The Specialty of the House

by Stanley Ellin

  He sat down beside me, propped his stick between his legs, and said, ‘It is a beautiful day, is it not?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it is.’ Then I felt a sudden apprehension. I am too easy a mark for the wayfarer’s sad story, his melting eyes, his extended palm. I have never learned to say no to the humble derelict who stops me with hat in hand and asks for carfare to places he never intends to visit. Now I had the feeling that I knew what was coming, and I drew a tight rein on my susceptibilities. This time, I silently resolved, I would escape before it was too late.

  But there was no escape. As I started to rise, my companion placed a hand on my shoulder and gently pressed me back into my seat. ‘It is a beautiful day,’ he said, ‘but what does that matter to one who is doomed to suffer and search, search and suffer through every day of his life, fair or foul?’

  I was resigned to my fate, but in a bitter mood. He might tell his story to the end, but when he held out his hand for the expected offering he would get nothing more than a handshake. That much I took my oath on.

  ‘Evidently,’ I said, concealing my true emotions with an effort, ‘you are spending your life in a search for something. What is that something?’

  ‘A flea.’

  ‘A flea?’

  The aged curio nodded somberly. ‘Yes, strange as it seems, that is the object of my search. But perhaps you will understand more readily if I reveal my name to you. It is Beidenbauer. Thaddeus Beidenbauer. There, does that enlighten you?’

  He looked at me eagerly, but the light in his eyes faded when I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry to say it doesn’t.’

  ‘It doesn’t?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  Beidenbauer sighed. ‘Well, such is fame. A bubble – a glittering, weightless thing that one holds briefly in hand, and then – but let me tell you my story. There is pain and heartbreak in it, but I am inured to that now. I have lived my tragedy over and over so many times in my waking dreams that I can bear to talk about it freely when the occasion arises. I will tell it all to you just as it happened.’

  ‘I am sure you will,’ I said.

  There was a time [Beidenbauer said] when my name was known in every mighty city of the world, when I was petted and sought after by the great, when I was drunk each day with my youth and wealth and the joy of my lot. Ah, I should have thought then how the gods destroy those who are too proud, but I did not. I lived only with the happy realization that I was the proprietor of Beidenbauer’s Mighty Mites, the greatest flea circus on earth, the one that did more to honor the vast and unsung talents of the flea than any other before or since.

  There have been flea circuses before mine and after mine, but always shabby affairs, dismal two-penny entertainments with none of the true glamor of the stage invested in them. But mine was different. It was superlative theater. Whether performed before the bumpkins who attend touring carnivals or before a soiree of society’s bluest blue-bloods, it never failed to stir the audience to its depths, to bring it to its feet shouting for endless encores. And all because as a mere child I had learned the secret of the relationship between the flea and the trainer, and with infinite patience had put the secret to work.

  I can see you are wondering what the secret is; you will be astonished to learn of its simplicity. There is a strange and wonderful symbiosis between flea and man. The flea feeds from its trainer’s arm and thus strengthened goes into the arena to perform. The money earned this way is then used by the trainer to buy him his dinner, to enrich his blood, that the performer may feed and return to his performance. So we have a perfect cycle, flea and man feeding off each other, each contributing to their mutual existence.

  That is all there is to it, but I was the one to discover that there must be more than mere food involved in this relationship. There must be a symbiosis of emotions as well. Respect, sympathy, understanding, and love – yes, love – must be there, for the flea, a quivering mass of sensitivity, needs them desperately. And unlike all other trainers, I provided them. Cruelty was the rule elsewhere. The harsh word, the heavy hand – these were all my confreres knew in trying to master and instruct the flea. But kindness was my rule, and for that reason I soared to success while all others remained mired in failure.

  But enough of myself; after all, it was not I who entered the spotlighted ring every day to perform, to act the clown so that the crowd roared with laughter, to risk my neck in acrobatics so that it gasped, to woo it with grace so that it sighed in rapture. All this was done by the fleas, and it is they who must get the lion’s share of admiration.

  There were twenty-four members of the troupe, hand-picked, trained for weary hours on end, and it is impossible to imagine the range of their talents. But the unchallenged star of the show, and, sorrow of sorrows, the star of the tragedy I am unfolding, was a flea named Sebastian. Small, volatile, full of riotous wit and invention, he was our featured clown. And he was a true star in every respect. Tense and withdrawn before a performance, he was at ease the instant the spotlight fell on him and in absolute command of the audience.

  I can see him now, waiting behind the scenes as the white silk handkerchief was laid on the table and tacks driven into each of its four corners to moor it securely. Then, as the darning hoop which was our main ring was set on it, Sebastian would fretfully start to pace up and down, his mouth drawn tight, his eyes faraway, fighting the fears reborn in him at every performance. I knew those signs, and I would give him a little nod – just one small nod – to make clear my confidence in him. And he would respond with a little nod of his own to show that he understood. It was our private ritual, those two almost imperceptible gestures, and it was all that was ever needed to assure another sterling performance from him. That, and the knowledge that the prima ballerina of our company, an enchanting, doe-eyed little flea named Selina, had eyes only for him and would stand worshipping from afar while he held the spotlight. For Selina, I think, was the only one on earth other than myself to whom he gave his unquestioning devotion.

  But, alas, what he did not know at the time, and what I did not know – such is the cruel deviousness of the female heart – was that Selina worshipped only at the altar of his success. She loved him not for himself, but for the glory that was his: the laughter and applause of the crowd, the featured billing given him, and the favored place on my forearm at feeding time. She was a great dancer, but like so many of her kind she had no true warmth in her heart. Only a fanatic adoration of success.

  Had I known that at the time I would have made a different turning somewhere along the road to disaster which lay ahead. But how could I know, how could anyone know, when Selina dissembled so brilliantly? When she looked at Sebastian with melting eyes she almost turned my head as well as his. She clung to him, comforted him in his times of doubt, let him know in a hundred different ways that he was her hero. And he, befuddled by her airs and grace, was completely her slave.

  It was an apparently meaningless episode – meaningless at the time it occurred – that brought on the inexorable crisis. Hercules, our flea who performed feats of strength, had become old and stiff-legged, and one night while lifting a grape seed over his head before a hushed and awestruck audience he suddenly fell to the floor in a writhing agony. The veterinarian who diagnosed the case did not mince words. It was a serious rupture, and Hercules would perform no more.

  It was shocking beyond measure to me, that news. Not only because of my warm regard for Hercules, but because it left me without one of my featured acts. I instantly gave orders to agents to scour the world, look high and low, pay any price for a flea who could duplicate Hercules’s feats, but I did so with a heavy heart. I had already garnered the best there was in the entire world. What chance was there to find a replacement I had not previously considered and found unworthy?

  But miracles can and do happen. I had rejected scores of applicants in despair when suddenly a cable arrived from an agent in Bulgaria. The length of the cable alone suggested his sta
te of emotions, and what it said made them even more vivid. By pure chance he had entered a broken-down cafe in Sofia where the guests were being entertained by a flea circus. Not even a circus. A few acts badly performed by sullen, half-starved fleas. But one flea there—! Nothing would do, save that I come at once and see for myself.

  I did not believe him, because I knew he was inordinately proud of his native fleas who are, at best, temperamental performers; but I went. When a man is desperate he will do anything, even to putting his faith in the potentialities of a Bulgarian flea. So I went. And to paraphrase the saying: I came, I saw, I was conquered.

  The flea was named Casimir, and even the unspeakable surroundings in which he performed could not dim his luster. Barrel-chested, bull-necked, glowing with health, and with a frank, open face that gave clear evidence of an honest nature and willing heart, he dwarfed the fleas around him to insignificance. I saw at a glance that I might be looking at a born star. I waited for his performance in a fever of impatience.

  At last the motley acts that preceded his were finished, and the cafe loungers crowded close around the table, I in the forefront. The trainer, a wizened wretch, placed two small wooden blocks on the table, one of which had a series of steps carved into it. Between the blocks I could see a single strand of dark hair – evidently from the trainer’s head since it shone greasily in the dim light around me – which was stretched taut from block to block. The trainer then placed Casimir on the table, and before the flea he placed a gleaming pin two inches long which he drew from his lapel.

  I could not believe my eyes. To a flea that pin was as a length of railroad track would be to me, yet Casimir stooped low, got a grip on it, and with bulging muscles suddenly lifted it overhead. I gasped, but I had not yet seen the full capabilities of this magnificent creature. Holding the pin overhead he made his way to the steps of the block, climbed them, and then slowly, cautiously, he stepped onto the hair itself. The hair sagged under the weight on it, and Casimir balanced himself with an effort. Then with precise steps, secure as if he were affixed to that hair, he walked its full length, the pin held high overhead throughout and never wavering in his grip. Only when the other block had been reached and the pin laid down could you detect in the convulsive tremors of his body and the heaving of his chest what the strain must have been.

  I knew even before the applause started that my search was over. Six hours later, after passionate bargaining and endless rounds of slivovitz, I paid for Casimir’s contract more money than anyone on earth would ever have dreamed of paying for a flea. And at that I felt I was fortunate.

  I took my prize home with me. I allowed time for him to become accustomed to our Americans ways; I filled his starved soul with my affection and trust; and only when I was sure that he was accepted by the rest of the company and felt at ease with them did I put him on the stage. That night was his night. When the final curtain fell he was the unchallenged star of the show. Simple, honest, unassuming, it was clear that he would not permit this honor to inflate him; but there was no question about it, he was the star. And Sebastian, the great Punchinello, the unparalleled clown, was in second place.

  What were Sebastian’s feelings then? What could they have been but anguish at having to yield his place to another. But whatever the torments he suffered, he was a trouper through and through. To him the show was the thing, and if he were asked to sacrifice himself to it, he would do so like a stoic. The quality of his performances remained superb. If anything, they were better than ever. Each time he entered the spotlight he flung himself into his role with an abandon, a virtuosity, far beyond the powers of most fleas.

  No, it was not the loss of his commanding place in the company that finally shattered him; it was the loss of his beloved. Selina had seen his glory transferred to Casimir. She watched with narrowed eyes as a new star rose on the horizon. And with cold-blooded deliberation, never heeding the consequences, she turned from the old to worship the new. She had eyes only for Casimir now, comfort only for him, flattery only for him, and he, poor, simple-minded male, accepted this at first incredulously, then eagerly, then with rapture.

  That was what destroyed Sebastian. The sight of the couple together transfixed him like a needle. And there was no escaping the sight, no turning away from it. Selina was unabashed in her pursuit, and Casimir nakedly revered in it. The outsider might have seen this as a stirring romance; to Sebastian it would be an obscenity. Selina was his; what right did some burly stranger have to fondle her before his very eyes? He must have brooded himself into a state of madness over this.

  The end came with shocking suddenness. It was during an evening performance, and the show had gone well until Casimir undertook his master feat. The audience leaned forward with bated breath as he lifted the pin over his head. It hummed with excitement as he climbed the block and set forth on his journey across the taut hair which stretched no less than a foot above the table. And it cried out in alarm when, as he reached the middle of the hair, it suddenly parted, and he plummeted to the table, the pin following him and crushing his chest.

  I had leaped forward wildly when I saw the hair part, but I was too late. All I could do was remove the oppressive weight of the pin and turn my head away to conceal my tears from the expiring Casimir. He had his own pains to bear; I would spare him mine. But when my misted eyes fell on the broken strand of hair my grief turned to blazing rage. The hair had not worn through; it had been deliberately cut part of the way. I was looking, not at an accident, but at a murder!

  I knew at once who the murderer was. And I could tell from the shock on Selina’s face and the growing comprehension on the face of every flea huddled there that the story was clear to all of them. But before I could wreak vengeance on the criminal my glance fell on Casimir, lying there, breathing his last. He looked at me with lustrous eyes full of pain; he tried to smile – oh, pitiful sight – and with a great effort he shook his head at me. He understood, too, noble soul, and he was telling me that vengeance was not for him. Only pity for the malefactor, and forgiveness. It was his last gesture on earth, and the lesson struck me to my heart. It wiped the thirst for vengeance out of me on the spot. I felt only a great need to find Sebastian, to tell him that I alone was the cause of the sorrows that had befallen us. Obsessed by pride in the show, I had put another in his place, had deprived him of his beloved, had driven him at last to insanity and crime.

  But when I looked for him I could not find him. Filled with horror at his deed he had fled into the night. And with his disappearance, with Casimir’s death, with the company’s morale destroyed, there was nothing left. I canceled my bookings, broke up the company, and set forth with only one thought in mind – to find Sebastian, to face him as a penitent, and to win forgiveness from him.

  It has been a weary search. I have walked the lonely streets day and night, combed dog shows and zoological parks, looked every place where a wanderer like Sebastian might take refuge. But all to no avail. I am old and poor now. I must rely on alms from strangers to help me on my way, but I will never give up my search until I am successful in it. There is no other way for me. I am doomed to suffer and search, search and suffer until then.

  Beidenbauer’s voice ceased and his narrative ended on this plaintive note. We sat together in silence for a long while, contemplating the pigeons burbling on the grass beyond, and then I said, ‘I have heard tell that the lifespan of the flea is extremely brief. Is it not likely that by now, in some unmarked grave—?’

  ‘I do not allow myself to think of that,’ said Beidenbauer with deep feeling. ‘It would be the final blow.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I can see that it would be.’

  We sat in silence again, and then with resignation I took a coin from my pocket and offered it to him. He only looked at it reproachfully. I sighed, put the coin away, and offered him a dollar bill. This he took.

  ‘You are kind,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘I am only sorry that you never saw my circus in its glory. Yo
u would better understand then how far I have fallen.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s life.’

  ‘No, my friend,’ said Beidenbauer gravely, ‘that’s show business.’

  The Seven Deadly Virtues

  As a mere stripling, Charles realized that he had been happily endowed with good breeding, keen intelligence, and overwhelming ambition. In fact, so heated and furious was this ambition that it had been a matter of grave concern to his father before the lad was out of knee-pants. But such concern did not move Charles. His father was a good man, a kindly and humble clergyman who had spent a lifetime of genteel poverty at his vocation, but who was hardly a fit model for an enterprising son. For himself Charles had chosen a far more worthy model – none other than that renowned magnate, P. O. D. Evergreen, Founder and President of Evergreen Enterprises.

  Although late in the field, Evergreen Enterprises had swiftly become the most titanic of titanic corporations. It produced and sold every conceivable product from which profit could be extracted. It leveled forests, drilled oil wells, bored mines, erected factories, swept the land, sea and air with its carriers, and filled every avenue of public communication with its advertising. Banks kept its securities in the same portfolios as United States government bonds. Sprightly widows bought its shares with confidence that their declining years would be happy ones. Elder statesmen in Wall Street tipped their hats when they pronounced its name. To hold rank even as a Junior Executive in its councils was a distinction. And the future for an ambitious young man holding that distinction was a glowing one.