19 Tales of Terror

by Whit Burnett

  Oh, how close these people stood talking and moving-and

  none of them would imagine what was going on in this white

  cabin, only one step away!

  Afterward he placed her on the bunk. She lay as if dead, her

  teeth clenched, her eyes closed, and a sad sense of peace settling on her now pale and quite youthful features.

  Toward evening, when the steamer docked at the stop where

  she was to land, she stood alongside him, silent, with lowered

  lashes. He kissed her cold band with that love that remains

  somewhere in the heart for all one's life, and she, without looking back, ran down the gangway into the rude, jostling crowd on the dock.

  -Translated from the Russian by Leo Gruliont.

  WH IT BURNETT

  THE N I GHT OF THE

  GRAN ·BA I LE MASCARA

  I AM kept in this place as a prisoner. I have lost

  track of exactly how long I've been held here. But that--does

  not very much matter. I am treated well and persons attend to

  my wants with courteous regularity and precision. What I fail

  to get is understanding. For the Spanish are a peculiar people;

  I doubt if they understand themselves-least of all me.

  I am not a Spaniard, either, but was born in America.

  Though perhaps I am not wholly an American; maybe there is

  something other in me. something Russian, wilder, clearer. I

  do not know. But now and then, although I am still a young

  man, I have been able to see with a sharper clarity of vision

  than any others I have known, with a curious almost Fourth

  Dimensional eye. And I sometimes think that all the world is

  one great diseased mind, and only occasionally does an individual free himself from the compass of its illusions.

  But this is aimless speculation. And not my story. For I want

  now to relate my experience, which has no duplicate in modem

  times.

  It began in Toledo. Of that I'm quite sure. For, with my

  companion, an artist seeking picturesque spots for illustrative

  sketches, I had been in Spain not much longer than a week.

  From the French border, through Barcelona and Madrid, we

  had gone directly there, you see, seeking in the old towers and

  gates and castles bordering the Tajo some quickening of our

  feelings for all Spain. And the events I am to tell of occurred

  on the night of the gran baile mascara, for which the town, the

  day of our arrival, was garlanded, expectant, tense and alive.

  Yet, perched on the top of an eminence overlooking the

  muddy curling snake of the river that swirls about its base on

  three steep rocky sides, Toledo affected me oddly as we passed

  1 18

  Tlla Nl,ht of tile Gran lalla Mascara • I ll

  through its gates, and when I stepped from the conveyance that

  had brought us from the station, it was as if I had stepped into

  a kind of walled-up cage. But the sensation was very momentary and quickly dispelled in the noisy, moving bustle of the crowds in the old plaza de Zocodover, which was filling with

  its sauntering crowds of Spaniards who tum out to stroll and

  smile and amble along just before dusk each day.

  As my friend, an Italian, was negotiating for rooms, I stood

  outside to watch the people : cadets in their bright infantry uniforms, guardias civiles in their dark blue capes trimmed with the blood-red dear to Spain; the old, shriveled men and women

  of other times and other generations; beshawled crones with

  sinewy faces and wide, swinging skirts ; noisy, carnival-spirited

  boys with masks or blackened faces; blanket-carrying peasanw; basket-laden matrons and maids with great water-fi.lled earthem botijas.

  One old man-not, indeed, so very old-impressed me singularly. Dressed in a blanket cape of black, which he held around his chest with one bony hand, frayed of boot and with

  a battered hat cocked over his left eye, he turned on me a fleeting, curious, bearded face, and passed on. His features were caught in a semilevitous mood, his crooked brow and sharp

  brown eye and great descending bulbous nose all combined

  with a general air to make him seem strangely unreal and

  realistic at the same time.

  My friend came out of the little hotel.

  "Complet," h� said. "Rooms all taken for the ball tonight."

  I hardly heard him.

  "Just now," I said, "I have seen Menipo."

  "Menipo?"

  "Yes," I answered. "By Velasquez."

  "Oh," he said, "Toledo is full of types. A person could spend

  a year here and never do them justice. You mean the old fellow, full length, in the panel that always seems to companion Velasquez's tEsop? Marvelous type!"

  We went to another hotel. Also full. We were referred then

  to a smaller place, a posada, "for man and beast," and in a

  short time we had engaged two habitaciones in the Posada de

  la Sangre on the Calle de Cervantes; through the Arco de la

  Sangre off the public square and almost in the shadow of the

  great murderous-spired fortress of the Alcazar.

  Although by this time it was late twilight, there was still a

  fair amount of visibility and my friend, throwing down his bags

  in his room, left the posada at once with his portfolio under his

  arm, planning, as was his custom, to make a quick survey of

  the locality at once so that in the morning, with better light, he

  might go directly to his subject.

  120

  Nineteen Tales of Terror

  •

  And I was left alone in the ancient inn.

  From the Zocodover I could hear the blended noise of the

  crowds of Toledanos, whose gay spirits were quickening with

  the approach of night. Across the narrow calle, a light had appeared in a window, and inside I could see a Spanish woman sitting in a corner sewing on a huge white cloth, unmarked and

  immaculate as a shroud. Her face was full of character, lined

  and reminiscent of life. Her silent, steady needle-plying fascinated me, and I stood watching her from my darkened little room a long time before turning on my light (for this Fourteenth Century hostelry, remodeled since the days of Cervantes and his squire and serf, boasted at least this much of modem

  convenience) .

  Tired as I was from the railroad journey from Madrid, my

  mind was far from fatigued, and as I lay resting on the bed,

  scrutinizing my narrow little whitewashed room, whose red

  flag-stones, worn by generations, sloped weirdly to the door

  and to the balcony overlooking the patio, I was suddenly moved

  by a great desire to enter into the spirit and activity of the

  town while in Toledo, to know these people, or at least to be

  with and a part of them.

  What better opportunity could have been made to my order, I thought, than this very night, when all the town is masked and festive for the gran baile mascara?

  I was stirred by the thought and hurriedly washing and

  brushing up, 1 decided to purchase a costume at once and make

  ready for the ball, which was to be held, the announcements

  said, in the Teatro de Ia Rojas.

  I tugged at the huge old-fashioned lock on my door, which

  yielded with irritating reluctance only after I had had to put in

  the tremendous key upside down and tum it backward to dis-

  engage the latch.

  ·

  I must describe briefly the Posada of the Blood of Christ,

&nbs
p; for it struck me so forcibly as a mad-house of architecture, or,

  more exactly, as a sane house that, through the weary acquiring

  of years, had fallen into architectural senility and despair. Its

  rooms, all narrow and cell-like as my own, were built three

  stories high around an open air court below, upon whose cobblestones were deployed the cluttery old carts and wagons of the guests, mostly peasants and out-of-townsmen. To the south,

  and off the main court, were the stables for the mules, the patient burros of Spain, and from these quarters came the strong and piercing smell of wet straw and manure.

  Above me were the now clear stars, shining in a sky more

  deeply blue than the depths of a grottoed sea. A little light beside a water trough in the patio threw shadows behind the

  The Night of the Graa Balle Mascara • 121

  antique columns supporting the balcony and made a few old

  benches lifelike as recumbent sleepers. Standing at the north

  balcony of the court, I was surprised at the angles of the floor I

  stood on; it sloped almost precariously to the wobbly pillars,

  and I smiled at the thought that not even the strongest vino de

  Jerez such as we had had at a cafe before entering the posada

  could have induced such reckless equilibrium in my mind.

  Here had Cervantes stayed in 1 6-something, and written

  his "Novelas Ejamplares," centered in the square outside. Had

  he indeed, I wondered? Was this house then so sloped, so fallen

  in at the roof, so weak at the knees? Doubtless not. I stood musing, watching the walls around the patio, absorbing the unusual silence and black desertion of the place and staring at the opposite side of the balcony whose death-white surface was

  ribbed vertically with the shadows of the upright balcony

  railing . . . .

  "I could go," I thought, "as a matador. But everyone goes

  like that. And there are so many masked balls always in Spain.

  Something different, now . . . . A pirate? Old-fashioned. A

  clown? Pierrot? A peasant? . • . How unimaginative the mind

  is," I concluded, "in a new situation."

  I shrugged my shoulders and walked along the western side

  of the balcony to the doorway leading to the ground floor. I

  will wait and see, I decided, what I can find at a costumer's.

  At the last step but one, the curious revelatory idea that is

  essential in an understanding of my plight, occurred to me.

  "Go," said something deep inside me, "as Menipol"

  "I will," I said.

  And, as if by some strange affiliation of will and chance, I

  walked straight to the water-trough near the doorway leading

  into the stables and took down from a huge spike a great, darkhued blanket-coat that hung there, threw it round my shoulders, and pulled over my head some unknown owner's cold-banded

  hat.

  I lacked now only a beard to be as Menipo.

  I was exhilarated so disguised, suddenly, strangely let out of

  myself, in a manner none may understand except those who

  have experienced it.

  As I stood at . the entrance to the stables, which looked

  through the patio and out into the Calles de Cervantes, my

  mind was divided between the necessity of a beard for my disguise and with contemplation of the sudden activity in the street outside.

  From the Gobiemo Militar, passing up the narrow aisle-like

  calles, guardias civiles, in their great capes were moving in

  strange groups westward to the Arco de Ia Sangre that entered

  122 • Nineteen Tales of Terror

  onto the Plaza. There was nothing so strange in their going

  there, but it seemed that either they too were affected by the

  mascara spirit, or that something was wrong with my eyesight,

  for these usually so precise and dignified police servants were

  beyond all dignity now and lurched and swung along with an

  abandon I had never seen before. Three or four, appearing at

  intervals, even made light of their stature, apparently ridiculing the very build that had assured them a government post in Spain, for they had bent their knees nearly to the ground and

  were waddling away, their legs hidden under their capes so that

  they appeared like absurd dwarfs beside the others.

  I could not help laughing as I stood there, safely protected

  from conspicuousness by my own new trappings. I walked

  across the court to the outer doorway, and at that instant, from

  the Zocodover came the sudden strains of band music, which

  drew more and more people through the channel of the street

  and thence through the arch and into the hidden crowds. Behind me, passed some peasants from the interior of the posada; but I did not turn around. A second or two later I saw even the

  proprietor himself, with his apron around his middle, go up

  the street. I then looked behind me, and found myself almost

  ·

  dreadfully conscious of complete isolation.

  But, as I stared into the shadows behind me, I discerned one

  significant dark shape. It was a man. He was emerging from

  the stables. Wrapped like myself in a blanket cape, he came

  with appalling slowness toward me, slowly but directly, inevitably, like-a heavily looming mountain.

  Fearful that he might bump into me, I decided to step out

  into the doorway. His slow, determined stride came on. There

  was no avoiding a collision. His face was down, hidden by the

  angle of his hat. A weighty oppressiveness settled on me. He

  was assuredly bound to walk right over me. I could not move.

  With great effort, I stepped, at last, to one side. But he did

  not pass. He lifted his head, and I saw the features of the man

  with the crooked brow and the great descending nose. It was

  Menipo!

  "Buenos," I mumbled in greeting, and was for leaving.

  He made no response.

  Instead, he walked closer toward me until he was so near I

  felt his breath in my face. Then, muttering words or sounds I

  could not understand, he pushed me backward, slowly, grossly,

  with his bent arm beneath his cape elbowing at my stomach.

  Backward I moved, unable, through surprise or something

  else, to offer any resistance. Further and further back I went,

  away from the door and into the shadows of the frightful court.

  After a century of time, it seemed, I found my tongue and

  Tile Night ol the Gran Balle Mascara • 121

  what few Spanish words I knew that I hoped would cover the

  situation.

  "What do you want?" I cried. "Stop this !"

  He laughed, mumbled, and then talked, in a disordered,

  broken, high-pitched voice that rasped and scratched my ears.

  The man, I was convinced, was mad.

  Could I offer him money, I wondered.

  I made out one word here and there. And then:

  "Pasaporte!" he said.

  It was now my turn to laugh, if I had had the courage. Pasaporte! Passport, indeed. He was like· the multitudinous officials that board the trains in and out of Madrid, seemingly at random, to scrutinize the documents of the entrants. This was Spain. The man was an official? Possibly. But where his uniform? The Spanish are a funny people . . . . My mind began to lag in thoughts, my body to fail to function quickly as I continued to back and back like a tired horse.

  He was no official. He was a madman, and my very life in

  danger. I should spring at hls throat, I thought. I
should kill

  hlm, lest he kill me. I looked sidewise, hopefully, into the

  street. Deserted as the court. I was helpless. I had no weapon.

  What lay behlnd his own great coat, I could not tell.

  Then, stumbling on a cobblestone, I fell backward on the

  uneven flooring and struck my head an astounding blow on

  the stones.

  Fortunately, however, I did not lose consciousness, for I remember that even in falling I had the presence of mind to cry for help.

  And I added, too, "a madman, madman! Loco, loco!"

  That I did not lose consciousness was apparent to me as soon

  as I fell, for looking up from the cold stones at the man above

  me, I could see at his elbow something I had not observed before. He was standing near the outer entrance to the court, beside a little wall shelf, on which reposed an open ledger and

  beside it a bottle of ink and a couple of pens.

  I remember, too, that this seemed unusual to me, almost as

  if the book were an American hotel register, and thus quite out

  of place in Spain where the guests must fill out little slips for

  the police instead of merely signing their names on the book.

  Beside the ink-bottle there were three other objects. A hammer. A hatchet. And a small, yellow wooden barrel I assumed to be filled with tacks .

  . I took these objects into my mind in a glance. As I did, my

  frightful torturer picked up the hammer and the hatchet. I saw

  the keen blade shining in the dim light, and I felt as one must

  feel who stands on the edge of his own death.

  124

  Nineteen Tales ol Terror

  •

  If I could divert this maniac's attention-! How? My mind

  strove like a tugging animal.

  ''The tacks !" I screamed. ''The tacks !,.

  He turned his bearded face to peer at the stand. Then he

  took from the tiny barrel one of the tacks. My plan was working! Renewed strength came into me, almost enough to enable me to lift my head. But not enough, it seemed. I sank back

  upon the stones, beside the smelly bristles of some dirty straw.

  But his simple child's mind was occupied. I was glad. Perhaps

  he would spend time trying to drive these tacks, diverted from

  my case. And my cry for help would bring me aid. But when?

  Why did no one come? I listened, terrified, for some friendly