“This heavy weather,” continued the Abbot, helping himself to a very large piece of vanilla-flavoured anemone cake, “has a narcotic effect on the spirit, don’t you agree, my dear de Guindre? But your delightful garden is a veritable cradle of flowers, and often, when I walk under your flowering almond trees, an animal runs past me on mysterious paths.”
“Often? You often walk in my garden?” asked Cyril in astonishment. “Please forgive my curiosity, but how long have you been a regular visitor to my property?”
“Often!” the Abbot repeated in an ardent tone of voice. “I know every flower, every plant … every tree. You might say that the Abbot de Givres is the house spirit of the de Guindre garden.” He took a branch of honeysuckle from his breast and held it under the nose of Cyril, who smelled it avidly.
His crimson lips became black as they touched the flowers, his face weary and pale with pleasure. Thibaut did not move, but his eyes were dry and fierce. It seemed to him that the new moon descended from the sky and glided between the leaves of the weeping willows, coming to rest at last on the priest’s head, its pointed crescent thrusting into his glittering skull.
Panthilde, who at that moment arrived from the garden, remained at a distance. She looked at the three men, however, with a sombre eye.
“Panthilde,” asked the Abbot, looking at Cyril and barely concealing a certain anxiety in his voice. “Are you there? Aren’t you playing in the moonlight anymore?” She rolled her eyes angrily. “Come,” continued the Abbot. “Come and say good evening to your papa.”
Thibaut shuddered and clawed at the table. Panthilde did not move; she breathed heavily while looking at the table in an anguished way.
“That smell,” Cyril said in a thick voice. “I feel sick.”
He tried to get up, but the Abbot held him firmly by the arm and laughed.
(1937-40)
THE SISTERS
“Drusille,” the letter read.
“Drusille, I shall soon be with you. My love is already with you, its wings are faster than my body. When I am away from you, I am only a poor stuffed bird, for you are guardian of my vitals, my heart and my thoughts.
“Drusille, I embrace the south wind because it blows towards you. Drusille, my life! Your voice is more moving than the thunder, your eyes more overwhelming than lightning. Drusille, wonderful Drusille, I love you, I love you, I love you, sitting in the rain, your long and ferocious face close to this letter.”
The thunder growled around her, and the wind beat her face with its wet hair. The storm was so terrible that it tore the flowers from their stalks, and bore them in muddy streams towards an unknown fate. The flowers weren’t the only victims, for the streams also swept away crushed butterflies, fruit, bees, and small birds.
Drusille, sitting in her garden in the middle of all this havoc, laughed. She laughed a harsh laugh, the letter crushed against her breast. Sitting on her foot, two toads hissed this thought monotonously, “Drusille, my Belzamine; Drusille my Belzamine.”
All at once, the sun tore the clouds apart and poured a fierce yellow heat into the wet garden. Drusille got up and went into the house.
The maid, Engadine, was sitting on the floor, her hands full of the vegetables she was preparing for dinner. She looked at her mistress with her shrewd little eyes.
“Prepare the royal apartment,” Drusille said. “The king will be here this evening. Hurry and sprinkle the sheets with perfume.”
“I already knew all that,” Engadine said. “The letter passed through my hands.”
Drusille kicked her in the stomach.
“Get up, garbage.” The servant rose, her face rigid with pain.
“Jasmine or patchouli?”
“Patchouli for the pillows, jasmine for the sheets, and musk for the purple blankets. Put the lilac dressing gown on the bed with the scarlet pyjamas. Hurry or I’ll smack your face.”
In the kitchen, cakes and enormous tarts were put to the flame and taken from the oven. Pomegranates and melons stuffed with larks filled the kitchen: whole oxen were turning slowly on spits, pheasants, peacocks, and turkeys awaited their turn to be cooked. Chests full of fantastic fruit cluttered up the corridors.
Drusille walked about slowly in this forest of food, tasting a lark or a cake here and there.
In the cellars, the old wooden casks gave up their contents of blood, honey, and wine. Most of the servants were lying about the floor, dead drunk. Drusille took the opportunity to hide a demijohn of honey under her skirt. She went up to the attic. The top of the house was engulfed in a deep silence, rats and bats peopled the spiral staircases. Drusille arrived finally before a door which she opened with a large key attached to a chain around her neck.
“Juniper?” she said. “Are you there?”
“As usual,” answered a voice out of the gloom. “I don’t move.”
“I’ve brought you something to eat. Are you better today?”
“My health is always excellent, sister.”
“You’re ill,” replied Drusille in an irritated voice. “Poor little thing.”
“It’s Thursday, isn’t it?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it is Thursday.”
“Then I’m allowed a candle. Have you brought me one?”
Drusille hesitated a moment, then she spoke with an effort. “Yes, I’ve brought you a candle. I am good to you.”
Silence.
Drusille lit the candle, illuminating a dirty little attic without windows. Perched on a rod near the ceiling, an extraordinary creature looked at the light with blinded eyes. Her body was white and naked; feathers grew from her shoulders and round her breasts. Her white arms were neither wings nor arms. A mass of white hair fell around her face, whose flesh was like marble.
“What have you brought me to eat?” she asked, jumping on her perch.
The moment she saw the creature moving, Drusille slammed the door behind her. But Juniper had eyes for nothing but the honey.
“You’ve got to make it last at least six days,” Drusille said.
Juniper ate for some time in silence.
“Drink,” she said finally. Drusille held out a glass of water, but Juniper shook her head.
“Not that, not today. I need red….”
Drusille laughed. “No you don’t…. Last time you drank red, you bit me. It excites you too much. Water’s good for thirst.”
“Red,” insisted Juniper in a monotonous voice. “Else I’ll scream.”
With a quick gesture, Drusille brought a knife from between her breasts. She held it to her sister’s throat, who jumped on her perch with raucous cries, like a peacock.
A little later Juniper spoke in a tear-choked voice. “I don’t mean you harm, I only want a small glass, no more. I’m so thirsty, so thirsty. Dear Drusille, I want only a single drop … and afterwards a look at the beautiful new moon for five minutes. Nobody will see me, nobody, I promise you, I swear it. I’ll lie on the roof and look at the moon. I won’t go away, I’ll come back once I’ve seen the moon.”
Drusille laughed silently. “And then what? Perhaps you’d like me to catch the moon to light up your attic? Listen, Juniper. You’re ill, very ill. I only want what’s best for you, and if you go out on the roof you’ll catch cold, you’ll die….”
“If I don’t see the moon tonight, I’ll be dead tomorrow.”
Drusille screamed with rage. “Will you please shut up? Isn’t what I do for you enough?”
Suddenly the two sisters heard the noise of a car approaching below. The servants began to shout orders and insult one another.
“I have to go now,” announced Drusille, trembling. “Go to sleep.”
“Who is it?” Juniper hopped on her perch.
“Mind your own business,” replied Drusille.
“Rats, bats, and spiders are my business.”
“I’ve given you socks to knit. Go knit.”
Juniper lifted her strange arms as if wanting to fly away. “My hands aren’t made fo
r knitting.”
“Then knit with your feet.” And Drusille left so hastily she forgot to lock the door behind her.
Ex-king Jumart stepped from his old Rolls-Royce. His long, iron grey beard flowed over his green satin coat embroidered with butterflies and the royal monogram. On his superb head he wore an enormous gold wig with rose-coloured shadows, like a cascade of honey. A variety of flowers, growing here and there in his wig, moved in the wind. He held out his hands to Drusille.
“Drusille, my Belzamine.”
Drusille trembled with emotion.
“Jumart! Jumart!” She fell into his arms, sobbing and laughing.
“Oh how beautiful you are, Drusille! How I have dreamed of your scent and your kisses.” They walked in the garden, their arms entwined.
“I am ruined,” Jumart said with a sigh. “My coffers are empty.”
Drusille allowed herself a triumphant smile. “Then you’ll stay with me! I have had nothing but solitude for too long.”
The heavy, murky atmosphere of the garden was rent by a long, raucous cry. Drusille turned pale and murmured, “Oh no, it’s impossible.”
“What is it, my Belzamine?”
Drusille threw back her head with the laugh of a hyena. “It’s the sky,” she said. “These yellow clouds weigh so much I was afraid they might fall on our heads! Besides, this stormy weather’s giving me a migraine.”
“Kiss me,” murmured the king tenderly. “I shall eat your migraine.”
He noticed that Drusille’s face was like the face of a ghost. Frightened, he took her hand in his to reassure himself she was alive.
“Your face is green,” he said in a low voice. “There are heavy shadows under your eyes.”
“They’re the shadows of the leaves,” Drusille answered, sweat on her brow. “I’m exhausted by my emotions, it’s been three months since I saw you.” Then she took him violently by the arm. “Jumart, do you love me? Swear that you are in love with me … swear it quickly.”
“You know it well,” Jumart said, surprised. “What is the matter, my Drusille?”
“Do you love me more than all other women? More than all other human beings?”
“Yes, Drusille. And you, do you love me as much?”
“Ah,” Drusille said in a trembling voice, “so much that you will never know how much. My love is deeper than deepest space.”
The king’s attention was distracted by something moving amongst the leaves at the end of the garden. His expression became ecstatic, his eyes glittered.
“What do you see?” cried Drusille suddenly. “Why are you looking down there with that strange expression?”
Abruptly, Jumart came back to himself and said a few words in a dreamy voice. He seemed to be waking up. “The garden is so beautiful, Drusille, I feel as if I were in a dream.”
Drusille was choking. She gave a painful smile. “Or a nightmare—sometimes one confuses the two. Let’s go in, Jumart, the sun has set, and soon dinner will be on the table. We’ll eat on the terrace so that you can enjoy the moonrise. Tonight it will be paler and more beautiful than ever. When I look at the moonlight, I think I’m seeing your beard.”
Jumart sighed. “The twilight is enchanted, bewitched. Let’s stay out awhile. The garden’s suffused in magic. One doesn’t know what beautiful phantom might appear from these purple shadows.”
Drusille’s hands went to her throat, and her voice had a metallic ring. “Let’s go in, I beg you. Night’s going to fall, I’m shivering with cold.”
“Your face is a leaf of such a pale green it must have grown under the light of the new moon. Your eyes are stones found in caves at the centre of the earth. Your eyes are grim.”
Drusille’s voice became acid: “You’re moonstruck. You’ve gone out of your mind. You’re seeing things that aren’t there. Give me your hand and I’ll take you to the house.”
“Bang-bang, who’s the madder of us two?” replied Jumart, twisting his beard. “Don’t preach to me. If my lands and castles are lost, I’m the happiest of men.”
Enchanted with his deep reflections, the king rubbed his hands and did a few dance steps. Drusille looked at the trees and thought the fruit looked like little corpses. She looked at the sky and saw drowned bodies in the clouds. Her eyes were full of horror. “My head is a bier for my thoughts, my body a coffin.” She walked behind the king with slow steps, her hands clasped in front of her.
A bell rang for dinner.
Engadine came out of the kitchen. She was carrying a suckling pig stuffed with nightingales. She stopped with a cry. In front her an exultant white apparition blocked the way.
“Engadine!”
“What the devil, Miss Juniper …”
“Engadine, how red you are.”
The maid drew back. The apparition approached, bounding.
“I’ve just come from the kitchen,” Engadine said. “It’s hot in the kitchen.”
“And I—I’m all white, Engadine. Do you know why I’m white like a ghost?”
Engadine shook her head without speaking.
“It’s because I never see the light. And now I’m in great need of something, my dear little Engadine.”
“What then? What?” the maid whispered, and she trembled so much that the suckling pig fell to the floor, the platter in a thousand pieces.
“You’re so red … so red.” At these words, Engadine let out a long and terrible siren’s cry. At that moment, Juniper leapt. The two fell to the ground, Juniper on top, mouth pressed to Engadine’s throat.
She sucked, sucked for long minutes, and her body became enormous, luminous, magnificent. Her feathers shone like snow in the sun, her tail sparkled with all the colours of the rainbow. She threw back her head and crowed like a cock. Afterwards she hid the corpse in the drawer of a chest.
“Now for the moon,” she sang, leaping and flying towards the terrace. “Now for the moon!”
Drusille, naked to her breasts, had her arms around Jumart’s neck. The heat of the wine warmed her skin like a flame, she gleamed with sweat. Her hair moved like black vipers, the juice of a pomegranate dripped from her half-open mouth.
Meat, wine, cakes, all half eaten, were heaped around them in extravagant abundance. Huge pots of jam spilled on the floor made a sticky lake around their feet. The carcass of a peacock decorated Jumart’s head. His beard was full of sauces, fish heads, crushed fruit. His gown was torn and stained with all sorts of food.
(1939)
CAST DOWN BY SADNESS
Cast down by sadness, I walked far into the mountains where the cypresses grew so pointed one would have taken them for arms, where the brambles had thorns as big as claws. I came to a garden overrun by climbing plants and weeds with strange blooms. Through a large gate I saw a little old woman tending her untidy plants. She was dressed in mauve lace and a large hat from another age. The hat, decorated with peacock feathers, sat askew, and her hair escaped on all sides. I stopped my melancholy walk and asked the little old woman to give me a glass of water, as I was thirsty.
“You may drink,” she said coquettishly, putting a flower behind her large ear. “Come into my garden.”
With extraordinary agility she leapt towards me and took me by the hand. The garden was full of old sculptures of animals, all more or less dilapidated. Plants of every kind mingled in profusion, growing with tropical splendour. The little old woman jumped right and left picking flowers, which in the end she put around my neck.
“There you are, now you’re dressed,” she said to me, looking at me with her head to the side. “We don’t like people coming in here without being dressed. Personally I take a great deal of care with my toilet, one could even say I was something of a coquette.” She hid her face behind a little dirty hand, looking at me through her fingers. “Not bad, what,” she murmured. “My coquettishness is quite innocent, and no one can say different.” At these words she lifted her long skirt an inch or two, and I saw her tiny feet, in little deerskin boots. “I’ve been t
old that I have very beautiful feet, but I beg you not to tell anybody that I let you see….”
“Madam,” I said, “innumerable troubles have befallen me, and I am very grateful to you, as you have shown me the most beautiful feet I have ever seen. You have little feet like knife blades.”
She flew into my arms and kissed me several times. Then she said with great dignity, “I can see that you are a person of exceptional intelligence. I would like to invite you to stay with me. You will not regret it.”
That’s how I came to know Arabelle Pegase. I shall never forget her black eyes or her feet. She led me to a small lake in the garden and invited me to drink. This lake was surrounded by weeping willows that trailed into the clear water. Arabelle looked at her reflection in the water.
“I have wept so much here,” she said. “I find that my beauty is very touching. For entire nights I have trailed my luxuriant hair in the water and washed my body, telling it ‘You rival the moon, your flesh is more brilliant than its light.’ I said all this to give it pleasure, for my body’s so jealous of the moon. One evening I’ll invite you to meet it.”
Trembling, I looked deeply into the water.
I saw a group of peacocks passing on the other side of the lake. I heard their raucous cries.
“I always wear peacock blue underwear,” continued Arabelle. “Silk, of course, with eyes embroidered all over. The eyes are there for looking—guess at what.”
I shook my head. “I can’t guess,” I said.
She covered her face with her hand once more, blushing like a young girl.
“But … my body!” she said. “They see it morning to night, aren’t they the lucky ones?” I was so disturbed by this question that I couldn’t reply. Arabelle didn’t notice and went on. “I wear a lot of petticoats of all shades of blue and green. And if you saw my knickers, every pair more beautiful than the last. I speak to you as an artist, you understand, simply as an artist. I have a dress made entirely of the heads of cats. It’s very beautiful. If you were to see it … At one time that was just the height of fashion.”
The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington Page 7
