by M. P. Shiel
minutely gold-embroidered, and hungwith silver, copper and gold coins of the Orient; my beard, still black,sweeps in two divergent sheaves to my hips, flustered by every wind; asI walk through this palace, the amber-and-silver floor reflects in itsdepths my low-necked, short-armed robe of purple, blue, and scarlet,a-glow with luminous stones. I am ten times crowned Lord and Emperor; Isit a hundred times enthroned in confirmed, obese old Majesty. Challengeme who will--challenge me who dare! Among those myriad worlds upon whichI nightly pore, I may have my Peers and Compeers and Fellow-denizens ...but _here_ I am Sole; Earth acknowledges my ancient sway and hereditarysceptre: for though she draws me, not yet, not yet, am I hers, but sheis mine. It seems to me not less than a million million aeons sinceother beings, more or less resembling me, walked impudently in the opensunlight on this planet, which is rightly mine--I can indeed no longerpicture to myself, nor even credit, that such a state of things--sofantastic, so far-fetched, so infinitely droll--could have existed:though, at bottom, I suppose, I know that it must have been really so.Up to ten years ago, in fact, I used frequently to dream that there wereothers. I would see them walk in the streets like ghosts, and betroubled, and start awake: but never now could such a thing, I think,occur to me in sleep: for the wildness of the circumstance wouldcertainly strike my consciousness, and immediately I should know thatthe dream was a dream. For now, at least, I am sole, I am lord. Thegolden walls of this palace which I have built look down, enamoured oftheir reflection, into a lake of the choicest, purplest wine.
Not that I made it of wine because wine is rare; nor the walls of goldbecause gold is rare: that would have been too childish: but because Iwould match for beauty a human work with the works of those Others: andbecause it happens, by some persistent freak of the earth, thatprecisely things most rare and costly are generally the most beautiful.
The vision of glorious loveliness which is this palace now risen beforemy eyes cannot be described by pen and paper, though there _may_ bewords in the lexicons of language which, if I sought for them withinspired wit for sixteen years, as I have built for sixteen years, mightas vividly express my thought on paper, as the stones-of-gold, sogrouped and built, express it to the eye: but, failing such labours andskill, I suppose I could not give, if there were another man, and Itried to give, the faintest conception of its celestial charm.
It is a structure positively as clear as the sun, and as fair as themoon--the sole great human work in the making of which no restrainingthought of cost has played a part: one of its steps alone being of morecost than all the temples, mosques and besestins, the palaces, pagodasand cathedrals, built between the ages of the Nimrods and the Napoleons.
The house itself is very small--only 40 ft. long, by 35 broad, by 27high: yet the structure as a whole is sufficiently enormous, highuplifted: the rest of the bulk being occupied by the platform, on whichthe house stands, each side of this measuring at its base 480 ft., itsheight from top to bottom 130 ft, and its top 48 ft. square, theelevation of the steps being just nearly 30 degrees, and the top reachedfrom each of the four points of the compass by 183 low long steps, verymassively overlaid with smooth molten gold--not forming a continuousflight, but broken into threes and fives, sixes and nines, with landingsbetween the series, these from the top looking like a great terracedparterre of gold. It is thus an Assyrian palace in scheme: only that theplatform has steps on all sides, instead of on one. The platform-top,from its edge to the golden walls of the house, is a mosaic consistingof squares of the glassiest clarified gold, and squares of the glassiestjet, corner to corner, each square 2 ft. wide. Around the edge of theplatform on top run 48 square plain gold pilasters, 12 on each side, 2ft. high, tapering upwards, and topped by a knob of solid gold, piercedwith a hole through which passes a lax inch-and-a-half silver chain,hung with little silver balls which strike together in the breeze. Themansion consists of an outer court, facing east toward the sea, and thehouse proper, which encloses an inner court. The outer court is a hollowoblong 32 ft. wide by 8 ft. long, the summit of its three walls beingbattlemented; they are 18-1/2 ft. in height, or 8-1/2 ft. lower than thehouse; around their gold sides, on inside and outside, 3 ft. from thetop, runs a plain flat band of silver, 1 ft. wide, projecting 2/3 in.,and at the gate, which is a plain Egyptian entrance, facing eastwards,2-1/2 ft. narrower at top than at bottom, stand the two great squarepillars of massive plain gold, tapering upwards, 45 ft. high, with theircapital of band, closed lotus, and thin plinth; in the outer court,immediately opposite the gate, is an oblong well, 12 ft. by 3 ft,reproducing in little the shape of the court, its sides, which aregold-lined, tapering downward to near the bottom of the platform, wherea conduit of 1/8 in. diameter automatically replenishes the ascertainedmean evaporation of the lake during the year, the well containing105,360 litres when nearly full, and the lake occupying a circle roundthe platform of 980 ft. diameter, with a depth of 3-1/2 ft. Round thewell run pilasters connected by silver chains with little balls, and itcommunicates by a 1/8 in. conduit with a pool of wine let into the innercourt, this being fed from eight tall and narrow golden tanks, taperingupwards, which surround it, each containing a different red wine,sufficient on the whole to last for all purposes during my lifetime. Theground of the outer court is also a mosaic of jet and gold: butthenceforth the jet-squares give place throughout to squares of silver,and the gold-squares to squares of clear amber, clear as solidified oil.The entrance is by an Egyptian doorway 7 ft. high, with folding-doors ofgold-plated cedar, opening inwards, surrounded by a very largeprojecting coping of plain silver, 3-1/2 ft. wide, severe simplicity ofline throughout enormously multiplying the effect of richness ofmaterial. The interior resembles, I believe, rather a Homeric, than anAssyrian or Egyptian house--except for the 'galleries,' which are purelyBabylonish and Old Hebrew. The inner court, with its wine-pool andtanks, is a small oblong of 8 ft. by 9 ft., upon which open foursilver-latticed window-oblongs in the same proportion, and two doors,before and behind, oblongs in the same proportion. Round this run theeight walls of the house proper, the inner 10 ft. from the outer, eachparallel two forming a single long corridor-like chamber, except thefront (east) two, which are divided into three apartments; in each sideof the house are six panels of massive plain silver, half-an-inchthinner in their central space, where are affixed paintings, 22 or else21 taken at the burning of Paris from a place called 'The Louvre,' and 2or else 3 from a place in England: so that the panels have the look offrames, and are surrounded by oval garlands of the palest amethyst,topaz, sapphire, and turquoise which I could find, each garland being ofonly one kind of stone, a mere oval ring two feet wide at the sides andnarrowing to an inch at the top and bottom, without designs. Thegalleries are five separate recesses in the outer walls under the roofs,two in the east facade, and one in the north, south, and west, hung withpavilions of purple, blue, rose and white silk on rings and rods ofgold, with gold pilasters and banisters, each entered by four steps fromthe roof, to which lead, north and south, two spiral stairs of cedar. Onthe east roof stands the kiosk, under which is the little lunartelescope; and from that height, and from the galleries, I can watchunder the bright moonlight of this climate, which is very likelime-light, the for-ever silent blue hills of Macedonia, and where theislands of Samothraki, Lemnos, Tenedos slumber like purplish fairies onthe Aegean Sea: for, usually, I sleep during the day, and keep anight-long vigil, often at midnight descending to bathe my colouredbaths in the lake, and to disport myself in that strange intoxication ofnostrils, eyes, and pores, dreaming long wide-eyed dreams at the bottom,to return dazed, and weak, and drunken. Or again--_twice_ within theselast void and idle six months--I have suddenly run, bawling out, fromthis temple of luxury, tearing off my gaudy rags, to hide in a hut bythe shore, smitten for one intense moment with realisation of the pastof this earth, and moaning: 'alone, alone ... all alone, alone, alone... alone, alone....' For events precisely resembling eruptions takeplace in my brain; and one spangled midnight--ah, how spangled!--I maykneel on the roof with streaming, uplifted face,
with outspread arms,and awe-struck heart, adoring the Eternal: the next, I may strut like acock, wanton as sin, lusting to burn a city, to wallow in filth, and,like the Babylonian maniac, calling myself the equal of Heaven.
* * * * *
But it was not to write of this--of all this--!
Of the furnishing of the palace I have written nothing.... But why Ihesitate to admit to myself what I _know_, is not clear. If They speakto me, I may surely write of Them: for I do not fear Them, but am Theirpeer.
Of the island I have written nothing: its size, climate, form,vegetation.... There are two winds: a north and a south wind; the northis cool, and the south is warm; and the south blows during the wintermonths, so that sometimes on Christmas-day it is quite hot; and thenorth, which is cool, blows from May to September, so that the summer ishardly ever oppressive, and the climate was made for a king.
