Before I knew exactly what I was doing, I had reached the entrance hall. The door closed quietly behind me, and for the first time in my life I found myself inside a stately home. It was overwhelming. For a start, there was such a distinguished silence that I hardly dared to breathe. Then there was the incredible elegance of the furniture and the trinkets. Every chair was at least twice as tall as an ordinary chair, and very much narrower. For these aristocrats, even plates were oval, not round like ordinary people’s. The drawing room, where the sad lady was standing, was adorned with a fireplace, and there was a table laid with teacups and cakes. Near the fire, a teapot waited quietly to be poured.
Seen from the back, the lady seemed even taller. She was at least ten feet tall. The problem was how to speak to her. Begin with the weather, and how bad it was? Too banal. Talk of poetry? But what poetry?
“Madam, do you like poetry?”
“No, I hate poetry,” she answered in a voice stifled with boredom, without turning to me.
“Have a cup of tea, it will make you feel better.”
“I don’t drink, I don’t eat. It’s a protest against my father, the bastard.”
After a quarter of an hour’s silence she turned around, and I was astonished by her youth. She was perhaps sixteen years old.
“You’re very tall for your age, Miss. When I was sixteen I wasn’t half as tall as you.”
“I don’t care. Anyway, give me some tea, but don’t tell anyone. Perhaps I’ll also have one of those cakes, but whatever you do, remember not to say anything.”
She ate with an absolutely amazing appetite. When she got to the twentieth cake she said, “Even if I die of hunger, he’ll never win. I can see the funeral procession now, with four big black horses, gleaming. They’re walking slowly, my little coffin, white in a drift of red roses. And people weeping, weeping …”
She began to weep.
“Look at the little corpse of beautiful Lucretia. And you know, once you’re dead, there’s nothing very much one can do. I’d like to starve myself to death just to annoy him. What a pig.”
With these words she slowly left the room. I followed her.
When we reached the third floor, we went into an enormous nursery where hundreds of dilapidated and broken toys lay all over the place. Lucretia went up to a wooden horse. In spite of its great age—certainly not much less than a hundred years—it was frozen in a gallop.
“Tartar is my favourite,” she said, stroking the horse’s muzzle. “He loathes my father.”
Tartar rocked himself gracefully on his rockers, and I wondered to myself how he could move by himself. Lucretia looked at him thoughtfully, clasping her hands together.
“He’ll travel a very long way like that,” she said. “And when he comes back he’ll tell me something interesting.”
Looking out of doors, I noticed that it was snowing. It was very cold, but Lucretia didn’t notice it. A slight sound at the window attracted her attention.
“It’s Matilda,” she said. “I ought to have left the window open. Anyway, it’s stifling in here.” With that she broke the windowpanes, and in came the snow with a magpie, which flew around the room three times.
“Matilda talks like this. It’s ten years since I split her tongue in two. What a beautiful creature.”
“Beautiful crrrreature,” screeched Matilda in a witch’s voice. “Beeeautiful crrrreature.”
Matilda went and perched on Tartar’s head. The horse was still galloping gently. He was covered in snow.
“Did you come to play with us?” enquired Lucretia. “I’m glad, because I get very bored here. Let’s make believe that we’re all horses. I’ll turn myself into a horse; with some snow, it’ll be more convincing. You be a horse, too, Matilda.”
“Horse, horse, horse,” yelled Matilda, dancing hysterically on Tartar’s head. Lucretia threw herself into the snow, which was already deep, and rolled in it, shouting, “We are all horses!”
When she emerged, the effect was extraordinary. If I hadn’t known that it was Lucretia, I would have sworn that it was a horse. She was beautiful, a blinding white all over, with four legs as fine as needles, and a mane which fell around her long face like water. She laughed with joy and danced madly around in the snow.
“Gallop, gallop, Tartar, but I shall go faster than you.”
Tartar didn’t change speed, but his eyes sparkled. One could only see his eyes, for he was covered in snow. Matilda cawed and struck her head against the walls. As for me, I danced a sort of polka so as not to die of cold.
Suddenly I noticed that the door was open, and that an old woman stood framed in the doorway. She had been there perhaps for a long time without my noticing her. She looked at Lucretia with a nasty stare.
“Stop at once,” she cried, suddenly trembling with fury. “What’s all this? Eh, my young ladies? Lucretia, you know this game has been strictly forbidden by your father. This ridiculous game. You aren’t a child anymore.”
Lucretia danced on, flinging out her four legs dangerously near the old woman; her laughter was piercing.
“Stop, Lucretia!”
Lucretia’s voice became shriller and shriller. She was doubled up with laughter.
“All right,” said the old woman. “So you won’t obey me, young lady? All right, you’ll regret it. I’m going to take you to your father.”
One of her hands was hidden behind her back, but with astonishing speed for someone so old, she jumped on Lucretia’s back and forced a bit between her teeth. Lucretia leapt into the air, neighing with rage, but the old woman held on. After that she caught each of us, me by my hair and Matilda by her head, and all four of us were hurled into a frenzied dance. In the corridor, Lucretia kicked out everywhere and smashed pictures and chairs and china. The old woman clung to her back like a limpet to a rock. I was covered in cuts and bruises, and thought Matilda must be dead, for she was fluttering sadly in the old woman’s hand like a rag.
We arrived in the dining room in a veritable orgy of noise. Sitting at the end of a long table an old gentleman, looking more like a geometric figure than anything else, was finishing his meal. All at once complete silence fell in the room. Lucretia looked at her father with swollen eyes.
“So you’re starting up your old tricks again,” he said, cracking a hazelnut. “Mademoiselle de la Rochefroide did well to bring you here. It’s exactly three years and three days since I forbade you to play at horses. This is the seventh time that I have had to punish you, and you are no doubt aware that in our family, seven is the last number. I’m afraid, my dear Lucretia, that this time I shall have to punish you pretty severely.”
The girl who had taken the appearance of a horse did not move, but her nostrils quivered.
“What I’m going to do is purely for your own good, my dear.” His voice was very gentle. “You’re too old to play with Tartar. Tartar is for children. I am going to burn him myself, until there’s nothing left of him.”
Lucretia gave a terrible cry and fell to her knees.
“Not that, Papa, not that.”
The old man smiled with great sweetness and cracked another hazelnut.
“It’s the seventh time, my dear.”
The tears ran from Lucretia’s great horse’s eyes and carved two channels in her cheeks of snow. She turned such a dazzling white that she shone like a star.
“Have pity, Papa, have pity. Don’t burn Tartar.”
Her shrill voice grew thinner and thinner, and she was soon kneeling in a pool of water. I was afraid that she was going to melt away.
“Mademoiselle de la Rochefroide, take Miss Lucretia outside,” said her father, and the old woman took the poor creature, who had become all thin and trembling, out of the room.
I don’t think he had noticed I was there. I hid behind the door and heard the old man go up to the nursery. A little later I stopped my ears with my fingers, for the most frightful neighing sounded from above, as if an animal were suffering extreme torture.
THE ROYAL SUMMONS
I had received a royal summons to pay a call on the sovereigns of my country.
The invitation was made of lace, framing embossed letters of gold. There were also roses and swallows.
I went to fetch my car, but my chauffeur, who has no practical sense at all, had just buried it.
“I did it to grow mushrooms,” he told me. “There’s no better way of growing mushrooms.”
“Brady,” I said to him, “you’re a complete idiot. You have ruined my car.”
So, since my car was indeed completely out of action, I was obliged to hire a horse and cart.
When I arrived at the palace, I was told by an impassive servant, dressed in red and gold, “The queen went mad yesterday. She’s in her bath.”
“How terrible,” I exclaimed. “How did it happen?”
“It’s the heat.”
“May I see her all the same?” I didn’t like the idea of my long journey being wasted.
“Yes,” the servant replied. “You may see her anyway.”
We passed down corridors decorated in imitation marble, admirably done, through rooms with Greek bas-reliefs and Medici ceilings and wax fruit everywhere.
The queen was in her bath when I went in; I noticed that she was bathing in goat’s milk.
“Come on in,” she said. “You see I use only live sponges. It’s healthier.”
The sponges were swimming about all over the place in the milk, and she had trouble catching them. A servant, armed with long-handled tongs, helped her from time to time.
“I’ll soon be through with my bath,” the queen said. “I have a proposal to put to you. I would like you to see the government instead of me today, I’m too tired myself. They’re all idiots, so you won’t find it difficult.”
“All right,” I said.
The government chamber was at the other end of the palace. The ministers were sitting at a long and very shiny table.
As the representative of the queen, I sat in the seat at the end. The Prime Minister rose and struck the table with a gavel. The table broke in two. Some servants came in with another table. The Prime Minister swapped the first gavel for another, made of rubber. He struck the table again and began to speak. “Madame Deputy of the Queen, ministers, friends. Our dearly beloved sovereign went mad yesterday, and so we need another. But first we must assassinate the old queen.”
The ministers murmured amongst themselves for a while. Presently, the oldest minister rose to his feet and addressed the assembly. “That being the case, we must forthwith make a plan. Not only must we make a plan, but we must come to a decision. We must choose who is to be the assassin.”
All hands were immediately raised. I didn’t quite know what to do as the deputy of Her Majesty.
Perplexed, the Prime Minister looked over the company.
“We can’t all do it,” he said. “But I’ve a very good idea. We’ll play a game of draughts, and the winner has the right to assassinate the queen.” He turned to me and asked, “Do you play, Miss?”
I was filled with embarrassment. I had no desire to assassinate the queen, and I foresaw that serious consequences might follow. On the other hand I had never been any good at all at draughts. So I saw no danger, and I accepted.
“I don’t mind,” I said.
“So, it’s understood,” said the Prime Minister. “This is what the winner will do: take the queen for a stroll in the Royal Menagerie. When you reach the lions (second cage on the left), push her in. I shall tell the keeper not to feed the lions until tomorrow.”
The queen called me to her office. She was watering the flowers woven in the carpet.
“Well, did it go all right?” she asked.
“Yes, it went very well,” I answered, confused.
“Would you like some soup?”
“You’re too kind,” I said.
“It’s mock beef tea. I make it myself,” the queen said. “There’s nothing in it but potatoes.”
While we were eating the broth, an orchestra played popular and classical tunes. The queen loved music to distraction.
The meal over, the queen left to have a rest. I for my part went to join in the game of draughts on the terrace. I was nervous, but I’ve inherited sporting instincts from my father. I had given my word to be there, and so there I would be.
The enormous terrace looked impressive. In front of the garden, darkened by the twilight and the cypress trees, the ministers were assembled. There were twenty little tables. Each had two chairs with thin, fragile legs. When he saw me arrive, the Prime Minister called out, “Take your places,” and everybody rushed to the tables and began to play ferociously.
We played all night without stopping. The only sounds that interrupted the game were an occasional furious bellow from one minister or another. Towards dawn, the blast of a trumpet abruptly called an end to the game. A voice, coming from I don’t know where, cried, “She has won. She’s the only person who didn’t cheat.”
I was rooted to the ground with horror.
“Who? Me?” I said.
“Yes, you,” the voice replied, and I noticed that it was the tallest cypress speaking.
I’m going to escape, I thought, and began to run in the direction of the avenue. But the cypress tore itself out of the earth by the roots, scattering dirt in all directions, and began to follow me. It’s so much larger than me, I thought and stopped. The cypress stopped too. All its branches were shaking horribly—it was probably quite a while since it had last run.
“I accept,” I said, and the cypress returned slowly to its hole.
I found the queen lying in her great bed.
“I want to invite you to come for a stroll in the menagerie,” I said, feeling pretty uncomfortable.
“But it’s too early,” she replied. “It isn’t five o’clock yet. I never get up before ten.”
“It’s lovely out,” I added.
“Oh, all right, if you insist.”
We went down into the silent garden. Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves. I sang a bit to cheer myself up. I was chilled to the bone. The queen, in the meantime, was telling me that she fed all her horses on jam.
“It stops them from being vicious,” she said.
She ought to have given the lions some jam, I thought to myself.
A long avenue, lined on both sides with fruit trees, led to the menagerie. From time to time a heavy fruit fell to the ground, Plop.
“Head colds are easily cured, if one just has the confidence,” the queen said. “I myself always take beef morsels marinated in olive oil. I put them in my nose. Next day the cold’s gone. Or else, treated in the same way, cold noodles in liver juice, preferably calves’ liver. It’s a miracle how it dispels the heaviness in one’s head.”
She’ll never have a head cold again, I thought.
“But bronchitis is more complicated. I nearly saved my poor husband from his last attack of bronchitis by knitting him a waistcoat. But it wasn’t altogether successful.”
We were drawing closer and closer to the menagerie. I could already hear the animals stirring in their morning slumbers. I would have liked to turn back, but I was afraid of the cypress and what it might be able to do with its hairy black branches. The more strongly I smelled the lion, the more loudly I sang, to give myself courage.
(1937–38)
A MAN IN LOVE
Walking down a narrow street one evening, I stole a melon. The fruit seller, who was lurking behind his fruit, caught me by the arm.
“Miss, I’ve been waiting for a chance like this for forty years. For forty years I’ve hidden behind this pile of oranges in the hope that somebody might pinch some fruit. And the reason for that is this: I want to talk, I want to tell my story. If you don’t listen, I’ll hand you over to the police.”
“I’m listening,” I told him.
He took me by the arm and dragg
ed me into the depths of his shop amongst the fruit and vegetables. We went through a door at the back and reached a room where there was a bed in which lay a woman, motionless and probably dead. It seemed to me that she must have been there a long time, for the bed was overgrown with grass.
“I water her every day,” the greengrocer said thoughtfully. “For forty years I’ve been quite unable to tell whether she is alive or dead. She hasn’t moved or spoken or eaten during that time. But, and this is the strange thing, she remains warm. If you don’t believe me, look.”
Whereupon he lifted a corner of the bed cover and I saw a large number of eggs and some newly hatched chicks.
“You see,” he said. “That’s where I hatch my eggs. I sell fresh eggs too.”
We sat down on opposite sides of the bed, and the greengrocer began to tell his tale.
“I love her so much, believe me, I’ve always loved her. She was so sweet. She had nimble little white feet. Would you like to see them?”
“No,” I replied.
“Anyway,” he continued with a deep sigh, “she was so beautiful! I had fair hair. But she, she had magnificent black hair. We both of us have white hair now. Her father was an extraordinary man. He had a big house in the country. He was a collector of lamb cutlets. The way we met was this. I have this special little gift. It’s that I can dehydrate meat just by looking at it. Mr. Pushfoot (that was his name) heard about me. He asked me to come to his house to dehydrate his cutlets, so that they shouldn’t rot. Agnes was his daughter. We immediately fell in love.
“We went away together in a boat on the Seine. I was rowing. Agnes said, ‘I love you so much I live only for you.’ And I used the same words to reply to her. I believe it’s my love that keeps her so warm to this day. No doubt she is dead, but the warmth remains.
“Next year,” he went on with a faraway look in his eyes, “next year I shall plant some tomatoes. I’d be surprised if they didn’t do very well in there …
The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington Page 2
