The Cream of the Jest

"Many stiff-necked kings, still clad in purple and scarlet and wearing gold crowns – monarchs whose proud faces, for all that these men were my slaves, kept their old fashion and stayed changeless as the faces of statues – such were my lackeys: and I burned walled cities. Empires were my playthings, but I had no son to inherit after me. I had no son – only that dead horrible mangled worm, born dead, that I remember seeing very long ago where the woman I loved lay dead. That would have been my son had the thing lived – a greater and a nobler king than I. But death willed otherwise: the life that moved in me was not to be perpetuated: and so, the heart in my body grew dried and little and shriveled, like a parched pea: for I perceived that all which has known life must suffer death.

"Then I turned from warfare, and sought for wisdom. I learned all that it is permitted any man to know – oh, I learned more than is permissible. Have I not summoned demons from the depths of the sea, and at the Sabbat have I not smitten haggard Gods upon the cheek? Yea, at Phigalia did I not pass beneath the earth and strive with a terrible Black Woman, who had the head of a horse, and wrest from her what I desired to know? Have I not talked with Morskoi, that evil formless ruler of the Sea-Folk, and made a compact with him? And has not even Phobetor, whose real name may not be spoken, revealed to me his secrets, at a paid price of which I do not care to think, now I perceive that all which has known life must suffer death?

"Yea, by the Hoofs of the Goat! it seems to me that I have done these things; yet how may I be sure? For I have learned, too, that all man's senses lie to him, that nothing we see or hear or touch is truthfully reported, and that the visible world at best stands like an island in an uncharted ocean which is a highway, none the less, for much alien traffic. Yet, it seems to me that I found means whereby the universe I live in was stripped of many veils. It seems to me that I do not regret having done this… But presently I shall be dead, and all my dearly-purchased, wearily-earned wisdom must lie quiet in a big stone box, and all which has known life must suffer death.

"For death is mighty, and against it naught can avail: it is terrible and strong and cruel, and a lover of bitter jests. And presently, whatever I have done or learned or dreamed, I must lie helpless where worms will have their will of me, and neither the worms nor I will think it odd. For all which has known life must suffer death."

A remote music resounded in his ears, and cloying perfumes were about him. Turning, he saw that the walls of this strange room were of iridescent lacquer, worked with bulls and apes and parrots in raised gold: black curtains screened the doors: and the bare floor was of smooth seagreen onyx. A woman stood there, who did not speak, but only waited. At length he knew what terror was, for terror possessed him utterly; and yet he was elated.

"You have come, then, at last…"

"To you at last I have come as I come to all men," she answered, "in my good hour." And Ettarre's hands, gleaming and half-hidden with jewels, reached toward his hands, so gladly raised to hers; and the universe seemed to fold about him, just as a hand closes.

____________________

Was it as death she came to him in this dream? – as death made manifest as man's liberation from much vain toil? Kennaston, at least, preferred to think his dreams were not degenerating into such hackneyed crude misleading allegories. Or perhaps it was as ghost of the dead woman he had loved she came, now that he was age-stricken and nearing death, for in this one dream alone he had seemed to be an old man.

Kennaston could not ever be sure; the broken dream remained an enigma; but he got sweet terror and happiness of the dream, for all that, tasting his moment of inexplicable poignant emotion: and therewith he was content.

VII

Treats of Witches, Mixed Drinks, and

the Weather

MEANWHILE, I used to see Kennaston nearly every day… Looking back, I recollect one afternoon when the Kennastons were calling on us. It was the usual sort of late-afternoon call customarily exchanged by country neighbors…

"We have been intending to come over for ever so long," Mrs. Kennaston explained. "But we have been in such a rush, getting ready for the summer -"

"We only got the carpets up yesterday," my wife assented. "Riggs just kept promising and promising, but he did finally get a man out -"

"Well, the roads are in pretty bad shape," I suggested, "and those vans are fearfully heavy -"

"Still, if they would just be honest about it," Mrs. Kennaston bewailed -"and not keep putting you off – No, I really don't think I ever saw the Loop road in worse condition -"

"It's the long rainy spell we ought to have had in May," I informed her. "The seasons are changing so, though, nowadays that nobody can keep up with them."