately. "The gray has +not only cast a shoe, but the shoes on the others are loose. They've got +to be attended to. It's work that will bring me in a whole <i>écu</i>."</p> + +<p>"I don't care," said Susette. "I can't stand the smell of those horses, +and I could never, never bear the smell of the hot iron on their hoofs."</p> + +<p>"But I'm a smith," argued Gaspard.</p> + +<p>It was his ultimate appeal.</p> + +<p>"I told you that you loved your work more than you did me," whimpered +Susette, beginning to cry. "'<i>I'm a smith; I'm a smith</i>'—that's all +you've talked about since you got me in your power."</p> + +<p>Joseph the carter went away. He did so shaking his head, followed by his +shining Percherons, which were as majestic as elephants, but as gentle +as sheep. There was a tugging at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> Gaspard's heart as he saw them go. +Such horses! And no one could shoe a horse as could he. He looked down +at Susette's bowed head as she lay there cuddled in his arms. That +despairing cry was again swelling in his chest: "But I'm a smith." He +silenced it. He stroked the girl's head.</p> + +<p>As he did so, he was mindful as never before of the clink and jangle of +the chain.</p> + + +<hr class="white" /> + +<h3><big>V.</big></h3> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">What</span> do you want me to do?" he asked that afternoon as they lay out in +the shade of the poplars along the river bank.</p> + +<p>"I want you to love me," she answered.</p> + +<p>"I do love you. But we can't live on love—can we, Susette?—however +pleasant that would be. I've got to work."</p> + +<p>"Ah, your <i>sacré</i> work!"</p> + +<p>"Still, you'll admit that you can't pick up <i>écus</i> in the road."</p> + +<p>"You're thinking still of that miserable carter."</p> + +<p>"No; but I'm thinking of his horses. Somebody's got to shoe them. You +can't let them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> go lame—or be lamed by a bungler. I could have done +that job as it should have been done."</p> + +<p>"But I tell you," declared Susette, pronouncing each word with an +individual stress, "I can't support the grime and the odors and the +racket of your forge. You ought to find some work that I do like. We +could collect wild salads together—pick wild-flowers and sell +them—something like that."</p> + +<p>Gaspard sighed.</p> + +<p>"But a man's work is his work," he averred.</p> + +<p>"There you go again," said Susette, and the accusation was all the more +damning in that it was spoken not in anger, but in grief. "Now that I've +given myself to you—done all that you wished—you want to get rid of +me; you want me to die."</p> + +<p>"Haven't I told you a thousand times," cried Gaspard softly and +passionately, "that I love you more than any man has ever loved any +woman? Haven't I spent whole days and nights—yes, years—of my life +desiring you? Haven't I proven it? Come into my arms, Susette. Ah, when +I have you in my arms like this—"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>"And it's only like this that I know happiness, my love," breathed the +girl. "Yes; I'm jealous! Jealous of everything that can take you from +me, body or spirit, if even for a moment. All women are like that. We +live in jealousy. What's work? What's ambition, honor, duty, gold as +compared with love?"</p> + +<p>But late that night Gaspard the smith roused himself softly from his +couch. He lay there leaning on his elbow and stared out of the window of +his cottage. Susette stirred at his side, undisturbed by the metallic +clinking. Otherwise the night was one of engulfing, mystical silence.</p> + +<p>Just outside the cottage the great river Rhone flowed placid and free in +the light of the young moon. Up from the river-bottoms ran the vine-clad +slopes of Burgundy as fragrant as gardens. There was no wind. It was all +swoon and mystery.</p> + +<p>"Lord God!" cried Gaspard the smith in his heart.</p> + +<p>It was a prayer as much as anything—an inspiration that he couldn't get +otherwise into words.</p> + +<p>He was of that race of artist-craftsmen whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> forged iron and fretted +steel would continue to stir all lovers of beauty for centuries to come.</p> + +<p>"It's true," that inner voice of his spoke again, "that desire is the +driving force of the world. 'Twas desire in the heart of God that led to +creation. 'Tis so with us, His creatures—desire that makes us love and +embellish. But when desire is satisfied, then desire is dead, and +then—and then—"</p> + +<p>And yet, as he lay there, buffeted by an emotion which he either would +not or could not express, his eyes gradually focused on the castle of +the great Duke of Burgundy up there on top of the hill—washed in +moonlight, dim and vast; and it was as if he could see the Princess +Gabrielle at her casement, kneeling there, communing with the night as +he was doing.</p> + +<p>Did she weep?</p> + +<p>He had caught that message in her eyes as she had looked at him up there +in the castle hall—had seen the same message before.</p> + +<p>But never had she looked so beautiful—or as she looked now in +retrospect—skin so white, mouth so tender, shape so stately, yet so +slim and graceful. Oddly enough, thought of her now filled him with a +vibrancy, with a longing.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>And brave! Hadn't she shown herself to be brave though—to stand up like +that there before her grandfather, him whom all Europe called Louis the +Terrible, and declare herself ready to be welded to the man of her +choice! She wouldn't faint in the presence of horses! And where couldn't +a man go if led by a guardian angel like that? Slaves had become +emperors; blacksmiths had forged armies, become the architects of +cathedrals.</p> + +<p>His breathing went deep, then deeper yet. The sweat was on his brow. He +sat up. He seized the chain in his powerful hands, made as if he were +going to tear it asunder.</p> + +<p>But after that moment of straining silence he again lifted his face.</p> + +<p>"<i>Seigneur-Dieu</i>," he panted; "if—if I only had it to do over again!"</p> + + +<p>VI.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">It's</span> Gaspard the smith," said the frightened page. "He craves +the honor of an interview."</p> + +<p>The duke looked up from his parchment.</p> + +<p>"Gaspard the smith?"</p> + +<p>The duke was seated before the fireplace in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> the hall. The forge had +been removed; and instead there were some logs smoldering there, for the +morning was cool. But his glance recalled the circumstances of his last +encounter with the smith. The watchful page was quick to seize his cue.</p> + +<p>"He comes alone," the page announced.</p> + +<p>The duke gave a start, then began to chuckle.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tiens! Tiens!</i> He comes alone! 'Tis true, this is the time limit I +set. Send the creature in."</p> + +<p>And his highness continued to laugh all the time that the page was gone. +But he laughed softly, for he was alone. Presently he heard a subdued +clinking of steel. He greeted his subject with a sly smile.</p> + +<p>Most subjects of Louis the Terrible would have been overjoyed to be +received by their sovereign so graciously. But Gaspard the smith showed +no special joy. He wasn't nearly so proud, either, as he had been that +other time he had appeared before his lord. He bent his knee. He +remained kneeling until the duke told him to get up. The duke was still +smiling.</p> + +<p>"So my three days were enough," said his highness.</p> + +<p>"Enough and sufficient," quoth the smith.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>Now that he was on his feet again he was once more the man. He and the +duke looked at each other almost as equals.</p> + +<p>"Tell me about it," said Louis.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll tell you," Gaspard began; "you see, I'm a smith."</p> + +<p>"But incapable of forging a chain strong enough to hold a woman."</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure," Gaspard replied. "It was a good chain."</p> + +<p>He put out his left wrist and examined it. The steel handcuff was still +there. Up and back from it ran the chain which the smith had been +carrying over his shoulder. He hauled the chain down. He displayed the +other end of it, still ornamented by the companion bracelet.</p> + +<p>"What happened? How did she get out of it?" queried the duke.</p> + +<p>"She got thin," Gaspard responded with melancholy. "She didn't want me +to work. She wanted the money that I could earn. Yes. She even wanted me +to work. But it had to be her kind of work; something—something—how +shall I say it?—something that wouldn't interfere with our love."</p> + +<p>"And you didn't love her?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>"Sure I loved her," flared the smith. "Eh—<i>bon Dieu</i>! I wouldn't have +coupled up with her if I hadn't loved her; but, also, I loved something +else. I loved my work. I'm a smith. I'm a shoer of horses, a forger of +iron, a worker in steel. I'm what the good God made me, and I've the +good God's work to do!</p> + +<p>"So after a certain amount of honeymoon I had to get back to my forge. +Joseph the carter, his Percherons; who could shoe them but me?"</p> + +<p>"And she didn't like that?"</p> + +<p>"No. When I made her sit in my forge she pined and whined and refused to +eat. I was crazy. But I did my work. And this morning when I awoke I +found that she had slipped away."</p> + +<p>"You were already enchained," said his highness, "by your work."</p> + +<p>The smith misunderstood.</p> + +<p>"You can see it was no trick chain," he said, holding up the chain he +himself had forged and playing with the links.</p> + +<p>"Aye," said the duke, for he loved these philosophic disquisitions, when +he was in the mood for them. "Aye, chains are the nature of the +universe. The planets are chained. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> immortal soul is chained to the +mortal body. The body itself is chained to its lusts and frailties."</p> + +<p>"I'm a smith," said Gaspard, "and I want to work."</p> + +<p>"We're not happy when we are chained," the duke continued to reflect +aloud. "But I doubt that we'd be happier were our chains to disappear. +<a name="comma" id="comma"></a><ins title="Comma removed">No matter</ins>." He regarded Gaspard the smith with real benignancy. +"At least you've proven the fatal quality of one particular chain—the +thing I wanted to prove. And—you've saved the princess."</p> + +<p>"'Twas of her I wanted to speak," Gaspard spoke up. "This is a good +chain. I forged it myself."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know you're a smith," said the duke.</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said Gaspard, "I've been thinking. Suppose—now that I've +still got it on me—that we try it on the princess, after all." He +noticed the duke's look of amazement. "I'm willing," said Gaspard. "I'm +willing to have another try—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Dieu de bon Dieu!</i>" quoth the duke. "Never content!" He recovered +himself. He felt kindly toward the smith. "Haven't you heard?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> he +demanded. "The princess has forged a chain of her own. She eloped with +that young Sieur de Mâcon the same day you declined to chain her to +yourself."</p> + +<hr /> + + +<div class="tn"> +<h4>Transcriber's Note:</h4> + +<p class="noi">Spelling, punctuation and grammar have been retained except as follows:</p> + +<table summary="Transcriber's Notes"> +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 18</td> +<td class="tnl2"> bear of leaves <i>changed to</i><br /> + <a href="#bare">bare</a> of leaves</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 36</td> +<td class="tnl2">enternal laws of logic <i>changed to</i><br /> + <a href="#eternal">eternal</a> laws of logic</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 47</td> +<td class="tnl2"> + what has love to <i>changed to</i><br /> + what has love to <a href="#do">do</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 56</td> +<td class="tnl2"> + completely locked the hall <i>changed to</i><br /> + completely <a href="#blocked">blocked</a> the hall</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 76</td> +<td class="tnl2"> + borne a thousand times <i>changed to</i><br /> + <a href="#born">born</a> a thousand times</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 78</td> +<td class="tnl2"> + but the were frozen <i>changed to</i><br /> + but <a href="#they">they</a> were frozen</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 85</td> +<td class="tnl2"> + Flourney studied a moment <i>changed to</i><br /> + <a href="#Flournoy1">Flournoy</a> studied a moment</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 86</td> +<td class="tnl2"> + "No!" Flourney snapped <i>changed to</i><br /> + "No!" <a href="#Flournoy2">Flournoy</a> snapped</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 111</td> +<td class="tnl2"> + enlightened her igorance <i>changed to</i><br /> + enlightened her <a href="#ignorance">ignorance</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 116</td> +<td class="tnl2"> + I ain't no bayou <i>changed to</i><br /> + <a href="#quote">"I</a> ain't no bayou</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 145</td> +<td class="tnl2"> + Its my old friend <i>changed to</i><br /> + <a href="#it">It's</a> my old friend</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td class="tnl">Page 158</td> +<td class="tnl2"> + No, matter <i>changed to</i><br /> + <a href="#comma">No matter</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ten-foot Chain, by +Achmed Abdullah and Max Brand and E. K. Means and P. P. 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K. Means and P. P. Sheehan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Ten-foot Chain + or, Can Love Survive the Shackles? A Unique Symposium + +Author: Achmed Abdullah + Max Brand + E. K. Means + P. P. Sheehan + +Release Date: June 27, 2010 [EBook #32996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TEN-FOOT CHAIN *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE TEN-FOOT CHAIN + +OR CAN LOVE SURVIVE THE SHACKLES? + + + + +[Illustration: "WHEN I LOOK INTO YOUR FACE THE SUN RISES AND THE BOAT OF +MY LIFE ROCKS ON THE DANCING WAVES OF PASSION."] + + + + + THE + TEN-FOOT CHAIN + + OR + + CAN LOVE SURVIVE + THE SHACKLES? + + A UNIQUE SYMPOSIUM + + BY + + ACHMED ABDULLAH + MAX BRAND + E. K. MEANS + P. P. SHEEHAN + + REYNOLDS PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. + NEW YORK + 1920 + + + _Copyright 1920_ + REYNOLDS PUB. CO. Inc. + + _Copyright 1920_ + THE FRANK A. MUNSEY CO. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION 11 + + FIRST TALE + AN INDIAN JATAKA 17 + _By Achmed Abdullah_ + + SECOND TALE + OUT OF THE DARK 45 + _By Max Brand_ + + THIRD TALE + PLUMB NAUSEATED 81 + _By E. K. Means_ + + FOURTH TALE + PRINCESS OR PERCHERON 127 + _By Perley P. Sheehan_ + + + + +_INTRODUCTION_ + + +Some time ago I was dining with four distinguished writers. Needless to +say where two or three authors are gathered together with a sympathetic +editor in their midst, the flood-gates of fancy are opened wide. + +In an inspired moment, Dr. Means tossed this "tremendous trifle" into +the center of the table: "What mental and emotional reaction would a man +and a woman undergo, linked together by a ten-foot chain, for three days +and nights?" The query precipitated an uproar. + +Captain Abdullah stepped into the arena at once, and with that elan of +the heart, which is bred only in the Orient, declared if the man and the +woman really loved one another, no chain could be riveted too close or +too enduring to render onerous its existence. For through this world and +the next, love would hold these twain in ever deeper and tenderer +embrace. + +Then the doctor, who claims he cuts nearer to the realities, insisted no +emotion could bear such a physical impact. The reaction from such an +imposed contact would leave love bereft of life, strangled in its own +golden mesh. Max Brand begged to differ with both of his fellow +craftsmen. With the cold detachment of a mind prepared to see all four +sides of an object and with no personal animus of either prejudice or +prepossession, Mr. Brand averred no blanker conclusion covered the case +in question but in any given instance, the multiple factors of heredity, +environment, habit, and temperament, would largely determine the final +state of both the man and the woman. + +Hereupon, Perley Poore Sheehan, the fourth member of the writing +fraternity present, insisted on a hearing. Mr. Sheehan, nothing daunted +by the naturally polygamous instincts of the male heart, insisted a good +man, once in love, would and could discount the handicap of a ten-foot +chain, since love was after all, as others have contended, not the whole +of a man's life. To be sure it was an integral need, a recurrent +appetite; the glamour and the glory, if you like, enfolding with its +overshadowing wings his house of happiness. As for the woman--well, we +will let Mr. Sheehan report, in person, his conviction as to the +stability of her attachment. + +The editor, whose business it is to keep an open mind, scarcely felt +equal to the responsibility of passing judgment, where experts differed. +But the discussion presented an opportunity which he felt called upon to +develop. Therefore, each of the four authors was invited to present his +conclusions in fiction form, the four stories to be published under the +general caption "The Ten-Foot Chain." Herewith we are printing this +unique symposium, one of the most original series ever presented. + +Naturally, the stories are bound to provoke opinion and raise +discussion. The thesis in the form presented by Dr. Means is quite +novel, but the underlying problem of the stability of human affections, +is as old as the heart of man. Wasn't it that prosaic but wise old poet, +Alexander Pope, who compared our minds to our watches? "No two go just +alike, yet each believes his own." + + + + +FIRST TALE + +AN INDIAN JATAKA + +BY ACHMED ABDULLAH + + _This is the tale which Jehan Tugluk Khan, a wise man in + Tartary, and milk brother to Ghengiz Khan, Emperor of the East + and the North, and Captain General of the Golden Horde, + whispered to the Foolish Virgin who came to him, bringing the + purple, spiked flower of the Kadam-tree as an offering, and + begging him for a love potion with which to hold Haydar Khan, a + young, red-faced warrior from the west who had ridden into camp, + a song on his lips, a woman's breast scarf tied to his tufted + bamboo lance, a necklace of his slain foes' skulls strung about + his massive chest, and sitting astride a white stallion whose + mane was dyed crimson in sign of strife and whose dainty, + dancing feet rang on the rose-red marble pavement of the + emperor's courtyard like crystal bells in the wind of spring._ + + _This is a tale of passion, and, by the same token, a tale of + wisdom. For, in the yellow, placid lands east of the Urals and + west of harsh, sneering Pekin, it is babbled by the toothless + old women who know life, that wisdom and desire are twin sisters + rocked in the same cradle: one speaks while the other sings. + They say that it is the wisdom of passion which makes eternal + the instinct of love._ + + _This is the tale of Vasantasena, the slave who was free in her + own heart, and of Madusadan, a captain of horse, who plucked the + white rose without fearing the thorns._ + + _This, finally, is the tale of Vikramavati, King of Hindustan in + the days of the Golden Age, when Surya, the Sun, warmed the + fields without scorching; when Vanyu, the Wind, filled the air + with the pollen of the many flowers without stripping the trees + bare of leaves; when Varuna, Regent of Water, sang through the + land without destroying the dykes or drowning the lowing cattle + and the little naked children who played at the river's bank; + when Prithwi, the Earth, sustained all and starved none; when + Chandra, the Moon, was as bright and ripening as his elder + brother, the Sun._ + + _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_ + + +Vasantasena was the girl's name, and she came to young King +Vikramavati's court on the tenth day of the dark half of the month +Bhadra. She came as befitted a slave captured in war, with her +henna-stained feet bound together by a thin, golden chain, her white +hands tied behind her back with ropes of pearls, her slim young body +covered with a silken robe of the sad hue of the tamala flower, in sign +of mourning for Dharma, her father, the king of the south, who had +fallen in battle beneath the steel-shod tusks of the war elephants. + +She knelt before the peacock throne, and Vikramavati saw that her face +was as beautiful as the moon on the fourteenth day, that her black locks +were like female snakes, her waist like the waist of a she-lion, her +arms like twin marble columns blue-veined, her skin like the sweetly +scented champaka flower, and her breasts as the young tinduka fruit. + +He looked into her eyes and saw that they were of a deep bronze color, +gold flecked, and with pupils that were black and opaque--eyes that +seemed to hold all the wisdom, all the secret mockery, the secret +knowledge of womanhood--and his hand trembled, and he thought in his +soul that the bountiful hand of Sravanna, the God of Plenty, had been +raised high in the western heaven at the hour of her birth. + +"Remember the words of the Brahmin," grumbled Deo Singh, his old prime +minister who had served his father before him and who was watching him +anxiously, jealously. "'Woman is the greatest robber of all. For other +robbers steal property which is spiritually worthless, such as gold and +diamonds; while woman steals the best--a man's heart, and soul, and +ambition, and strength.' Remember, furthermore, the words of--" + +"Enough croakings for the day, Leaky-Tongue!" cut in Vikramavati, with +the insolent rashness of his twenty-four years. "Go home to your +withered beldame of a wife and pray with her before the altar of unborn +children, and help her clean the household pots. This is the season when +I speak of love!" + +"Whose love--yours or the girl's?" smilingly asked Madusadan, captain of +horse, a man ten years the king's senior, with a mocking, bitter eye, a +great, crimson mouth, a crunching chest, massive, hairy arms, the honey +of eloquence on his tongue, and a mind that was a deer in leaping, a cat +in climbing. Men disliked him because they could not beat him in joust +or tournament; and women feared him because the purity of his life, +which was an open book, gave the lie to his red lips and the +slow-eddying flame in his hooded, brown eyes. "Whose love, wise king?" + +But the latter did not hear. + +He dismissed the soldiers and ministers and courtiers with an impatient +gesture, and stepped down from his peacock throne. + +"Fool!" said Madusadan, as he looked through a slit in the curtain from +an inner room and saw that the king was raising Vasantasena to her feet; +saw, too, the derisive patience in her golden eyes. + +"A fool--though a king versed in statecraft!" he whispered into the ear +of Shivadevi, Vasantasena's shriveled, gnarled hill nurse who had +followed her mistress into captivity. + +"Thee! A fool indeed!" cackled the old nurse as, side by side with the +captain of horse, she listened to the tale of love the king was +spreading before the slave girl's narrow, white feet, as Kama-Deva, the +young God of Passion, spread the tale of his longing before Rati, his +wife, with the voice of the cuckoo, the humming-bee in mating time, and +the southern breeze laden with lotus. + +"You came to me a slave captured among the crackling spears of battle," +said Vikramavati, "and behold, it is I who am the slave. For your sake I +would sin the many sins. For the sake of one of your precious eyelashes +I would spit on the names of the gods and slaughter the holy cow. You +are a light shining in a dark house. Your body is a garden of strange +and glorious flowers which I gather in the gloom. I feel the savor and +shade of your dim tresses, and think of the home land where the hill +winds sweep. + +"My love for you is as the soft sweetness of wild honey which the bees +of the forest have gathered among the perfumed asoka flowers--sweet and +warm, but with a sharp after-taste to prick the tongue and set the body +eternally longing. To hold you I would throw a noose around the far +stars. I give you all I have, all I am, all I shall ever be, and it +would not be the thousandth part of my love for you. See! My heart is a +carpet for your little lisping feet. Step gently, child!" + +Vasantasena replied never a word. With unwinking, opaque eyes, she +stared beyond the king, at a slit in the curtain which separated the +throne-room from the inner apartment. For through the embroidered folds +of the brocade, a great, hairy, brown, high-veined hand was thrust, the +broad thumb wagging mockingly, meaningly, like a shadow of fate. + +And she remembered the huge star sapphire set in hammered silver that +twinkled on the thumb like a cresset of passion. She remembered how that +hand had plucked her from amidst the horse's trampling feet and the +sword-rimmed wheels of the war-chariots as she crouched low above her +father's body. She remembered the voice that had come to her, clear +through the clamor and din of battle, the braying of the conches, the +neighing of the stallions, the shrill, angry trumpeting of the +elephants-- + +A voice sharp, compelling, bitter-- + +"Captive to my bow and spear, little flower, but a slave for the king, +my master. For such is the law of Hind. He will love you--not being +altogether a fool. But perhaps you will not love him. Being but a +stammering virgin boy, perhaps he will heap your lap with all the +treasures in the world. Being an honest gentleman, perhaps he will treat +you with respect and tenderness, with the sweet fairness of the blessed +gods. And perhaps--even then--you will not love him, little flower. + +"Perhaps you will turn to the captain of horse as the moon rises like a +bubble of passion from the deep red of the sunset. Perhaps you will read +the meaning of the koel-bird's love-cry, the secret of the jessamine's +scent, the sweet, throbbing, winglike call of all the unborn children in +the heart and body and soul of Madusadan, captain of horse." + +"A bold man, this captain of horse!" Vasantasena had smiled through her +tears, through the savage clang of battle. + +"A reckless man--yet a humble man, little flower. Reckless and humble as +the moist spring monsoon that sweeps over the young shoots of +bluish-white rice. For"--here he had put her in front of him, on the +curve of the peaked, bossed saddle--"will the rice ripen to the touch of +the savage, clamoring monsoon?" + +And he had drawn slightly away from her. He had not even kissed her, +though they were shielded from all the world by the folds of the great +battle flag that was stiff with gold, stiffer with darkening gore. In +the fluttering heart of Vasantasena rose a great longing for this +insolent warrior who spoke of love--and touched her not. + + _This is the tale of the grape that is never pressed, that never + loses its sweetness, though white hands squeeze its pulp, day + after day, night after night._ + + _This is the tale of the book that is never read to the end, + though eyes, moist and smarting with longing, read its pages + till the candles gutter out in the gray dawn wind and the young + sun sings its cosmic song out of the East, purple and golden._ + + _This is the tale of love which rises like a mist of ineffable + calm, then sweeps along on the red wings of eternal desire--the + tale of love that is a chain forged of steel and scent, a chain + of unbreakable steel mated to the pollen of the glistening + areka-flower._ + + _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_ + +"See!" said Shivadevi, the old nurse, to Vasantasena, who shimmered +among the green, silken cushions of her couch like a tiger-beetle in a +nest of fresh leaves. "Vikramavati, the king, has bowed low before you. +He has removed from your hands and ankles the pearl and gold fetters. He +has taken off your robe of mourning and has thrown about your shoulders +a sari woven of moonbeams and running water. He has seated you beside +him on the peacock throne, as a free woman--not a slave." + +"Yes," replied Vasantasena. "He has placed his head and his heart on the +sill of the door of love. He brought me his soul as an offering. And +I"--she yawned--"I love him not." + +"He has heaped your lap with many treasures," went on the old woman. +"Jasper from the Punjab has he brought to you, rubies from Burma, +turquoises from Thibet, star-sapphires and alexandrites from Ceylon, +flawless emeralds from Afghanistan, white crystal from Malwa, onyx from +Persia, amethyst from Tartary, green jade and white jade from Amoy, +garnets from Bundelkhand, red corals from Socotra, chalcedon from Syria, +malachite from Kafiristan, pearls from Ramesvaram, lapis lazuli from +Jaffra, yellow diamonds from Poonah, black agate from Dynbhulpoor!" + +Vasantasena shrugged her slim shoulders disdainfully. + +"Yes," she said. "He put the nightingale in a cage of gold and +exclaimed: 'Behold, this is thy native land!' Then he opened the +door--and the nightingale flew away to the green land, the free land, +never regretting the golden cage." + +"He grovels before you in the dust of humility. He says that his life is +a blackened crucible of sin and vanity and regret, but that his love +for you is the golden bead at the bottom of the crucible. He has given +you freedom. He has given you friendship. He has given you tenderness +and affection and respect." + +"Yes," smiled Vasantasena. "He has given me his everything, his all. +Without cavil, without stint. Freedom he has given me, keeping the +bitter water of humility as his own portion. But all his generosity, his +fairness, his humility, his decency--all his love has not opened the +inner door to the shrine of my heart. In the night he comes, with the +flaming torches of his passion; but my heart is as cold as clay, as cold +as freezing water when the snow wind booms down from the Himalayas. The +madness of the storm and the waves is upon him, but there is no +answering surge in the tide of my soul. In my heart he sees the world +golden and white and flashing with laughter. In his heart I see the +world grim and drab and haggard and seamed with tears. For--generous, +fair, unstinting--he is also selfish and foolish, being a man unwise in +the tortuous, glorious ways of love. Daily he tells me that I am the +well of his love. But never does he ask me if his love is the stone of +my contentment." + +"Perhaps he does not dare," cackled the old nurse. + +"Being modest?" + +"Yes." + +"Only the selfish are modest, caring naught for the answering spark in +the heart of the loved one. And the love of woman is destroyed by humble +selfishness as the religion of a Brahmin by serving kings, the milk of a +cow by distant pasturage, and wealth by committing injustice. There is +no worth in such wealth--nor in such love. This is Veda-truth." + +And in a high, proud voice she added: + +"I love Madusadan, captain of horse. I will kiss his red, mocking lips +and bend to the thrill of his strong body. Pure he is to all the world, +to all women--so the bazaar gossip says--but I, and I alone, shall light +the lamp of passion in his heart. Free am I! But the unsung music in his +heart shall be a loved fetter around mine. Clasped in his arms, life and +death shall unite in me in an unbreakable chain. + +"I will bury my hands deep in the savage, tangled forest that is his +soul and follow therein the many trails. I will read the message of his +hooded, brown eyes, the trembling message of his great, hairy hands. His +heart is a crimson malati-flower, and mine the tawny orchid spotted with +purple that winds around its roots." + +"Gray is the hair on his temples. He is the king's senior by ten years." + +"Years of wisdom," laughed Vasantasena. "Years of waiting. Years of +garnering strength." + +"He is not as kindly as Vikramavati, nor as great, nor as generous." + +"But he is wise--wise! He knows the heart of woman--the essence, the +innermost secret of woman." + +"And that is--" + +"Patience in achieving. Strength in holding. Wisdom in--_not_ demanding +unless the woman offers and gives sign." + +And she went out into the garden that stretched back of the palace in +wild, scented profusion, bunching its majestic, columnar aisles of +banyan figs as a foil for the dainty, pale green tracery of the +nim-trees, the quivering, crimson domes of the peepals bearded to the +waist with gray and orange moss, where the little, bold-eye gekko +lizards slipped like narrow, green flags through the golden, perfumed +fretwork of the chandela bushes and wild parrots screeched overhead with +burnished wings; and there she met Madusadan, captain of horse, whom she +had summoned by a scribbled note earlier in the day, and her veil +slipped, and her white feet were like trembling flowers, and she pressed +her red mouth on his and rested in his arms like a tired child. + + _The road of desire runs beneath the feet all day and all night, + says the tale. There is no beginning to this road, nor end. Out + of the nowhere it comes, vanishing, yet never vanishing in the + nowhere; renewing each morning, after nights of love, the + eternal miracle, the never-ending virginity of passion._ + + _You cannot end the endless chain of it, says the tale. You + cannot hush the murmur of the sea which fills the air, rising + to the white, beckoning finger of Chandra, the Moon._ + + _Love's play is worship._ + + _Love's achievement is a rite._ + + _Love's secret is never read._ + + _Always around the corner is another light, a new light--golden, + twinkling, mocking, like the will-o'-the-wisp._ + + _Reach to it--as you never will--and there is the end of the + chain, the end of the tale._ + + _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_ + +"You broke your faith, faithless woman!" said Vikramavati as he saw +Vasantasena in the arms of Madusadan, captain of horse. + +The girl smiled. + +"It was you who spoke of love," she replied, "not I." + +"I tried to conquer your love by the greatness of my own love." + +"As a fool tries to take out a thorn in his foot by a thorn in his +hand." + +"I gave you freedom. I gave you the wealth of all Hindustan, the wealth +of the outer lands. I gave you my soul, my heart, my body, my strength, +my ambition, my faith, my secret self." + +"You gave me everything--because you love me. I gave you +nothing--because I do not love you." + +"Love can do the impossible," gravely said the captain of horse, while +Vasantasena nestled more closely to his arms. "It was because of love +that Vishnu, the Creator, changed into a dwarf and descended to the +lowermost regions, and there captured Bali, the Raja of Heaven and of +Earth. It was because of love that, as Ramachandra, helped by the monkey +folk, he built a bridge between India and Ceylon, and that, as Krishna, +he lifted up the great mountain Golonddhan in the palm of his hand as an +umbrella with which to shield his loved one against the splintering, +merciless rays of Surya, the Sun, the jealous, yellow god. + +"Love can do all things--except one. For love can never create love, +wise king. Love can force the stream to flow up-hill, but it cannot +create the stream when there is no water." + +Silence dropped like a shadow of fate, and Vikramavati turned slowly +and walked toward the palace. + +"To-morrow," he said over his shoulder, in an even, passionless voice, +"you shall die a death of lingering agony." + +Madusadan laughed lightly. + +"There is neither to-day nor to-morrow nor yesterday for those who +love," he replied. "There is only the pigeon-blue of the sunlit sky, the +crimson and gold of the harvest-fields, the laughter of the far waters. +Love fills the cup of infinity." + +"To-morrow you will be dead," the king repeated dully. + +And again Madusadan laughed lightly. + +"And what then, O wise king, trained in the rigid logic of Brahmin and +Parohitas?" he asked. "Will our death do away with the fact that once we +lived and, living, loved each other? Will the scarlet of our death wipe +out the streaked gray of your jealousy? Will our death give you the love +of Vasantasena, which never was yours in life? Will our death rob our +souls of the memory of the great sweetness which was ours, the beauty, +the glory, the never-ending thrill of fulfillment?" + +"Love ceases with death." + +"Love, wise king, is unswayed by the rhythm of either life--or death. +Love--that surges day after day, night after night, as year after year +the breast of the earth heaves to the spring song of the ripening rice, +to the golden fruit of the mango groves. + +"Death? A fig for it, wise king! + +"Let me but live until to-morrow in the arms of my loved one, and the +sweetness of our love shall be an unbreakable chain--on through a +thousand deaths, a thousand new births, straight into Nirvana--into +Brahm's silver soul!" + +"Ahee!" echoed Vasantasena. "Let death come and the wind of life lull; +let the light fail and the flowers wilt and droop; let the stars gutter +out one by one and the cosmos crumble in the gray storm of final +oblivion--yet will our love be an unbreakable chain, defying you, O +king--defying the world--defying the very gods--" + +"But not defying the laws of nature, as interpreted by a wise Brahmin!" +a shrill, age-cracked voice broke in, and Deo Singh, the old prime +minister who had come down the garden trail on silent, slippered feet, +stepped into the open. + +"No! By Shiva and by Shiva! Not the laws of nature, the eternal laws of +logic, as interpreted by a priest well versed in Sruti and Smriti--in +revelation and tradition. Not the laws of nature, rational and +evidential, physical and metaphysical, analytical and synthetical, +philosophical, and philological, as expounded by a Parohita familiar +with the Vedas and the blessed wisdom of the ancient Upanishads of +Hind!" + +He salaamed low before Vikramavati. + +"It is written in the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Books, the Lay of Brahm +the Lord, that each crime shall find condign punishment, be it committed +by high caste or low caste, by prince or peasant, by raja or ryot. To +each his punishment, says the Karma, which is fate!" + +"And--these two?" demanded Vikramavati. "What punishment shall be meted +out to the faithless woman and the faithless captain of horse, Brahmin?" + +Deo Singh spread out his fingers like the sticks of a fan. + +"They have chosen their own sentence, these worshipers of Kartikeya, God +of Rogues and Rascals," he chuckled. "Of a chain they spoke. An +unbreakable chain that defies all laws, except belike"--again he laughed +deep in his throat--"the wise laws of nature. Weld them together with +such a chain, forged by a master smith, made so strong that not even a +tough-thewed captain of horse may break it with the clouting muscles of +his arms and back. A chain, ten feet long, so that they may never be far +away from each other, so that they may always be able to slake the hot, +turbulent thirst of love, so that they may never have to wait for the +thrill of fulfillment as a beggar waits at life's feast, so that day and +night, each hour, each minute, each second they may revel in the +sunshine of their love, so that never they may have to stand helpless +before the flood-tide of their desire. + +"Grant them their wish, O king, being wise and merciful; and then lock +them into a room containing the choicest food, the sweetest drinks, the +whitest flowers, the softest, silkenest couch draped with purple and +gold. A room such as lovers dream of--and fools! Leave them there +together for three days, three nights, three sobbing, crunching, killing +eternities! With no sound, no touch, no scent, no taste, but their own +voices, their own hearts and souls and minds and bodies! And at the end +of the three days----" + +"Yes?" asked Vikramavati. + +"They will have suffered the worst punishment, the worst agony on earth. +Slowly, slowly for three days, three nights, three eternities, they will +have watched the honey of their love turn, drop by drop, into gall. +Their passion--slowly, slowly--will turn into loathing; their desire +into disgust. For no love in the world can survive the chain of +monotony!" + + * * * * * + +Thus it was done. + +A chain of unbreakable steel, ten feet long, was welded to the girl's +right wrist and the man's left, and they were locked into a house--a +house such as lovers dream of--that was guarded day and night by armed +warriors, who let none within hailing distance, whose windows were +shuttered and curtained so that not even the golden eye of the sun might +look in, and around which a vast circular clearing had been made with +torch and spade and scimitar so that neither bird nor insect nor beast +of forest and jungle might live there and no sound drift into the +lovers' room except, perhaps, the crooning sob of the dawn wind; and at +the end of the third night carefully, stealthily, silently the king and +the Brahmin walked up to the house and pressed their ears against the +keyhole, and they heard the man's voice saying: + +"I love you, little flower of my happiness! I love you--you who are all +my dreams come true! When I look into your face the sun rises, and the +waters bring the call of the deep, and the boat of my life rocks on the +dancing waves of passion!" + +And then the girl's answer, clear, serene: + +"And I love _you_, Madusadan, captain of horse! You have broken the +fetters of my loneliness, the shackles of my longing! I waited, waited, +waited--but you came, and I shall never let you go again! You have +banished all the drab, sad dreams of the past! You have made your heart +a prison for my love, and you have tossed away the key into the +turbulent whirlpool of my eternal desire!" + + _"Did the chain gall them?" asked the Foolish Virgin, who had + come to Jehan Tugluk Khan, a wise man in Tartary and milk + brother to Ghengiz Khan, Emperor of the East and the North and + Captain General of the Golden Horde._ + + _"No, Foolish Virgin," replied Jehan Tugluk Khan. "Their love + could not have lived without the chain. It was their love which + WAS the chain--made it, held it, welded it, eternal, unbreaking, + unbreakable. Ten feet long was the chain. Each foot of + steel--eternal, unbreaking, unbreakable--was a link of their + love, and these links were: Passion, patience, completion, + friendship, tolerance, understanding, tenderness, forgiveness, + service, humor."_ + + _This is the end of the tale of Vasantasena, the slave who was + free in her own heart, and of Madusadan, a captain of horse, who + plucked the white rose without fearing the thorns._ + + _And, says the tale, if you would make your chain doubly + unbreakable, add another foot to it, another link. There is no + word for it. But, by the strength and sense of it, you must + never lull your love to sleep in the soft cradle of too great + security._ + + _For love demands eternal vigilance._ + + _LISTEN, O AZZIA, O BELOVED, TO MY JATAKA!_ + + + + +SECOND TALE + +OUT OF THE DARK + +BY MAX BRAND + + +The principality of Pornia is not a large country and in the ordinary +course of history it should have been swallowed entire, centuries ago, +by one of the kingdoms which surround it. Its situation has saved it +from this fate, for it is the buffer state between two great monarchies +whose jealousy has preserved for Pornia an independent existence. + +Despite its independence, Pornia has never received much consideration +from the rest of Europe, and the aim of its princes for many generations +has been to foist it into the great councils by a strong alliance with +one of the two kingdoms to which it serves as a buffer. + +The long-desired opportunity came at last in the reign of Alexander VI, +who, one morning, commanded Rudolph of Herzvina to appear at the palace. +As soon as the worthy old baron appeared, Alexander spoke to him as +follows: "Rudolph, you are an old and respected counselor, a devoted +servant of the State, and therefore I am delighted to announce that the +greatest honor is about to descend upon your family, an honor so great +that the entire State of Pornia will be elevated thereby. The Crown +Prince Charles wishes to make your daughter his wife!" + +At this he stepped back, the better to note the joy with which old +Rudolph would receive this announcement, but, to his astonishment, the +baron merely bowed his head and sighed. + +"Your highness," said Rudolph of Herzvina, "I have long known of the +attachment which the crown prince has for my daughter, Bertha, but I +fear that the marriage can never be consummated." + +"Come, come!" said the prince genially. "It is a far leap indeed from +Baron of Herzvina to father-in-law to Prince Charles, but there have +been stranger things in history than this, though never anything that +could so effectually elevate Pornia. Have no fear of Charles. He loves +your daughter; he is strong-minded as the very devil; he will override +any opposition from his father. As a matter of fact, it is no secret +that Charles is already practically the ruler over his kingdom. So +rejoice, Herzvina, and I will rejoice with you!" + +But the baron merely shook his head sadly and repeated: "I fear the +marriage can never be consummated." + +"Why not?" said the prince in some heat. "I tell you, his royal highness +loves the girl. I could read passion even in the stilted language of his +ambassador's message. Why not?" + +"I was not thinking of his royal highness, but of the girl. She will not +marry him." + +The prince dropped into a chair with jarring suddenness. + +Rudolph continued hastily: "I have talked with Bertha many times and +seriously of the matter; I have tried to convince her of her duty; but +she will not hear me. The foolish girl says she does not love his +highness." + +The prince smote his hands together in an ecstasy of impatience. + +"Love! Love! In the name of God, Herzvina, what has love to do with +this? This is the thing for which Pornia has waited during centuries. +Through this alliance I can make a treaty that will place Pornia once +and forever upon the map of the diplomatic powers. Love!" + +"I have said all this to her, but she is obdurate." + +"Does she expect some fairy prince? She is not a child; she is not +even--forgive me--beautiful." + +"True. She is not even pretty, but even homely women, your highness, +will sometimes think of love. It is a weakness of the sex." + +He was not satirical; he was very earnest indeed. He continued: "I have +tried every persuasion. She only says in reply: 'He is too old. I cannot +love him.'" + +An inspiration came to Alexander of Pornia. Under the stress of it he +rose and so far forgot himself as to clap a hand upon the shoulder of +Herzvina. In so doing he had to reach up almost as high as his head, for +the princes of Pornia have been small men, time out of mind. + +"Baron," he said, "will you let me try my hand at persuasion?" + +"It would be an honor, sire. My family is ever at the disposal of my +prince." + +He answered with a touch of emotion: "I know it, Rudolph; but will you +trust the girl in my hands for a number of days? A thought has come to +me. I know I can convince her that this love of which she dreams is a +thing of the flesh alone, a physical necessity. Come, send her to me, +and I shall tear away her illusions. She will not thank me for it, but +she will marry the crown prince." + +"I will send her to the palace to-day." + +"Very good; and first tell her why I wish to speak with her. It may be +that of herself she will change her mind when she learns the wishes of +her prince. Farewell." + +And the prince rode off to a review of the troops of the city guard. So +it was that Bertha of Herzvina sat for a long time in a lonely room, +after her arrival at the palace before the door opened, a man in livery +bowed for the entrance of the prince, and she found herself alone with +her sovereign. + +Automatically she curtsied, and he let her remain bowed while he slowly +drew off his white gloves. He still wore his general's uniform with the +stiff padding which would not allow his body to grow old, for a prince +of Pornia must always look the soldier. + +"Sit down," he ordered, and as she obeyed he commenced to walk the room. + +He never sat quietly through an interview if he could avoid it; a +constitutional weakness of the nerves made it almost impossible for him +to meet another person's eyes. The pacing up and down gave a plausible +reason for the continual shifting of his glance. + +"A good day, a very good day," he said. "The hussars were wonderful." + +His shoulders strained further back. The prince himself always rode at +the head of the hussars; in her childhood she had admired him. He +stopped at a window and hummed a marching air. That was a planned +maneuver, for his back was far more royal than his face, with its tall +forehead and diminutive mouth and chin. She felt as if she were in the +presence of a uniformed automaton. + +He broke off his humming and spoke without turning. + +"Well?" + +"My decision is unchanged." + +"Impossible! In the length of a whole day even a woman must think +twice." + +"Yes, many times." + +"You will not marry him?" + +"I cannot love him." + +He whirled, and the pale blue eyes flashed at her a brief glance which +made her cringe. It was as if an X-ray had been turned on her heart. + +"Love!" he said softly, and she shuddered again. "Because he is old? +Bertha, you are no longer a child. Other women marry for what they may +term love. It is your privilege to marry for the State. That is the +nobler thing." + +He smiled and nodded, repeating for his own ear: "The nobler thing! What +is greater than such service--what is more glorious than to forget self +and marry for the good of the thousands?" + +"I have an obligation to myself." + +"Who has filled you with so many childish ideas?" + +"They have grown of themselves, sire." + +The pacing up and down the room recommenced. "Child, have you no desire +to serve me? I mean, your country?" + +She answered slowly, as if feeling for her words: "It is impossible that +I should be able to serve you through my dishonor. If I should marry +the crown prince, my life would be one long sleep, sire. I would not +dare awaken to the reality." + +His head tilted and he laughed noiselessly. A weakness of the throat +prevented him from raising his voice even in times of the greatest +excitement. + +"A soul that sleeps, eh? The kiss of love will awaken it?" + +He surveyed her with brief disdain. + +"My dear, you scorn titles, and yet as an untitled woman you are not a +match for the first red-faced tradesman's daughter. Stand up!" + +She rose and he led her in front of a pier glass. Solemnly he studied +her pale image. + +"A sleeping soul!" he repeated. + +She covered her face. + +"Will that bait catch the errant lover, Bertha?" + +"God will make up the difference." + +He cursed softly. She had not known he could be so moved. + +"Poor child, let me talk with you." + +He led her back to a chair almost with kindness and sat somewhat behind +her so that he need not meet her eyes. + +"This love you wait for--it is not a full-grown god, dear girl, but a +blind child. Given a man and a woman and a certain propinquity, and +nature does the rest. We put a mask on nature and call it love, we name +an abstraction and call it God. Love! Love! Love! It is a pretty +disguise--no more. Do you understand?" + +"I will not." + +She listened to his quick breathing. + +"Bertha, if I were to chain you with a ten-foot chain to the first man +off the streets and leave you alone with him for three days, what would +happen?" + +Her hand closed on the arm of the chair. He rose and paced the room as +his idea grew. + +"Your eyes would criticize him and your shame would fight in behalf of +your--soul? And the sight of your shame would keep the man in check. But +suppose the room were dark--suppose you could not see his face and +merely knew that a man was there--suppose _he_ could not see and merely +knew that a woman was there? What would happen? Would it be love? Pah! +Love is no more deified than hunger. If it is satisfied, it goes to +sleep; if it is satiated, it turns to loathing. Aye, at the end of the +three days you would be glad enough to have the ten-foot chain cut. But +first what would happen?" + +The vague terror grew coldly in her, for she could see the idea taking +hold of him like a hand. + +"If I were to do this, the world might term it a shameful thing, but I +act for Pornia--not for myself. I consider only the good of the State. +By this experiment I prove to you that love is not God, but blind +nature. Yes, and if you knew it as it is, would you oppose me longer? +The thought grows upon me! Speak!" + +Her smile made her almost beautiful. + +"Sire, in all the world there is only one man for every woman." + +"Book talk." + +He set his teeth because he could not meet her eyes. + +"And who will bring you this one man?" + +"God." + +Once more the soundless laugh. + +"Then I shall play the part of God. Bertha, you must now make your +decision: a marriage for the good of the State, or the ten-foot chain, +the dark room--and love!" + +"Even you will not dare this, sire." + +"Bertha, there is nothing I do not dare. What would be known? I give +orders that this room be utterly darkened; I send secret police to seize +a man from the city at random and fetter him to a chain in that room; +then I bring you to the room and fasten you to the other end of the +chain, and for three days I have food introduced into the room. Results? +For the man, death; for you, a knowledge first of yourself and, +secondly, of love. The State will benefit." + +"It is bestial--incredible." + +"Bestial? Tut! I play the part of God and even surpass Him. I put you +face to face with a temptation through which you shall come to know +yourself. You lose a dream; you gain a fact. It is well. Shame will +guard the secret in your heart--and the State will benefit. Still you +see that I am paternal--merciful. I do not punish you for your past +obstinacy. I still give you a choice. Bertha, will you marry as I wish, +or will you force me to play the part of God?" + +"I shall not marry." + +"Ah, you will wait for God to make up the difference. It is well--very +well; _le Dieu c'est moi_. Ha! That is greater than the phrase of Louis +XIV. You shall have still more time, but the moment the sun goes down, +if I do not hear from you, I shall ring a bell that will send my secret +police out to seize a man indiscriminately from the masses of the city. +I shall not even stipulate that he be young. My trust in nature +is--absolute. _Adieu!_" + +She made up her mind the moment he left the room. She drew on her cloak. +Before the pier glass she paused. + +"Aye," she murmured, "I could not match the first farmer's daughter. But +still there must be one man in the world--and God will make up the +difference!" + +She threw open the door which gave on a passage leading to a side +entrance. A grenadier of the palace guard jumped to attention and +presented arms. + +"Pardon," he said. + +He completely blocked the hall; the prince had left nothing to chance. +She started to turn back and then hesitated and regarded the man +carefully. + +"Fritz!" she said at last, for she recognized the peasant who had been a +stable-boy on her father's estate before he took service in the +grenadiers. "You are Fritz Barr!" + +He flushed with pleasure. + +"_Madame_ remembers me?" + +"And my little black pony you used to take care of?" + +"Yes, yes!" + +He grinned and nodded; and then she noted a revolver in the holster at +his side. + +"What are your orders, Fritz?" + +"To let no one pass down this hall. I am sorry, _madame_." + +"But if I were to ask you for your revolver?" + +He stirred uneasily and she took money from her purse and gave it to +him. + +"With this you could procure another weapon?" + +He drew a long breath; the temptation was great. + +"I could, _madame_." + +"Then do so. It will never be known from whom I received the gun--and my +need is desperate--desperate!" + +He unbuckled the weapon without a word, and with it in her hand she +returned to the room. + +There was a tall western window, and before this she drew up a chair to +watch the setting of the sun. + +"Will he ring the bell when the edge of the sun touches the hills or +when it is completely set?" she thought. + +The white circle grew yellow; then it took on a taint of orange, bulging +oddly at the sides into a clumsy oval. From the gardens below came a +stir of voices and then the thrill of a girl's laughter. She smiled as +she listened, and, leaning from the window, the west wind blew to her +the scent of flowers. She sat there for a long time, breathing deeply of +the fragrance and noting all the curves of the lawn with a still, sad +pleasure. The green changed from bright to dark; when she looked up the +sun had set. + +As she turned from the gay western sky, the room was doubly dim and the +breeze of the evening set the curtains rustling and whispering. Silence +she was prepared for, but not those ghostly voices, not the shift and +sweep of the shadows. She turned the electric switch, closing her eyes +to blur the shock of the sudden deluge of light. The switch clicked, but +when she opened her eyes the room was still dark; they had cut the +connecting wires. + +Thereafter her mind went mercifully blank, for what she faced was, like +birth and death, beyond comprehension. Noise at the windows roused her +from the daze at last and she found that a number of workmen were +sealing the room so that neither light nor sound could enter or escape. +The only air would be from the ventilator. And still she could not +realize what had happened, what was to happen, until the last sounds of +the workmen ceased and the deep, dread silence began; silence that had a +pulse in it--the beating of her heart. + +She was standing in the middle of the room when the first shapes formed +in the black night, and terror hovered about her suddenly, touching her +as with cold fingers. She felt her way back to a corner and crouched +there against the wall, waiting, waiting. They had seized the doomed +man long before this. They must have bound and gagged him and carried +him to the palace. + +A thousand types of men passed before her inward eye--thin-faced clerks, +men as pale as the belly of a dead fish; bearded monsters, gross and +thick-lipped, with thunderous laughter; laborers, stamped with patient +weariness--and all whom she saw carried the sign of the beast in their +eyes. She tried to pray, but the voice of the prince rang in her ears: +"_Le Dieu, c'est moi!_" and when she named God in her prayers, she +visualized Alexander's face, the pale, small eyes, the colorless hair, +the lofty brow, the mouth whose tight lips could not be disguised by +even the careful mustache. When a key turned in a door, she sprang to +her feet with a cry of horror. + +"It is I," said the prince. + +"I am dying; I cannot stay here; I will marry whom and when you will." + +"Ah, my dear, you should have spoken before sunset. I warned you, and I +never change my mind. It is only for three days, remember. Also, it is +in the interest of science. Beyond that, I have quite taken a fancy to +playing God for you for three days. Do you understand?" + +The even, mocking tones guided her to him. She fell at his feet and +strained his thin knees against her breast. + +"Come! Be reasonable, Bertha. This is justice." + +"Sire, I want no justice. For God's sake, be merciful." + +She heard the shaken breath of his soundless laughter. + +"Is it so? You should be grateful to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing +you the love of which you have dreamed. Ha! Ha! _Le Dieu, c'est moi!_" + +The clanking of the chain which he carried stilled her voice. It hushed +even the thunder of her heart. She rose and waited patiently while the +manacle was affixed to her wrist. The prince crossed the room and tapped +on the door, which opened, and by a faint light from without Bertha +discovered two men carrying a third into the room. She strained her +eyes, but could make out no faces. The burden was laid on the floor; a +metallic sound told her that she was fettered to the unknown. + +The prince said: "You are a brave girl. All may yet be well. Then human +nature is finer than I think. We shall see. As for your lover, your gift +from God, he is sleeping soundly now. It may be an hour before the +effects of the drug wear away. During that time you can think of love. +Food will be placed three times a day within the door yonder. You can +readily find it by feeling your way around the wall. Farewell." + +When the door closed she started to retreat to her corner, but the chain +instantly drew taut with a rattle. Strangely enough, much of her fear +left her now that she was face to face with the danger; temptation, the +prince had called it. She smiled as she remembered. When the man awoke +and learned their situation, she had no doubt as to how he would act. +She had seen the sign of the beast in the eyes of many men, great and +small; she had seen it and understood. The revolver might save her for a +time, but what if she slept? She knew it would be almost impossible to +remain awake during three days and nights. + +The moment her eyes closed the end would come. It seemed better that she +should fire the bullet now. + +When he recovered his senses, it would be difficult to shoot effectively +in the dark, for this was not the gloom of night--it was an absolute +void, black, thick, impenetrable. She could not make out her hand at the +slightest distance from her eyes. He might even attack her from behind +and knock the revolver from her hand before she could shoot. Sooner or +later the man must die. Even if she did not kill him it would be +accomplished by the command of the prince at the end of the three days. + +Far better that it should be done at once--that he should never awaken +from his sleep. She reached the decision calmly and crept forward to +him. Very lightly she passed her hand over his clothes. She had to move +his arm to uncover the breast over his heart; the arm was a limp weight, +but the muscles were firm, round, and solid. The first qualm troubled +her as she realized that this must be a young man, at least a man in the +prime of his physical strength. + +Then it occurred to her that often bullets fired into the breast are +deflected from the heart by bones; it would be far more certain to lay +the muzzle against the temple--press the trigger--the soul would depart. + +The soul! She paused with a thrill of wonder. A little touch would loose +the swift spirit. The soul! For the first time she saw the tragedy from +the viewpoint of the unknown man. His life was cut in the middle; truly +a blind fate had reached out and chosen him from a whole city. Yet she +was merely hastening the inevitable. She reached out and found his +forehead. + +It was broad and high. Tracing it lightly with the tips of her fingers +she discovered two rather prominent lumps of bony structure over the +eyes. Some one had told her that this represented a strong power of +memory. She tried to visualize that feature alone, and very suddenly, as +a face shows when a man lights his cigarette on the street at night, she +saw in memory the figure of Rembrandt's "Portrait of a Young Painter." +He sits at his drawing board, his pencil poised, ready for the stroke +which shall give vital character to his sketch. There is only one high +light, falling on the lower part of the face. Inspiration has tightened +the sensitive mouth; the questing eyes peer out from the shadow of the +soft cap. She broke off from her vision to realize with a start that +when she touched the trigger she would be stepping back through the +centuries and killing her dream of the original of Rembrandt's picture. +A foolish fancy, truly, but in the dark a dream may be as true, as vivid +as reality. + +The unconscious man sighed. She leaned close and listened to his +breathing, soft, hurried, irregular as if he struggled in his sleep, as +if the subconscious mind were calling to the conscious: "Awake! Death is +here!" + +At least there was plenty of time. She need not fire the shot until he +moved. She laid the revolver on her lap and absently allowed her hands +to wander over his face, lingering lightly on each feature. She grew +more alert after a moment. Every particle of her energy was concentrated +on seeing that face--on seeing it through her sense of touch. The blind, +she knew, grow so dextrous that the delicate nerves of their finger tips +record faces almost as accurately as the eyes of the normal person. + +Ah, for one moment of that power! She tried her best. The nose, she told +herself, was straight and well modeled. The eyes, for she traced the +bony structure around them, must be large; the cheek bones high, a sign +of strength; the chin certainly square and prominent; the lips full and +the mouth rather large; the hair waving and thick; the throat large. One +by one she traced each detail and then, moving both hands rather swiftly +over the face, she strove to build the mental picture of the whole--and +she achieved one, but still it was always the young painter whom great +Rembrandt had drawn. The illusion would not go out of her mind. + +An artist's hands, it is said, must be strong and sinewy. She took these +hands and felt the heavy bones of the wrist and strove to estimate the +length of the fingers. It seemed to her that this was an ideal hand for +a painter--it must be both strong and supple. + +He sighed again and stirred; she caught up the weapon with feverish +haste and poised it. + +"Ah, it is well," said the sleeper in his dream. + +She made sure that he was indeed unconscious and then leaned low, +whispering: "Adieu, my dear." + +At some happy vision he laughed softly. His breath touched her face. +Surely he could never know; he had so short a moment left for living; +perhaps this would pass into his latest dream on earth and make it +happy. + +"Adieu!" she whispered again, and her lips pressed on his. + +She laid the muzzle of the revolver against his temple, and, summoning +all her will power, she pressed the trigger. It seemed as if she were +pulling against it with her full strength, and yet there was no report. +Then she realized that all her might was going into an inward struggle. +She summoned to her aid the voice of the prince as he had said: "We put +a mask on nature and call it love; we name an abstraction and call it +God. _Le Dieu, c'est moi!_" She placed the revolver against the temple +of the sleeper; he stirred and disturbed the surety of her direction. +She adjusted the weapon again. + +Up sprang the man, shouting: "Treason! Help!" + +Then he stood silent a long moment; perhaps he was rehearsing the scene +of his seizure. + +"This is death," he muttered at last, "and I am in hell. I have always +known what it would be--dark--utter and bitter loss of light." + +As his hand moved, the chain rattled. He sprang back with such violence +that his lunging weight jerked her to her feet. + +"It is useless to struggle," she cried. + +"A woman! Where am I?" + +"You are lost." + +"But what has happened? In God's name, _madame_, are we chained +together?" + +"We are." + +"By whose power? By whose right and command?" + +"By one against whom we cannot appeal." + +"My crime?" + +"None." + +"For how long--" + +"Three days." + +He heaved a great sigh of relief. + +"It is merely some practical joke, I see. That infernal Franz, I knew he +was meditating mischief! Three days--and then free?" + +"Yes, for then you die." + +Once more he was silent. + +Then: "This is a hideous dream. I will waken from it at once--at once. +My dear lady--" + +She heard him advancing. + +"Keep the chain taut, sir, I am armed; I will fire at the slightest +provocation." + +He stopped and laughed. + +"Come, come! This is not so bad. You have been smiling in your sleep at +me. Up with the lights, my dear. If Franz has engaged you for this +business, let me tell you that I'm a far better fellow than he must have +advertised me. But what a devil he is to rig up such an elaborate hoax! +By Jove, this chain--this darkness--it's enough to turn a fellow's hair +white! The black night gets on my nerves. Lights! Lights! I yearn to see +you; I prophesy your beauty by your voice! Still coy? Then we'll try +persuasion!" + +His breast struck the muzzle of the revolver. + +She said quietly: "If I move my finger a fraction of an inch you die, +sir. And every word I have spoken to you is the truth." + +"Well, well! You do this finely. I shall compliment Franz on rehearsing +you so thoroughly. Is this the fair Daphne of whom he told me--" + +And his hand touched her shoulder. + +"By everything that is sacred, I will fire unless you stand back--back +to the end of the chain." + +"Is it possible? The Middle Ages have returned!" + +He moved back until the light chain was taut. + +"My mind whirls. I try to laugh, but your voice convinces me. _Madame_, +will you explain my situation in words of one syllable?" + +"I have explained it already. You are imprisoned in a place from which +you cannot escape. You will be confined here, held to me by this chain, +for three days. At the end of that time you die." + +"Will you swear this is the truth?" + +"Name any oath and I will repeat it." + +"There's no need," he said. "No, it cannot be a jest. Franz would never +risk the use of a drug, wild as he is. Some other power has taken me. +What reason lies behind my arrest?" + +"Think of it as a blind and brutal hand which required a victim and +reached out over the city to find one. The hand fell upon you. There is +no more to say. You can only resign yourself to die an unknown death." + +He said at last: "Not unknown, thank God. I have something which will +live after me." + +Her heart leaped, for she was seeing once more the artist from +Rembrandt's brush. + +"Yes, your paintings will not be forgotten." + +"I feel that they will not, and the name of--" + +"Do not speak of it!" + +"Why?" + +"I must not hear your name." + +"But you know it already. You spoke of my painting." + +"I have never seen your face; I have never heard your name; you were +brought to me in this room darkened as you find it now." + +"Yet you knew--" + +Her voice was marvelously low: "I touched your face, sir, and in some +way I knew." + +After a time he said: "I believe you. This miracle is no greater than +the others. But why do you not wish to know my name?" + +"I may live after you, and when I see your pictures I do not wish to +say: 'This is his work; this is his power; this is his limitation.' Can +you understand?" + +"I will try to." + +"I sat beside you while you were unconscious, and I pictured your face +and your mind for myself. I will not have that picture reduced to +reality." + +"It is a delicate fancy. You are blind? You see by the touch of your +hands?" + +"I am not blind, but I think I have seen your face through the touch." + +"Here! I have stumbled against two chairs. Let us sit down and talk. I +will slide this chair farther away if you wish. Do you fear me?" + +"No, I think I am not afraid. I am only very sad for you. Listen: I have +laid down the revolver. Is that rash?" + +"_Madame_, my life has been clean. Would I stain it now? No, no! Sit +here--so! My hand touches yours--you are not afraid?--and a thrill leaps +through me. Is it the dark that changes all things and gives eyes to +your imagination, or are you really very beautiful?" + +"How shall I say?" + +"Be very frank, for I am a dying man, am I not? And I should hear the +truth." + +"You are a profound lover of the beautiful?" + +"I am a painter, _madame_." + +She called up the image of her face--the dingy brown hair, long and +silken, to be sure; the colorless, small eyes; the common features which +the first red-skinned farmer's daughter could overmatch. + +"Describe me as you imagine me. I will tell you when you are wrong." + +"May I touch you, _madame_, as you touched me? Or would that trouble +you?" + +She hesitated, but it seemed to her that the questing eyes of +Rembrandt's portrait looked upon her through the dark--eyes reverent and +eager at once. + +She said: "You may do as you will." + +His unmanacled hand went up, found her hair, passed slowly over its +folds. + +"It is like silk to the touch, but far more delicate, for there is life +in every thread of it. It is abundant and long. Ah, it must shine when +the sun strikes upon it! It is golden hair, _madame_, no pale-yellow +like sea-sand, but glorious gold, and when it hangs across the +whiteness of your throat and bosom the hearts of men stir. Speak! Tell +me I have named it!" + +She waited till the sob grew smaller in her throat. + +"Yes, it is golden hair," she said. + +"I could not be wrong." + +His hand passed down her face, fluttering lightly, and she sensed the +eagerness of every touch. Cold fear took hold of her lest those +searching fingers should discover the truth. + +"Your eyes are blue. Yes, yes! Deep-blue for golden hair. It cannot be +otherwise. Speak." + +"God help me!" + +"_Madame?_" + +"I have been too vain of my eyes, sir. Yes, they are blue." + +The fingers were on her cheeks, trembling on her lips, touching chin and +throat. + +"You are divine. It was foredoomed that this should be! Yes, my life has +been one long succession of miracles, but the greatest was reserved +until the end. I have followed my heart through the world in search of +perfect beauty and now I am about to die, I find it. Oh, God! For one +moment with canvas, brush, and the blessed light of the sun! It cannot +be! No miracle is complete; but I carry out into the eternal night one +perfect picture. Canvas and paint? No, no! Your picture must be drawn in +the soul and colored with love. The last miracle and the greatest! Three +days? No, three ages, three centuries of happiness, for are you not +here?" + +Who will say that there is not an eye with which we pierce the night? To +each of these two sitting in the utter dark there came a vision. +Imagination became more real than reality. He saw his ideal of the +woman, that picture which every man carries in his heart to think of in +the times of silence, to see in every void. And she saw her ideal of +manly power. The dark pressed them together as if with the force of +physical hands. For a moment they waited, and in that moment each knew +the heart of the other, for in that utter void of light and sound, they +saw with the eyes of the soul and they heard the music of the spheres. + +Then she seemed to hear the voice of the prince: "You should be grateful +to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing you that love of which you +dreamed. _Le Dieu, c'est moi!_" + +Yes, it was the voice of doom which had spoken from those sardonic lips. +The dark which annihilates time made their love a century old. + +"In all the world," she whispered, "there is one man for every woman. It +is the hand of Heaven which gives me to you." + +"Come closer--so! And here I have your head beside mine as God +foredoomed. Listen! I have power to look through the dark and to see +your eyes--how blue they are!--and to read your soul beneath them. We +have scarcely spoken a hundred words and yet I see it all. Through a +thousand centuries our souls have been born a thousand times and in +every life we have met, and known--" + +And through the utter dark, the merciful dark, the deep, strong music of +his voice went on, and she listened, and forgot the truth and closed her +eyes against herself. + + * * * * * + +On the night which closed the third day the prince approached the door +of the sealed room. To the officer of the secret police, who stood on +guard, he said: "Nothing has been heard." + +"Early this afternoon there were two shots, I think." + +"Nonsense. There are carpenters doing repair work on the floor above. +You mistook the noise of their hammers." + +He waved the man away, and as he fitted the key into the lock he was +laughing softly to himself: "Now for the revelation, the downward head, +the shame. Ha! Ha! Ha!" + +He opened the door and flashed on his electric lantern. They lay upon a +couch wrapped in each other's arms. He had shot her through the heart +and then turned the weapon on himself; his last effort must have been to +draw her closer. About them was wrapped the chain, idle and loose. +Surely death had no sting for them and the grave no victory, for the +cold features were so illumined that the prince could hardly believe +them dead. + +He turned the electric torch on the painter. He was a man about fifty, +with long, iron-gray hair, and a stubble of three days' growth covering +his face. It was a singularly ugly countenance, strong, but savagely +lined, and the forehead corrugated with the wrinkles of long, mental +labor. But death had made Bertha beautiful. Her eyes under the shadow +of her lashes, seemed a deep-sea blue, and her loose, brown hair, +falling across the white throat and breast, seemed almost golden under +the light of the torch. A draft from the open door moved the hair and +the heart of the prince stirred in him. + +He strove to loosen the arms of the painter, but they were frozen stiff +by death. + +"She was a fool, and the loss is small," sighed the prince. "After all, +perhaps God was nearer than I thought. I bound them together with a +chain. He saw my act and must have approved, for see! He has locked them +together forever. Well, after all--_le Dieu, c'est moi!_" + + + + +THIRD TALE + +PLUMB NAUSEATED + +BY E. K. MEANS + + +I. + +"Yes, suh, I feels plum' qualified to take on a wife." + +The black negro blushed to a darker hue and his face shone like polished +ebony in the blazing August sun. In his embarrassment he twisted his +shapeless wool hat into a wad, thrust it under his arm like a bundle, +turned his back upon the white man's quizzical eyes, and sat down upon +the lowest step of the porch. + +At the feet of the white man lay half a dozen pairs of handcuffs. He +stooped and picked up a pair which showed rusty in the bright light, +rubbed the rust off with sand-paper, squirted some oil into the +mechanism from a little can, and busied himself for a few minutes seeing +that his police hardware was in good condition. + +The sheriff remained silent for so long that the negro imagined he had +been forgotten. Then Flournoy fired a question so unexpectedly that the +black man winced: "What's your name?" + +"Dey calls me Plaster Sickety." + +"Gosh!" the sheriff exploded. "Can any woman be induced to exchange a +perfectly decent name for a smear like that?" + +"Suttinly," the negro grinned. "Dat gal's name ain't so awful cute. Dey +calls her Pearline Flunder." + +"Plaster Sickety and Pearline Flunder--help, everybody! What sort of +children will issue from a matrimonial alliance of such names?" + +"I reckin our chillun will all be borned Huns, Marse John; but I cain't +he'p it." + +Under his manipulation the sheriff's worn handcuffs took on a polish +like new. At intervals he glanced up from his task to see the sunlight +spraying from the pecan-trees like water and the heat rising from the +ground, visible as a boiling cloud. Once he heard an eagle scream, and +glanced toward the Little Mocassin swamp to behold a black speck sail +into the haze that hung like a curtain of purple and gold upon the +horizon. The negro sat motionless except for glowing black eyes +restless as mercury and all-perceiving. + +Suddenly the bear-trap mouth of the big sheriff twisted into a little +smile. + +"How'd you like to give your girl one of these things for a +wedding-present, Plaster?" he asked, as he tossed a polished pair of +handcuffs on the step beside the negro. + +"I's kinder pestered in my mind 'bout gittin' a fitten weddin'-present, +Marse John, but--" Plaster rose to his feet and returned the manacles +without completing his sentence. + +"How much money have you got?" Flournoy asked. + +"I ain't got none till yit." + +"How you going to buy the license? How you going to pay the preacher?" +Flournoy asked. + +"Dat's whut I come to git a view from you about, Marse John. All de +cullud folks gives you a rep dat you is powerful good to niggers an' I +figgered dat you an' me mought fix up some kind of shake-down so I could +git married 'thout costin' me nothin'." + +"Don't you ever read the Bible?" Flournoy growled. "Even Adam's wife +cost him a bone." + +"Yes, suh," the negro grinned. "But I figger ef Sheriff Flournoy had +been aroun' anywheres at dat time, maybe Adam would 'a' got off a whole +lot cheaper." + +"Have you got a job to support your wife?" Flournoy asked. + +"Naw, suh." + +"Have you got a house to live in?" + +"Naw, suh." + +"Where are you going to live with her--in a hollow sycamore-tree?" + +"Yes, suh, I reckin so--dat is, excusin' ef you don't he'p us none." + +"Where are you two idiots going to derive your sustenance--from the +circumambient atmosphere?" + +"Dat's de word, Marse John--dat is, excusin' ef you don't loant us a +hand in our troubles," the negro murmured, wondering what the sheriff's +big talk meant. + +"Do you love this black girl very much?" the sheriff asked with that odd +turn of tone with which every man speaks of love when he is in love with +love. + +"Boss," the black man answered in a voice which throbbed, "I been lovin' +dat gal ever since she warn't no bigger dan--dan--dan a June-bug whut +had visited accidental a woodpecker prayer-meetin'." + +"Is she good to look at, Plaster?" Flournoy smiled. + +"Well, suh, I cain't lie to no white man, Marse John; an' I tells you +honest--she looks a whole heap better at night in de dark of de moon." + +"If she ain't a good-looker, why do you love her?" Flournoy asked +without a smile. + +"She's good sense an' jedgment, Marse John," the black man answered +earnestly. "An'--an'--I jes' nachelly loves her." + +Flournoy studied a moment, twisting a pair of steel handcuffs in his +giant hands. Finally he spoke: + +"Plaster, I have a cabin down on the Coolie Bayou which I have given to +three young married couples in succession on the condition that they +live there in peace and amity one year." + +"Yes, suh." + +"Every couple broke up and got a divorce within nine months." + +"Too bad, Marse John, dat's mighty po' luck." + +"You niggers think you love each other until you get hitched and then +you don't stay hitched." + +"Some shorely don't--dey don't fer a fack." + +"Now I make you and Pearline Flunder this offer. I will buy your +marriage license, pay Vinegar Atts to marry you, bear all the expense of +a church wedding, give you a job so you can support your wife, and I +will make you a present of that cabin down on the Coolie Bayou if you +and your wife will live together for three days without busting up in a +row." + +"Three days, Marse John!" the negro howled. "Boss, I motions to make it +thurty years!" + +"No!" Flournoy snapped. "Three days!" + +"I's willin', Marse John," the negro laughed, cutting a caper on the +grass. + +"All right!" the sheriff said as he stooped and picked up a pair of +handcuffs. "Now listen: I intend to cut the little chain on these two +manacles and attach each cuff to a ten-foot chain. When you and Pearline +are married, I am going to put one of these manacles around her wrist +and one around your wrist"--the negro showed the whites of his +eyes--"and bind you two honey-loves together with a ten-foot chain." +The negro looked behind him toward the gate and the public highway, took +a tighter grip upon his hat, and made a furtive step backward. "You are +to remain bound together for three days." The negro smiled and stepped +forward. "At the end of that time you are to come here and report, and +if you agree to spend the remainder of your life together, the cabin is +yours!" + +"Make it a two-feets chain, Marse John, so us kin git clost to each +yuther," Plaster pleaded. + +"What I have spoken I have spoken," Flournoy proclaimed autocratically. +"Now, go tell your sweetheart all about it." + + +II. + +The Big Four of Tickfall sat around a much bewhittled pine table in the +Hen-Scratch saloon. The room was hazy with their tobacco smoke. +Conversation languished. The session was about to adjourn until +to-morrow at the same hour. Figger Bush laid his cigarette upon the edge +of the table, lifted his head like a dog baying the moon, and chanted: + + "O you muss be a lover of de landlady's daughter + Or you cain't git a secont piece of pie!" + +Before the other could catch the tune, the green-baize doors of the +saloon were thrown open and a white man entered. Every negro looked up +into that granite face with its deep-set eyes, iron jaw, and rugged +lines of strength and purpose, and smiled a joyful welcome: + +"Mawnin', Marse John. 'Tain't no use to come sheriffin' down dis way. No +niggers ain't done nothin'." + +"I am hunting for a Methodist clergyman of color," Flournoy grinned. + +"Boss," Vinegar Atts chuckled as he rose to his feet, "I's de blackest +an' best nigger preacher whut is, an' I b'lieves in de Mefdis doctrine +of fallin' from grace an' grease. Ef you misdoubts my words, ax my wife. +Dat ole woman admits dat fack herse'f." + +"I want you to perform a wedding ceremony at the Shoofly Church to-night +at seven o'clock," the sheriff announced. + +Instantly the Rev. Vinegar Atts thrust both hands into the pockets of +his trousers and brought his hands out, turning out the pockets and +showing them empty. + +"Dar now, Figger Bush!" Vinegar bellowed. "I tole you dat de good Lawd +would pervide a way fer me to pay fer dem near-booze grape-juices I been +guzzlin' in yo' sinful saloom! Five dollars will sottle wid you an' +leave a few change over fer seegaws." + +"Who's cormittin' mattermony, Marse John?" Mustard Prophet wanted to +know. "Is it one of dese here shotgun weddin's?" + +"Plaster Sickety wishes to wed Pearline Flunder." + +"I knows 'em," Hitch Diamond rumbled from his big chest. "De good Lawd +will shore got to pervide fer dem coons like He do fer Vinegar +Atts--nary one is got git-up enough to make a livin'." + +"Those young colored honey-birds are under my special care and +protection," Flournoy announced, smiling. "I intend to house them and +take care of them and get them work. They are an experiment." + +"De trouble wid experiments is dis, Marse John," Mustard chuckled, +"sometimes dey bust in yo' face." + +"My plan is this," Flournoy told them. "I am going to tie those two +negroes together with a ten-foot chain and they are to live in peace and +amity for three days." + +"Lawdymussy, Marse John!" the Rev. Vinegar Atts bellowed. "Did you ever +tie two cats to each yuther an' hang 'em over de limb of a tree?" + +"Yes." + +"Does you recommember how quick dem cats got tired of each yuther's +sawsiety an' fell out wid theirselves?" + +"Certainly." + +Vinegar jerked a yellow bandana handkerchief from the tail of his coat +and mopped the top of his bald head. + +"You mought care fer dem niggers ef you ties em togedder, Marse John. +But you ain't gwine be able to pertection 'em--not from each yuther," +Vinegar announced as he slapped at his face with his kerchief. "I +wouldn't be tied to my nigger wife wid a telephone-wire long enough to +conversation de man in de moon. Naw, suh! Dat ole gal would be yankin' +on dat line a catfish all de time. Whoosh!" + +"I agrees wid dem religium sentiments," Hitch Diamond rumbled. "Now you +example Goldie, my own wife. Dat little yeller gal's maw is a lunatic, +an' Goldie ain't no lunatic, but she ain't got her right mind. I +wouldn't mind bein' a Dandylion in de lion's den, like de Bible tells +about--dat would gib me a chance to fight fer my gizzard. But chained up +to Goldie--" + +Hitch broke off, shook his head in earnest negation, rubbed one giant +hand around his iron-thewed wrist as if he could feel the holy bonds of +matrimony and gave utterance to one expressive word: "Gawd!" + +"Hol' on, niggers!" Figger Bush exclaimed. "I don't foller you-alls in +dem sentiments. Now I been married to Scootie gwine on two year an' I +ain't never got too much of dat gal yit. I cherishes de opinion dat +Marse John could tie our heads togedder an' I wouldn't complain none." + +"I sides wid Figger Bush," Mustard Prophet grinned. "I been livin' off +an' on wid Hopey fer twenty year, an' dat gal is busted stovewood over +my head off an' on plenty of times, but I don't bear her no grouch. She +kin always make peace by givin' me some hot biskits an' a few sirup." + +"You four niggers talk too much," Flournoy grinned. "I want you to get +busy and decorate that Shoofly Church and pull the biggest Tickfall +church wedding ever seen in the social sets of our colored circles. I'll +pay for everything." + +"Us fo' niggers will git our wifes an' pull some kind of nice stunt +ourselfs, too, Marse John," Vinegar howled. "We'll fix up a good +send-off fer 'em." + +At seven o'clock that evening the Flournoy automobile conveyed the happy +pair to the Shoofly Church. The Rev. Vinegar Atts proceeded with the +ceremony until the bride sported a new ring and the two were pronounced +man and wife with the solemn admonition: + +"Whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!" + +Thereupon Sheriff Flournoy stepped forward and with the ease of long +practice slipped a manacle upon the right wrist of the bride and another +upon the left wrist of the groom and snapped the handcuffs shut. + +Figger Bush stooped and lifted a long bottle from a bucket of ice. There +was a loud pop, the cork struck against the ceiling, ricochetted around +the walls of the room and caused a commotion by falling on Vinegar's +bald head. Figger advanced with a tray containing three glasses and the +sheriff toasted the bride and groom. + +The ten-foot chain rattled as the bride raised her manacled hand to +drink. + +When they marched out of the church the entire congregation formed a +procession and accompanied them to their cabin on the Coolie Bayou. They +noticed that Plaster Sickety picked up the chain and wrapped a turn +around his bride's neck and one about his own, thus shortening the bond +and bringing them close together. They clamped their arms around each +other's waists, and plodded solemnly through the deep dust of the +crooked highway. + +"Dat nigger cain't park his wife like a new automobile an' walk off an' +leave her," Vinegar chuckled. + +"He ain't actin' anxious to git away--now," Hitch rumbled +pessimistically. + +"Not yit, but soon," Vinegar agreed. + +Approaching the cabin, Plaster Sickety's voice broke into exultant song, +and through the negro's wonderful gift of improvisation, he produced +this neat bit: + + "Dar's a Pearline pearl of price untold, + An' dat Pearline pearl cain't be bought wid gold; + An' dat Pearline pearl am good to see, + Fer dat Pearline pearl b'longs to me!" + +"Listen to dat fool!" Hitch Diamond chuckled. "He's singin' like a +little black angel whut had swiped de pearliest pearl offen de pearly +gates!" + +The bride and groom entered their cabin and softly closed the door. + +Good night! + + +III. + +"Looky here, Pearline, I ain't used to totin' dis ole steel band on my +wrist an' it hurts my feelin's," Plaster complained as he sat at the +breakfast-table before a meal which had been left on the door-step a few +minutes before by Hitch Diamond. + +"Don't begin to howl an' pull back like a dawg tied under a wagin, +Plaster," Pearline urged prettily, as she helped herself to liberal +portions of the breakfast prepared in Sheriff Flournoy's kitchen. "You +won't kick about wearin' it as long as you loves me, will you?" + +"No'm," Plaster said, as he lifted the chain to a more comfortable place +upon the dining-table. "But I shore wish dat white man hadn't choosed +such a heavy chain." + +"Dis chain ain't heavy, Plaster," Pearline protested. "You hadn't +oughter talk dat way. Excusin' dat, I likes dis chain--it ties us to +each yuther. Don't you like it?" + +"Yes'm, I shore does." + +"How come you complains about it fer?" + +"I ain't got no lament, Pearline--dat is, I ain't mean it dat way." + +The bridegroom filled his mouth with food and for the next ten minutes +ate voraciously. One watching him would draw the inference that he was +not eating to enjoy the food so much as to find some occupation for his +mouth beside speech. + +Pearline reached out with her free hand and toyed with the chain, +twisting it about her fingers lovingly, a dreamy light in her coal-black +eyes. + +"Us had de biggest weddin' in cullud circles, Plaster," she murmured. + +"I ain't no cullud circle," Plaster mumbled, his mouth full of food. +"But I reckin I got to run circles aroun' you 'slong as dis ole chain +stays on. Don't rattle dat chain so loud, Pearly! Gosh! It makes a heap +of racket fer its little size." + +"You jes' now said it wus a big, heavy chain fer its size," his wife +reminded him in a sweetly argumentative tone. + +"Yes'm, it am--dis chain is bofe little an' big--fer its size," the +groom amended hastily. "Stop talkin' about dis chain!" + +"You started dis talk," she reminded him reproachfully. "You said it +hurted yo' wrist." + +There was a loud knock upon the door. Plaster sprang up to answer. The +chain jerked at his wrist. + +"Good gawsh!" he snorted. "Come to de door wid me, honey, so I kin open +up." + +"I cain't, Plaster," the bride exclaimed in a panic. "I ain't dressed +fer comp'ny dis soon in de mawnin." + +"You's got on all de clothes you owns," the groom reminded her. + +"Suttinly, but I ain't got no white powder on my black nose," she +giggled. "Come back in de nex' room an' let me fresh up befo' we opens +de door." + +"I stayed in dar a plum' hour while you wus freshin' up fer yo' +viteles," Plaster grumbled. + +"Don't git grumped up, Plaster," Pearline urged. "You ack like yo' love +is commenced to wilt aroun' de edges." + +Meekly the man followed her to the bedroom and stood for fifteen minutes +while the bride primped her hair, powdered her nose, adjusted her +collar, fiddled with her belt, put pins in her shirt-waist, took them +out and deposited them in her mouth, put them back into her waist, +turned around and looked at herself in the mirror, hunted for a fresh +handkerchief and could not find it, located it at last in the bosom of +her waist, wondered where she had left her chewing-gum, found it on top +of the box of face-powder, and finally said: + +"Come on--less hurry up. Dat comp'ny will git tired waitin' fer us!" + +"Dat comp'ny is gone done it," Plaster sighed. "I peeped through de +crack in de door an' seed 'em. Hitch Diamond knocked fo' times, den +opened de door an' picked up dem breakfast-dishes an' trod out." + +"Dat's too bad," Pearline remarked with no interest whatever. She was +looking at herself in the mirror. "I'd like to seen Hitchie. He use to +be one of my ole sweethearts." + +"Come out an' set under de tree wid me an' mebbe dat ole sweetheart of +yourn will come back," Plaster suggested. + +"I don't like to git out in de sunshine," the girl replied. "Dar's too +much glare." + +"Too much--which?" Plaster asked. + +"Glare." + +"Yes'm." + +Plaster stood looking at her helplessly, wondering where they were going +from there. + +"Does you love me, Plaster?" the girl asked, siding up to him and +stepping on the chain. + +"Yes'm," Plaster answered as he pulled the chain from under her feet and +rubbed his wrist. "Don't step on dat chain no mo'. You might break it." + +"How come you don't tell me you loves me?" + +"I done tole you 'bout fawty times dis mawnin'," Plaster reminded her. + +"But you ain't never tole me onless I axed you." + +"Less go somewhar an' set down an' I'll tell you a millyum times," +Plaster said eagerly. + +"Bless Gawd, I knows you loves me a plum' plenty, but I likes to hear +you tell dem words. Wait a minute till I puts--er--I b'lieve I oughter +change de collar on dis dress. A clean one would make me look mo' +fresher." + +Plaster lingered until the woman was dressed to her fancy, resting his +weight first on one impatient leg, then upon the other. + +"You wastes a heap of time fixin' yo'se'f, Pearly," he sighed at last. +"I hopes you'll soon git dressed up fer de day." + +"You wants yo' wife to look nice, don't you?" she asked reproachfully. + +"Yes'm." + +"How kin I look nice 'thout takin' de time to dress?" + +They went out and sat down under the pecan-tree in the "glare." Pearline +seemed to have forgotten the glare. Plaster lighted a cigarette, smoked +it to the end, lighted another, smoked it to the end, and lighted +another. Then Pearline remarked: + +"Honey, does you love me more dan you loves dem cigareets?" + +"I shore does"--with moderate fervor. + +"Does you love me a millyum times mo' dan you loves cigareets?" + +"Suttinly." + +"Den, fer gossake, throw dem cigareets away! Dey smells like some kind +o' fumigate." + +"I cain't do that, Pearly. Dese here smokes costes money. An' I couldn't +affode to buy 'em ef I had to wuck fer de money. Dey's a weddin' +present." + +"Is you gwine smoke all yo' married life?" + +"Yes'm." + +"But you ain't gwine smoke no mo' fer de nex' three days, is you?" + +"No'm." + +Pearline thrust her hand into Plaster's pocket and brought forth his +precious smokes. She concealed them in the mysterious recesses of her +attire and Plaster sighed deeply. + +Ten minutes later the girl straightened up with a fierceness that nearly +snapped her spinal column. + +"Fer mussy sake, Plaster Sickety! Whut is you got in yo' mouf?" + +"I's nibblin' a few crumbs of terbacker, honey," Plaster said +apologetically. + +"My gawsh! You aim to tell me dat you _chaws_?" + +"Yes'm. I chaws a little bit now an' den. It kinder helps my brains to +think an' sottles my stomick." + +There was a long silence. Plaster stared straight ahead of him, his +jaws moving with the regularity of a ruminant cow, his eyes counting +the leaves on the trees, the pickets on the broken-down fence, and +estimating the number of ants crawling out of a hill. Then, +unconsciously, he reached into his pocket for another cigarette. +He did not find it. + +He heard a suspicious sound beside him and looked at Pearline. + +"Whut you cryin' about honey?" + +"You tole me you loved me more dan cigareets, an' yit you cain't set by +me a minute 'thout chawin' terbacker," she wailed. "You is blood kin +brudder to a worm an' a goat--nothin' else chaws!" + +"Lawd!" Plaster sighed in desperation. "I sees now dat I'm got to learn +how to suck eggs an' hide de shells." + +Suddenly a loud whoop was heard near at hand and out of the swamp came +Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, Mustard Prophet and Hitch Diamond. + +"Hey, niggers!" Plaster bawled. "Come up an' set down. Lawd, I nefer wus +so glad to see nobody in my whole life." + +"Good mawnin', Sister Pearline!" Vinegar chuckled. "How is yo'-alls +enjoyin' mattermony life by now?" + +"Fine," the bride smiled, with a suspicion of tears still in her eyes. + +"Praise de Lawd!" exclaimed Vinegar. "I wus skeart you niggers would be +fightin' by now, an' mebbe one of yous would be draggin' de yuther on de +end o' dat chain--dead!" + +"Naw, suh!" Plaster howled, as he snatched a cigar out of Hitch +Diamond's pocket and stuck it in his mouth. "Us is gittin' along +puffeckly." + +Plaster snatched his cigar from his lips with his manacled hand and +flourished it with a motion of broad contentment. Pearline gave the +chain a quick jerk and the smoke flew from Plaster's fingers and fell +over in the high grass. + +"You two idjits look like a holy show to me," Figger Bush cackled. "How +come you don't charge admissions to de show an' git rich?" + +"Us wouldn't git rich quick," Pearline giggled. Hitch Diamond had +retrieved the cigar, and Pearline had taken it from him and stuck it in +her hair. "You-all is de onlies' comp'ny we is had till yit." + +"I hopes you niggers will stay wid us all day, brudders," Plaster +exclaimed earnestly. "We wus feelin' kinder--er--me an' Pearline wus +feelin' sorter--er--" + +"Uh-huh," Hitch Diamond grunted knowingly. "Dat's a fack. We ole married +folks onderstan's dem feelin's. I'd feel dat way mese'f ef I wus in yo' +fix. I'd whet up my teeth on a brick-bat an' bite myse'f in my own +gizzard an' die." + +"Not me!" Figger Bush howled. "Ef I wus chained to dat little gal, I'd +git me a plow-line an' wrop it aroun' our necks." + +"I would, too," Vinegar bellowed. "But I'd tie de yuther eend of dat +plow-line to a tree an' jump off de worl'." + +"I bet Pearline don't hanker to jump offen no worl'," Mustard Prophet +proclaimed. "Look at her--she's jes' as happy as ef she had sense." + +The eyes of the four men turned upon the girl appraisingly. Then +Pearline remembered that a few moments before she had been sniffling and +shedding tears. She was sure her eyes were red, and she knew the tears +had washed all the white powder off her black nose. Quickly she rose to +her feet, giving the ten-foot chain a sharp jerk. + +"I hates to take you from yo' frien's, Plaster," she exclaimed, "but I'm +got to go in. I cain't stand de glare." + +Side by side they entered the cabin and the chain rattled as they shut +the door. + +And the evening and the morning were the first day. + + +IV. + +"Stop scatterin' dem shavin's all over de floor, Plaster," Pearline +commanded. "Ef folks comes to see us, I don't want dis house all +literated up wid trash." + +"I got to whittle while you sews, honey," Plaster said patiently. "I +wanted to sot out in the yard, but you kep' me in de house all yistiddy +afternoon because you said you had de headache from de glare." + +"You kin whittle 'thout messin' up dis room," Pearline snapped. + +"I likes a messy room," the man declared. "It looks like folks lived in +it an' wus tol'able comfer'ble." + +"You cain't mess up my house ef I got to come atter you an' clean up," +the woman replied in a tone of finality. + +A hound-dog stuck his wistful face into the door, seeking an invitation +to enter. + +"Dar's a frien' in need," the bridegroom proclaimed happily. "Come here, +dawg!" + +"Git out o' here!" the woman shrieked, kicking at the hound and sending +him out with a howl. "I don't want dat houn' in dis house scratchin' his +fleas all over de rooms. Look at de mud dat dawg tracked in. Come wadin' +through de bayou an' den come trackin' through de house!" + +"Dar's some advantages in livin' a dawg's life, Pearline," Plaster +sighed. "Even excusin' de fleas, dar's plenty advantage. A dawg, even a +married dawg, he ain't tied up all de time an' kin run aroun' some." + +"You aims to say you's gittin' tired stayin' here wid me?" Pearline +snapped. + +"No'm. Nothin' like dat. I's happy as a mosquiter on a pickaninny's +nose." + +"Ef you feels tied up like a houn'-dawg in de middle of de secont day, +how does you expeck to feel in de middle of de secont year?" + +Plaster thought it best not to venture a reply. He looked through the +open door at the hound, lying under the china-berry tree in the glare, +placidly scratching fleas, bumping the elbow of his hind leg on the soft +ground as he scratched. + +"Don't you never answer no 'terrogations when I axes you?" Pearline +asked sharply. "How you gwine feel in de middle of de secont year?" + +Out of sheer perversity Plaster was disposed to tell her that he would +feel dead and buried for at least a year before the time she mentioned, +but instead he swallowed hard three times. His throat was dry and his +tongue rasped his mouth like sandpaper. His answer, finally, was a song: + + "She'll be sweeter as de days go by; + She'll git sweeter as de moments fly; + She'll git sweeter an' be dearer + As to me she draws mo' nearer-- + Sweeter as de days go by." + +Thereupon Pearline jumped from her chair, got strangle-hold upon her +husband, sat down on him, and impressed him forcibly in the next +half-hour that his wife was a heavyweight and the day was extremely +warm. + +Plaster made such a hit with his improvised song that he repeated it +three times, then gradually eased his wife off his lap and onto a chair. + +"Don't you never shave yo' face, Plaster?" the lady asked when the love +scene ended. "You feels like a stubby shoe-brush." + +"No'm, my whiskers don't pester me none." + +"But dey looks so bad," the woman urged. + +"I cain't see 'em," Plaster grinned. + +"I wants you to shave eve'y day while you is married to me." + +"Huh," Plaster grunted. + +"An I wants you to brush up yo' clothes, Plaster," the woman told him. +"You looks scandalous dusty." + +"I looks as good as you does," Plaster retorted. "I's got powdered dirt +on my clothes an' you's got powdered chalk on yo' nose. You looks to +dang dressy fer me anyhow. I favors bein' dusty an' easy-feelin'." + +The discussion ended by the appearance of three women who came to the +open door from the highroad. + +"Look at dat, now!" Plaster exclaimed. "Here comes three ole gals of +mine. I co'ted 'em all servigerous but it didn't git me nothin'." + +"Whut dey buttin' in here fer?" Pearline asked in sharp tones. + +"Mebbe dey'll tell us when dey comes in," Plaster chuckled. + +The three women were the wives of Hitch Diamond, Figger Bush, and +Vinegar Atts. When they entered they came straight to the point. + +"Plaster, us ladies wants to talk to Sister Pearline Flunder Sickety in +privut." + +"Dat cain't be did, sisters," Plaster answered, looking them over +suspiciously. "Whut does you want to tell my wife in privut?" + +"Dat's a secret," Scootie Bush giggled. + +Plaster looked at the women with an earnest effort to read their +intentions. He recalled certain incidents in his association with the +three in the old days of happy courtship that he preferred his wife +should not know. He thought he saw mischief in the eyes of each of the +women, especially Scootie and Goldie, and he shook his head. + +"Nothin' ain't told in privut, sisters," he announced. "Leastwise, not +till after de third day." + +"Does you aim to say dat I cain't conversation in privut wid my +frien's?" Pearline snapped. + +"No'm not perzackly dat," Plaster hastened to explain. "But it looks +kinder onpossible to me as long as I'm tied up wid you on dis chain." + +"Git over again dat wall while dese ladies whispers to me," Pearline +replied, giving him a push. + +Plaster sat down and strained his ears to hear. What he heard was +spasmodic giggles. He saw mischievous glances directed to himself. Once +he saw his wife look straight at him reproachfully, as if she suspected +that he was trying to overhear. There was half an hour of this, then the +three giggling women took their departure. + +"Whut did dem nigger women want, Pearline?" Plaster demanded. + +"Dat's a fambly secret," Pearline giggled. + +"Does you think you oughter hab any secrets from yo' cote-house +husbunt?" Plaster demanded belligerently. + +"Naw, suh. Not no secrets dat stays secrets, but dis here little myst'ry +will git public powerful soon." + +Coming through the medium of Plaster's troubled conscience, this answer +sounded ominous. Pearline picked up some sewing and Plaster reached for +his unwhittled stick. He spent one half-hour in deep thought. He was +sorry he had told Pearline that those three women were old sweethearts +of his. He recalled that his courtship of each woman had broken up in a +row and a fist-fight. It had been one-sided, the women conducting the +row and doing all the fighting while Plaster endeavored to escape. Now +Plaster had no other idea than that they were hot on his trail. They +were planning to make his life miserable through the jealousy of his +wife. + +There was a loud knock on the front door. The two arose and the door +opened to Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, and Hitch Diamond. + +"Sister Sickety, us three niggers is a cormittee of three app'inted to +wait in privut on Brudder Plaster Sickety an' hol' a secret confab wid +him," Vinegar announced pompously. + +"I don't allow my husbunt to hab no secrets from me," Pearline answered +looking suspiciously at her old sweetheart, Hitch Diamond. + +"Dis am a man's pussonal bizzness, Pearline," Hitch Diamond rumbled. "A +nigger woman is got to butt out." + +"But I's chained up wid Plaster," Pearline protested. + +"Git over agin dat wall while dese gen'lemens whispers to me," Plaster +remarked, giving her a push toward the chair which he had occupied under +similar circumstances a short time before. + +The three committeemen walked up close to Plaster, draped their arms +over his shoulders, and talked in whispers, but guffawed out loud. +Because Pearline was present their eyes irresistibly sought hers, +especially when they laughed--what man can keep from looking at the +woman in a room?--and Pearline inferred that they were talking and +laughing about her. She strained her ears to hear, but not a word +enlightened her ignorance. Then with a loud laugh the three men +patted Plaster on the back and took themselves off. + +"Whut did them niggers want, Plaster?" Pearline demanded in irate tones. + +"Dat's a fambly secret," Plaster quoted mockingly. + +"I felt like a fool wid dem mens lookin' at me an' snickerin'," the +woman complained. "Wus dey talkin' about me?" + +"Yes'm," the man chuckled. + +This remark set Pearline to thinking about certain incidents. Hitch had +been an old sweetheart, Figger Bush and Vinegar Atts had paid her +courtly attentions, and some things had happened that she would rather +not have to explain to her husband. There was a dismal depthless gulf of +painful silence between the honeymooners for a long time. Then Pearline +said with difficulty: + +"I don't like de nigger mens you 'socheates wid. Dem three niggers ain't +fitten comp'ny fer my husbunt." + +"Dat's whut I thinks about dem three womens dat come to see you," +Plaster answered. "Ef you runs wid dat color of petticoats I shore will +disrespeck you mo' dan I does now." + +"I runs wid anybody I chooses," Pearline snapped. + +"Me, too," Plaster retorted. + +They pulled apart and the chain rattled. + +They stepped back from the entrance and closed the door. + +And the evening and the morning were the second day. + + +V. + +By sleeping until the noon-hour the two love-captives shortened the +third day by half. + +In the two days past they had exhausted every theme of conversation, had +wearied of every kind of amusement they could devise, and had pumped +their hearts dry of language to proclaim and protest their affection for +each other to lubricate the machinery of existence amid the friction of +their disposition and temperament. + +The day before Plaster had made a hit with a song, so he decided to fill +every moment of that day until the sun sank below the horizon with vocal +music, for song banishes conversation and song is not provocative of +difference of opinion and argument--so he thought. While he and his wife +were dressing, Plaster began: + + "Does you know dat I am dyin' + Fer a little bit of love? + Everywhar dey hears me sighin' + Fer a little bit of love. + Fer dat love dat grows mo' strong, + Fills de heart wid hope and song, + I has waited--oh, so long-- + Fer a little bit of love." + +"Whut makes you sing so dang loud, Plaster?" Pearline asked wearily, as +she rested her head upon her hands. "You sounds like a brayin' jackace +mournin' because he done tumbled down a open well." + +"One time you said you liked my singin'," Plaster retorted. + +"I couldn't tell you whut I really thought about it in dem sad days," +Pearline remarked. + +They ate their noon meal in silence because neither could think of +anything to say. Plaster had got the hook at the very beginning of his +musical career, and the things he thought of to say were not fit for +utterance or publication. + +As they rose from the table, they looked with surprise out of the +window. + +A long procession of negroes approached the cabin. All were dressed in +their best clothes and the Rev. Vinegar Atts was in the lead. + +The bridal pair suddenly remembered something, and they stepped out on +the porch to receive them as they filled the space in front of the +house. + +Vinegar took his famous preaching attitude in front of the porch, +inflated his lungs and began: + +"Brudder an' Sister Sickety, us is all rejoiced dat you two honey-loves +is got mighty nigh through wid yo' honey-tower widout no fuss or fight. +We welcomes you back to our sawsiety wid glad arms. We hopes dat you +will love each yuther mo' or less an' off an' on ferever! We knows dat +you has well earnt dis house an' lot dat Marse John Flournoy has gib you +an' we cullud folks wants to make you a present of a few change so you +kin buy some nice house-furnicher an' start out fresh an' new." + +Thereupon Vinegar laid his stove-pipe hat upside down upon the floor of +the porch, turned and surveyed the assembly while he mopped his bald +head with a yellow bandana handkerchief. + +"Walk right up, brudders an' sisters, an' drap yo' few change in dis +stove-pipe preachin'-hat!" + +They came up one by one, laughingly depositing their money, and pausing +to shake hands with the bride and groom. + +When the ceremony ended, Vinegar emptied his hat upon the floor of the +porch, placed it upon his head with a farewell flourish, and led the +negroes out of the yard. + +"Dis money is de fambly secret dem three nigger womens whispered to me, +honey," Pearline giggled. + +"Dat's de myst'ry dem three committee fellers tole me," Plaster +chuckled. + +The two sat down and counted the money--twenty-five dollars and thirty +cents! + +"Dat thuty cents is yourn to spend foolish, Pearline," Plaster said +generously as he pushed three dimes toward her and clutched with both +hands at the rest. + +"Hol' on nigger!" Pearline snapped. "I ain't no bayou minnow to git jes' +a little nibble of dat money--half of dat cash spondulix is mine." + +"Yes'm, but I is de man of de fambly an' I oughter keep it an' han' it +out to you as you needs it." + +"I needs my half right now," Pearline snapped, placing both her hands +upon the clutching paws of Plaster Sickety. + +"Whut you gwine do wid twelve dollars an' fo' bits?" Plaster demanded in +irate tones. + +"Buy me a hat!" Pearline told him. + +"You's a fool!" Plaster informed her. "Female hats ain't furnicher." + +"Dis money furnishes me wid a hat," she announced positively. + +Then they sat for a few minutes in silence, both keeping their hands +spread out over the money. + +"Whut you gwine do wid yo' twelve dollars an' fo' bits?" Pearline +demanded at last. + +"I figgers on buyin' a fiddle," Plaster told her. "Plenty money kin be +made playin' fiddles, an' I b'lieves I could learn to fiddle ef I had a +good chance." + +"I ain't gwine hab no fiddlin' nigger in my house," Pearline snorted. +"I's druther be married to a phoneygraft." + +"You ain't gwine be married to nothin' very long ef you don't leggo dis +money, nigger!" Plaster snarled. + +"I is." + +"You ain't." + +"Don't gimme no sass." + +"You sassed me fust." + +The woman raised one hand from the money and made an unexpected +sideswipe at Plaster's jaw with her open palm. The blow landed with a +smack that jarred the very marrow of his bones and keeled him over the +edge of the porch to the ground. As he fell sprawling, the chain +tightened and jerked Pearline off her perch and she fell to the ground +with a squall. Then for ten minutes there was a Kilkenny cat scrap on +the front lawn. + +Pearline bit and scratched and pulled hair and tore clothes. She had +decidedly the best of the rookus until her unusual activities caused her +to get a twist of the chain around her neck. Plaster thanked the Lord +and choked her into inaction and submission by the simple process of +pretending to escape from her and thus tightening the chain. + +When she was choked almost to suffocation, he edged her to the porch, +lifted the twenty-five dollars and thirty cents into his own pockets, +and released the chain. + +[Illustration: "THE BLOW LANDED WITH A SMACK THAT JARRED THE VERY MARROW +OF HIS BONES AND KEELED HIM OVER THE EDGE OF THE PORCH TO THE GROUND."] + +When Pearline recovered her breath she dropped flat upon the ground at +her feet and howled like a Comanche until the going down of the sun. + +Plaster did not attempt to console or quiet her. When he spoke again, he +reached out and touched the bawling woman with his foot. + +"Git up idjit!" he exclaimed. "Marse John expecks us to come an' repote +to him an' git dese here handcuffs tuck off." + +Sheriff John Flournoy was waiting for them as they came across his lawn +to the porch where he sat. + +Then for half an hour he listened to a tirade of crimination and +recrimination which crackled with profane expletives like thorns under a +pot. When Plaster paused to breathe, Pearline took up the complaint. +When Pearline stopped from exhaustion, Plaster resumed his lamentations. + +When the storm of vituperation subsided, Flournoy sat in his chair like +a man who had been pounded over the head with a brick. It was some time +before he could formulate his ideas. Then he spoke with difficulty. + +"I judge from what I have heard that your three days' experience +together has convinced you that your tastes are entirely dissimilar and +your natures incompatible." + +"Yes, suh, dat's c'reck." + +"The information you offer conveys to me the impression that a woman +loves shadows, but a man loves sunshine and glare; a woman loves dress, +but a man loves tobacco; a woman desires daintiness and neatness +attended with any degree of discomfort, but a man prefers comfort with +no matter how much litter and mess; a woman loves indoor sports, like +sewing, and a man loves outdoor sports, like whittling sticks and making +the acquaintance of a hound-dog with fleas on his body and mud on his +feet; a man loves to sing and hear himself sing, and the woman prefers +to hear some other man sing; a woman wants her female companions with +their confidences and their secrets, and a man desires his male +companions and their secrets, but neither party to the matrimonial +alliance is willing that the partner should keep a secret. Am I right as +far as I've gone?" + +"Dat's right!" they said in positive tones. + +"But de fuss part, Marse John, is de money!" the woman shrieked. + +"Certainly," Flournoy agreed softly. "Matrimony is always a matter of +money." + +Then Flournoy took a key from his pocket and opened the bracelets on +their wrists. The chain fell at their feet. The bride and bridegroom +looked away, each ignoring the presence of the other. + +Plaster Sickety thrust both hands into his pockets, brought out +twenty-five dollars and thirty cents and laid it into the open palm of +the sheriff. + +"Fer Gawd's sake, git me a deevo'ce!" he pleaded. + +"Make it two, Marse John," the girl urged. "I's plum' nauseated wid dat +nigger man." + +The bride and bridegroom turned and walked away, choosing different +paths and going in opposite directions. They did not look back. + +The sheriff stooped and picked up the rattling chain. + +Then he went into the house and slammed the door. + +The evening and the morning were the third day, and-- + + + + +FOURTH TALE + +PRINCESS OR PERCHERON + +BY PERLEY POORE SHEEHAN + + +I. + +Some queer things had taken place in this same hall--some very queer +things; but there were indications that this present affair was going to +be queerer yet. + +The old duke always had been a worthy descendant of his ancestors; like +them, a little mad, with flashes of genius, very fine, very brutal, a +murderer at heart, with a love for poetry and philosophic speculation. + +The guests were already in a smiling tremor of curiosity when they +arrived. Some of them whispered among themselves: + +"It's on account of the Princess Gabrielle." + +"They say the duke is furious." + +"Not astonishing. But--a marriage! How can there be a marriage?" + +Yet it looked as if a marriage there would be. Manifestly, the hall had +been prepared for some such event. + +It was a chamber long, lofty and broad, walled and floored with the +native Burgundy rock, richly carpeted, hung with tapestry. And down a +portion of the length of this ran a wide table already spread with the +viands of a wedding-feast--huge cold pasties, hams and boarheads +beautifully jellied, fresh and candied fruits from Spain and Sicily, +flagons and goblets of crystal, silver, and gold. + +What aroused curiosity and conjecture to the highest point, however, was +the discovery that the immense fireplace of the hall had been +transformed into a forge. It was a forge complete--bellows and hearth, +anvil and tub, hammers and tongs. There was even a smutty-faced imp +there to tend the forge fire, which already hissed and glowed as he +worked the bellows. + +"Aha! So there _was_ a smith mixed up in the affair, after all!" + +"_Mais oui!_ Gaspard, the smith, whose forge is down there on the banks +of the Rhone." + +"But what does the duke intend to do?" + +It was a question which more than one was asking. There was never any +forecasting what a whim of the duke might lead him to do even in +ordinary circumstances--declare war on France, call a new Crusade. And +now, with this menace of scandal in his family! + +There in front of the fireplace where the forge had been set up, the +valets had placed the ducal chair. All the same, the arrangements had +something sinister about them. There fell a period of silence touched +with panic. But not for long. Curiosity was too acute and powerful to be +long suppressed. The whispering resumed: + +"The duke surprised them together--the princess and her smith." + +"It looks like the torture for one or both." + +"They say the fellow's an Apollo, a Hercules." + +"You wait until the duke--" + +"Silence! He comes." + +One of the large doors toward the farther end of the hall was thrown +open, and through this there came a surge of music--hautboys, viols, and +flutes. Two guardsmen came in, helmeted, swords drawn, and took up their +stations at either side of the door. + +There entered the duke. + +He looked the philosopher, perhaps, if not the student--tall, bent, +bony; a brush of white hair bristling over the top of his high and +narrow head; a fleshless face, sardonic and humorous. The guests were +pleased to see that his mood was amiable. He came forward smiling, waved +his musicians into retreat; and half a dozen valets were assisting him +into his chair as he greeted his guests. They all bent the knee to him. +Some kissed his hand--and some he kissed, especially those who were fair +and of the opposite sex. + +If Princess Gabrielle had shown herself fragile in the matter of her +affections, well, she had come by her failing honestly. + +Seated in his chair, the duke delivered himself of a little pun which +convulsed his audience--something about "court and courtship": "_Je +fais--la cour._" + +And with no other preliminary he spoke to a page: + +"Summon _mademoiselle_." + +Then to another: + +"Fetch in the smith." + +There was a bitter smile on his face as he sank back into his chair and +studied the forge set up in the fireplace. The imp went white under his +smudge and worked the bellows until the fire on the hearth was spouting +like a miniature Vesuvius. + +The wait was brief. + +Once more the musicians struck into the royal march of Burgundy, and +there was the Princess Gabrielle. + +Every one who looked at her must have experienced some thrill of the +heart--envy, desire, pure admiration. It was impossible to look at her +without some emotion; for she was eighteen, slender, white and +passionate; with dusky, copper-colored hair hanging in two heavy curls +forward over her brilliantly tender shoulders; and she had a broad, red +mouth, and slightly dilated nostrils; dark eyes, liquid and heavily +fringed, with disquieting shadows under them. + +She came forward with a number of maidens in her train, but she so +dominated them that she appeared to be alone. She took her time. She was +a trifle rebellious, perhaps. But she was brave, not to say bold. She +tossed her head slightly. She smiled. She and her maidens, familiar with +the duke's intentions, grouped themselves at one side of the improvised +forge. Every one present was still looking at her when there came a +rough command: + +"Stand aside!" + +A good many of the guests were not in the habit of hearing orders except +from the duke himself; but the command came again: + +"Stand aside! Let me pass--me and my people!" + +At that there was a rapid shifting of the crowd and a whispered cry: + +"The smith! It's Gaspard the smith!" + +And he attracted even more attention than the princess had done; for, +manifestly, here was not only a man who could play the game of love, but +could play the game of life and death as well--to shout out like this, +and come striding like this into the presence of his ruler. + +But he looked the part. + +He was all of six feet tall, blond and supple and beautifully fleshed. +He was wearing his blacksmith's outfit of doeskin and leather, but he +was scoured and shaven to the pink. His great arms were bare; and the +exquisitely sculptured muscles of these slipped and played under a skin +as white as a woman's. + +He stood there with his shoulders back, his arms folded, feet apart. +But, curiously, there was no insolence in the posture. Insolence is a +quality of the little heart, the little soul, and shows itself in the +eyes. Gaspard the smith had gentle blue eyes, large, dark, fearless, and +with a certain brooding pride in them. There may have been even a hint +of virgin bashfulness in them as well, during that moment he glanced at +the Princess Gabrielle. Then he had looked at the duke, and all his +courage had come back to him, perhaps also a suggestion of challenge. + +But neither had the smith come into the ducal presence alone. + +There were two old people--a man and a woman, peasants, both of them +very poor, very humble, so frightened that they could breathe only with +their mouths open; and so soon as they were inside the circle of guests, +they had dropped to their knees. The other member of the smith's party +would have done the same had he permitted. This was a girl of twenty or +so, likewise a peasant, healthy, painfully abashed, but otherwise not +notable. To her the smith had given a nudge and a word of encouragement, +so that now she stood close to him and back of him. + +"Our friends," said the duke, with studied nonchalance, "we are about to +present to you the initial operation of scientific experiment. Like all +scientific research, this also should be judged solely by its possible +contribution to the advancement of human happiness. Ourself, we feel +that this contribution will be great. God knows it is concerned with a +problem that is both elusive and poignant." + +All this was rather above Gaspard's head. He turned to the imp at the +bellows. + +"Stop blowing that fire so hard," he whispered. "You're wasting +charcoal." + +The duke smiled grimly. + +"The problem," he continued, "is this: Can any man and woman, however +devoted, continue to love each other if they are too closely held +together?" + +There was a slight movement among some of the younger gentlemen and +ladies present--a few knowing smiles. + +"There have always been those who answered _No_; there have always been +those who answered _Yes_," the duke went on. "Which were right?" No +answer. "My granddaughter here, while having her horse shod some weeks +ago, became enamored of this worthy subject of mine." He nodded toward +the smith. "She would have him. She would have no one else. We knew how +hopeless would be any attempt to impose our will--in an affair of the +heart." He smiled gallantly. "We are familiar with the breed." + +"Long live the House of Burgundy," cried the chivalrous young Vicomte de +Macon. But the duke silenced him with a look. + +"And now," said the duke, "we wish to test this so great passion of +hers--test it under conditions that while apparently extraordinary are +none the less classical and scientific. Our experiment is this--" + +For the first time since he began to speak the duke now leaned forward, +and both his face and his voice took on that quality which made his name +a source of trembling from Spain to Denmark. + +"Our experiment is this: + +"_To have the princess and her smith, whom she is so sure she loves, +handcuffed and linked together by a ten-foot chain._" + + +II. + +There was a gasp from the audience. Every one stared at the princess. +Even the duke himself. Without turning his head he took her in with his +furtive eyes. + +"_Mlle. la Princess_," he said icily, "was good enough to insist upon +the sacrifice." + +At this, a stain of richer color slowly crept up the throat of the +Princess Gabrielle; there came a touch of extra fire to her eyes. +Perhaps she would have spoken. But the duke hadn't finished yet. + +"We'll see whether she loves him so much or not," said the duke. "We'll +give them three days of it--three days to go and come as they wish--and +to do as they wish--together--always together--bound to each other by +their ten-foot chain." + +But while the excitement caused by the duke's announcement was still +crisping the nerves of every one present, the smith had cast one more +glance in the direction of the Princess Gabrielle. And this time their +eyes met. There were those who saw a glint of terror--of delicious +terror--in the eyes of the princess; and in the eyes of Gaspard a look +intended to be reassuring. + +Then the smith had unfolded his arms, thrust them forward. + +"Wait," he cried. + +At that there was a fresh sensation. + +For it was seen that one of his wrists--his left--was already encircled +by a bracelet of shining steel, forged there of a single piece, and that +to the bracelet itself there was forged a link, fine but powerful, and +that other links ran back over his shoulder. + +"Ha!" snarled the duke. "So you've come prepared!" + +"By the grace of God!" replied Gaspard the smith, unafraid. He cast a +look about him, brought his eyes back to the duke. "_Moi_, Gaspard," he +said, "I forge my own chains--always! I'm a smith, I am." + +The two old people kneeling just back of him began to sob and to groan. +Gaspard turned and looked down at them. + +"Shut up," he ordered; "I'm talking." + +He smiled at the duke. He explained. + +"You see, they're frightened," he said. "When I found out what your +highness and your highness's lady-granddaughter were planning up here +in the castle, why, I went to these old folks and told them that I +wanted their daughter Susette." + +"I suppose you loved her," the duke put in with ironical intent. + +But the smith saw no reason for irony. + +"Eh, _bon Dieu_!" he ejaculated. "And save your highness's respect, +we've loved each other ever since we were out of the cradle, we have. So +I made the old folks consent. I'm a smith, I am. I forge my own chains. +Stand around, Susette! His highness won't hurt you. Look!" + +He stepped aside. He gave a gentle thrust to the girl who had been +sheltering back of him. The chain rattled. + +And there was another cry of surprise. + +One of the girl's wrist's also was ornamented with a steel handcuff +tightly welded. Not only that, but to this also was attached a chain. +The smith threw up his arm. It was the same chain that was welded to his +own handcuff--ten feet of it, glistening steel, unbreakable. + +"There's your ten-foot chain, highness," cried Gaspard. "And it's no +trick-chain, either," he added. "It's a chain that will hold. You bet +it will. I forged it myself, and I know. It's a chain you couldn't buy. +Why? Because--because the iron of it's mixed with love. Nor can it be +cut, nor filed, nor broken. I'm a smith, I am. And each link of it I +tempered myself--with sweat and blood." + +There for a time it was a question--possibly a question in the mind of +the duke himself--just how many minutes the smith still had to live. +Many a valet had been executed for less. During a period of about thirty +seconds the duke's face went black. Then the blackness dispersed. He +slowly smiled. + +After all, he wasn't to be cheated of his experiment. + +But he answered the question that was in his own mind and the minds of +all the others there as he looked at the smith and said: + +"Fool, you'll be sufficiently punished--by your own device." + +He let his eyes drift again to the Princess Gabrielle. + +"And thou," he said, "art sufficiently punished already." + + +III. + +It happened to be a day of late spring; and as Gaspard and this +strangely wedded bride of his and her parents came out of the castle, +both fed and forgiven, it must have seemed to all of them that this was +the most auspicious moment of their lives. The old folks, who had +partaken freely of the generous wines pressed upon them, had now passed +from their trembling terror to a spirit of frolic. Arm in arm, their +sabots clogging, they did a rigadoon down the winding road. It was a +spirit of tender elation, though, that dominated Gaspard and Susette. +They were like two beings distilled complete from the mild and fragrant +air, the sweet mistiness of the verdant valley, the purpling solemnity +of the Juras. + +"What did he mean, his highness?" asked Susette as she pressed the +smith's arm closer to her side. "What did he mean that you'd be punished +by your own device?" + +Gaspard looked down at her, pressed her manacled wrist to his lips, took +thought. + +"I don't know," he answered gently. "He must be crazy. It's like calling +it punishment when a true believer receives the reward of paradise." + +"You love me so much as that?" + +"_Pardi!_" he ejaculated. "And thou?" + +"So much," she palpitated, "so much that when you looked at the princess +like that--I wished you were blind!" + +At the bottom of the hill, the old folks, Burgundians to the souls of +them, happily bade the young couple to be off about their own affairs. +They knew how it was with young married people. The old were +obstacles--so they themselves well recalled--albeit that was more than +twenty years ago. + +Said Gaspard fondly: "This business has put me back in my work; but +we'll call this a holiday. Shall we go to my cottage or into the forest? +I know of a secret place--" + +"Into the forest," whispered Susette. "I don't like the forge. It makes +me think--think of that cursed princess--and of the work that almost +lost you to me." Her blue eyes filmed as she looked up at him. "Oh, +Gaspard, I also have dreamed so much--of love--a life of love with +thee!" + +There was no one there to see. Some day, perhaps, in the far distant +future, this part of the world would be thickly populated. But this was +not yet the case. Gaspard brought his bride close to his breast, smiled +gravely into her upturned face. He kissed her tears away. Sweet Susette! +She was such a child! How little she knew of life! + +And yet what was that fragile, fluttering, elusive, tiny suggestion of a +regret in the back of his brain? Now he saw it; now it was gone--a +silver moth of a thought, yet one, some instinct warned him, was there +to gnaw a hole in his happiness. + +He said nothing about this to Susette, of course; he chased it from his +own joy. And this joy was a beautiful, tumultuous thing. + +"It's like the source of the Rhone, which I saw one time--this joy of +ours," he said with placid rapture. "All sparkling it was, and wild +cataracts, and deep places, clean and full of mystery." + +"Ah, I want it to be always like this," said Susette. + +Gaspard let himself go in clear-sighted thought. They were seated on a +grassy shelf that overhung the great river. The forest hemmed them in +on three sides like a wedding-bower fashioned to order; but here they +could follow the Rhone for miles--with its drifting barges, its +red-sailed shallops, its hamlets, and villages. + +"Yes, ever like the Rhone," he said; "but growing, like the Rhone, until +it's broad and majestic and strong to carry burdens--" + +Susette interrupted him. + +"Kiss me," she said. "Kiss me again. No--not like that; like you did a +while ago." + +And Gaspard, laughing, did as he was bidden. But what was that silver +glint of something like a regret, something like a loss, that came +fluttering once more across the atmosphere of his thought? Susette, +though, kept him diverted. She was forever popping in upon his +reflections with innocent, childish questions; and he found this +infinitely amusing. + +"Did you desire me--more than the princess?" + +"Beloved, I have desired you for years." + +"Did you think me more beautiful--than she?" + +Again Gaspard laughed; but it set him to thinking. He liked to think. He +thought at his forge, at his meals, nights when he happened to be +awake. + +"Love and beauty," he said, "these are created by desire. As a +stone-cutter desires what is hidden in the rock, and hews it out and +loves the thing he shapes, though it be as ugly as a gargoyle, because +of the desire that brought it forth--" + +"Do you think that I'm a gargoyle?" queried Susette hastily. + +"Certainly not." + +"Then, why did you call me one?" + +So he had to console her again, and took a certain joy in it, although +she protracted the dear, silly dispute by telling him that he had +chained her to him simply so that he could torture her, and that he had +wanted to spare the princess such suffering, and that therefore it was +clear that he loved the princess more. + +"Why, no," said Gaspard; "as for that, she's really in love with that +young Sieur de Macon." + +But thereupon Susette wanted to know how he came to be so well informed +as to the contents of the lady's heart. So the smith gave over any +attempt to reason, except in the silences of his brain; and just +confined his outer activities to cooings and caresses, as Susette would +have him do. + +Yet his thought would persist. + +That was the trail of a great truth he had almost stated back there, +about the place held by desire in the origins of love and beauty. He had +watched a certain Italian named Botticelli do a mural painting in the +duke's private chapel. Lord, there was a passion! He had helped in the +building of the cathedral at Sens. Lord, what fervor the builders put +into their work! They were all like young lovers. + +The smith sat up. It was almost as if he had cornered that glinting moth +of doubt. + +Yes, they had been like young lovers--Sieur Botticelli, in pursuit of +the beautiful; the church-builders in pursuit of God. But--and here was +the point--what if their desire had been satisfied? The quest would have +stopped. The vision of the artist would have faded. The steeple would +have fallen down. For desire would have ceased to exist. + +"I'm hungry and I'm thirsty," said Susette. + +He kissed her pensively. They started home. + + +IV. + +"Gaspard! Gaspard!" + +The smith sat up swiftly on his couch. + +"What's the matter?" he demanded. + +All the same, in spite of certain disquieting dreams, it struck him as +sweet and curious to be awakened like that by Susette. But he perceived +that she was alarmed. + +"Some one hammers at the door," she said. + +Then he heard it himself, that thing he had already been hearing +obscurely in his sleep. + +"Coming!" he yelled. And he smilingly explained to Susette: "It's my +old friend, Joseph, the carter. He'd bring his work to me if he had +to travel five leagues." And he was for jumping up and running to +the door. + +"Wait," cried Susette. "I'll have to go with you, and I can't be seen +like this." + +"That's right," said Gaspard. "That confounded chain! I'd forgotten all +about it." So he called out again to his friend, and the two of them +held quite a conversation while Susette tried to make herself +presentable. But Gaspard turned to her as she shook her hair out for the +third time, starting to rearrange it. "Quick!" he urged. "He's in a +hurry. One of his horses has cast a shoe." + +"You can't show yourself like that, either," cried Susette, playing for +time. + +"Me?" laughed Gaspard. "I'm a smith. I'd like to see a smith who +couldn't show himself in singlet and apron!" + +"You look like a brigand." + +But he merely laughed: "Joseph won't mind." + +And, indeed, Joseph the carter did appear to have but little thought for +anything except the work in hand. For that matter, neither, apparently, +did Gaspard. After the first few brief civilities and the inevitable +jests about the chain, their attention was absorbed at once by the +horses. There were four of these--Percherons, huge monsters with shaggy +fetlocks and massive feet; yet Joseph and Gaspard went about lifting +these colossal hoofs, and considering them as tenderly as if the two had +been young mothers concerned with the feet of babes. + +At last Susette let out a little cry, and both men turned to look at +her. + +"I faint," she said weakly. + +And Gaspard sprang over and caught her in his arms. He was filled with +pity. He was all gentleness. + +"Are you sick?" he asked. + +"It was the odor of the horses," Susette replied in her small voice. + +Joseph the carter seemed to take this as some aspersion on himself. +"Those horses don't smell," he asserted stoutly. + +But Gaspard signaled him to hold his place. "You'll be all right in a +second or so," he told his wife. He spoke gently; although, as a matter +of fact, he himself could find nothing about those magnificent animals +to offend the most delicate sensibility. "You'll be all right. You can +come into the forge and sit down while I shoe the big gray." + +"That will be worse than ever," wailed Susette. + +Joseph the carter was an outspoken man, gruff and honest. + +"And there's a woman for you," he said, "to be not only wed but welded +to a smith! _Nom d'un tonnerre!_ Say, then, Gaspard, I'm in a hurry. +Shall we start with the gray?" + +"Yes," Gaspard answered softly, as he continued to support Susette. + +"No, no, no!" cried Susette. "Not to-day! I'm too sick." + +"_Mais, cherie_," Gaspard began. + +"You love your work better than you do me," sobbed Susette. + +"_Nom d'un pourceau!_" droned Joseph. + +"But this work is important," Gaspard argued desperately. "The gray has +not only cast a shoe, but the shoes on the others are loose. They've got +to be attended to. It's work that will bring me in a whole _ecu_." + +"I don't care," said Susette. "I can't stand the smell of those horses, +and I could never, never bear the smell of the hot iron on their hoofs." + +"But I'm a smith," argued Gaspard. + +It was his ultimate appeal. + +"I told you that you loved your work more than you did me," whimpered +Susette, beginning to cry. "'_I'm a smith; I'm a smith_'--that's all +you've talked about since you got me in your power." + +Joseph the carter went away. He did so shaking his head, followed by his +shining Percherons, which were as majestic as elephants, but as gentle +as sheep. There was a tugging at Gaspard's heart as he saw them go. +Such horses! And no one could shoe a horse as could he. He looked down +at Susette's bowed head as she lay there cuddled in his arms. That +despairing cry was again swelling in his chest: "But I'm a smith." He +silenced it. He stroked the girl's head. + +As he did so, he was mindful as never before of the clink and jangle of +the chain. + + +V. + +"What do you want me to do?" he asked that afternoon as they lay out in +the shade of the poplars along the river bank. + +"I want you to love me," she answered. + +"I do love you. But we can't live on love--can we, Susette?--however +pleasant that would be. I've got to work." + +"Ah, your _sacre_ work!" + +"Still, you'll admit that you can't pick up _ecus_ in the road." + +"You're thinking still of that miserable carter." + +"No; but I'm thinking of his horses. Somebody's got to shoe them. You +can't let them go lame--or be lamed by a bungler. I could have done +that job as it should have been done." + +"But I tell you," declared Susette, pronouncing each word with an +individual stress, "I can't support the grime and the odors and the +racket of your forge. You ought to find some work that I do like. We +could collect wild salads together--pick wild-flowers and sell +them--something like that." + +Gaspard sighed. + +"But a man's work is his work," he averred. + +"There you go again," said Susette, and the accusation was all the more +damning in that it was spoken not in anger, but in grief. "Now that I've +given myself to you--done all that you wished--you want to get rid of +me; you want me to die." + +"Haven't I told you a thousand times," cried Gaspard softly and +passionately, "that I love you more than any man has ever loved any +woman? Haven't I spent whole days and nights--yes, years--of my life +desiring you? Haven't I proven it? Come into my arms, Susette. Ah, when +I have you in my arms like this--" + +"And it's only like this that I know happiness, my love," breathed the +girl. "Yes; I'm jealous! Jealous of everything that can take you from +me, body or spirit, if even for a moment. All women are like that. We +live in jealousy. What's work? What's ambition, honor, duty, gold as +compared with love?" + +But late that night Gaspard the smith roused himself softly from his +couch. He lay there leaning on his elbow and stared out of the window of +his cottage. Susette stirred at his side, undisturbed by the metallic +clinking. Otherwise the night was one of engulfing, mystical silence. + +Just outside the cottage the great river Rhone flowed placid and free in +the light of the young moon. Up from the river-bottoms ran the vine-clad +slopes of Burgundy as fragrant as gardens. There was no wind. It was all +swoon and mystery. + +"Lord God!" cried Gaspard the smith in his heart. + +It was a prayer as much as anything--an inspiration that he couldn't get +otherwise into words. + +He was of that race of artist-craftsmen whose forged iron and fretted +steel would continue to stir all lovers of beauty for centuries to come. + +"It's true," that inner voice of his spoke again, "that desire is the +driving force of the world. 'Twas desire in the heart of God that led to +creation. 'Tis so with us, His creatures--desire that makes us love and +embellish. But when desire is satisfied, then desire is dead, and +then--and then--" + +And yet, as he lay there, buffeted by an emotion which he either would +not or could not express, his eyes gradually focused on the castle of +the great Duke of Burgundy up there on top of the hill--washed in +moonlight, dim and vast; and it was as if he could see the Princess +Gabrielle at her casement, kneeling there, communing with the night as +he was doing. + +Did she weep? + +He had caught that message in her eyes as she had looked at him up there +in the castle hall--had seen the same message before. + +But never had she looked so beautiful--or as she looked now in +retrospect--skin so white, mouth so tender, shape so stately, yet so +slim and graceful. Oddly enough, thought of her now filled him with a +vibrancy, with a longing. + +And brave! Hadn't she shown herself to be brave though--to stand up like +that there before her grandfather, him whom all Europe called Louis the +Terrible, and declare herself ready to be welded to the man of her +choice! She wouldn't faint in the presence of horses! And where couldn't +a man go if led by a guardian angel like that? Slaves had become +emperors; blacksmiths had forged armies, become the architects of +cathedrals. + +His breathing went deep, then deeper yet. The sweat was on his brow. He +sat up. He seized the chain in his powerful hands, made as if he were +going to tear it asunder. + +But after that moment of straining silence he again lifted his face. + +"_Seigneur-Dieu_," he panted; "if--if I only had it to do over again!" + + +VI. + +"It's Gaspard the smith," said the frightened page. "He craves the honor +of an interview." + +The duke looked up from his parchment. + +"Gaspard the smith?" + +The duke was seated before the fireplace in the hall. The forge had +been removed; and instead there were some logs smoldering there, for the +morning was cool. But his glance recalled the circumstances of his last +encounter with the smith. The watchful page was quick to seize his cue. + +"He comes alone," the page announced. + +The duke gave a start, then began to chuckle. + +"_Tiens! Tiens!_ He comes alone! 'Tis true, this is the time limit I +set. Send the creature in." + +And his highness continued to laugh all the time that the page was gone. +But he laughed softly, for he was alone. Presently he heard a subdued +clinking of steel. He greeted his subject with a sly smile. + +Most subjects of Louis the Terrible would have been overjoyed to be +received by their sovereign so graciously. But Gaspard the smith showed +no special joy. He wasn't nearly so proud, either, as he had been that +other time he had appeared before his lord. He bent his knee. He +remained kneeling until the duke told him to get up. The duke was still +smiling. + +"So my three days were enough," said his highness. + +"Enough and sufficient," quoth the smith. + +Now that he was on his feet again he was once more the man. He and the +duke looked at each other almost as equals. + +"Tell me about it," said Louis. + +"Well, I'll tell you," Gaspard began; "you see, I'm a smith." + +"But incapable of forging a chain strong enough to hold a woman." + +"I'm not so sure," Gaspard replied. "It was a good chain." + +He put out his left wrist and examined it. The steel handcuff was still +there. Up and back from it ran the chain which the smith had been +carrying over his shoulder. He hauled the chain down. He displayed the +other end of it, still ornamented by the companion bracelet. + +"What happened? How did she get out of it?" queried the duke. + +"She got thin," Gaspard responded with melancholy. "She didn't want me +to work. She wanted the money that I could earn. Yes. She even wanted me +to work. But it had to be her kind of work; something--something--how +shall I say it?--something that wouldn't interfere with our love." + +"And you didn't love her?" + +"Sure I loved her," flared the smith. "Eh--_bon Dieu_! I wouldn't have +coupled up with her if I hadn't loved her; but, also, I loved something +else. I loved my work. I'm a smith. I'm a shoer of horses, a forger of +iron, a worker in steel. I'm what the good God made me, and I've the +good God's work to do! + +"So after a certain amount of honeymoon I had to get back to my forge. +Joseph the carter, his Percherons; who could shoe them but me?" + +"And she didn't like that?" + +"No. When I made her sit in my forge she pined and whined and refused to +eat. I was crazy. But I did my work. And this morning when I awoke I +found that she had slipped away." + +"You were already enchained," said his highness, "by your work." + +The smith misunderstood. + +"You can see it was no trick chain," he said, holding up the chain he +himself had forged and playing with the links. + +"Aye," said the duke, for he loved these philosophic disquisitions, when +he was in the mood for them. "Aye, chains are the nature of the +universe. The planets are chained. The immortal soul is chained to the +mortal body. The body itself is chained to its lusts and frailties." + +"I'm a smith," said Gaspard, "and I want to work." + +"We're not happy when we are chained," the duke continued to reflect +aloud. "But I doubt that we'd be happier were our chains to disappear. +No matter." He regarded Gaspard the smith with real benignancy. "At +least you've proven the fatal quality of one particular chain--the +thing I wanted to prove. And--you've saved the princess." + +"'Twas of her I wanted to speak," Gaspard spoke up. "This is a good +chain. I forged it myself." + +"Yes, I know you're a smith," said the duke. + +"Well, then," said Gaspard, "I've been thinking. Suppose--now that I've +still got it on me--that we try it on the princess, after all." He +noticed the duke's look of amazement. "I'm willing," said Gaspard. "I'm +willing to have another try--" + +"_Dieu de bon Dieu!_" quoth the duke. "Never content!" He recovered +himself. He felt kindly toward the smith. "Haven't you heard?" he +demanded. "The princess has forged a chain of her own. She eloped with +that young Sieur de Macon the same day you declined to chain her to +yourself." + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Spelling, punctuation and grammar have been retained except as follows: + + Page 18 + bear of leaves _changed to_ + bare of leaves + + Page 36 + enternal laws of logic _changed to_ + eternal laws of logic + + Page 47 + what has love to _changed to_ + what has love to do + + Page 56 + completely locked the hall _changed to_ + completely blocked the hall + + Page 76 + borne a thousand times _changed to_ + born a thousand times + + Page 78 + but the were frozen _changed to_ + but they were frozen + + Page 85 + Flourney studied a moment _changed to_ + Flournoy studied a moment + + Page 86 + "No!" Flourney snapped _changed to_ + "No!" Flournoy snapped + + Page 111 + enlightened her igorance _changed to_ + enlightened her ignorance + + Page 116 + I ain't no bayou _changed to_ + "I ain't no bayou + + Page 145 + Its my old friend _changed to_ + It's my old friend + + Page 158 + No, matter. _changed to_ + No matter. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ten-foot Chain, by +Achmed Abdullah and Max Brand and E. K. Means and P. P. 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