The Other Nineteenth Century Read online

  So he sent word that the meal was to proceed without him, and his apologies to his guest, and he (Eszterhazy) would join him as soon as possible.

  “As soon as” was eventually reached, though he had feared it wouldn’t be. As he was making his way out of the Great Chamber he encountered Professor Blumpkinn, almost in tears. “I have missed my luncheon!” said the Imperial Geologist (he did not look as though he had missed many) dolefully. “They have prepared none for me at home, and in a restaurant I cannot eat, because my stomach is delicate: if anything is in the least greasy or underdone or overdone, one feels rising, then, the bile: and one is dyspeptic for days!”

  “Come home with me, then, Johanno,” said Eszterhazy.

  “Gladly!”

  One might ask, How far can a pullet go? but the pullet was after all intended merely as garnish to only one course of several; also a cook in Bella would sooner have suffered herself to be trampled by elephant cows rather than fail to provide a few Back-up Entrances, as they were called, in case of emergencies. A singularly greedy guest might become an Untoward Incident in a foreign pension: but not in a well-ordered house in Bella: What a compliment! God—who gives appetite—bless the man! and the order would be passed on, via an agreed-upon signal, to bring out one of the back-ups.

  Going past the porte-cochère of the Great Hall, which was jammed with vehicles, Eszterhazy held up his hand and the red steam runabout darted forward from a nearby passage; almost before it had come to a stop, Schwebel, the engineer, had vaulted into the back to stoke the anthracite: Eszterhazy took the tiller. His guest, an appreciative sniff for the cedar wood-work (beeswax “compliments of Prince Vlox”), sat beside him.

  “Who’s that?” asked an Usher of a Doorkeeper, watching the deft work with the steering-gear.

  “He’m Doctors Eszterhazy, th’ Emperor’s wizard,” said Doorkeeper to Usher.

  “So that’s him!—odd old bird!” And then they both had to jump as the delegations poured out, demanding their coaches, carriages, curricles, hacks, and troikas. None, however, demanded steam runabouts.

  “It will not offend you if we enter by way of the kitchen?” the doctor (although his doctorate was plural, he himself was singular … very singular) asked the professor.

  Who answered that they might enter by way of the chimney. “Cannot you hear my stomach growling? Besides, it is always a pleasure to visit a well-ordered kitchen.” Blumpkinn rang with pleasure the hand-bell given him to warn passers-by—the steamer was almost noiseless—and drivers of nervous horses.

  “A moderate number of unannounced visits help keep a kitchen well-ordered.” Besides, with a temporary cook and a guest with a very delicate stomach, an inspection, however brief, might be a good idea: and, in a few minutes, there they were!—but what was this in the alley? a heavy country wagon—and at the door, someone whose canvas coat was speckled with feathers—someone stamping his feet and looking baffled. “I tells you again that Poulterer Puckelhaube has told me to bring this country-fed bird, and to git a skilling and a half for it!’Tain’t my fault as I’m late: the roads about the Great Chamber was filled with kerritches.”

  But, like the King of Iceland’s oldest son, Malta Cook was having none. “You’s heard I’m only temporal here,” she said, hands on hips, “and thinks to try your gammon on me!—but you’ll get no skilling and a half at this door! The country chicking has already been delivered couple hours ago, with the other firm’s compliments, and the foreign guest is eating of it now. Away with ye, and—” She caught sight of Eszterhazy, courtseyed, gestured towards the deliveryman, her mouth open for explanation and argument.

  She was allowed no time. Eszterhazy said, “Take the bird and pay for it, we’ll settle the matter later.—Give him a glass of ale,” he called over his shoulder. Instantly the man’s grievance vanished. The money would, after all, go to his employer. But the beer was his … at least for a while.

  At the table, napkin tucked into his open collar, sunburned and evidently quite content, sat Newton Charles (“New Chum”) Enderson, calmly chewing. Equally calmly, he returned the just-cleanedoff bone to its platter, on which (or, if you prefer, whereon) he had neatly laid out the skeleton. Perhaps he had always done the same, even with the cockatoo and the kangaroo. Eszterhazy stared in intense disbelief. Blumpkinn’s mouth was opening and closing like that of a barbel, or a carp. “Welcome aboard,” said New Chum, looking up. “Sorry you’ve missed it. The journey has given me quite an appetite.” At the end of the platter was a single, and slightly odd, feather. Malta had perhaps heard, if not more, of how to serve a pheasant.

  “My God!” cried Blumpkinn. “Look! There is the centra free as far as the sacrum, and the very long tail as well as the thin coracoid, all the ribs non-unciate and thin, neither birdlike nor very reptilian, the un-birdlike caudal appendage, the separate and unfused metacarpals, the independent fingers and claws.”

  “Not bad at all,” said Enderson, touching the napkin to his lips. “As I’ve told you, I don’t know one bird from another, but this is not bad. Rather like bamboo chicken—goanna, or iguana, you would call it. Though a bit far north for that … but of course it must be imported! My compliments to the chef! By the way. I understand that the man who brought it said that there weren’t any more … whatever that means … You know how to treat a guest well, I must say!”

  Contentedly, he broke off a bit of bread and sopped at the truffled gravy. Then he looked up again. “Oh, and speaking of compliments,” he said, “who’s Prince Vlox?”

  “I see the French picture is missing,” said Eszterhazy.

  AFTERWORD TO “THE ODD OLD BIRD”

  Of the Eszterhazy stories, Avram wrote: “The time was the late middle’70s; the place was the picturesque little city of Mill Valley, California (which has no other form of municipal incorporation—no towns, boroughs, villages, townships—they are all cities [except for the Ciry-and-Counry of San Francisco, which is, of course, unique]).

  “Gradually, it came to me that there had been an empire in Eastern Europe which had been so completely destroyed that we no longer even remembered it, rather like the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, or the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary; that being an empire, it had an emperor; that the emperor had a wizard; the wizard drove about the streets of Bella (Belgrade/Vienna) in a steam runabout; … and that the wizard’s name was … was … Englebert Eszterhazy … .

  “I sat down at the typewriter, and in six weeks wrote all eight stories of the first series. No rewrites were ever even suggested. Everything came so clear to me … that now I recognize that I did not at all ‘make them up,’ that Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania did exist!, as surely as Courland, a Baltic duchy which once had colonies in America and Africa; and Lemkovarna, land of the Lemkos, those Slavs forgotten by everyone save themselves; …

  “Among the admirers of Englebert Eszterhazy, Ph.D., D. Phil., Dr. of Science, Dr. of Music, Dr. of Literature, of Laws, of Engineering is George Scithers, who persuaded me to write a story of Eszterhazy as a young man. Which I did; … and from which came the other four stories of the second series. (‘The Odd Old Bird’ is the first of yet another series.’)”

  Alas, Avram did not live to complete any further Eszterhazy stories … although there are intriguing fragments … .

  —George H. Scithers

  THE DEED OF THE DEFT-FOOTED DRAGON

  It was frightfully hot in the streets. Most of the shops were cooler, particularly since the day was fairly young, but some of the shops were even hotter, and behind the beaded curtain in one of them a man was taking advantage of the concealment thus offered to work stripped to the waist; and even so the sweat poured off his torso and on to his thin cotton trousers. He did not think of complaining about the weather, sent as it was by the inscrutable decree of Heaven. Still, it was necessary to admit that it did slow his work down. Not that he toiled one hour the less at the washtubs, not that he toiled one hour the less at the ironing-board. Man was bor
n to toil, and—brutal though the savages were among whom he toiled—it was almost inevitable that eventually he would have saved one thousand dollars: then he might retire to his native country and live at ease. However, the heat. And the sweat. What slowed his work down was that from time to time he was obliged to wipe his hands dry and carefully fold the garments he had ironed; in order to avoid staining them with his perspiration he was obliged to stand far away as he folded: this slowed the work down. Mei-yo fah-dze, there was nothing to be done about it; he filled his mouth with water and carefully sprayed a small amount onto the garment on the ironing-board; then he picked up a hot iron from the stove and made it hiss upon the cloth.

  “It is unfortunate about the girl-child’s absence,” one of his countrymen then present observed.

  “So.” The water had evaporated. Another mouthful. Another spray. Another hiss.

  “She justified her rice by folding the garments while you ironed.”

  “So.”

  This countryman was called Wong Cigar Fellow. He rolled the cigars themselves, then he peddled them to others. Sometimes he carried other things for sale from his basket—these varied—but always the cigars; hence his name. “It is said that once you pursued a far more honored craft than this one, far away in the Golden Mountain City.” The man said nothing. The pedlar said, “All men know this is so, despite your great modesty. Do you not regret the change?”

  “Mei-yo fah-dze.”

  He puffed his cheeks with water, sprayed, ironed.

  Wong Cigar Fellow made as though to rise, settled again. “It is too bad about Large Pale Savage Female.”

  The name on the shop was On Lung. Sometimes this caused the savage natives to laugh their terrible laugh. “Hey, One Lung,” they would say, in their voices like the barking dogs. “Hey, One Lung, which Lung is it? Hey? No savvy? No tickee, no shirtee, hey?” And, baring huge yellow teeth, would laugh, making a sound like hop, hop, hop.

  The wash-man dried his hands, dried his body, quickly packed up the shirt and, holding it at arms’ length before he could begin to sweat heavily again, deftly folded it around a piece of cardboard.

  “Ah, how swiftly the girl-child folded shirts.”

  “Mei-yo fah-dze.” He took another shirt and spread it on the ironing board; then asked, indifferently, “What large pale savage female do you refer to?”

  “Large Pale Savage Female, so we all call her. Eyes the ugly color of a sky on a bright day.”

  “Do not all the savages, male and female, have such ugly eyes?”

  Wong Cigar Fellow was inclined to be argumentative. “No, not at all, all. Some have eyes the color of smoke. Some have eyes of mixed colors. And some even have eyes the colors of human beings’ eyes. Ha! Now I know how you will remember! Did she not, as they say, ‘teach a class’? On the morning of the first day of their week, in one of their temple-buildings which they erect with no thought to feng-shui, wind and water and other influences as revealed by geomancy—Yes. The one who taught fairy tales and savage songs to the children of our laundrymen, and did not the girl-child attend?—as why not? it may be that their strange god or gods have authority here in savage territory, so far from the Kingdom in the Middle of the World—besides: girls … one gives them away, merely; after eating one’s rice for many years, they go off and live in another human’s house …”

  On Lung uttered an exclamation. Yes! Now he recognized Large Pale Savage Female. Not in the least pausing or even slowing his pace, he listened while Wong Cigar Fellow spoke on.

  The father of Large Pale Savage Female had formerly been, it was said, a merchant. Next, by cleverly putting his money out at usury, he had gotten a great fortune and owned estates and houses and documents called stocks and bonds which also gained him money. His wife having died, he had taken a concubine. “They call her a wife, but she has had no children, how can she be a wife?” and between concubine and daughter there had grown enmity … .

  “Even in our own country one hears similar stories,” chattered Wong Cigar Fellow. “Still—why does the Old Father not adopt, say, a cousin’s son? Marry off the daughter to—”

  On Lung said, “Who would marry her? She has such big feet.”

  “True. That is true. And even while it is true that the savages never bind the feet of their girl-children and even prevent us from doing so, still, even for a savage, Large Pale Savage Female has big feet. Well!” This time he really got up and grasped the pole of his carrying-basket. “It is said that the second wife so-called is gradually obtaining all the old man’s property and that, not content with this, has made plans to—as they say—make a will in her favor. He is old and when he dies, what will become of Large Pale Savage Female? She must either go and play for trade in a sing-song house, or stay at home at the second wife’s (or concubine’s) beck and call, toiling like a servant. It is to drink bitter tea.—Farewell, Deft-Footed Dragon. It may be cooler by evening.”

  On Lung worked on in his steamy back-room. “One Lung,” indeed! The savages had no knowledge that Lung, besides being one of the Hundred Names, also meant Dragon. It was his success as a warrior which had gained him that full name. Ah, the war! Then came a day when the high military council had summoned him to their chamber. “A treaty of peace has been signed,” said the spokesman, “and one of the terms of the treaty—the others of course need not concern you—is that all such warriors are at once to leave the Golden Mountain City and depart for distant places. These august personages would not leave you without means of earning rice money in savage parts, of course. Here is your passage-ticket on the firewagon. It is to a town called Stream-by-a-Cataract, in a distant province whose name means nothing and the syllables of which no human mouth can pronounce. Here are fifty silver dollars. The savages are so filthy that they are obliged to make constant changes of clothing, so you will never lack employment in the laundry which it has been arranged for you to assume. Therefore lay down your heart, Deft-Footed Dragon, and never worry about your rice-bowl.”

  The girl-child (her mother, being weak, had taken a fever and died quickly) was indeed of great use in folding shirts; the savages called her Lily Long. Indeed, after a while, he had found comfort in the child’s company: perhaps it was not his destiny to have sons. Because she was needed to fold shirts, because she was rather shy, because there were anyway no children nearby to play with, “Lily” (it was, for a marvel, easy to say; often he said it) spent much of her time in the shop. Also she was useful in chattering with the savages, none of whom, of course, could speak, when they came with shirts and other garments. The farthest away she ever went, in fact, was to the so-called “school” held in the worship place in the morning of the first day of their week … as though it were in any way essential to divide the lunar months into smaller quantities … . Sometimes she told him something of the strange tales and stranger songs learned there. Now and then he laughed. She was sometimes very droll. It was a pity she was so weak; her mother, of course, had also been so.

  Almost as she entered he had recognized Large Pale Savage Female from the descriptions he had heard. “Lily was not at Sunday School today. Is she ill?” From the rear of the shop came the call of Miss—Miss—In the woman went. “Why, Lily, you are burning up. Let me put my lips to your brow … you have a terrible fever. Wait … wait …” Well did On Lung know a fever. Had the pills from the savages’ apothecary helped? No they had not: therefore he was brewing an infusion of dried pomegranate rind, very good for restoring the proper balance of yin and yang, hot and cold.—In another moment, out rushed Large Pale Savage Female, swinging her mantle over her fleshy shoulders; it seemed but a second before she was back again, and this time she held the mantle in her arms as though she were swaddling a child; curious, he followed her behind the beaded curtain.

  Curiosity gave way almost to alarm: Large Pale Savage Female at once set the mantle on a table and, picking up a cold iron, proceeded to strike it repeatedly upon the garment and its contents. Very nearly, it sounde
d as though bones were being cracked.

  “Desist, ‘Miss-Miss,’”he exclaimed. “That is clearly a costly garment as befits the daughter of a respected usurer and rack-rent landlord, and I fear it may be damaged, and the blame laid on me; desist!”

  Smack! Smack! Smack!

  In a moment the mantle was flung open, inside lay a mass of crushed ice, quicker than he could move to prevent it she had snatched from the pile first one clean wrinkled shirt and then another, tumbled the crushed ice into each and wrapped it up like a sausage; then she set one on each side of the small, feverish body.

  “Doesn’t that feel better now?”

  The female child murmured something very low, but she smiled as she reached up and took the large pale paw in her tiny golden hand.

  Large Pale Savage Female came often, came quite often, came several times a day; Large Pale Savage Female brought more ice and more ice; she bathed the wasted little frame in cooled water many times, she brought a savage witch-doctor with the devil-thing one end of which goes in the ears and the other end upon the breast; also he administered more pills. Large Pale Savage Female fed broth to the sick child—in short, she could not have done more if she were caring for a husband’s grandfather.

  Afterward, Wong Cigar Fellow commented, “Needless to say that I would have gone had it been a boy; although Buddhists have said that even the death of a son is no more than the passage of a bird across the empty sky, who can go quite that far? Forget the matter in much toil and eventually you will have accumulated the thousand dollars which will enable you to return to the Kingdom in the Middle of the World and live at ease forever.”

  Only On Lung himself had been present at the burial of the girl-child. He, that is, and Large Pale Savage Female whose much care had not prevailed, plus the priest-savage she had brought along. It was a wet, chill autumn day; the bitter wind had scattered rain and leaves … golden leaves … henceforth the tiny ghost would sip in solitude of the Yellow Springs beneath the earth. It was astonishing how very painful the absence of the small person was found. One would not indeed have thought it possible.