Complete weird tales of.., p.600
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 600
The river was alive with little white saucy steamboats, rushing up and down the Seine with the speed of torpedo craft. There was a boat-landing within a few paces of where I stood, so, when a boat came along and stopped to discharge a few passengers, I stepped aboard, bound for almost anywhere, and not over-anxious to get there too quickly. Neither did I care to learn my own destination, and when the ticket agent in naval uniform came along to inquire where I might be going, I told him to sell me a pink ticket because it looked pretty. As all Frenchmen believe that all Americans are a little mad, my request, far from surprising the ticket agent, simply confirmed his national theory; and he gave me my ticket very kindly, with an air of protection such as one involuntarily assumes toward children and invalids.
“You are going to Saint Cloud,” he said. “I’ll tell you when to get off the boat.”
“Thank you,” said I.
“You ought to be going the other way,” he added.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because Charenton lies the other way,” he replied, politely, and passed on to sell his tickets.
Now I had forgotten much concerning Paris in my twenty years of absence.
There was a pretty girl sitting on the bench beside me, with elbows resting on the railing behind. I glanced at her. She was smiling.
“Pardon, madame,” said I, knowing enough to flatter her, though she had “mademoiselle” written all over her complexion of peaches and cream— “pardon, madame, but may I, a stranger, venture to address you for a word of information?”
“You may, monsieur,” she said, with a smile which showed an edge of white teeth under her scarlet lips.
“Then, if you please, where is Charenton?”
“Up the river,” she replied, smiling still.
“And what,” said I, “is the principal feature of the town of Charenton?”
“The Lunatic Asylum, monsieur.”
I thanked her and looked the other way.
Our boat was now flying past the Louvre. Above in the streets I could see cabs and carriages passing, and the heads and shoulders of people walking on the endless stone terraces. Below, along the river bank, our boat passed between an almost unbroken double line of dozing fishermen.
Now we shot out from the ranks of lavoirs and bathhouses, and darted on past the Champ de Mars; past the ugly sprawling Eiffel Tower, past the twin towers of the Trocadero, and out under the huge stone viaduct of the Point du Jour.
Here the banks of the river were green and inviting. Cafés, pretty suburban dance-houses, restaurants, and tiny hotels lined the shores. I read on the signs such names as “The Angler’s Retreat,” “At the Great Gudgeon,” “The Fisherman’s Paradise,” and I saw sign-boards advertising fishing, and boats to let.
“I should think,” said I, turning to my pretty neighbor, “that it would pay to remove these fisherman’s signs to Charenton.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because,” said I, “nobody except a Charentonian would ever believe that any fish inhabit this river.”
“Saint Cloud! Saint Cloud!” called out the ticket-agent as the boat swung in to a little wooden floating pier on the left bank of the river.
The ticket-agent carefully assisted me over the bridge to the landing-dock, and I whispered to him that I was the Duke of Flatbush and would be glad to receive him any day in Prospect Park.
Then, made merry at my own wit, I strolled off up the steps that led to the bank above.
There, perched high above the river, I found a most delightful little rustic restaurant where I at once ordered luncheon served for me on the terrace, in the open air.
The bald waiter sped softly away to deliver my order, and I sipped an Amer-Picon, and bared my head to the warm breeze which swept up the river from distant meadows deep in clover.
There appeared to be few people on the terrace. One young girl, however, whom I had seen on the boat, I noticed particularly because she seemed to be noticing me. Then, fearing that my stare might be misunderstood, I turned away and soon forgot her when the bald waiter returned with an omelet, bread and butter, radishes and a flask of white wine.
Such an omelet! such wine! such butter! and the breeze from the west blowing sweet as perfume from a nectarine, and the green trees waving and whispering, and the blessed yellow sunshine over all ——
“Pardon, monsieur.”
I turned. It was my pretty little Parisienne of the steamboat, seated at the next small table, demurely chipping an egg.
“I beg your pardon,” said I, hastily, for the leg of my chair was pinning her gown to the ground.
“It is nothing,” she said brightly, with a mischievous glance under her eyes.
“My child,” said I, “it was very stupid of me, and I am certainly old enough to know better.”
“Doubtless, monsieur; and yet you do not appear to be very, very old.”
“I am very aged,” said I— “almost forty-five.” And I smiled a retrospective smile, watching the bubbles breaking in my wine-glass.
Memory began to work, deftly, among the debris of past years. I saw myself a student of eighteen, gayly promenading Paris with my tutor, living a monotonous colourless life in a city of which I knew nothing and saw nothing save through the windows of my English pension or in the featureless streets of the American quarter, under escort of my tutor and my asthmatic aunt, Miss Janet Van Twiller.
That year spent in Paris, to “acquire the language” in a house where nothing but English was spoken, had still a vague, tender charm for me, because in that year I was young. I grew older when I shook the tutor, side-stepped my aunt, and moved across the river.
Once, only once, had the placid serenity of that year been broken. It was one day — a day like this in spring — when, for some reason, even now utterly unknown to me, I deliberately walked out of the house alone in defiance of my tutor and my aunt, and wandered all day long through unknown squares and parks and streets intoxicated with my own freedom. And I remember, that day — which was the twin of this — sitting on the terrace of a tiny café in the Latin Quarter, I drifted into idle conversation with a demure little maid who was sipping a red syrup out of a tall thin glass.
Twenty-seven years ago! And here I was again, in the scented spring sunshine, with the same west wind whispering of youth and freedom, and my heart not a day older.
“My child,” said I to the little maid, “twenty-seven years ago you drank pink strawberry syrup in a tall iced glass.”
“I do not understand you, monsieur,” she faltered.
“You cannot, mademoiselle. I am drinking to the memory of my dead youth.”
And I touched my lips to the glass.
“I wonder,” she said, under her breath, “what I am to do with the rest of the day?”
“I could have told you,” said I— “twenty-seven years ago.”
“Perhaps you could tell me better now?” she said, innocently.
I looked out into the east where the gold dome of the Tomb rose glimmering through a pale-blue haze. “Under that dome lies an Emperor in his crypt of porphyry,” said I. “Deeper than his dust, bedded in its stiff shroud of gold, lies my dead youth, sleeping forever in the heart of this fair young world of spring.”
I touched my glass idly, then lifted it.
“Yet,” said I, “the pale sunshine of winter lies not unkindly on snow and ice, sometimes. I drink to your youth and beauty, my child.”
“Is that all?” she asked, wonder-eyed.
I thought a moment: “No, not all. Williams isn’t the only autocratic interpreter of Fate, Chance, and Destiny.”
“Williams!” she repeated, perplexed.
“You don’t know him. He writes stories for a living. But he’ll never write the story I might very easily tell you in the sunshine here.”
After a pause she said: “Are you going to?”
“I think I will,” I said. And my eyes fixed smiling upon the sunny horizon, I began:
* * *
Now, part of this story is to be vague as a mirrored face at dusk; and part is to be as precise as the reflection of green trees in the glass of the stream; and all is to be as capricious as the flight of that wonderful butterfly of the South which is called Ajax by the reverent, and The White Devil by the profane. Incidentally, it is the story of Jones and the Dryad.
The profession of Jones was derided by the world at large. He collected butterflies; and it may be imagined what the American public thought of him when they did not think he was demented. But a large, over-nourished and blasé millionaire, wearied of collecting pigeon-blood rubies, first editions and Rembrandts, through sheer ennui one day commissioned Jones to gather for him the most magnificent and complete collection of American butterflies that could possibly be secured — not only single perfect specimens of the two sexes in each species, but series on series of every kind, showing local varieties, seasonal variations in size and colour, strange examples of albinism and polymorphic phenomena — in fact, this large, benevolent and intellectual capitalist wanted something which nobody else had, so he selected Jones and damned the expense. Nobody else had Jones: that pleased him; Jones was to secure specimens that nobody else had: and that would be doubly gratifying. Therefore he provided Jones with a five-year contract, an agreeable salary, turned him loose on a suspicious nation, and went back to hunt up safe investments for an income the size of which had begun to annoy him.
* * *
“This part of the story is clear enough, is it not, my child?”
“Are you Jones?”
“Don’t ask questions,” I said, seriously.
“The few delirious capers cut by Jones subsequent to the signing of the contract consisted of a debauch at the Astor Library, a mad evening with seven aged gentlemen at the Entomological Society, and the purchase of a ticket to Florida. This last spasm was his undoing; he went for butterflies, and the first thing he did was to trip over the maliciously extended foot of Fate and fall plump into the open arms of Destiny. And in a week he was playing golf. This part is sufficiently vague, I hope. Is it?”
She said it was; so I continued:
* * *
The Dryad, with her sleeves rolled up above her pretty elbows, was preparing to assault a golf ball; Jones regarded the proceedings with that inscrutable expression which, no doubt, is bestowed upon certain creatures as a weapon for self-protection.
“Don’t talk to me while I’m driving,” said the Dryad.
“No,” said Jones.
“Don’t even say ‘no’!” insisted the Dryad.
A sharp thwack shattered the silence; the golf ball sailed away toward the fifth green, landing in a gully. “Oh, bother!” exclaimed the Dryad, petulantly, as the small black caddie pattered forward, irons rattling in his quiver. “Now, Mr. Jones, it is up to you” — doubtless a classically mythological form of admonition common to Dryads but now obsolete.
The Dryad, receiving no reply, looked around and beheld Jones, net poised, advancing on tiptoe across the green.
“What is it — a snake?” inquired the Dryad in an unsteady voice.
“It is The White Devil!” whispered Jones.
The Dryad’s skirts were short enough as it was, but she hastily picked them up. She had a right to. “Does it bite?” she whispered, looking carefully around in the grass. But all she could see was a strangely beautiful butterfly settled on a blue wild blossom which swayed gently in the wind on the edge of the jungle. So she dropped her skirts. She had a right to.
Now, within a few moments of the hour when Jones had first laid eyes on her, and she on Jones, he had confided to her his family history, his ambitions, his ethical convictions, and his theories concerning the four known forms of the exquisite Ajax butterfly of Florida. She had been young enough to listen without yawning — which places her age somewhere close to eighteen. Besides, she had remembered almost everything that Jones had said, which confirms a diagnosis of her disease. There could be no doubt about it; the Dryad was afflicted with extreme Youth, for she now recognized the butterfly from the eulogy of Jones, and her innocent heart began a steady tattoo upon her ribs as Jones, on tiptoe, crept nearer and nearer, net outstretched.
The moment was solemn; breathless, hatless, bare-armed, the Dryad advanced, skirts spread as though to shoo chickens.
“Don’t,” whispered Jones.
But the damage had been accomplished; Ajax jerked his pearl and ashen banded wings, shot with the fiery crimson bar, flashed into the air, and was gone like the last glimmer of a fading sun-spot.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” cried the Dryad, clasping her highly ornamental hands; “what on earth will you think of my stupidity?”
“Nothing,” said Jones, resolutely, swallowing hard and gazing at the tangled jungle.
“It was too stupid,” insisted the Dryad; and, as the silence of Jones assented, she added, “but it is not very nice of you to say so.”
“Why, I didn’t,” cried Jones.
“You did,” said the Dryad, tears of vexation in her blue eyes. “And to pay for your discourtesy you shall make me a silk net and I shall give up golf and spend my entire time in hunting for White Devils, to make amends.”
The suggested penance appeared to attract Jones.
“Give up golf — which I am perfectly mad about,” repeated the Dryad, “just because you were horrid when I tried to help you.”
“That will be delightful,” said Jones, naïvely. “We will hunt Ajax together — all day, every day — —”
“Oh, I shall catch — something — the first time I try,” observed the Dryad, airily. She teed up a practice ball, hit it a vicious whack, followed its flight with narrowing blue eyes, and, turning placidly upon Jones, smiled a dangerous smile.
“If I don’t catch an Ajax before you do I’ll forfeit anything you please,” she said.
“I’ll take it,” said Jones.
“But,” cried the Dryad, “what do you offer against it?”
“Whatever I ask from you,” he said, deliberately.
“You are somewhat vague, Mr. Jones.”
“I won’t be when I win.”
“Tell me what you want — if you win!”
“What? With this caddie hanging around and listening?” The Dryad, wide-eyed and flushed, regarded him in amazement.
Jones picked up a pinch of wet sand from the box, moulded it with great care into a tiny truncated cone, set it on the tee, set his ball on top of it, whipped the air persuasively with his driver once or twice, and, settling himself into the attitude popularly attributed to the Colossus of Rhodes, hit the ball for the longest, cleanest drive he had ever perpetrated.
“Dryad,” he said, politely, “it is now up to you.”
* * *
Of all the exquisite creatures that float through the winter sunshine of the semi-tropics this is the most exquisite and spirituelle. Long, slender, swallow-tailed wings, tinted with pearl and primrose, crossed with ashy stripes and double-barred with glowing crimson — this is the shy, forest-haunting creature that the Dryad sought to snare, and sought in vain.
Sometimes, standing on the long, white shell roads, where myriads of glittering dragon-flies sailed, far away a pale flash would catch the sun for an instant; and “Ready! Look out!” would cry the Dryad. Vanity! Swifter than a swallow the Ajax passed, a pearly blurr against the glare of the white road; swish! swish! the silken nets swung in vain.
“Oh, bother,” sighed the Dryad.
Again, in the dim corridors of the forest, where tall palms clustered and green live oaks spread transparent shadows across palmetto thickets, far in some sunlit glade a tiny wing-flash would bring the Dryad’s forest cry: “Quick! Oh, quick!” But the woodland ghost was gone.
“Oh, bother, bother!” sighed the Dryad. “There are flowers — the sparkleberry is in blossom — there is bloom on the China tree, but this phantom never stops! Can nothing stop it?”
Day after day, guarding the long, white road, the Dryad saw the phantom pass — always flying north; day after day in the dim forest, the hurrying, pale-winged, tireless creatures fled away, darting always along some fixed yet invisible aërial path. Nothing lured them, neither the perfumed clusters of the China-berry, nor the white forest flowers; nothing checked them, neither the woven curtain of creepers across the forest barrier, nor the jungle walled with palms.
To the net of the Dryad and of Jones had fallen half a thousand jewelled victims; the exquisite bronzed Berenice, the velvet and yellow Palamedes, the great orange-winged creatures brilliant as lighted lanterns. But in the gemmed symmetry of the casket the opalescent heart was missing; and the Dryad, uncomforted, haunted the woodlands, roaming in defiance of the turquoise-tinted lizards and the possible serpent whose mouth is lined with snow-white membranes — prowling in contempt of that coiled horror that lies waiting, S shaped, a mass of matted grey and velvet diamond pattern from which two lidless eyes glitter unwinking.
“How on earth did anybody ever catch an Ajax?” inquired the Dryad at the close of one fruitless, bootless day’s pursuit.
“I suppose,” said Jones, “that every year or so the Ajax alights.” That was irony.
“On what?” insisted the Dryad.
“Oh, on — something,” said Jones, vaguely. “Butterflies are, no doubt, like the human species; flowers tempt some butterflies, mud-puddles attract others. One or the other will attract our Ajax some day.”
That night Jones, with book open upon his knees, sat in the lamplight of the great veranda and read tales of Ajax to the Dryad; how that, in the tropics, Ajax assumes four forms, masquerading as Floridensis in winter and as Telamonides in summer, and how he wears the exquisite livery of Marcellus, too, and even assumes, according to a gentleman named Walsh, a fourth form. Beautiful pictures of Ajax illumined the page where were also engraved the signs of Mars and of Venus. The Dryad looked at these; Jones looked at her; the rest of the hotel looked at them. Jones read on.
