Little Kingdoms

by Steven Millhauser

  That evening he felt heavy-limbed and light-headed and went to bed early. When he lay down his heart began to beat very quickly, as if he were running; and he lay alert and exhausted as moon drawings streamed in his mind, with their two peg holes at the top, their numbers in the lower right-hand corner, their hundreds of thousands of carefully drawn little black lines.

  As he waited for the drawings to be photographed, he began to fear that something had happened to them, something Vivograph was attempting to conceal. He saw his 32,416 drawings fluttering slowly to the floor, a snowstorm of spilled pages, each flake slightly different from the others; he saw a black footprint, like one of the footprints in a dance manual, stamped in the center of each clean white moonscape; and he saw, rising along the sides of high piles of crisp white paper, little red-and-yellow flames darting higher and higher.

  The day came when his reels of film were ready. At once a new worry sprang up in him: suppose Kroll were to discover what he had done? The revelation of an immense secret life, of vast energies directed away from the World Citizen, could strike Kroll only as a criminal violation of their agreement; punishment would be harsh and swift. Caution was crucial. At Vivograph a man with a sharp chin and thin pink lips kept plying him with questions, but Franklin, slyly avoiding his gaze, said that he knew nothing about it, he was just there to pick up the cans of film and the boxes. At home he decided to make it a surprise for Stella. He had rented a projector earlier in the week and purchased a portable screen attached to a collapsible tripod. Mrs. Henneman served dinner and left at seven-thirty; she would return at seven-thirty in the morning. “A good night to you, Mr. Payne,” she said, and he was startled: surely she couldn’t know about the trip to Vivograph, the night’s screening? “That’s all right, Mrs. Henneman,” he said, waving. “I’ll be just fine. Don’t you worry about me.” In the kitchen he played a game of Parcheesi with Stella, who liked each of them to take two colors. At eight-thirty she went upstairs to get ready for bed and Franklin crept up to the study to set up the screen and load the first reel in the projector. By the time she had finished brushing her teeth he was back in the parlor, pacing. In Stella’s room he read to her a chapter of Anne of the Island, then closed the book and said, “I have a surprise for you: upstairs.” He placed a finger over his lips. Stella sat up at once, her dark hair falling over one shoulder, her lips parted slightly, her large, dark eyes grave in their excitement.

  She followed him up the stairs and entered the tower room quietly, taking in the projector and screen without a word. On one side of the projector Franklin had placed his leather desk-chair, on the other Stella’s small wooden chair from her old worktable. She sat down quietly on the childish chair with her hands in her lap, then slid forward until her shoulders pressed against the chair-top. Raising a hand she began to wind her hair round and round a finger. Franklin turned out the light and started the projector. There was a flickering blankness on the screen, then a briefly flashed numeral J, a few scratchy lines, and suddenly the title, in carefully drawn black letters. Franklin shifted the projector slightly; the cartoon began. In the darkroom he had stared at the white paper, waiting. From the depths of whiteness black shapes had come. But the pictures had not moved. On the white screen the black pictures moved—the old mystery made new. Dark and light: night and moon: dark theater and bright screen. In the dark he could see the shaft of light thrown by the projector. It looked like a moonbeam in some old painting of a forest. It struck him that the projector beam was the true modern moonbeam, the ray of light from a new realm of mystery and enchantment that outmoded the poor old moon. And it was good: he saw that it was good, that he hadn’t lost his touch. Stella sat rigid, spellbound, tense with attention.

  It was shortly after the landing on the moon that a deep excitement seized Franklin, for he realized that something extraordinary was going to happen—and yet, was it really so surprising, after all? The footsteps on the stairs were light but not to be mistaken. Stella, screen-enchanted, noticed nothing. The stairs creaked once, then were still; after a while the door opened. She was wearing a spring dress, one that he remembered, and a white flower in her hair. She looked at him questioningly, a little shyly; he was grateful that she said nothing. A flicker of light from the projector played on one sleeve and on her collarbone. She looked about for a moment or two, then stepped to the back of the room, not far from Stella, and silently watched the shimmering screen.

  And he was touched that she had come: after all, she had never much cared for his cartoons. That was only proper, for she played Schubert on the piano and had once talked to him on the porch of her father’s house in Cincinnati about the difference between Ingres and Delacroix. He hoped she would like this one, for it was the best he was able to do.

  And again he heard a footstep on the stair: he was not surprised. It was a firm step, a confident step—the step of someone who had no doubt about where he was going. After a while the door opened, and Max stood there with a hand in his pocket, the other hand gripping a suit jacket flung over his shoulder. His tie was loosely knotted and his top shirt button undone, and he looked at Franklin with affection and a touch of wryness. Then he removed the hand from his pocket and touched the fingertips lightly to his forehead in salute. He looked quietly about, then stepped to the back of the room, near Cora but not directly beside her.

  The first reel came to an end; quickly Franklin removed it and put in the second reel. Max would like this one: he would understand what Franklin had done.

  But hardly had the second reel begun when there was another sound on the stair. It was a heavier tread, the tread of someone not accustomed to climbing flights of stairs, and Franklin listened anxiously to the slow, relentless, gradually approaching steps. For although he had not expected anyone else, on this special occasion, still his little group seemed incomplete. Outside the closed door came the sound of labored breaths and a faint asthmatic wheeze. Then slowly the door opened, and in the doorway, wiping his forehead with a large pocket handkerchief, stood Kroll. Yes, it was Kroll—how could it be otherwise?—Kroll with his melancholy, intelligent eyes, Kroll with his chocolate-brown suit jacket stretched to the breaking point across his great shoulders and massive belly, Kroll with a big polka-dot bow tie, evidently purchased for the occasion, for it still had its price tag. It sat a little askew over a triangle of rumpled shirt. Kroll stepped into the room and closed the door softly behind him. And Franklin was grateful that he had come: he wanted Kroll to see what he could do. Kroll had brought with him a metal folding chair with a leather seat, and after a quick glance he set up his chair in the dark between Stella, seated in front of him, and Cora and Max, standing behind him at the back of the room.

  Even as Kroll sat down on his chair, allowing his broad hands, with their little black hairs that looked as if they had been combed carefully to one side, to sink gradually into the dark, Franklin became aware of yet another sound on the stairs. It was a pair of footsteps this time, and Franklin felt a sharp tug of curiosity and excitement, for he had thought his little party complete. And although he was not entirely surprised, for nothing surprised him on this special occasion, even so he could not still the violence of his heart as the footsteps reached the top of the stairs. The door opened and the couple entered, first the woman and then the man, their figures a little more stooped than he had imagined, their faces unclear in the dark. But he recognized the bag of knitting with its faded pink flowers that the woman carried over one shoulder, and the old man’s darkroom apron was deeply familiar to him. Arm in arm they made their way to the back of the room, where they stood on the other side, apart from Cora and Max, though Cora, just for a moment, stepped over with a child’s wooden chair and helped the woman sit down. Once seated, she took out her knitting needles but watched the screen without looking away; and his father, standing bent beside her with the fingertips of his left hand resting on the back of the little chair, his cheeks waxy smooth and reddened with rouge, his father, giving off a sw
eet, disturbing odor of lilies, raised and lowered the extended index finger of his right hand, counting silently as he watched the screen.

  And it was good: Franklin was touched that they had come. For they were all gathered now, those for whom his work mattered at all; and what difference did it make if he had to shut it all up in a box, so long as they were here to see it, on this special occasion. They had all been very quiet—Stella had noticed nothing, but sat transfixed beside the projector, her face tense with delight—and as Franklin put in the third reel he was pleased that they would see it to the end. For the voyage was not a collection of separate adventures but a gradual accumulation, a pressure in a direction, culminating in the rhythmic release of the dark side of the moon. And as the cartoon entered its last phase, he felt it was working, despite a few adjustments that would be necessary here and there. He could feel the silent excitement in the room. The end was coming: after a nightmare pursuit through melting moonscapes, by creatures who kept changing their shapes, the boy seized a moon bird that changed into a chalk eraser, and with it he began to erase. He erased the fluttering white moongirl with long moon hair, the moon fountains, the line of moon hills, the white horizon line—and at last he and the monkey stood alone in a black world. Then he turned to the monkey and began to erase him, in quick strokes that sent up puffs of chalk dust. He paused for only a moment before he began to erase himself: first his legs, then his body, next his head. He erased both arms, and now there was nothing left but the fingers grasping the eraser. And so it was nearly done. He had made the voyage to the dark side of the moon, from which no traveler returned. Quickly the eraser extracted itself from the fingers and erased them. Now the eraser began to spin: faster and faster it spun, growing larger and larger, vanishing in a blur, erasing the blackness itself, until there was only a white, blank world, on which the words THE END swiftly wrote themselves. And it was good: he had done what he set out to do. Perhaps he could rest now, for he was very tired.

  The reel of film continued to click through the projector as the applause began. It was light at first, a spatter of appreciative claps. But it did not stop: led by Max the applause grew louder, Franklin could distinguish Cora’s swift vigorous claps and Kroll’s little persistent ones, muffled as if he were wearing gloves, but tireless for all that. His mother, standing now, clapped slowly, while his father, still raising and lowering his right hand gravely, struck his left palm against the top of the chair in time to the rhythm of his counting. They were all standing, even Kroll had risen to applaud him in the warm and intimate dark. “Please,” Franklin said, holding up his hands, “this is really, this is really.” Tears of gratitude ran down his cheeks; and as he bowed his head, for he was very tired, the applause grew louder and louder until it was one continuous roar.

  The Princess,

  the Dwarf,

  and the Dungeon

  THE DUNGEON. The dungeon is said to be located so far beneath the lowest subterranean chambers of the castle that a question naturally arises: is the dungeon part of the castle itself? Other underground chambers, such as the storage cellars, the torture chamber, and the prison cells used for detention during trial, are merely the lowest in an orderly progression of descending chambers, and maintain a clear and so to speak reasonable relation to the upper levels of the castle. But the dungeon lies so far beneath the others that it seems part of the dark world below, like the place under the mountain where ogres breed from the blood of murdered children.

  THE CASTLE. The castle lies on a steep cliff on the far side of the river, three hundred feet above the water. In bright sunlight the castle seems to shine out from the darker rock of the cliff and to thrust its towers gaily into the blue sky, but when the air darkens with clouds the castle draws the darkness into itself and becomes nearly black against the stormy heavens. From our side of the river we can see the Princess’s tower, the battlements of the outer wall, including the vertical stone spikes on the merlons, and two arched gates of darker stone. Beneath the Princess’s tower lies her walled garden. We cannot see the garden walls or the garden itself, with its paths of checkered stone, its turf-covered benches, and its shady bower of trelliswork sheltering two couches covered in crimson silk. We cannot see the courtiers walking in the Court of the Three Fountains. We cannot see the Prince’s oriel overlooking the slate roof of the chapel, we cannot see the row of marble pillars three of which are said to come from the palace of Charlemagne at Ingelheim, we can only imagine the hall, the brewhouse, the bakehouse, the stables, the orchard, the park with its great alleys of shade trees, the dark forest stretching back and back and back.

  TALES OF THE PRINCESS. There was once a beautiful Princess, whose skin was whiter than alabaster, whose hair was brighter than beaten gold, and whose virtue was celebrated throughout the land. One day she married a Prince, who was as handsome as she was beautiful; they loved each other entirely; and yet within a year their happiness turned to despair. Some held the Prince to blame, saying he was proud and jealous by nature, but others accused the Princess of a secret weakness. By this they meant nothing less than her virtue itself. For her virtue, which no one questioned, made her secure against the attentions of admirers, and prevented her from imagining even the possibility of unfaithfulness. Because of her deep love for the Prince and her knowledge of her own steadfastness, she failed to fortify herself with haughtiness, reserve, and a sense of formidable propriety. Instead, while acting always within the strict constraints of court etiquette, she was unaffected in manner, generous in spirit, and open to friendship with members of her husband’s intimate circle. Moreover, her love for the Prince led her to follow closely all matters at court, in order that she might understand all that concerned him and advise him sagely. It was therefore in no way unusual that she should take an interest in the stranger who arrived one night on a richly caparisoned horse, and who quickly won the friendship of the Prince by virtue of his nobility of bearing, his boldness of spirit, his thirst for knowledge, and his gift of ardent speech, but who nevertheless, saying only that he was a margrave, and that he came from a distant land, bore on his escutcheon the word Infelix: the Wretched One.

  THE TWO STAIRWAYS. The stairways are circular and are composed of heavy blocks of stone that wind about a stone newel. Both stairways spiral to the right, in order to give the advantage to the defender, who with his right hand can wield his sword easily in the concavity of the round wall, while the attacker on the lower step is cramped by the newel’s outward curve. One stairway winds up past slitlike openings that give higher and higher glimpses of the little river, the little town with its double wall, the little mills along the riverbank, until at last it reaches the chamber of the Princess at the top of the tower. The other stairway begins in a subterranean corridor beneath the torture chamber and winds down and immeasurably down, in a darkness so thick that it feels palpable as cloth or stone. After a time the steps begin to crumble, sprouting black vegetation; gradually the outlines of the steps become blurred, as if the reason for steps has been forgotten. This stairway, which some imagine to narrow slowly until there is space only for the rats, descends to the dungeon.

  THE WINDOW RECESS. The Prince, who was often closeted for long hours with his councillors in order to discuss a pressing matter of territorial jurisdiction, was grateful to the Princess for attending to his new friend. Accompanied by two ladies-in-waiting, the Princess walked with the margrave in the walled garden beneath her tower, or sat with him in a small receiving chamber attached to her private rooms in the great hall. The small chamber had a pair of tall lancet windows set in a wide recess with stone window seats along the sides. The many-paned windows looked down upon wooded hills and a distant twist of river. One day as the Princess stood at the window, looking out at the far river, while the margrave with his sharp brown beard and amethyst-studded mantle sat back against the angle formed by the stone seat and the windowed wall, the Princess was startled from her revery by the sound of suddenly advancing footsteps. She tur
ned quickly, raising a hand to her throat, and saw the Prince standing in the arched doorway. “You startled me, my lord,” she said, as the margrave remained motionless in shadow. The dark stranger in the corner of the window seat, the startled, flushed wife, the stillness of the sky through the clear panes of glass, all this caused a suspicion to cross the Prince’s mind. He banished the thought instantly and advanced laughing toward the pair at the window.