The Cream of the Jest, James Branch Cabell [smart ebook reader .TXT] 📗

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.

XXXV 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.”

“Yes, Felix was saying only today that we seem no longer to have any real spring. We simply go straight from winter into summer.”

“I was endeavoring to persuade her,” Kennaston amended, “that it was foolish to go away as long as it stays cool as it is.”

“Oh, yes, now!” my wife conceded. “But the paper says we are in for a long heat period about the fifteenth. For my part, I think July is always our worst month.”

“It is just that you feel the heat so much more during the first warm days,” I suggested.

“Oh, no!” my wife said, earnestly; “the nights are cool in August, and you can stand the days. Of course, there are apt to be a few mosquitoes in September, but not many if you are careful about standing water⁠—”

“The drainpipe to the gutter around our porch got stopped somehow, last year”⁠—this Kennaston contributed, morosely⁠—“and we had a terrible time.”

“⁠—Then there is always so much to do, getting the children started at school,” my wife continued⁠—“everything under the sun needed at the last moment, of course! And the way they change all the schoolbooks every year is simply ridiculous. So, if I had my way, we would always go away early, and be back again in good time to get things in shape⁠—”

“Oh, yes, if we could have our way!”⁠—Mrs. Kennaston could not deny that⁠—“but don’t your servants always want August off, to go home? I know ours do: and, my dear, you simply don’t dare say a word.”

“That is the great trouble in the country,” I philosophized⁠—“in fact, we suburbanites are pretty well hag-ridden by our dusky familiars. The old-time darkies are dying out, and the younger generation is simply worthless. And with no more sense of gratitude⁠—Why, Moira hired a new girl last week, to help out upstairs, and⁠—”

“Oh, yes, hag-ridden! like the unfortunate magicians in old stories!” Kennaston broke in, on a sudden. “We were speaking about such things the other day, you remember? I have been thinking⁠—You see, everyone tells me that, apart from being a master soapboiler, Mr. Harrowby, you are by way of being an authority on witchcraft and similar murky accomplishments?” And he ended with that irritating little noise, that was nearly a snigger, and just missed being a cough.

“It so often comes over me,” says Moira⁠—which happens to be my wife’s name⁠—“that Dick, all by himself, is really Harrowby & Sons, Inc.”⁠—she spoke as if I were some sort of writing-fluid⁠—“and has his products on sale all over the world. I look on him in a new light, so to speak, when I realize that daily he is gladdening Calcutta with his soaps, delighting London with his dentifrice, and comforting Nova Zembla with his talcum powder.”

“Well, but I inherited all that. It isn’t fair to fling ancestral soap-vats in my face,” I reminded her. “And yes, I have dabbled a bit in forces that aren’t as yet thoroughly understood, Mr. Kennaston. I wouldn’t go so far as to admit to witchcraft, though. Very certainly I never attended a Sabbat.”

I recollect now how his face changed. “And what in