The Treasury Of The Fantastic

by David Sandner

  “Now, my husband,” said she, “it is your turn to sleep. When you wake it will be your turn to sing and laugh. But for poor Kokua, alas! that meant no evil—for poor Kokua no more sleep, no more singing, no more delight, whether in earth or heaven.”

  With that she lay down in the bed by his side, and her misery was so extreme that she fell in a deep slumber instantly.

  Late in the morning her husband woke her and gave her the good news. It seemed he was silly with delight, for he paid no heed to her distress, ill though she dissembled it. The words stuck in her mouth, it mattered not; Keawe did the speaking. She ate not a bite, but who was to observe it? for Keawe cleared the dish. Kokua saw and heard him, like some strange thing in a dream; there were times when she forgot or doubted, and put her hands to her brow; to know herself doomed and hear her husband babble, seemed so monstrous.

  All the while Keawe was eating and talking, and planning the time of their return, and thanking her for saving him, and fondling her, and calling her the true helper after all. He laughed at the old man that was fool enough to buy that bottle.

  “A worthy old man he seemed,” Keawe said. “But no one can judge by appearances. For why did the old reprobate require the bottle?”

  “My husband,” said Kokua, humbly, “his purpose may have been good.”

  Keawe laughed like an angry man.

  “Fiddle-de-dee!” cried Keawe. “An old rogue, I tell you; and an old ass to boot. For the bottle was hard enough to sell at four centimes; and at three it will be quite impossible. The margin is not broad enough, the thing begins to smell of scorching—brrr!” said he, and shuddered. “It is true I bought it myself at a cent, when I knew not there were smaller coins. I was a fool for my pains; there will never be found another: and whoever has that bottle now will carry it to the pit.”

  “O my husband!” said Kokua. “Is it not a terrible thing to save oneself by the eternal ruin of another? It seems to me I could not laugh. I would be humbled. I would be filled with melancholy. I would pray for the poor holder.”

  Then Keawe, because he felt the truth of what she said, grew the more angry. “Heighty-teighty!” cried he. “You may be filled with melancholy if you please. It is not the mind of a good wife. If you thought at all of me, you would sit shamed.”

  Thereupon he went out, and Kokua was alone.

  What chance had she to sell that bottle at two centimes? None, she perceived. And if she had any, here was her husband hurrying her away to a country where there was nothing lower than a cent. And here—on the morrow of her sacrifice—was her husband leaving her and blaming her.

  She would not even try to profit by what time she had, but sat in the house, and now had the bottle out and viewed it with unutterable fear, and now, with loathing, hid it out of sight.

  By-and-by, Keawe came back, and would have her take a drive.

  “My husband, I am ill,” she said. “I am out of heart. Excuse me, I can take no pleasure.”

  Then was Keawe more wroth than ever. With her, because he thought she was brooding over the case of the old man; and with himself, because he thought she was right, and was ashamed to be so happy.

  “This is your truth,” cried he, “and this your affection! Your husband is just saved from eternal ruin, which he encountered for the love of you—and you can take no pleasure! Kokua, you have a disloyal heart.”

  He went forth again furious, and wandered in the town all day. He met friends, and drank with them; they hired a carriage and drove into the country, and there drank again. All the time Keawe was ill at ease, because he was taking this pastime while his wife was sad, and because he knew in his heart that she was more right than he; and the knowledge made him drink the deeper.

  Now, there was an old brutal Haole drinking with him, one that had been a boatswain of a whaler, a runaway, a digger in gold mines, a convict in prisons. He had a low mind and a foul mouth; he loved to drink and to see others drunken; and he pressed the glass upon Keawe. Soon there was no more money in the company.

  “Here, you!” says the boatswain, “you are rich, you have been always saying. You have a bottle or some foolishness.”

  “Yes,” says Keawe, “I am rich; I will go back and get some money from my wife, who keeps it.”

  “That’s a bad idea, mate,” said the boatswain. “Never you trust a petticoat with dollars. They’re all as false as water; you keep an eye on her.”

  Now, this word struck in Keawe’s mind; for he was muddled with what he had been drinking.

  “I should not wonder but she was false, indeed,” thought he. “Why else should she be so cast down at my release? But I will show her I am not the man to be fooled. I will catch her in the act.”

  Accordingly, when they were back in town, Keawe bade the boatswain wait for him at the corner, by the old calaboose, and went forward up the avenue alone to the door of his house. The night had come again; there was a light within, but never a sound; and Keawe crept about the corner, opened the back door softly, and looked in.

  There was Kokua on the floor, the lamp at her side; before her was a milk-white bottle, with a round belly and a long neck; and as she viewed it, Kokua wrung her hands.

  A long time Keawe stood and looked in the doorway. At first he was struck stupid; and then fear fell upon him that the bargain had been made amiss, and the bottle had come back to him as it came at San Francisco; and at that his knees were loosened, and the fumes of the wine departed from his head like mists off a river in the morning. And then he had another thought; and it was a strange one, that made his cheeks to burn.

  “I must make sure of this,” thought he.

  So he closed the door, and went softly round the corner again, and then came noisily in, as though he were but now returned. And, lo! by the time he opened the front door no bottle was to be seen; and Kokua sat in a chair and started up like one awakened out of sleep.

  “I have been drinking all day and making merry,” said Keawe. “I have been with good companions, and now I only come back for money, and return to drink and carouse with them again.”

  Both his face and voice were as stern as judgment, but Kokua was too troubled to observe.

  “You do well to use your own, my husband,” said she, and her words trembled.

  “O, I do well in all things,” said Keawe, and he went straight to the chest and took out money. But he looked besides in the corner where they kept the bottle, and there was no bottle there.

  At that the chest heaved upon the floor like a sea-billow, and the house span about him like a wreath of smoke, for he saw he was lost now, and there was no escape. “It is what I feared,” he thought. “It is she who has bought it.”

  And then he came to himself a little and rose up; but the sweat streamed on his face as thick as the rain and as cold as the well-water.

  “Kokua,” said he, “I said to you to-day what ill became me. Now I return to carouse with my jolly companions,” and at that he laughed a little quietly. “I will take more pleasure in the cup if you forgive me.”

  She clasped his knees in a moment; she kissed his knees with flowing tears.

  “O,” she cried, “I asked but a kind word!”

  “Let us never one think hardly of the other,” said Keawe, and was gone out of the house.

  Now, the money that Keawe had taken was only some of that store of centime pieces they had laid in at their arrival. It was very sure he had no mind to be drinking. His wife had given her soul for him, now he must give his for hers; no other thought was in the world with him.

  At the corner, by the old calaboose, there was the boatswain waiting.

  “My wife has the bottle,” said Keawe, “and, unless you help me to recover it, there can be no more money and no more liquor to-night.”

  “You do not mean to say you are serious about that bottle?” cried the boatswain.

  “There is the lamp,” said Keawe. “Do I look as if I was jesting?”

  “That is so,” said the boatsw
ain. “You look as serious as a ghost.”

  “Well, then,” said Keawe, “here are two centimes; you must go to my wife in the house, and offer her these for the bottle, which (if I am not much mistaken) she will give you instantly. Bring it to me here, and I will buy it back from you for one; for that is the law with this bottle, that it still must be sold for a less sum. But whatever you do, never breathe a word to her that you have come from me.”

  “Mate, I wonder are you making a fool of me?” asked the boatswain.

  “It will do you no harm if I am,” returned Keawe.

  “That is so, mate,” said the boatswain.

  “And if you doubt me,” added Keawe, “you can try. As soon as you are clear of the house, wish to have your pocket full of money, or a bottle of the best rum, or what you please, and you will see the virtue of the thing.”

  “Very well, Kanaka,” says the boatswain. “I will try; but if you are having your fun out of me, I will take my fun out of you with a belaying pin.”

  So the whaler-man went off up the avenue; and Keawe stood and waited. It was near the same spot where Kokua had waited the night before; but Keawe was more resolved, and never faltered in his purpose; only his soul was bitter with despair.

  It seemed a long time he had to wait before he heard a voice singing in the darkness of the avenue. He knew the voice to be the boatswain’s; but it was strange how drunken it appeared upon a sudden.

  Next, the man himself came stumbling into the light of the lamp. He had the devil’s bottle buttoned in his coat; another bottle was in his hand; and even as he came in view he raised it to his mouth and drank.

  “You have it,” said Keawe. “I see that.”

  “Hands off!” cried the boatswain, jumping back. “Take a step near me, and I’ll smash your mouth. You thought you could make a cat’s-paw of me, did you?”

  “What do you mean?” cried Keawe.

  “Mean?” cried the boatswain. “This is a pretty good bottle, this is; that’s what I mean. How I got it for two centimes I can’t make out; but I’m sure you shan’t have it for one.”

  “You mean you won’t sell?” gasped Keawe.

  “No, sir!” cried the boatswain. “But I’ll give you a drink of the rum, if you like.”

  “I tell you,” said Keawe, “the man who has that bottle goes to hell.”

  “I reckon I’m going anyway,” returned the sailor; “and this bottle’s the best thing to go with I’ve struck yet. No, sir!” he cried again, “this is my bottle now, and you can go and fish for another.”

  “Can this be true?” Keawe cried. “For your own sake, I beseech you, sell it me!”

  “I don’t value any of your talk,” replied the boatswain. “You thought I was a flat; now you see I’m not; and there’s an end. If you won’t have a swallow of the rum, I’ll have one myself. Here’s your health, and good-night to you!”

  So off he went down the avenue towards town, and there goes the bottle out of the story.

  But Keawe ran to Kokua light as the wind; and great was their joy that night; and great, since then, has been the peace of all their days in the Bright House.

  CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

  The Yellow Wall-paper

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) was an American writer who worked on social reform as well as writing poetry, nonfiction, novels, and short stories. She also worked as a commercial artist. Gilman was originally best known for her satirical poetry in In This Our World (1893) and her study Women and Economics (1898). More recently her feminist Utopian novel, Herland (1915), has been rediscovered and garnered much critical attention, as has the following story.

  “The Yellow Wall-paper” is Gilman’s harrowing, supposedly semi-autobiographical story first published in the January issue of The New-England Magazine in 1892. This groundbreaking feminist story of a woman confined to an upstairs bedroom—and trapped inside her churning, seeking imagination—by her physician husband serves as an uncanny and powerful response to Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic tales in which the highest artistic achievements of literature can only be realized with “the death of a beautiful woman.”

  It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.

  A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate!

  Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it. Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted? John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

  John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.

  John is a physician, and perhaps—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)—perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.

  You see, he does not believe I am sick!

  And what can one do?

  If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency—what is one to do?

  My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.

  So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is—and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to “work” until I am well again.

  Personally, I disagree with their ideas.

  Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.

  But what is one to do?

  I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal—having to be too sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.

  I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.

  So I will let it alone and talk about the house.

  The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people.

  There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden—large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.

  There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.

  There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and coheirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years.

  That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don’t care—there is something strange about the house—I can feel it.

  I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was a draught, and shut the window.

  I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.

  But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself—before him, at least—and that makes me very tired.

  I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty, old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it.

  He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another.

  He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.

  I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.

  He said we came here solely on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. “Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear,” s
aid he, “and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time.” So we took the nursery at the top of the house.

  It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.

  The paint and paper look as if a boys’ school had used it. It is stripped off—the paper—in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.

  One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.

  It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame, uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.

  The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering, unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.

  It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.

  No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.

  There comes John, and I must put this away,—he hates to have me write a word.

  We have been here two weeks, and I haven’t felt like writing before, since that first day.

  I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength.

  John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious.

  I am glad my case is not serious!

  But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing.

  John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.

  Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way!