Figures of Earth

by James Branch Cabell

And that night, and all the next day, Dom Manuel rode beyond Aigremont and Naimes, journeying away from Morven, and away from the house of jasper and porphyry and violet and yellow breccia, and away from Freydis, who had put off immortality for his kisses. He travelled northward, toward the high woods of Dun Vlechlan, where the leaves were aglow with the funereal flames of autumn: for the summer wherein Dom Manuel and Freydis had been happy together was now as dead as that estranged queer time which he had shared with Alianora.

  XIX

  The Head of Misery

  When Manuel had reached the outskirts of the forest he encountered there a knight in vermilion armor, with a woman's sleeve wreathed about his helmet: and, first of all, this knight demanded who was Manuel's lady love.

  "I have no living love," said Manuel, "except the woman whom I am leaving without ceremony, because it seems the only way to avoiding argument."

  "But that is unchivalrous, and does not look well."

  "Very probably you are right, but I am not chivalrous. I am Manuel. I follow after my own thinking, and an obligation is upon me pointing toward prompt employment of the knowledge I have gained from this woman."

  "You are a rascally betrayer of women, then, and an unmanly scoundrel."

  "Yes, I suppose so, for I betrayed another woman, in that I permitted and indeed assisted her to die in my stead; and so brought yet another bond upon myself, and an obligation which is drawing me from a homelike place and from soft arms wherein I was content enough," says Manuel, sighing.

  But the chivalrous adventurer in red armor was disgusted. "Oh, you tall squinting villain knight of the silver stallion, I wonder from whose court you can be coming, where they teach no better behavior than woman-killing, and I wonder what foul new knavery you can be planning here."

  "Why, I was last in residence at Raymond Bérenger's court," says Manuel: "and since you are bent on knowing about my private affairs, I come to this forest in search of Béda, or Kruchina, or whatever you call the Misery of earth in these parts."

  "Aha, and are you one of Raymond Bérenger's friends?"

  "Yes, I suppose so," says Manuel, blinking,—"yes, I suppose so, since I have prevented his being poisoned."

  "This is good hearing, for I have always been one of Raymond Bérenger's enemies, and all such of his friends as I have encountered I have slain."

  "Doubtless you have your reasons", said Manuel, and would have ridden by.

  But the other cried furiously, "Turn, you tall fool! Turn, cowardly betrayer of women!"

  He came upon Manuel like a whirlwind, and Manuel had no choice in the matter. So they fought, and presently Manuel brought the vermilion knight to the ground, and, dismounting, killed him. It was noticeable that from the death-wound came no blood, but only a flowing of very fine black sand, out of which scrambled and hastily scampered away a small vermilion-colored mouse.

  Then Manuel said, "I think that this must be the peculiarly irrational part of the forest, to which I was directed, and I wonder what may have been this scarlet squabbler's grievance against King Raymond Bérenger?"

  Nobody answered, so Manuel remounted, and rode on.

  Count Manuel skirted the Wolflake, and came to a hut, painted gray, that stood clear of the ground, upon the bones of four great birds' feet. Upon the four corners of the hunt were carved severally the figures of a lion, a dragon, a cockatrice and an adder, to proclaim the miseries of carnal and intellectual sin, and of pride, and of death.

  Here Manuel tethered his horse to a holm-oak. He raised both arms, facing the East.

  "Do you now speed me!" cried Manuel, "ye thirty Barami! O all ye powers of accumulated merit, O most high masters of Almsgiving, of Morality, of Relinquishment, of Wisdom, of Fortitude, of Patience, of Truth, of Determination, of Charity, and of Equanimity! do all you aid me in my encounter with the Misery of earth!"

  He piously crossed himself, and went into the hut. Inside, the walls were adorned with very old-looking frescoes that were equally innocent of perspective and reticence: the floor was of tessellated bronze. In each corner Manuel found, set upright, a many-storied umbrella of the kind used for sacred purposes in the East: each of these had a silver handle, and was worked in nine colors. But most important of all, so Manuel had been told, was the pumpkin which stood opposite to the doorway.

  Manuel kindled a fire, and prepared the proper kind of soup: and at sunset he went to the window of the hut, and cried out three times that supper was ready.

  One answered him, "I am coming."

  Manuel waited. There was now no sound in the forest: even the few birds not yet gone south, that had been chirping of the day's adventures, were hushed on a sudden, and the breeze died in the tree-tops. Inside the hut Manuel lighted his four candles, and he disposed of one under each umbrella in the prescribed manner. His footsteps on the bronze flooring, and the rustling of his garments as he went about the hut doing what was requisite, were surprisingly sharp and distinct noises in a vast silence and in an illimitable loneliness.

  Then said a thin little voice, "Manuel, open the door!"

  Manuel obeyed, and you could see nobody anywhere in the forest's dusk. The twilit brown and yellow trees were still as paintings. His horse stood tethered and quite motionless, except that it was shivering.

  One spoke at his feet. "Manuel, lift me over the threshold!"

  Dom Manuel, recoiling, looked downward, and in the patch of candlelight between the shadows of his legs you could see a human head. He raised the head, and carried it into the hut. He could now perceive that the head was made of white clay, and could deduce that the Misery of earth, whom some call Béda, and others Kruchina, had come to him.

  "Now, Manuel," says Misery, "do you give me my supper."

  So Manuel set the head upon the table, and put a platter of soup before the head, and fed the soup to Misery with a gold spoon.

  When the head had supped, it bade Manuel place it in the little bamboo cradle, and told Manuel to put out the lights. Many persons would not have fancied being alone in the dark with Misery, but Manuel obeyed. He knelt to begin his nightly prayer, but at once that happened which induced him to desist. So without his usual divine invocation, Dom Manuel lay down upon the bronze floor of the hut, beneath one of the tall umbrellas, and he rolled up his russet cloak for a pillow. Presently the head was snoring, and then Manuel too went to sleep. He said, later, that he dreamed of Niafer.

  XX

  The Month of Years

  In the morning, after doing the head's extraordinary bidding, Manuel went to feed his horse, and found tethered to the holm-oak the steed's skeleton picked clean. "I grieve at this," said Manuel, "but I consider it wiser to make no complaint." Indeed, there was nobody to complain to, for Misery, after having been again lifted over the threshold, had departed to put in a day's labor with the plague in the north.

  Thereafter Manuel abode in this peculiarly irrational part of the forest, serving Misery for, as men in cheerier places were estimating the time, a month and a day. Of these services it is better not to speak. But the head was pleased by Manuel's services, because Misery loves company: and the two used to have long friendly talks together when Manuel's services and Misery's work for that day were over.

  "And how came you, sir, to be thus housed in a trunkless head?" asked Manuel, one time.

  "Why, when Jahveh created man on the morning of the sixth day, he set about fashioning me that afternoon from the clay which was left over. But he was interrupted by the coming of the Sabbath, for Jahveh was in those days, of course, a very orthodox Jew. So I was left incomplete, and must remain so always."

  "I deduce that you, then, sir, are Heaven's last crowning work, and the final finishing touch to creation."

  "So the pessimists tell me," the clay head assented, with a yawn. "But I have had a hard day of it, what with the pestilence in Glathion, and wars between the Emperor and the Milanese, and all those October colds, so we will talk no more philosophy."

  Thus Manuel se
rved the head of Misery, for a month of days and a day. It was a noticeable peculiarity of this part of the forest—a peculiarity well known to everybody, though not quite unanimously explained by the learned,—that each day which one spent therein passed as a year, so that Dom Manuel in appearance now aged rapidly. This was unfortunate, especially when his teeth began to fail him, because there were no dentists handy, but his interest in the other Plagues which visited this forest left Manuel little time wherein to think about private worries. For Béda was visited by many of his kindred, such as Mitlan and Kali and Thragnar and Pwyll and Apepi and other evil principles, who were perpetually coming to the gray hut for family reunions, and to rehearse all but one of the two hundred and forty thousand spells of the Capuas. And it was at this time that Manuel got his first glimpse of Sclaug, with whom he had such famous troubles later.

  So sped the month of days that passed as years. Little is known as to what happened in the gray hut, but that perhaps is a good thing. Dom Manuel never talked about it. This much is known, that all day the clay head would be roving about the world, carrying envious reports, and devouring kingdoms, and stirring up patriotism and reform, and whispering malefic counsel, and bringing hurt and sorrow and despair and evil of every kind to men; and that in the evening, when at sunset Phobetor took over this lamentable work, Béda would return contentedly to Dun Vlechlan, for Manuel's services and a well-earned night's rest. On most evenings there was unspeakable company, but none of these stayed overnight. And after each night passed alone with Misery, the morning would find Manuel older looking.

  "I wonder, sir, at your callousness, and at the cheery way in which you go about your dreadful business," said Manuel, once, after he had just cleansed the dripping jaws.

  "Ah, but since I am all head and no heart, therefore I cannot well pity the human beings whom I pursue as a matter of allotted duty."

  "That seems plausible," says Manuel, "and I perceive that if appearances are to be trusted you are not personally to blame. Still, I cannot but wonder why the world of men should thus be given over to Misery if Koshchei the Deathless, who made all things as they are, has any care for men."

  "As to what goes on overhead, Manuel, you must inquire of others. There are persons in charge, I know, but they have never yet permitted Misery to enter into their high places, for I am not popular with them, and that is the truth."

  "I can understand that, but nevertheless I wonder why Misery should have been created to feed upon mankind."

  "Probably the cows and sheep and chickens in your barnyards, and the partridges and rabbits in your snares, and even the gasping fish upon your hook, find time to wonder in the same way about you, Dom Manuel."

  "Ah, but man is the higher form of life—"

  "Granting that remarkable assumption, and is any man above Misery? So you see it is logical I should feed on you."

  "Still, I believe that the Misery of earth was devised as a trial and a testing to fit us for some nobler and eternal life hereafter."

  "Why in this world should you think that?" the head inquired, with real interest.

  "Because I have an immortal spirit, sir, and—"

  "Dear me, but all this is very remarkable. Where is it, Manuel?"

  "It is inside me somewhere, sir."

  "Come, then, let us have it out, for I am curious to see it."

  "No, it cannot get out exactly, sir, until I am dead."

  "But what use will it be to you then?" said Misery: "and how can you, who have not ever been dead, be certain as to what happens when one is dead?"

  "Well, I have always heard so, sir."

  The head shook itself dubiously. "Now from whom of the Léshy, I wonder, can you have been hearing such fantastic stories? I am afraid somebody has been making fun of you, Manuel."

  "Oh, no, sir, this is a tenet held by the wisest and most admirable of men."

  "I see: it was some other man who told you all these drolleries about the eternal importance of mankind," the head observed, with an unaccountable slackening of interest. "I see: and again, you may notice that the cows and the sheep and the chickens, also, resent extinction strenuously."

  "But these are creatures of the earth, sir, whereas there is about at any rate some persons a whiff of divinity. Come now, do you not find it so?"

  The head looked graver. "Yes, Manuel, most young people have in them a spark which is divine, but it is living that snuffs this out of all of you, by and large, without bothering Grandfather Death to unpeel spirits like bananas. No, the most of you go with very little spirit, if any, into the grave, and assuredly with not enough spirit to last you forever. No, Manuel, no, I never quarrel with religion, because it is almost the strongest ally I have, but these religious notions rather disgust me sometimes, for if men were immortal then Misery would be immortal, and I could never survive that."

  "Now you are talking nonsense, sir," said Manuel, stoutly, "and of all sorts of nonsense cynical nonsense is the worst."

  "By no means," replied the head, "since, plainly, it is far worse nonsense to assert that omnipotence would insanely elect to pass eternity with you humans. No, Manuel, I am afraid that your queer theory, about your being stuffed inside with permanent material and so on, does not very plausibly account for either your existence or mine, and that we both stay riddles without answers."

  "Still, sir," said Manuel, "inasmuch as there is one thing only which all death's ravishings have never taken from life, and that thing is the Misery of earth—"

  "Your premiss is indisputable, but what do you deduce from this?"

  Manuel smiled slowly and sleepily. "I deduce, sir, that you, also, who have not ever been dead, cannot possibly be certain as to what happens when one is dead. And so I shall stick to my own opinion about the life to come."

  "But your opinion is absurd, on the face of it."

  "That may very well be, sir, but it is much more comfortable to live with than is your opinion, and living is my occupation just now. Dying I shall attend to in its due turn, and, of the two, my opinion is the more pleasant to die with. Thereafter, if your opinion be right, I shall never even know that my opinion was wrong: so that I have everything to gain, in the way of pleasurable anticipations anyhow, and I have nothing whatever to lose, by clinging to the foolish fond old faith which my fathers had before me," said Manuel, as sturdily as ever.

  "Yes, but how in this world—?"

  "Ah, sir," says Manuel, still smiling, "in this world men are nourished by their beliefs; and it well may be that, yonder also, their sustenance is the same."

  But at this moment came Reeri (a little crimson naked man, having the head of a monkey) with his cock in one hand and his gnarled club in the other. Necessarily the Blood Demon's arrival put an end to their talking, for that turn.

  XXI

  Touching Repayment

  So Count Manuel's youth went out of him as he became more and more intimate with Misery, and an attachment sprang up between them, and the two took counsel as to all Manuel's affairs. They often talked of the royal ladies whom Manuel had loved and loved no longer.

  "For at one time," Manuel admitted, "I certainly fancied myself in love with the Princess Alianora, and at another time I was in love with Queen Freydis. And even now I like them well enough, but neither of these royal ladies could make me forget the slave girl Niafer whom I loved on Vraidex. Besides, the Princess and the Queen were fond of having their own way about everything, and they were bent on hampering me with power and wealth and lofty station and such other obstacles to the following of my own thinking and my own desires. I could not endure the eternal arguing this led to, which was always reminding me, by contrast, of the quiet dear ways of Niafer and of the delight I had in the ways of Niafer. So it seemed best for everyone concerned for me to break off with Freydis and Alianora."

  "As for these women," the head estimated, "you may be for some reasons well rid of them. Yet this Alianora has fine eyes and certain powers."

  "She is a princess
of the Apsarasas," Manuel replied, "and therefore she has power over the butterflies and the birds and the bats, and over all creatures of the air. I know, because she has disclosed to me some of the secrets of the Apsarasas. But over her own tongue and temper the Princess Alianora has no power and no control whatever, and if I had married her she would have eventually pestered me into being a king, and giving my life over to politics and the dominion of men."

  "This Freydis, too, has beautiful black hair—and certain powers—"

  "She was once Queen of Audela, and therefore she retains power over all figures of earth. I know, because she has disclosed to me some of the secrets of Audela. But the worst enemy of Freydis also goes in red, and is housed by the little white teeth of Freydis, for it was this enemy that betrayed her: and if I had married her she would have coaxed me, by and by, into becoming a great maker of images, and giving my life over to such arts."

  Misery said: "You have had love from these women, you have gained power and knowledge from these women. Therefore you leave them, to run after some other woman who can give you no power and knowledge, but only a vast deal of trouble. It is not heroic, Manuel, but it is human, and your reasoning is well fitted to your time of life."

  "It is true that I am young as yet, sir—"

  "No, not so very young, for my society is maturing you, and already you are foreplanning and talking the follies of a man in middle life."

  "No matter what my age may come to be, sir, I shall always remember that when I first set up as a champion, and was newly come from living modestly in attendance upon the miller's pigs, I loved the slave girl Niafer. She died. I did not die. Instead, I relinquished Niafer to Grandfather Death, and at that price I preserved my own life and procured a recipe through which I have prospered unbelievably, so that I am today a nobleman with fine clothes and lackeys, and with meadow-lands and castles of my own, if only I could obtain them. So I no longer go ragged at the elbows, and royal ladies look upon me favorably, and I find them well enough. But the joy I took in Niafer is not to be found in any of these things."