A House of Pomegranates, Oscar Wilde [suggested reading TXT] 📗

Their faces were pinched with famine, and their thin

hands shook and trembled. Some haggard women were seated at a

table sewing. A horrible odour filled the place. The air was foul

and heavy, and the walls dripped and streamed with damp.

 

The young King went over to one of the weavers, and stood by him

and watched him.

 

And the weaver looked at him angrily, and said, ‘Why art thou

watching me? Art thou a spy set on us by our master?’

 

‘Who is thy master?’ asked the young King.

 

‘Our master!’ cried the weaver, bitterly. ‘He is a man like

myself. Indeed, there is but this difference between us—that he

wears fine clothes while I go in rags, and that while I am weak

from hunger he suffers not a little from overfeeding.’

 

‘The land is free,’ said the young King, ‘and thou art no man’s

slave.’

 

‘In war,’ answered the weaver, ‘the strong make slaves of the weak,

and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor. We must work to

live, and they give us such mean wages that we die. We toil for

them all day long, and they heap up gold in their coffers, and our

children fade away before their time, and the faces of those we

love become hard and evil. We tread out the grapes, and another

drinks the wine. We sow the corn, and our own board is empty. We

have chains, though no eye beholds them; and are slaves, though men

call us free.’

 

‘Is it so with all?’ he asked,

 

‘It is so with all,’ answered the weaver, ‘with the young as well

as with the old, with the women as well as with the men, with the

little children as well as with those who are stricken in years.

The merchants grind us down, and we must needs do their bidding.

The priest rides by and tells his beads, and no man has care of us.

Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and

Sin with his sodden face follows close behind her. Misery wakes us

in the morning, and Shame sits with us at night. But what are

these things to thee? Thou art not one of us. Thy face is too

happy.’ And he turned away scowling, and threw the shuttle across

the loom, and the young King saw that it was threaded with a thread

of gold.

 

And a great terror seized upon him, and he said to the weaver,

‘What robe is this that thou art weaving?’

 

‘It is the robe for the coronation of the young King,’ he answered;

‘what is that to thee?’

 

And the young King gave a loud cry and woke, and lo! he was in his

own chamber, and through the window he saw the great honey-coloured

moon hanging in the dusky air.

 

And he fell asleep again and dreamed, and this was his dream.

 

He thought that he was lying on the deck of a huge galley that was

being rowed by a hundred slaves. On a carpet by his side the

master of the galley was seated. He was black as ebony, and his

turban was of crimson silk. Great earrings of silver dragged down

the thick lobes of his ears, and in his hands he had a pair of

ivory scales.

 

The slaves were naked, but for a ragged loin-cloth, and each man

was chained to his neighbour. The hot sun beat brightly upon them,

and the negroes ran up and down the gangway and lashed them with

whips of hide. They stretched out their lean arms and pulled the

heavy oars through the water. The salt spray flew from the blades.

 

At last they reached a little bay, and began to take soundings. A

light wind blew from the shore, and covered the deck and the great

lateen sail with a fine red dust. Three Arabs mounted on wild

asses rode out and threw spears at them. The master of the galley

took a painted bow in his hand and shot one of them in the throat.

He fell heavily into the surf, and his companions galloped away. A

woman wrapped in a yellow veil followed slowly on a camel, looking

back now and then at the dead body.

 

As soon as they had cast anchor and hauled down the sail, the

negroes went into the hold and brought up a long rope-ladder,

heavily weighted with lead. The master of the galley threw it over

the side, making the ends fast to two iron stanchions. Then the

negroes seized the youngest of the slaves and knocked his gyves

off, and filled his nostrils and his ears with wax, and tied a big

stone round his waist. He crept wearily down the ladder, and

disappeared into the sea. A few bubbles rose where he sank. Some

of the other slaves peered curiously over the side. At the prow of

the galley sat a shark-charmer, beating monotonously upon a drum.

 

After some time the diver rose up out of the water, and clung

panting to the ladder with a pearl in his right hand. The negroes

seized it from him, and thrust him back. The slaves fell asleep

over their oars.

 

Again and again he came up, and each time that he did so he brought

with him a beautiful pearl. The master of the galley weighed them,

and put them into a little bag of green leather.

 

The young King tried to speak, but his tongue seemed to cleave to

the roof of his mouth, and his lips refused to move. The negroes

chattered to each other, and began to quarrel over a string of

bright beads. Two cranes flew round and round the vessel.

 

Then the diver came up for the last time, and the pearl that he

brought with him was fairer than all the pearls of Ormuz, for it

was shaped like the full moon, and whiter than the morning star.

But his face was strangely pale, and as he fell upon the deck the

blood gushed from his ears and nostrils. He quivered for a little,

and then he was still. The negroes shrugged their shoulders, and

threw the body overboard.

 

And the master of the galley laughed, and, reaching out, he took

the pearl, and when he saw it he pressed it to his forehead and

bowed. ‘It shall be,’ he said, ‘for the sceptre of the young

King,’ and he made a sign to the negroes to draw up the anchor.

 

And when the young King heard this he gave a great cry, and woke,

and through the window he saw the long grey fingers of the dawn

clutching at the fading stars.

 

And he fell asleep again, and dreamed, and this was his dream.

 

He thought that he was wandering through a dim wood, hung with

strange fruits and with beautiful poisonous flowers. The adders

hissed at him as he went by, and the bright parrots flew screaming

from branch to branch. Huge tortoises lay asleep upon the hot mud.

The trees were full of apes and peacocks.

 

On and on he went, till he reached the outskirts of the wood, and

there he saw an immense multitude of men toiling in the bed of a

dried-up river. They swarmed up the crag like ants. They dug deep

pits in the ground and went down into them. Some of them cleft the

rocks with great axes; others grabbled in the sand.

 

They tore up the cactus by its roots, and trampled on the scarlet

blossoms. They hurried about, calling to each other, and no man

was idle.

 

From the darkness of a cavern Death and Avarice watched them, and

Death said, ‘I am weary; give me a third of them and let me go.’

But Avarice shook her head. ‘They are my servants,’ she answered.

 

And Death said to her, ‘What hast thou in thy hand?’

 

‘I have three grains of corn,’ she answered; ‘what is that to

thee?’

 

‘Give me one of them,’ cried Death, ‘to plant in my garden; only

one of them, and I will go away.’

 

‘I will not give thee anything,’ said Avarice, and she hid her hand

in the fold of her raiment.

 

And Death laughed, and took a cup, and dipped it into a pool of

water, and out of the cup rose Ague. She passed through the great

multitude, and a third of them lay dead. A cold mist followed her,

and the water-snakes ran by her side.

 

And when Avarice saw that a third of the multitude was dead she

beat her breast and wept. She beat her barren bosom, and cried

aloud. ‘Thou hast slain a third of my servants,’ she cried, ‘get

thee gone. There is war in the mountains of Tartary, and the kings

of each side are calling to thee. The Afghans have slain the black

ox, and are marching to battle. They have beaten upon their

shields with their spears, and have put on their helmets of iron.

What is my valley to thee, that thou shouldst tarry in it? Get

thee gone, and come here no more.’

 

‘Nay,’ answered Death, ‘but till thou hast given me a grain of corn

I will not go.’

 

But Avarice shut her hand, and clenched her teeth. ‘I will not

give thee anything,’ she muttered.

 

And Death laughed, and took up a black stone, and threw it into the

forest, and out of a thicket of wild hemlock came Fever in a robe

of flame. She passed through the multitude, and touched them, and

each man that she touched died. The grass withered beneath her

feet as she walked.

 

And Avarice shuddered, and put ashes on her head. ‘Thou art

cruel,’ she cried; ‘thou art cruel. There is famine in the walled

cities of India, and the cisterns of Samarcand have run dry. There

is famine in the walled cities of Egypt, and the locusts have come

up from the desert. The Nile has not overflowed its banks, and the

priests have cursed Isis and Osiris. Get thee gone to those who

need thee, and leave me my servants.’

 

‘Nay,’ answered Death, ‘but till thou hast given me a grain of corn

I will not go.’

 

‘I will not give thee anything,’ said Avarice.

 

And Death laughed again, and he whistled through his fingers, and a

woman came flying through the air. Plague was written upon her

forehead, and a crowd of lean vultures wheeled round her. She

covered the valley with her wings, and no man was left alive.

 

And Avarice fled shrieking through the forest, and Death leaped

upon his red horse and galloped away, and his galloping was faster

than the wind.

 

And out of the slime at the bottom of the valley crept dragons and

horrible things with scales, and the jackals came trotting along

the sand, sniffing up the air with their nostrils.

 

And the young King wept, and said: ‘Who were these men, and for

what were they seeking?’

 

‘For rubies for a king’s crown,’ answered one who stood behind him.

 

And the young King started, and, turning round, he saw a man

habited as a pilgrim and holding in his hand a mirror of silver.

 

And he grew pale, and said: ‘For what king?’

 

And the pilgrim answered: ‘Look in this mirror, and thou shalt see

him.’

 

And he looked in the mirror, and, seeing his own face, he gave a

great cry and woke, and the bright sunlight was streaming into the

room, and from the trees of the garden and pleasaunce the birds

were singing.