The Nightmare Had Triplets (59 page)

    Both legends, however (as they have been collated by Professor Afanyakof, of the University of Sorram, in the seven volumes of his somewhat superficial
Smire Mythos
), unite here. They agree that Smire was then stripped of all clothing, and put on sale, in a vaulted doorway of syenite, before the King’s palace at Heliopolis. They tell how love and longing and passion got hold of the well-to-do ladies of Heliopolis, so that they bid for Smire with enthusiasm, each crying out:

    “Glory be to Him Who formed Smire! Not until today, O kind Allah, have Thy blessings been made manifest.”

    Among these gentlewomen ensued a riot, in which twenty-four were killed. But in the end, Smire was acquired legally by the King’s favorite wife, whose delight in her bargain was such that she did not sleep at all for the next seven nights. And the story goes on to relate how King Ridhwan became displeased that his own wife, who owed the kingdom a better example, should be living in open sin with an unbeliever who did not worship either a bull or a crocodile, or even a bonfire, as did all the better-thought-of persons in and about Heliopolis.

    The pious King ordered the execution of this Smire, who would worship only the God of Branlon. Then, says this legend, the broad scimitar of the public headsman was blunted publicly and shivered into splinters, when it struck the stiff neck of Smire. Before this miracle, King Ridhwan knelt at the foot of his own golden throne. He prayed aloud for forgiveness, and for a continuance of the greatness and the glory and the length of life and the divinely attested chasteness of Smire. So did Smire depart from out of Heliopolis unhurt, to continue the search after his lost kingdom and his heart’s one love.

    For yet other traditions relating to Smire’s living at this period, it appears best to refer the reader to the great monograph by Dr. L. Luken, the incumbent Zegeas of Druim, in which you may find all the essential folk-lore of Branlon to have been abridged with a scholarship which leaves little to be desired. The point here is that at bottom this legend, as people tell it in the lands beyond common-sense, remains always the same. It does not really vary, under its countless garnishings. The sublime virtues of Smire gain for him the fond favor—nay, the doting—of this or the other potentate, along with the adoration of the potentate’s wife; then rude, base, masculine selfishness and a desire to turn great queens into privately owned chattels rebel against the vast chivalry of Smire toward all women; so that through his own excellence is Smire made, in these many legends, over and yet over again, an exile. That is all.

    Thus indefatigably, thus cruelly, pursued by be-dwarfed kings, and hunted by enamored women, the bright, comely, kind-hearted, garrulous, deposed pagan god—says Dr. Luken—“now passes, as it were, through a glittering mist of camels and of minarets and of sherbets and of casual murders and of lightning-quick loves and of palm-trees and of bastinados.”

    In very deed, on account of the seductiveness of his person and the seductiveness, how far more dangerous to its possessor, of his kind heart, Smire at this time lived as a hunted being, as the prey of his own splendors. For he seemed daily to increase (if that were possible) in majesty and in amorous grace, remarked many damsels who had faces bright as the moon.

    Their cheeks were like anemones; their lips coral-red; and their breasts resembled two pomegranates of even size: all, in brief, was of the very best style of Oriental imagery as concerned these damsels. Poetic rumors declared that the navel of any one of them would hold a full ounce of benzoin ointment. It was certain, in any case, that they all had teeth white as a string of camomile petals and eyes black as ink.

    Now these eyes wantoned whensoever Smire passed them; when he had gone his urbane way, these damsels became thin as a toothpick; they languished like plucked marigold flowers; and some seven out of each ten would hang themselves in despair.

    “The height of Smire’s beauty is no less remarkable than is the depth of his wisdom,” said the amirs and the sultans, the caliphs and the maharajahs.

    Their eunuchs answered them: “Handsome is as handsome does. We do not approve of this Smire.”

    But the viziers and the young sheiks, the merry barbers and the stout porters in the bazaars cried out,—

    “Great is the abundance of Smire’s erudition; blessed are we that behold the sporting of his wit; through his sprightly fancy our sorrows are changed into joy.”

    —To which the learned imaums, the hadjis and the brahmins replied:

    “It is indeed suitable that the wise words of Smire should be written down in letters of liquid gold. Meanwhile let us buy new locks for the harem.”

    For over and yet over again, from latticed windows carved out of ebony wood, superbly shaped, veiled women would call out to Smire:

    “Tarry, O my lord and light of my eyes! Take pity, O bestower of felicity! Do not spurn thy handmaiden, King of the age!”

    Well, and then as a rule, because of his betraying kind heart, Smire would answer them, as was the land’s custom,—

    “Hearing is obedience.”

    So in he would go. And the old story would start all over again, in a dim atmosphere of musk and rose-water and incense. And the woman’s husband would behave quite as though Smire’s politeness throughout the entire matter were not praiseworthy. And his lost kingdom stayed unregained, his heart’s love remained unsatisfied.

    Yet he passed affably, like a pleasant, rambling, soft-voiced enigma, about a barbaric world in which some said that he was the same as Melchisadek, and some said that he was El Khoudr, and some that he was Eblis. But Smire answered to such persons, always quite affably:

    “No; for I am the God of Branlon. I am the eternal wanderer whose home is not in these lands beyond common-sense; I am an exile who seeks for a fair forest wherein one may dream perfectly about beautiful happenings. With the makings of Jahveh, Lord of Sabaoth, and the makings of Allah the Thrice-Merciful, I have no concern. Meanwhile, I do not—as I must ask everybody to observe—I do not criticize their poor makings. I who am myself a
poietes,
a ‘maker,’ I prefer tactfully to say nothing whatever about their absurd blunderings, their inadequate creations. Through the litter of their pitiable errors, such as are perhaps natural to young gods, I who was once a Master of Gods go my urbane way, with silence and dissatisfaction as my companions, in my eternal quest after Branlon.”

    “Yet it is far better to stay quietly at home,” a girl’s voice told him.

    Well, and Smire liked the appearance of this girl. Her face was bright as the moon, and her lips coral-red, and her eyes black as ink, to be sure; all that was familiar; but her dear voice was most strangely gentle, with a sweet sadness in it. Her voice troubled you with its brave innocence.

    She sat now beside the round, old, partly crumbled stone walling about a well; and dark olive-trees showed behind her in this twilit place. The west was yet splendid with sunset, but seven olive-trees screened this well very thickly, with a tent of shadows and peacefulness.

    To this girl, then, Smire answers: “It is far better to stay quietly at home, you have told me. Still, I do not know about that. To stay quietly at home has not been permitted me. For my home is in Branlon; and as yet I travel eternally in my search for that home. These facts are known everywhere in the—lands beyond common-sense; and it is because of these facts, or so at least they tell me”—Smire interpolated, with his unfailing dislike of seeming to speak boastfully—“that I have become a vast legendary figure in all these countries. For I, I must tell you, I am called Smire.”

    She did not, it was an actual fact, betray any surprise and delight. This ignorant village girl did not seem ever to have heard about Smire’s famousness. Instead, she replied, quite as though Smire were not anybody in particular,—

    “And I am called Miriam.”

    Says Smire: “It is a fine name which was worn by Moses-ben-Amram’s own sister. But that Miriam was a proud fierce woman who wrote. She wrote poems, and prophecies likewise, all of a most bloodthirsty nature; and she danced publicly because of her horrid joy over the destruction of a king’s army. I am glad you do not resemble your namesake, Miriam.”

    “Indeed, I would not care to resemble that woman, Smire, for to do these bold, cruel things was not kindly of her.”

    “Well, but as yet, Miriam, I have not found that the women authors of this world are distinguished for shyness, nor for their great kindliness either, except when they are entertaining some useful person who reviews books.”

    “And is it much of the wide world you have seen, Smire?”

    “I have seen all of it, Miriam, even from the down-falling of Troy to the bright rising of Rome into every sort of pre-eminence, through my charitable permission.”

    “And what is it, O tall strange-eyed vagabond, that you have been doing for a livelihood all this long while?”

    “I have wandered in a dream, Miriam; and since I wandered about without any home in a dream world which was cobbled up by the lean talents of the Seven Stewards of Heaven, I have come everywhither as an intruder, with dissatisfaction as my companion.”

    “That is a poor livelihood,” she replied, with decision.

    “Nevertheless, Miriam, it is not a bad manner of living. Dissatisfaction has been my companion. Yes, but a fair sense of humor has served as my walking stick. The pleasures of conversation have made smooth my way. Behind each bend of my road has waited for me that which was strange and transitory. Because of the foolishness of many gods, all laboring together in heaven so that they might divert Smire, and because of mankind’s inexhaustible foolishness, I have found at every bend in my road something to wonder over and to discuss with my eternal companion, something which amused me by my own foolish discontent with the world’s foolishness.”

    She considered this. She said then:

    “That pleases me better, you dusty, over-travelled Smire, which is familiar and sane and permanent.”

    “You speak,” he returned, smilingly, “with the adorable conservatism of youth. To a poet, nothing is familiar; all is strange. To the philosopher, nothing is sane. And to the judgment of any fairly rational person, nothing is permanent, my dear child, except our eternal changing.”

    “I do not think that matters if we change always into something better,” replied the girl, softly.

    At that, Smire regarded her for some while, with the steady, the strange and the faintly pitying gaze of a divine person. He said, reasonably:

    “I would much like to agree with you, Miriam. But, alas, how can I, who am already Smire, hope to be changed into anything better? For me to hope that, would be to fly in the face of the whole world’s opinion. For me to hope that, would be plain
hubris.
So I must humbly remain Smire. I at least shall not change. Nor will I change you”—Smire added, meditatively. “I dare not, somehow. No, my dear Miriam, you are not a toy fit for Smire’s handling, with, just as you say, his somewhat dusty divine hands.”

    “They are very beautiful hands,” she observed, gravely. She touched them, with a sort of naïve caress; and remarked, as though with some unspoken reserving of judgment:

    “They are soft hands. They are not like the gnarled and toil-hardened hands of Yussuf.”

    But Smire’s mind, it seemed, was made up. He said, sighing:

    “So I shall but pass into and then out of your living, without changing you at all. I would like to keep you always unchanged, my dear, grave, so very practical-minded infant. But who can prevent this changing, in a cobbled-up world that has Time ranging about it forever, like a silent, fierce hound? Well! we meet here. We shall not meet any more. Yet I shall remember you, Miriam, as you sit here, beside this ruined well, smiling and reasonably innocent, I daresay, and without any fear of the morrow. I shall remember you somewhat fondly in my baroque forest kingdom. And you, Miriam, what will you be doing then?”

    “I shall marry Yussuf. He is not young, and his voice does not move me, as your soft voice moves me, Smire, to be doing sad, great, foolish things; but, at worst, gray Yussuf is not a flighty wanderer about the world’s lanes and alleys. So we shall be content enough, Yussuf and I, living together quietly in the old way of our fathers.”

    Smire tells her, moodily: “Yes; but in the while that I go a-wandering in my immortal youth, and live hand in glove with all miracles, you, Miriam, you will grow old. You will bear, to this Yussuf, a squad of commonplace squalling babies, whose bearing will rob you of your prettiness. You will scrub, and cook, and sew, and wash many dirty diapers, in this village. You will comment upon worsened times and upon the commensurate conduct of the young with a loquacious acidity; you will haggle daily over your marketing. You will dwindle into a grandmother, like a gray, dry, shrivelled-up dead leaf; and you will so die without ever having lived. That only will be your saga, my so pretty little Miriam.”

    She answers, “I shall make for Yussuf and for myself, and if Heaven wills it, for our children also, a home.”

    He nodded his approval, his complete comprehension, saying:

    “The riposte is apposite. You touch on the sole luxury which has been denied to Smire, that all-famous poet, that eternal wanderer. I have found in no place a home. Not even in Branlon had I any sense of permanence. And when I regain Branlon, as I still mean to do, I shall be in the odd position of an absolute monarch who does not absolutely believe in the existence of his kingdom.”

    “My kingdom, poor Smire, will be small but assured. And my men children will be sound carpenters, like their father, building firmly.”