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[b]STOPP'T-CLOCKYARD[/b]
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Susanna Clarke
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Several years ago Colin Greenland (whose story opens this volume) sent me a novella by an author he had met at a writer's workshop. It was a wonderful story. The author was Susanna Clarke, who lives in Cambridge and writes like an angel. When I read it, I knew I wanted her to write a story for this book. (She sold that novella to Patrick Neilsen Hayden's anthology Starlight.){ K"~5V(e"b p
The attraction for me of working on this anthology, fraught with strange and unexpected vexations though it has proved, was really the selfish desire to read a Sandman story; something that I have not been able to do until now. Y*w U2bv
I wish I had written this story. But I'm even more pleased that I got to read it. hP'Y3gn)H4O gs
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In Don Saltero's Coffee-House in Danvers-street Mr. Newbolt was taking coffee with his son.
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He said, "It is so long since last I saw you, Richard, I hope you have been well all this time?"o4ko h5Om5D;s/j
Richard sighed. "Father, I was drowned in the Dutch Wars. I have been dead these fifteen years."
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Then Mr. Newbolt saw how cold and white was his face, how cold and white were his hands. "Why, child," he said, "so you were. I remember now. Still I am very glad to see you. Will you not walk home with me? It is scarce five minutes' walk and I daresay you will not mind the rain?":f!I!A h4h}E T r
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"Oh, Father," cried Richard, "I cannot come home. I can never come home. Do you not see? This is a dream. It is only a dream."
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Then Mr. Newbolt looked around Don Saltero's CoffeeHouse and saw the strangest people all talking and taking coffee together. "Why, child," he said, "so it is."
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Mr. Newbolt woke in the cold and the dark and remembered that he was dying. He had been for forty years England's most famous, most revered astrologer. He had published hundreds of almanacks and made a great deal of money and he had looked into the stars—oh, long, long ago now—and he knew that he must die in this season and in this place. He lay in a clean, sweet bed in an upper room in Friday-street and his old London friends came to pay him visits. "Sir!" they cried. "How are you feeling today?"; and Mr. Newbolt would complain of a coldness in the brain and a heat in the liver, or sometimes, and by way of a change, the other way round. And then they would tell him that all the most gracious planets in heaven were slowly assembling above half-built St. Paul's in time to bid him—their old friend and confidant—a stately farewell.
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One friend who visited him at this time was a very famous Jew of Venice and Amsterdam, a most wonderful magician among his own people (who know many clever things). This man was called Trismegistus. He had not heard that Mr. Newbolt was dying and had come to beg Mr. Newbolt's help in some very tremendous astrological or magical business. When he discovered that he had come too late, he sighed and wept and smote his own forehead. "Oh," he cried, "all my days I did despise every man's help. I have walked with vanity. This is my punishment and it is just."
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Mr. Newbolt looked at him. "Oh, vanity in a fiddlestick, Isaac. I am sure there is no need to be quite so biblical. Let you and I drink some muscatel-wine and we shall soon find someone else to aid you."h&]6WX'W%f#q
So they did as Mr. Newbolt proposed. But, as there was no astrologer or magician in the City of London who had not, at some time or another, ridiculed one or other of them, who had not called one "Impostor" or the other "Juggling Jew," and as they both had an excellent memory for an insult (though they forgot many other things), they had very soon run through every name.
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"There's Paramore," said Mr. Newbolt, "and he is cleverer than all of them."
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"Paramore? Who is Paramore?"&H!d8[O y|-@-x
"Well," said Mr. Newbolt, "I cannot truthfully tell you much good of him, for I never heard any. He is a liar, an adulterer, a gamester, and a drunkard. He has the reputation of an atheist, but he told me once that he professed blasphemy, because he had taken offense at some passages of Scripture and now was angry with God and wish't to plague Him. Like a mosquito that wish't to prick a continent."
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"He is not the man I want," said Trismegistus.
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"Ha!" cried Mr. Newbolt. "There are women in every parish of the City who thought that John Paramore was not the man they wanted. They soon discovered their mistake. And so did I. For I swore when he first came to me that I would not take him as a pupil, but now, you see, I have taught him all I know. I also swore that I would not lend him money. Still I love the rogue. Do not ask me why. I cannot tell. You must ask for Paramore at a house in Gunpowder-alley—'tis near Shoe-lane—where he owes eight weeks' rent for a little attic about the size and shape of a pantry bin. You must not expect to find him there, but very likely his footman will know where he is."'qb{&w ]-v
"He has a footman?" said Trismegistus. b b8I9} Azj
"Of course," said Mr. Newbolt. "He is a gentleman."[9Kf,Pc j
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So all that day and all the next Isaac Trismegistus trod the City streets and asked a great many people if they knew where John Paramore might be found, but he learned nothing to the purpose and what he did learn only brought him closer to despair. For the City did not think that John Paramore would wish to be troubled with an old Hebrew gentleman just now. The City knew of a certain widow in Clerkenwell with lands and houses and no one could tell what rich commodities, and the City happened to know that this lady—young, virtuous, and beautiful— had lately lost a little boy, a sweet child, who had died of the rickets and the City said that in her misfortune John Paramore was her Mephistopheles who sat in the shadows behind her chair with satirical looks and his long, crooked smile and whispered in her ear and that she prefer'd his comfort to that of honest men and women.
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Isaac Trismegistus lived in an old dark house near Creechurch-lane. Like himself the house was a little foreign-looking. Like himself, the house appeared to know that the City was not always kind to strangers, for it had crept into a dusty yard full of shadows and dead leaves, where it hoped to be forgotten. But the Jew and the house differed in one respect, for he had not got a great stopp't clock in the middle of his forehead, forever telling the time of a long-dead afternoon. b AH%dY
On the third day after Trismegistus had spoken to Mr. Newbolt a tall, thin, shabby man (who looked nothing at all) knocked on the door of Trismegistus's house. He said that his name was John Paramore and that he had come to learn magic.b5d%TT sX6p
"Why?" asked Trismegistus suspiciously. "To catch the women, I suppose?"7Ubt0tO!i
Then the thin, shabby man (who had looked nothing at all) smiled a long, thin smile that went up one side of his face and when he did that he looked quite different. He looked what he was—one of the slyest rogues in the City and his sharp, bright eyes had worlds of cleverness in them. "No, sir," he replied with a mix't air of modesty and complacency. "That magic I do already have. I hope, sir, that you have not heard any ill report of me? London is a wicked place—an honest man's reputation has no more wear in it than a whore's shoestrings once the City gossips have got hold of it."H$[?US7Je
Inside the house a great staircase spiraled up into darkness and a cold wind spiraled down. Paramore glanced and, shivering a little, remarked that it was very quiet. "Why, sir!" he cried suddenly. "You are ill!"
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"I? No."
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"Indeed you are. You are as pale as wax and your eyes—! You have a fever."
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"I have no fever. It is only that I do not sleep." Trismesgistus paused. "I shall die if I do not sleep soon," he said. "But I am afraid to go to sleep. I am afraid of what I might dream."
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"Well, sir," said Paramore in a kinder tone, "if you will tell me how I may help you, I shall be glad to do so."
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So Trismegistus led Paramore to a room and he taught him two spells. One spell gave Paramore the power to see into another person's dreams, but what the other spell was for Trismegistus did not say. Trismegistus told Paramore to watch his dreams as he slept and if Paramore saw any harm coming to him in his dreams, he was to wake him up.
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Trismegistus got into bed and Paramore sat crosslegged on the floor like his Puck, and Paramore said the spell and look't into a little polished crystal.O&xS+jj_
Trismegistus dreamt that he was in the Venetian Ghetto, in a mean and dusty little courtyard where six old Jews— friends of his—sat silent on battered wooden thrones and one by one each caught fire. Not one of them tried to save himself and all were burnt to ashes. As the old magician watched the smoke and sparks twist into the darkening sky, he saw a recipe for plum cake writ upon one of the stars. It happened that in his dream he had a use for such a thing, and so he went to fetch a ladder to read it better. But all he found was a great fat woman with a moustache made of spiders' legs, that stank of cheese and dirty slops, and who produced, from under her skirts, pairs of rusty scissors, toasting forks, and French tweezers.
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Now this Paramore thought was very horrid and so he woke the old man up. But Trismegistus was very cross at being woken and said he had not meant that sort of dream at all. He said Paramore should watch for a tall, black castle in an airy place, guarded by a dragon and a griffin and a hippogriff and for a tall, pale man, like a king, all dress't in black with starrey eyes. These, he said, were what he feared more than anything, and he went back to sleep. He slept until morning and neither the castle nor the terrible pale king appear'd. +GVrm$U7]y%@
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The next day Paramore paid a visit to Mr. Newbolt.
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"The Jew keeps a very odd house, sir," said Paramore. "He says he has no servants."#?"p1y
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"Pish! Everyone has servants. Even you, John, have that saucy footman." Z(W Pn,G;[ST
"True, but I have been thinking for some time, sir, that I must get rid of Francisco. I must turn him off. I dare not for shame be seen anywhere with him. His clothes are so much better than mine. He was ever a better thief than I."!L5p'ytm G
"I daresay," said Mr. Newbolt (whose thoughts still ran on his old friend), "that it is the loss of his daughter that makes him so solitary and sad. She ran away and married a Christian—a tall, spicy fellow with rogue's eyes and no money—just such another one as yourself, John. Isaac found out their hiding place and visited her in secret and begged her to come home. But she was very proud and would not come, though by that time she knew what sort of a man she had married. Ah, but he was cruel! He gave away her petticoats and earrings and candlesticks and spoons to other women. Then one night he came in from his rovings about and made her get out of bed. 'Why?' she asked, 'Where are we going?' But he bid her be silent. They got into a coach with all that was left of their possessions and they rode away. But he kept looking back, and far away she heard the sound of riders. He made the coach stop and he pull'd her out and took a horse and made her get up behind and they rode on. But he kept looking back and all the while she could hear the sound of riders. They reach'd a black river too deep and too quick to ford and he was almost frantic to know which way to go. She begged him to tell her what he had done. But he bid her be silent and far away she heard the sound of riders. 'Why,' he said, 'you don't want to come along of me and, sure it is, I'll get on faster alone.' So he tumbled her into the quick, black water and she drowned. She had golden hair—a very rare thing for one of her race. Isaac said she put the very sun to shame. But then I thought nothing could compare with my dear Richard's smile, and I daresay there are people in the world who did not find it so very remarkable. What do brokenhearted old men know? Oh, yes, the fair-haired Jewess of Stopp't-Clock Yard, I remember her very well. She had a little daughter— but I have forgot what became of her.",b;fr$A4`,m$N:S!s
Paramore scratched his long nose and frowned. "But how do you know this, sir?"
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"Eh?"
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"How do you know what the Jewess said to her husband at the moment of her death?"
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"Eh?" Poor Mr. Newbolt grew confus'd and unhappy, as old people do when it is prov'd to them that their wits are duller than they used to be. "Isaac told me," he said. "Why! What is that glinting on your finger, John? Has your widow given you a bright new golden ring?"
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"I found it, sir, in the Jew's garden. Caught on a rosebush."2O?%I+Oz(S8N
"You should tell him, John. Perhaps he has lost such a thing."
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But Mr. Newbolt no longer saw very well. It was not a ring at all, but only two or three golden hairs that Paramore had found, just as he had described, and had wound about his long finger. j0lWI o T)^Rg
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She looked, as they do, neither old nor young. Under different circumstances (very different circumstances) he might have thought her beautiful. In her fine, dark eyes and the curve of her cheek was displayed some Spanish or suchlike Romancy origins, but her skin was rather pale. She wore a severe black robe with a line of tiny buttons that went from throat to hem. A pair of silver spectacles swung on a long silver chain around her neck. She had two pieces of paper. She looked at the piece of paper in her right hand, but it was not what she wanted. She looked at the piece of paper in her left hand and liked it better. She put her spectacles on her nose and read, "The Lord of Dreams and Nightmares, the Prince of Stories, the Monarch of the Sleeping Marches, His Darkness Dream of the Endless." She paused and glanced over the spectacles and no amount of cold, astonished majesty on the part of the person seated on the tall, black throne would ever discompose her.G
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"Well," she said, "are you?"
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The person seated on the tall, black throne agreed that he was all those terrible things and inquired, a little stiffly, who in the world she might be.
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"Doktor Estrella Silberhof. Of Heaven. That is to say the Heaven of the Children of Israel. Secretary-in-Ordinary to the Chamber of Dreams, Visions, Visitations, and Extraordinary Hauntings." She produced a quantity of letters and documents beautifully written in several ancient tongues on best-quality vellum and neatly tied with red silk ribbons, all testifying to the fact of her being who she said she was. "I wrote to you," she said, "on September 30th. And again on October 4th. And again on October 11th. I did not receive a reply. I was forc'd to come myself. I arrived six days ago. I have waited six days for an audience. When I first came to the castle it was not my intention to trouble you. I asked to speak to your recorders, secretaries, bailiffs, magistrates, clerks, or any other of your servants bearing such like office or offices. But I was informed that no such persons are employed by you. In the interim ..."
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"I have a librarian. You may speak to him. Good day."
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"... In the interim your servants have attempted to fob me off with a weak-brained librarian, a raven named Jessamy, and a prattling fool of a white rabbit called"—she consulted the piece of paper in her right hand—"Ruthven Roscoe. I am here," she said, "about the Returns"
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"The Returns?"
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She produced a very large book beautifully bound in the palest tan-colored leather with "Memorials of Returns, September 29th, 1682 (R.C.F.)" stamped in gold letters on the spine. It contained approximately seven million names written in excruciatingly small characters with a number of entirely incomprehensible shorthand symbols by the side of each.
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"A record," she explained, "of those occupants of Heaven, those righteous dead, who on the night of September 29th left Paradise to visit the living in dreams. I have marked the place for you to see and underlined the subject's name in green ink. Simply stated, Deborah Trismegistus came from Paradise into the Dreaming on September 29th and did not return. My intention in coming here was quite simple: I wish't to compare our Memorials with your own and to discover into whose dream this young woman went. But I am told that nowhere in this realm are any such records kept."
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"Doktor Silberhof, Deborah Trismegistus is not in the Dreame-Countries."P
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She smiled patiently. "No, I did not think that she was. In that case, you know, the person dreaming of her would now have been asleep for thirty-three days."
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There was a long silence.
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"I'll look into it," he said. 6Zma9xTD
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In Isaac Trismegistus's bedchamber in Stopp't-Clock Yard John Paramore sat, yawning his head off and peering without enthusiasm into his polished glass.
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"I wonder who it is," he murmured, "that goes creeping about this house?""J4i'FV D$u'Ru-[
A little while later, he glanced into a crop of dusty, moonshiny shadows that clustered thickly in one corner. "And I wonder who it is," he observed, "behind that curtain? With two little mousey feet and ten little mousey toes."~ d4e Z-m
He studied his glass for a while. "And I wonder who it is," he continued thoughtfully, "that stands directly before me, peeping out between those little mouse fingers?" He looked up. "Hello, puss-face. What big eyes you've got."
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"Grandfather..." she said.
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"Grandfather is asleep, sweetheart. He dreams of walking in Paris-Gardens. But who is this that walks beside him, that he cannot help but catch up in his arms, who strokes his beard and who provokes him to so many loving smiles and kisses?" He gave her the glass to hold that she might see herself in it. She did not object to being taken upon his lap.,~ @/CM$_
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"How cold are these hands. How cold are these feet. And what," he muttered to himself, "have you got on your arms?"
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There were two little black boxes, one tied to each arm, with leather straps wound round and round to keep them on. The first box contained a strip of paper, on which was written, WHAT THINGES ARE GOOD FOR LILY TO DREAME OF. And underneath was a very long list which began, "Breade & Jam, Treacle of Venice, Sugar'd Chesnuttes & Such Like Sweetes & Tit-bits; Ye Goode Dogge, Pepper ..." In the other box was another long list entitled, WHAT THINGES LILY MUST NOT DREAM OF. This list began, "Our enemie, Kinge Morpheus nor anie of his friends nor anie of his servants; skeletons & old bones ..."
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As he had never laid eyes on her before, he reasoned that she must have come from one of the mysterious rooms at the top of the house. He waited until she had fallen asleep and then he picked her up and carried her out onto the cold, black staircase.
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During the day the wind had brought a quantity of dead leaves into the house and now it was entertaining itself by tumbling them up and down the steps and making a queer rattling music with them.!R M6z:c&KJ
"And if there are no servants," he mused, "then who cares for thee? Combs thy hair like silk and makes thee smell of apples and lavender?" He climbed a little higher. "Staircases are like the bowels of a house, remarkably like—I wonder I never thought of it before—and this is the windiest, most flatulent house that ever I was in. Were I a physician, I would prescribe it three pills fortis. Kill or cure..."
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He paused at the last twist of the staircase. "Paramore, Paramore," he muttered, "you are speaking without sense or connection. What in the world is there to fear, man?"+i
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At the very top of the stairs stood the dead Jewess, her golden curls silver in the moonlight. A little draft made the dead leaves spin and eddy about her feet. Another shook the tiny, tear-shaped pearls in her ears, but she moved not at all.r"pgb3`]NE
"Faith! You must forgive me, madam, but all these stairs have snatched my breath away. My name is Paramore—another very famous magician. And you, madam—if a man might ask—are you a Ghost or a Dream?"|y D G6Vv |2x _8F
She sighed. "Are men still such fools? Am I a ghost or a dream? Lord! What manner of fool's question is that? What am I? I am her mother." And she took Lily from Paramore's arms and disappeared through a dark doorway.
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Mrs. Beaufort (the widow in whose affairs the City took such a warm interest) lived in Jerusalem-passage in Clerkenwell, a street much patronized by musicians. Whenever Mrs. Beaufort paced the length of her large, well-furnished rooms, weighing the emptiness in her arms where her little boy should have been, or peered into mirrors to discover what a childless lady look'd like, she did so to the accompaniment of the slow, sad music of the German gentleman's viola da gamba at number 24 or the melancholy airs of the Scottish harpsichord at number 21.T)hmx
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Late in the afternoon of the following day a servant came to Mrs. Beaufort, saying that Mr. Paramore was below and wished to speak to her at once.
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When Paramore entered Mrs. Beaufort looked up from her needlework and frowned. "You have been drinking," she said.R6qyT z I
"I? No!"
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"Wenching then."
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"No, indeed!" he cried, all indignation.*lUb)w:L r j;h `
"Something then. There is a kind of riot in your face." [S;hP {Yc^
"That is because I am happy."
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She turned a corner in the hem she was making before she said in a cold and jealous way, "Well then ... I am glad for you."
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"I am happy because of what I may do for you. Tell me," he said, "what you dream of—at night when you go to bed."
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She looked very coldly at him for some moments and then pulled her hand away (he was holding it).
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"Oh, I am punished!" she cried. "A hundred, hundred warnings I have had in this very room! But these ears"— and she put up her hands as if to menace the offending ears—"would not heed them! And if, sir, I should hold myself so cheap as to submit to you, should you put it all in a poem afterward?—nail it to a post on Snow-hill for every passing fool to smirk at?"D,fH.bZeI
Paramore threw up his hands and cast his looks about him in his exasperation. "I do not mean that!" he cried.
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"Indeed? And what should I understand from all this talk of what you may do for me and going to bed?"
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He crossed his arms. "There are tears in your eyes— which you do deserve for thinking I am so bad—and I have it in my power now to make you so happy. Only believe that I am better than that and you shall be happier yourself."
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She smiled and wept together. "That is no reason ..." she began.U0lD nD)gX9}
"Hush ... Tell me what you dream of."ztg G&E[$x.[ v
"Of my baby. Of my little boy."
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"Then all is well and I shall cure you of all your griefs. For Morpheus is an idle king, grown dull and foolish from the long years of security. His walls are old and crumbling. His gates are unguarded. His servants are not watchful."&T)b.S ?h4^
The next day Mrs. Beaufort was seen walking in St. Giles Fields, and at her side was a little boy, with hair that was such a mass of fine curlicues and spirals that it appeared to have been written onto his head in gold and silver ink by a very expensive writing master.
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The Librarian (who was in the act of polishing his spectacles with a bit of wool) began to change. It started at the tips of his curious ears, which dissolved into fine sand. If he were at all distress'd by this sudden transformation, then he gave no sign.SqN m|'F+Nq
The throne room, with a musical swish, became sand and tumbled down. A raven swooping across it crumbled to sand in mid-flight. The whole dreaming world turned to sand. And when it was done, all that remained of the whole world was a quantity of sand in the Dream-king's white cupped palm. Then the Dream-king took a pair of scales that he kept for the purpose and weighed the sand and discovered that, as he suspected, he was five grains short.
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"How many?" asked Paramore. i eK4sw:{
"Five," said Trismegistus. "They stuck to the hem of my daughter's gown when I brought her out of the Dreame-Countries, and, as you see, John, I keep them very safe, for who knows how powerful these five grains may be.... Now remember, John—'tis very important— were you and I ever to fall asleep at the same time, then Morpheus might slip into our dreams and reach out and take hold of my Deborah and the little English boy and steal them back. While you sleep I shall say spells and watch over them, and while I sleep you shall do the same."BU9E"b3K8f
"But perhaps the Dream-king might care to make a bargain with us, sir? After all, he knows us English magicians, does he not? Our brother-magicians have had dealings with him. I have heard of recipes to make a man have a particular dream."DQ'{`q7r
"He is not a king to deal with," said Trismegistus. "He is a king to spy upon, to cheat, to deceive, and to steal from—and then to fear. You and I, that have spied upon him, cheated, deceived, and stolen from him, must—for a part of every day or night—venture into his realm and how he will wish to abuse us then. So while you sleep I shall watch over you, and while I sleep you shall do the same."
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In the weeks that followed Isaac Trismegistus and John Paramore brought many dead people out of dreams, through the broken walls of the Dreame-Countries and into the waking world. They restored children to parents, parents to children, wives to husbands, husbands to wives, sweethearts to each other. Some gentlemen of the City who had insured a ship that had sunk near the Barbadoes (and who had thereby lost a large sum of money) paid Paramore five pounds to bring the captain back to life so that they might relieve their feelings by railing at him.8Ef ggQez
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For the first time in his life Paramore began to make money, but he said that it was not the money he cared for. What he did care for, he said, was that young people should not die. Surely, he said, there were saints enough in Heaven to sing the hymns, and sinners enough in Hell to keep the fires blazing brightly through all Eternity? He had heard tell, he said, that Death was lady. Strange behavior for a lady! To be so very hasty and a-grabbing after every little thing she fancied. It was high time, said John Paramore, that someone taught her better manners.
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There was at that time living in Petticoat-lane in Whitechapel a young girl, Jess Kettle, seven years of age with brown eyes and a most impudent grin.... But she prick't her thumb on an old gardener's pruning hook (which she never should have touch'd in the first place) and a great fistula grew up until all the thumb was corrapt'd. The surgeon made them tie Jess Kettle fast in a chair with apron strings and laces and he struck off her thumb with a chisel and a mallet. But the Fright and Convulsion was more than she could bear, and it was discover'd that with that blow the surgeon had struck her understanding out of her head and her hair came out and she turned the color of three-day-old milk and she spake no more. But her aunt, Anne Symcotts, walk'd to Stopp't-Clock Yard and asked everyone she met where she would find John Paramore, the sorcerer, and when she found him she went boldly up to him and entreated his help. John Paramore said she had a face like a spoon, but was very brave and clever. John Paramore sent the aunt to sleep and into the DreameCountries, where she found Jess Kettle's reason and all her bonny looks and her thumb, and she brought them, laughing, out of the Dreame-Countries, right from under the Dream-king's very nose. Or so it was said. And Jess Kettle was her merry self again.
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The Duchess of Cleveland's pearls (of which she was uncommonly fond) had all been given to Mr. Newbolt for safekeeping, and to this end he had taken them into a large cabbage field, thinking to hide them there. But the string had broke and the pearls had tumbled in between the leaves of a cabbage and got lodged there. Mr. Newbolt knew the cabbage field well. It had lain behind his father's cottage when Mr. Newbolt had been a child seventy years before in Leicestershire. Now, as he stood looking about him in the utmost fright and perplexity, a large black raven alighted on one of the cabbages and pecked at something inside it. Mr. Newbolt shouted and waved his arms and the bird flew away. But it did not go far, but went and flapped about the shoulders of a tall, pale man who had suddenly appeared.
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"Ah, sir!" cried Mr. Newbolt. "For pity's sake, help me! I do not know which cabbage to look into."*c7anrtt
"William Newbolt," said the tall, pale man, "you are dreaming."
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"Yes, I know," said Mr. Newbolt. "What of it?" And he continued to peer in a desperate sort of way into the cabbages.
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"William Newbolt," said the tall, pale man, "do you know me?"
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Then Mr. Newbolt looked up and saw the cold, white Leicestershire sky and the cold, white gleam of the man's face. And the one was very like the other and Mr. Newbolt began to wonder if, in fact, they might not be the same thing, and the black winter trees that marked the boundary of the field and the black shadows beneath them so resembled the man's black hair and clothes that it seemed impossible that they should not be made of the same stuff.
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"Yes, I know you," said Mr. Newbolt. "You are that scrawny, handsome man—Lord! I have forgot his' name!—the writing master that killed a cat belonging to an alderman and in the same evening ran away with the alderman's daughter. Sir, did not Mrs. Behn call you Lysander and write a poem on your beauty?"
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The tall man sighed and passed a long white hand through his long black hair.
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"Of course he is dead, the writing master," said Mr. Newbolt thoughtfully. "They hanged him. I forget for what. Still perhaps that does not signify now. They say that Morpheus is an idle king. His walls are old and crumbling. His gates are unguarded. His servants are not watchful."!`w+cM4P,c/H
A little rain of bitter sleet fell sharply and suddenly down on Mr. Newbolt alone. Mr. Newbolt looked around, puzzled. The tall man appeared to be so full of wrath that, had Mr. Newbolt had his wits about him, he would have been very much afraid. (Mr. Newbolt knew something of the wrath of great princes, having had in his time cause to speak to three—Charles, the first and second of that name, and Oliver Cromwell). But Mr. Newbolt did not have his wits about him. Mr. Newbolt's wits were all asleep in his bed in Friday street, and so he only smiled dimly at the tall, majestical person.
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"What do you say?" asked the tall man.
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"Oh," said Mr. Newbolt, wringing a stream of icy water out of his clothes and catching it in a little crystal cup that he had just discovered he had with him, "/ do not say so. You do not attend properly, sir. Other people say it."
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"Where do they say it?"2E5U e1N V{5t"[-baV9[
"In the town. It is what is commonly reported in the town."
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"Who reports it?"f'V9N rkp
"Everybody. But mostly 'tis the wastrel John Paramore."
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The tall man folded his arms and a great wind came up out of nowhere and toss'd all the trees about, as if all the world had been put in a great fright by the tall man's frowning at it. Mr. Newbolt stepped up to the tall man and, catching hold of his long black robe, tugged at it.&h!b
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"But, sir! Will you not help me look for the Duchess's pearls? She will be horribly angry."
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"Aye," said the tall man with satisfaction, "that she will." And he stalked away.
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In his place came a hundred fat pigs who ate up all the cabbages and swallowed all the pearls. A hundred men next appeared and slit the throats of the pigs and poured the blood into a hundred basins, then the basins were all taken away to be made into pigs' blood puddings. At that moment someone arrived to say that Mr. Newbolt must make haste—the Duchess was asking for him. When he arrived Her Grace was at dinner with all her cronies. A china dish of pigs' blood pudding was set before each. The Duchess said nothing at all. She only looked at Mr. Newbolt and held up her silver fork and wagged it three times at him. Between its silver prongs, glistening bloodily, was a great white pearl.
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"I can explain," said Mr. Newbolt.
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At the King's palace of Whitehall a great masque was held, in which Apollo, Mars, Minerva, King Solomon of the Jews, and no end of other great and noble personages were to come upon the stage, wearing golden robes and faces like stars and suns and moons, and make speeches about Charles II and lay their tributes at his feet. A tall, thin actor called Mr. Percival (who when out of costume rather resembled an upturned mop that had just heard something very surprising) was employed to take the part of Morpheus. Just before the performance two gallants came to him with a little pot and said how making speeches was thirsty work and would he like some beer? He, not suspecting any mischief, thanked these kind gentlemen and drank it up.m)al,jHGGki
But it was a purging ale.
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The consequence was that when poor Mr. Percival went upon the stage to make his speech (about how Morpheus had long dreamt of such a King as Charles n and how he now bestowed his sleepy blessings on humanity) no one could hear the sound of his words above his farting. s-Il([.NW$G"n
At which the King and all the court laugh't like anything. But those who laugh't loudest were those who had heard of John Paramore and what he did and whom he cheated to do it.
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That night the King of England had a dream.
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He dreamt that he was paying state visits to other monarchs and had reached a throne room, as vast as Hampstead Heath, where a tall, pale king sat upon a black throne, complaining of the bad behavior of some Englishmen who had lately journeyed through his realm.
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The pale king seemed quite in a rage about it. He said it had been the cause of a quarrel between himself and his sister and showed the King of England no end of documents and letters and Memorials he had had from persons he called "High Authorities," accusing the pale king of negligence because of something the Englishmen had done.
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The King of England looked at the documents but found they were complicated, so he put them aside for the Duke of Buckingham to read and to tell him what was in them.9QF Kh z1o
"I am not at all surprised at what your Majestic tells me," cried the King of England. "My subjects are the most unruly that ever poor prince was burdened with, and the men of London are the very worst. For years they rent my realm in pieces with bloody civil wars, wicked rebellions and the impudent government of Oliver Cromwell, and when their republican humor was spent they sent me a letter, begging my pardon for cutting off my father's head and asking me to be their king again ..." (The tall, pale king seemed about to speak, so the King of England hurried on.) "... It is their damp, island climate which is chiefly to blame. The cold and the rain chills the guts and the brain and makes men first melancholy and then mad and then ungovernable. Madness is, as everybody knows, the English malady. But I have colonies, you know. A great many in the Indies and the Americas, and I have hopes that, in time, when all the philosophers and preachers and mad rogues have gone there, then nothing but good, obedient subjects will remain. Does your Majestic have colonies?"
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No, said the tall, pale king, he had none.
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"Then your Majestic should get some. Straightaway." The King of England leaned over and patted the pale king's hand. He was rewarded for this by a very small, very chilly smile.
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The pale king asked if it was difficult to make the troublesome subjects go there.
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"Oh, no," said the King of England, "they go of their own accord. That is the excellent thing about colonies."
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The King of England felt a little sorry for this sad, pale king. He seemed so young, so all alone in his great silent, starlit palace, with no ministers to advise him and no mistresses to comfort him. And besides, thought the King of England—as he took a glass of wine from a little silver tray and glanced up at the person who had brought it to him—his servants are so odd....
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Paramore remarked that in the past week nine separate persons had come to him. "Each of these men told me they had dreamt of seeing me hung. Faith! This king pokes about in this person's dream and that person's, but he can get no foothold."9r(oWG[
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Trismegistus said something in reply, but it so happened that Paramore had that very day resolv'd to learn Hebrew (so that he might read Trismegistus's books of magic), and so he had no time just then to hear what the old man said.2A&SgQB(v
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A little later Trismegistus said another thing, but once again Paramore did not listen to him. At the end of two hours Paramore look't up and discovered that Trismegistus was gone from the room, but in leaving it (and this was odd) he had knocked over two stools. Paramore went to look for the old man and found him lying on his bed with his eyes closed.
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"Mr. Trismegistus! Ah, sir, you should not have gone to sleep without me! I am your watchman, sir. The constable that preserves the good order of your dreams. Now, what's here?"hx jMO |m
Paramore said the spell and looked into the glass. Trismegistus stood before two black doors, each as broad as the world and as high as the heavens. Above them and beyond them was nothing but black wind and dead night and cold stars. These doors (which were more vast than anyone could conceive) began to open.... With a sudden scream Paramore flung the glass from him and it rolled away to rest in the dust beneath a broken sixpenny mirror.
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"Good morning, your Majestic!" cried Doktor Silberhof, her little silver spectacles dancing on their silver chain as she walked briskly up to the tall black throne. "They tell me that you have some news for me. And not before time."
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"The Jewish magician is dead, Doktor Silberhof. He died in his sleep last night."
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There was a pause for the Lord of Dreams and Nightmares to look quiet, composed, and full of grandeur, and for Doktor Silberhof to look merely puzzled. `w$ID+Y&Lu5?3J,?9F
"And that's it, is it?" she asked./u(E/dJwa'k L/]
The Lord of Dreams and Nightmares gazed down at her from heights both literal and metaphoric. "Paramore, we pseudo-magician, must sleep soon and when he does ..."
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"But, your Majestic! Suppose that he does not!" E4G.BU1J9?1W9p
"I shall not suppose any such thing, Doktor Silberhof. The pseudo-magician never yet, in all his life, denied himself any thing that he wish'd for."
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"But in the meantime, your Majestic ..."
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"In the meantime, Doktor Silberhof..." The Lord of Dreams and Nightmares smiled. "We wait."
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Three days later Mr. Newbolt's mother was washing his small, three-year-old hands with a warm, wet cloth. It was a summer's day in Lincolnshire and Mr. Newbolt stood in his mother's cool, shadowy kitchen. Through a bright, hot doorway he saw flowers, herbs, and sleepy, humming bees.X5D JY U6O+@/i(C+l }
Mr. Newbolt's maid was washing his shriveled, eighty-year-old legs. Mr. Newbolt lay in a bed in a silent, candlelit room in Friday-street. The maid straightened herself and put a hand to her aching back. In the other hand she held a warm, wet cloth.
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Mr. Newbolt knew dimly that one washing took place in the Dreame-Countries and one in the waking world, but as to which was which Mr. Newbolt neither knew nor cared.
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Mr. Newbolt dreamt that someone with a thin, anxious face came to see him and talked to him for a long while about a matter of great importance.5p;bzZ"Vml9y
"... and so what am I to do, sir?"
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"About what, John?" asked Mr. Newbolt.
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"King Morpheus," said Paramore. Z?0ub4Wh4I"k e j
Mr. Newbolt considered this for a long while and then he said, "You have made him angry, John."
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"Yes, I know. But what can I do?" MUGr(M t"f-E
"Why," said Mr. Newbolt, "nothing that I know of. He talks of broken rules and robberies and insults (I hear him, John, in my dreams). I daresay he will pursue you to the ends of the earth and beyond ..."
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They sat in silence a while longer and then Mr. Newbolt said kindly, "You look a little pale, John. You are not well. Let Mary make you a posset."/QU'J#M"J7i
Paramore laughed a strange sort of laugh. "No, no, I am quite well."
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After this Mr. Newbolt appeared to fall asleep again (always supposing that he could truly have been said to have woken up in the first place), but just as Paramore was at the door, Mr. Newbolt roused. He said, "Were he only like his sister—what a difference that would make! For there never was such a sweet and gentle lady! I hear her footsteps, as she goes about the world. I hear the swish-swish-swish of her silken gown and the jingle-jangle of the silver chain about her neck. Her smile is full of comfort and her eyes are kind and happy! How I long to see her!"
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"Who, sir?" asked Paramore, puzzled.
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"Why, his sister, John. His sister."
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Outside in Friday-street a thin, cold rain was falling. Paramore looked up and saw a rough, country giant of a man walking toward him, wearing a curious hat which covered his eyes and which the man had apparently fashioned for himself out of old paper. Perhaps the man pushed against him, for Paramore (who had not slept all week) suddenly found that he was steadying himself against a wall. Just for a moment Paramore let his head rest against the wall, but as he did so he noticed that inside the red bricks there were tiny grains of golden sand....
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There was an orchard walled with rose red brick. Once the walls had been covered with roses, but it was winter now and all that was left was the thorns. There was grass; there were many apple trees. But grass and trees were all wintry now. In the mazy pattern of winter sunlight and blue shadows stood a pale king all dress't in black. His black arms were crossed. The toe of his black boot tapped upon the ground. He raised his head and look't at John Paramore....
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Paramore woke with a start. He walked very slowly back to Stopp't-Clock Yard. In that gray rain London seemed no more than the dream of a city and all the people in it ghosts. That evening someone came to Paramore and told him that Ralph Clerrihew (an Islington candlestick-maker whom Isaac had brought back out of dreams four weeks before) had disappeared from the face of the earth.%i5E+ldM
On the next day (which was Wednesday), at three o'clock in the afternoon, Paramore was descending the staircase in the Jew's house in Stopp't-Clock Yard. At the first step he felt tired to death. At the second step he felt tired to death. At the third step he touched some particularly frail part of the wood and the staircase shuddered, letting fall cobwebs and dirt. Paramore looked up and saw, without surprise, tiny grains of golden sand falling into his face ...
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The next step was a barren orchard with a pale, smiling king.
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In that moment Lord Morpheus stole back a Mortlake laundress—the mother of four little ones. On Thursday, in the time it took for Paramore's eyes to close twice, Lord Morpheus took back a negro seaman and a famous prostitute named Mrs. Aphra Pytchley; on Friday it was a baby and an albino doll-maker from Wapping; and on Saturday a glove-maker and his wife. On Sunday Paramore fell asleep for a full quarter of an hour, but Lord Morpheus took back no one at all. Paramore could only suppose that Morpheus meant it for a joke—to ape a greater divinity by resting on the Sabbath. But in none of Isaac's books was there the least hint that Morpheus knew how to make jokes.EWsCUs
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By the following Saturday in all the coffeehouses and taverns in London men vied with each other to tell the most grisly tales of the things that Paramore did to himself to keep himself awake. But even if these tales were true, then they did no good—for by the following Saturday Morpheus had taken back all the revenants but two.
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At the house in Stopp't-Clock Yard the dead Jewess went into her father's little closet, where all his books and powders were kept, and found Paramore slumped upon the ground, his head nodding between the pages of an open book.
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"Paramore!" she cried. "Get up!"
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Paramore got slowly to his feet.
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"I never knew a man could look so tired," she said.Y9T,zc:le
"Oh ... I am not tired. It is this house. It is so dark. It makes a man sleepy."
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"Then let us leave it instantly and go elsewhere! Where shall we go?"#a a5V ow7^/h
"Oh..." he began. But somehow he forgot what he wanted to say.$X9xu.R0q.uI!yJ
"Paramore!" She took his face between her hands. "I was born in the Ghetto at Venice, where curious people come to look at the Jews. There I have seen great Spanish ladies, all dark and soft and glowing, like sunsets. Paramore, would not you like to see a lady the color of a Spanish garden on a summer's evening?"
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Paramore smiled a ghost of his crooked smile as it once had been. "I prefer women the color of English gardens on a winter's afternoon. That is my melancholy English humor."
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The dead Jewess laugh't and began to speak of English humors....
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There was an orchard walled with rose red brick, where a great multitude of birds had settled in the barren trees— birds of the commonest sorts, blackbirds, mistle thrushes, robins, finches, and wrens. But something made them take fright and all flew away together. The pale king lifted his head and smiled. . . . [D w6rQv7O+c8v
"Paramore!" She struck his cheek with the flat of her hand and he started awake. She pushed him against the wall the better to hold him up. "You are every bit as clever as he. How will you fight him? How?" v'DD*O%m
Paramore's ghostly smile appeared. "I will order all the king's army to lie down ..." he said. E-T&h oB){#v5j
"Good!" she cried. "We shall lay them all down on Salisbury Plain—even the horses! What then?"v&E"_ {.rG g
"And then, in an enchanted sleep, the English army shall march on Morpheus's castle and pull him from his throne."p UC9Y j!c `1NYM)v1?ep
"Yes!" she cried. "Paramore, it is a pity that you and I should have to part so soon."
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"Perhaps," said Paramore and reached up and took down a great blue jar from the shelf. He emptied some white powder into a little leather pouch and tucked it inside his shirt.
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That night it rained, and all of London's sins were washed away. All the streets were full of water and, once it had stopp't raining, all the water was full of stars. Stars hung above the City and stars hung below and London hung between. John Paramore—onetime astrologer and seducer, self-styled poet and magician, present madman—appeared high up among the stars, upon a roof in Blue Ball Court— laughing and singing and calling on Morpheus to come and fight him. He was very drunk.*X
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Householders from Shoe-lane and Gunpowder-alley got out of their beds and gathered in the street below, with the kind and neighborly intention of seeing John Paramore break his neck and of telling his relations all about it afterward. Some of the bystanders found a strange, thin man with a long, pale face lurking in a doorway and, believing this to be Lord Morpheus, began to pull his hair and kick his shins and roundly to abuse him, until it was discovered that he was not Morpheus at all, but a cheesemonger from Aberdeen.
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Later Paramore went walking through the dark City streets, from Holborn to the village of Mile-End and back again, stumbling through the scaffolding of all the halfbuilt City churches, clambering over all the beams and shadows and blocks of Portland stone that waited in Cheapside for Sir Christopher Wren to make them into St. Paul's. He could have told you—if you had cared to know such a thing—the number of Morpheus's eyelashes and described in most minute detail the faint crescent-shaped mark on his cheek an inch below his left eye. For there was nothing left in Paramore's head but Lord Morpheus and he filled it till it was nigh to bursting.
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Toward morning London grew colder. The sky was filled with clouds like torn bed sheets and broken mattresses, and a gentle snow began to fall. There was not another soul in all the world.
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The snow spotted the red-brick buildings and the piazzas. Lofty statues gazed down on Paramore with some thing remarkably like pity and the flooded Thames flowed silently between walls of silvery grey Carrara marble. z+A0cPPlt
"Carrara marble?" murmured Paramore in amazement. "Lord, what city is this?"
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"Do you not know it?" asked a voice.+R Qa9v1zf'L9}
"Well, sir, it is London—that much I do know. But she was not so fair and lovely yesterday, I am sure. So many beautiful buildings! So many fine canals—with a pale rose-colored dawn in each and every one! And everything so very geometrical!"
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"This is the London that Sir Christopher Wren designed when the old city was burnt up in the Great Fire fifteen years ago but which the King refused to build. So I took Sir Chris's drawings and I built his city here."7v"d&P/yGx
"Well, I will not tell him, sir, or he will want paying for it. Faith, sir, those Italians brag and brag, but I doubt they have anything so fair as this." O)hV0[/eIrk;b
"A city the color of a winter's afternoon," said the voice thoughtfully.x8?0p2q F#E,L
"And do they want magicians in this city, sir?" asked John Paramore. "I only ask because I find myself a little quiet at the moment."
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"Indeed? And why is that?" asked the voice.
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"Ah, sir," sighed Paramore. "It sometimes happens that a small man—such as myself—has the misfortune to offend a great prince—how or why he cannot tell. But ever after all his actions miscarry and his life runs all awry."
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There was silence for a moment.
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Then the voice said—in accents of great bitterness— "For Morpheus is an idle king, grown dull and foolish from the long years of security. His walls are old and crumbling. His gates are unguarded. His servants are not watchful."
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Paramore looked up and saw a doorcase surmounted with two figures, splendid but solemn, representing Winter and Autumn. Between the two was the Dream-king, with his black elbow propped up on the Autumn's marble head and his black boot idly resting in Winter's marble bosom and his long, black hair whipp't by the wind.
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"Ha!" cried Paramore. "Now this is fortunate. I have lately heard a puzzling rumor that Your Grace has taken it into his head to be angry with me and, since it is my wish always to have Your Grace's good opinion, I have come to make amends."
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"Paramore," said Lord Morpheus, "is there no end to your impudence?" Then he said, "I am glad you like my London. I intend you shall stay here for a good long while."2G ?Y)d El
In the empty streets the chill winds (or dreams of winds) eddied and played. Yet the streets were not quite empty. Dreams of voices and dreams of sad, tolling bells were carried on the wind, and what looked like ghostly bundles of fluttering, flapping rags.
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"What are they?" asked Paramore.
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"Old dreams. Tired dreams. Bitter, angry dreams," said Lord Morpheus. "You will come to know them better."
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"Your Grace is very kind," murmured Paramore, but he seemed to be thinking of something else. "Ah," he sighed, "if only Your Grace were a woman, then I know that I might make you pity me."4|SR&s+i;{;Sov
"True, Paramore," said Morpheus. "For so many years you have lived on the kindness of women. But there are none here for you to play your tricks on."
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Along the street (which both was and was not Cheapside), came the dead Jewess. She walked slowly, for she had a great way to go and had all the breadth of Dreame-Countries to cross before she would reach Heaven's Marches. In her arms she carried the little Christian boy, the widow's child, Orlando Beaufort. He was not sleeping (for the dead do not sleep) but he had buried his face in her neck and his golden curls were mingling with her own.H
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Lord Morpheus raised one black eyebrow and smiled at Paramore as if to say: she cannot help you. She cannot help herself.Ie$tB*u0J9A
Deborah Trismegistus stopped in front of the doorway where Lord Morpheus sat. To Morpheus she said, "I see, sir, that you have mended your walls." And to Paramore she said, " 'Tis always disheartening to see a king. They are never so tall as fancy paints them."
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But Paramore did not reply.
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In the waking world snow falls directly to the ground or is carried on the wind, in accordance with the rules and protocols of the waking world. In Dreame-Countries the snow falls and returns into Morpheus. It melds with his white skin in accordance with the rules and protocols of that world. Morpheus's face glistened with snow. He parted the snow to get a better view of Paramore. For it seemed to Morpheus that something had happened to Paramore—it was as if his soul had fallen away in grains of sand and reappeared the next moment with some strange new quality. J%ZAJ:yped5X)Z
Without warning a lady appeared. She came from the direction of Friday-street, for she had just been with Mr. Newbolt. She strode capably through the snow. She wore a black silk gown and something very queer swung from a silver chain about her neck. Her smile was full of comfort and her eyes were kind and happy. She was just as Mr. Newbolt had described.
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And the name of this lady was Death.`!p#B+EV+|1v
What happened next can only truly be expressed in metaphors—being, as it is, an exchange between two immortal beings. But let us say for simplicity's sake that a kind of argument took place between Morpheus and his sister, Death. Let us say that both of them claimed John Paramore's soul. Let us say that the argument went on for some time, but that the lady (who was a great deal older and cleverer than her brother, and who had ample proof that Paramore had just died of poison in an alley near Blackfriars) paid not the least attention to her brother's many grievances, and Morpheus was forc'd to yield to her.
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Death and John Paramore, the dead Jewess and the dead Christian child went away together, and already John Paramore was beginning to bargain and to plead with Death to be allowed to follow the dead Jewess into her own particular Heaven ("... For I have often thought, madam, how strangely Jewish I feel in my soul..."), and Morpheus heard his sister (a most compassionate and forgiving lady) begin to laugh at Paramore's nonsense.,c tl `c|f
It was whispered among some of Lord Morpheus's servants and subjects that their lord was displeased: but who among them could say for certain? Those dreams which haunted London that night might well have peered up at Morpheus to discover if he were angry, but they surely came away none the wiser—for there was nothing in his eyes but the black night and the cold stars.