Goose of Hermogenes Read online

  She led me up the monastery-garden-path to the building. We went in, up a stairway and along a corridor, where I came across a rosy-faced youth who was looking over the monastery. He pursued and caught me; I struggled. In the rough-and-tumble that followed we edged from the corridor into an empty room with a square unglazed window at the level of the floor. It looked down upon terrible rocks and sea below. Still struggling, we moved towards it and I pushed him through. But looking out after him, I saw only an empty shirt falling through the air.

  I rejoined my guide in the passage, and we went on a little further; then I entered a small room to the right of the stairs. The walls were colour-washed sea-green like the rest of the monastery; the air within was very close, strongly scented with some exotic perfume and resonant with a strange humming. I fell at once into a kind of trance and sank down upon the floor. To the right of the door three women were sitting round a low table playing cards, and one was dealing with incredible speed. The cards were small, with backs of dark plain colours, red, green or brownish. Directly opposite me was a fourth woman, crouched upon the floor praying in front of some cult-objects objects – a bell, a censer, a bowl for offerings. This one was performing a rite which included rhythmical beats on an instrument something like a xylophone, but made with plates of metal instead of wood. All the women were of oriental appearance, Berbers from the mainland perhaps; their hair was plastered with some dark substance into a number of stringy locks; their garments were bluish. I was overcome by the extraordinary atmosphere of the room, which filled both mind and senses. I had left the door open and through it I could see my guide; and as she would not enter, I staggered to my feet and went out. Once outside, the symptoms of trance vanished and I could get my breath.

  In one of the higher storeys was a large room with several monks sitting near the window. I went into the bathroom adjoining to wash my hands; the towel looked dirty. It is one of the monks’ towels, I thought, it is not clean enough for me to use, they are not very particular. The monks were going to sing; they were quite sweet. Did they sing or did they wash their hands?

  I cannot say, for we continued our journey, the precipitous coast somewhere at our backs, along the plain below the western ridge of the bay. My first glimpse was of the two windows in the top storey; they were sash-windows but the Gothic masonry of their outer surrounds gave the effect, if one did not look closely, of lancets. By the blackness of their cavities I thought the place untenanted.

  As we moved, however, the intervening screen of spinney passed to one side, revealing a lower storey rising direct from the turf of the hillside. In the ground-floor two more windows presented themselves, larger than the upper ones. Over each a grey fluted canopy, something like the half-section of an onion-dome but more elongated, rose to a point between the attics. This next floor below was certainly lived in, for we could see through the open windows polished furniture, glass and mahogany, and portrait silhouettes on green or pinkish walls; and could hear a faint sound of music.

  The house, being built into the hillside itself, seemed scarcely more than a façade; though how deeply the building caved into the earth at the back, one could not tell. At the sides, which seemed very shallow, the stone of the structure merged into the steep downland turf.

  We now saw that the whole façade was double, that in fact it reproduced itself less clearly to the left, the direction from which we had come. There was a kind of balcony running across the entire front; to the right it formed a small conservatory, and through this we passed. I noticed a tropical plant with finely cut leaves and large citron-coloured flowers like bells. We found ourselves in a corridor, dividing those rooms which opened upon the façade from certain others which gave upon the back, and led to a door at the far end, through which the legs of a man sitting in an easy chair were visible. There was a sound of distant conversation.

  One of the rooms at the back was a spacious twilit kitchen and into this we glided. There was a basket on the dresser containing tongue-sandwiches and fruit. I took these and began to eat a sandwich. I wondered how we should explain our presence if anyone came.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ said my companion.

  Footsteps approached; a slim dusky girl with cherry lips entered. My companion said this was Sylvia – the name seemed inevitable – and told her how we had been sent to take some measurements. Sylvia seemed quite satisfied with this explanation, but I began to improvise that we had been unable to come at the time stipulated. This remark carried less conviction and I thought I had better keep quiet. I was also embarrassed by the half-eaten sandwich that I was trying to finish, having replaced the rest of the food in the basket. We drifted about inconclusively for a little, my companion talking to Sylvia in confidential tones. Finally we were shown out through the back door, which gave upon a pebbly drive, not into the depths of the hillside as I should have expected.

  This drive was set in a garden bounded by a low wall; sunlight filtered across its declivities through eucalyptus trees and many plants of the tamarisk tribe. In the middle of the drive was raised a flower bed bordered with stones, and here had alighted the weight of a creature like certain parasitic orchids, though much larger. It had grey downy leaves, a body-hull and neck-mast-stems covered with woody scales; and starting from the tip of each stem, a crest-pennant of silky orange petals. Each scale was set, not pointing downwards as on the neck and body of a swan, but upwards. There it floated, becalmed in the soil like a boat on an oval pond; but the image of it followed me as we traversed the parklands.

  We continued along the line of the wall to a distant point where it was low enough to climb, and came out upon the downs bordering the sea. My Uncle’s island was again visible; but though I looked for it carefully I could not pick out his house. A village could be seen, backing a small harbour and its diminutive lighthouse; but further inland there was no sign of human habitation, only crags fit for the hawk and eagle. I knew that I should seek in the centre of the island, but all that appeared there was an immense concavity suggesting the crater of a volcano, perhaps not yet quite extinct.

  We made our way downhill to a jetty where a coracle was tied. I said goodbye to the woman who had helped me to get thus far, with polite hopes that she would not miss the way back to her châlet. I had some difficulty in steering the flimsy boat between the willows, whose drooping lower branches soon hid my former companion from view. I think she waited for some time on the tiny mole, looking after me. ‘Don’t watch me out of sight!’ I called. ‘It’s bad luck!’

  But the myriad missel-thrushes, inspired by the sunset, were all singing at once, and I doubt if she heard me.

  ‘Or was it then that a black cloud from heaven

  Such blackness gave to your Nazarene’s hair,

  As of a languid willow by the river

  Brooding in moonless night?’ – Unamuno.

  It was late evening when I arrived at my Uncle’s house, after travelling away from the harbour so far that I judged I must be near the centre of the island. I could not be sure of the location of the demesne as regards the volcanic depression I had observed from the main island, because of the duskiness of my path, which wound through a stretch of coniferous woodland and allowed me no general view. I guessed, however, that the territory must lie somewhere along the eastern slopes of that central mountain.

  I remained for my first night at the gate-house, a rectangular building which stood a little apart from the mansion itself. The only inhabitant was an Anchorite who acted as porter, but so few visitors came this way that his devotions were seldom interrupted. He wore a black gown with a white cord knotted round the waist.

  I gathered from this guardian a somewhat sinister impression of my Uncle, and of the house beyond. The Anchorite’s relationship to them was evidently one of dependance – my Uncle had some hold over him which made of him a minion. Nevertheless his will was not entirely subjugated, and I had the impression that he wanted to convey to me some warning without, however, saying enou
gh to compromise himself.

  This impression was but deepened when he spoke, after a few minutes, at some length.

  ‘I once had two beautiful exotic creatures,’ he began, ‘one dark, the other excessively blond, called the Crow-moth and the Moon-moth. Both were very large.

  ‘The Moon-moth was perhaps the more striking in shape-its front wings were so curved as to be almost hooked and the hind wings had long swallow tails of delicate pink and yellow. The general colour was a pale green, emerald in hue but milky, with borderings and eye-markings of a slightly intenser yellow and an artificial-looking pink. These in their turn were emphasised by a very little deep maroon colour, the only colour of any strength in the design. The wing scales were fine and soft, and long silky hair grew near the body. The antennae were branched and feathery. The flight might be swift, but it must always have in it something of the glide or the flutter.

  ‘If the Moon-moth seemed to suggest the vertical, the Crow-moth with its long and narrow fore-wings stressed the horizontal. It was thick and heavy, and its flight, you felt, must be low and darting, though extremely powerful. The fore-wings were sooty black, the veins strongly marked with a powdering of silver scales, each one separately visible, and the hind-wings bright yellow with veins and borders of black. Each of the fore-wings, looked at by itself, might have been a single stiff feather. The body and wire-like antennae were black; I was always a little afraid of the Crow-moth. Did it mean death? and the Moon-moth, those insubstantial cravings after immortality?’

  Before I could make any comment on this surprising monologue, the Anchorite turned away and passed noiselessly through the only door of the apartment, in order to tend, I almost fancied, the ethereal pets he had just described; though whether these were insects, sylphs or women, I could not from his manner be sure. Meanwhile I had little to do but look about me; and though I was not invited to enter other rooms, I knew that such there must certainly be, from the looming architectural mass that I had been able approximately to measure in the deep twilight outside.

  Although the room in which I found myself was well-warmed and furnished, and brightly lit, these very comforts seemed to be arranged, not so much for their own sake, as for a defence against outer darkness – there was an atmosphere of the deliberately sequestered, and of something unobtrusively but constantly alert.

  Next day I went on to the mansion which, though set apart from the gate-house, was not far distant. The plan of it was roughly a square surrounding, I imagine, a central courtyard, though this I never saw. It was large and illustriously furnished; and if somewhat crepuscular in lighting, was well kept by the self-effacing servants. From the main landing upstairs there led off two side corridors; the one to the right was short and gave directly upon my Uncle’s own apartments, the other to the left was long and shadowy, and led I knew not where, though I fancied my Uncle’s suite must have, at its extremity, another entrance giving upon it. In fact his rooms occupied a good half of the house, all that part to the right of the central courtyard, and also the part served by the unseen corridor which I imagined must run parallel with the main landing.

  My first view of my Uncle was disquieting; I saw no sign of him until the evening when, after dark, I noticed a slit of light beneath the door of his study. I would have entered, but the Anchorite, who suggested to me how to act in regard to my Uncle – and indeed saw to the general direction of the household – told me not to tap on the door, but to wait. After a few seconds a shutter, not unlike that of a box-office, opened in the middle of the panelling; and in this aperture, illumined from within by a glow faintly rose-coloured, appeared my Uncle’s hands. They held a few leaves from some rare booklet, embossed and illuminated with half-perceived designs. The pages fluttered for a few moments like a butterfly on some fleshy exotic bloom, then the shutter was drawn again and the door darkened.

  The following morning my Uncle appeared to me in one of the passages, coming upon me as if by hazard while I was passing from one part of the house to another. He was tall, with a white and skeletal head, and was garbed in a purple silk dressing-gown fastened at the neck with a large copper pin of interlaced workmanship. The Celtic design of this, his only ornament, made it seem like a genuine find, though I did not dare to question him about it. The whole remarkable tenu I soon discovered to be his habitual costume.

  His manner was courteous but distant; he seemed to have no need of any human relationship, and to consider enquiries about my health or journey superfluous. (I understood that I was to take the strange peep-show I had witnessed the night before as an indication of welcome – that all was ‘Open’ and full of good-will. Indeed the Anchorite had been quite overawed by it and had indicated that I was highly favoured.)

  ‘Do not be misled for a moment,’ intoned my alarming relative, his figure towering hieratically above me into the shadows of the corridor, ‘this place is not what at first sight it seems. Do not be deceived by the port, the strand, the square; nor cafés, hotels, cavernous shops, houses gaunt or gay; nor by the churches, soaring or sequestered. The real village is not there. But look inland, up the valley; there you will find among cypresses the more persistent counterpart, like a reservoir defended by a wall.

  ‘Here we believe in giving the dead elbow-room; each tomb is the size of a small house, white or colour-washed, decorated with tracery of iron wire, mouldings, reliefs, and unfading flowers of beads. Over every front door is carved the name of the inhabiting family, which is a very practical idea, because these people never move house. No provision is made for business or pleasure, but only for endurance and contemplation.

  ‘They told me that the village had been inundated by an enormous tidal wave and completely submerged. Then I heard that this was not so; there had indeed been a great flood, but the tower was only under water to the height of seventy-six feet. One of the streets, too, the one leading to the tower, was still dry; and I seemed to see its tawny colour, the result of centuries of dust. But memory had no part in this picture, for there was no such street or tower in the place I knew.’

  His voice died away, the rhetorical élan of his opening lines having spent itself. I was impressed by his fluency, the more so, as I understood that he seldom spoke at all; but I was determined not to be outdone.

  ‘What you say reminds me of some experiences of my own,’ I began, my voice hurrying nervously forward. ‘We were driving, a party of people, down a street in a poor and slummy quarter, “the lower end of the High Street.” I paid particular attention to the shop-windows; their contents were not easy to catalogue, but they were somehow suggestive, and I remember thinking, such things would not be displayed in a more select neighbourhood. One shop on the left sold mostly masks, which I remember as white with red touches, vaguely sinister; another cards, with erotic messages and symbolic designs; also herbs, love-philtres, aphrodisiac books and prints; while one on the right showed coloured models and plaques in low relief. A friend drew my attention to one of these, a pinkish-red heart on a white ground surrounded by a band of blue; but the arrow, instead of piercing it, pointed upwards from it. He said it was a phallic symbol. One felt that there must be eerie brothels on nearly all these premises; the windows did not exhibit for sale, however, any fetish-garments, nor any of the more obvious accoutrements of the trade.

  ‘At the end of the street we stopped. The windows of the shop which faced us were papered with magical and erotic prints; and I looked particularly at those covering the panes of the glass door, among which were two pencil-sketches, roughly done, of the traditional Shakti group.

  ‘We went in and were greeted by Madame and a fair-haired young girl dressed in white with a blue sash. The place was furnished as a comfortable salon, and on a small table there was spread out before us a kind of chart about the size and consistency of a newspaper. I looked at it carefully and said, “This is based on the Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage” Madame agreed, and seemed impressed by my knowledge. On the paper were some drawing
s and patches of printing which I connected by some chalk lines, and the pattern which resulted put me in mind of the Seal of Solomon.

  ‘The chart became a board ruled with horizontal and vertical lines and so divided into minute squares, variously coloured. Madame said to me, “Your destiny could be told by this.” “Yes, if you had anyone who knew how to do it,” I replied. “I have a woman but she is in one of the other rooms; I can call her if you like.” I was doubtful of the woman’s abilities. Then Madame said, “My daughter’s destiny is figured here.”

  ‘Near each of the four corners there was a diagram; I don’t recollect the two upper ones, but the one in the lower right hand corner represented the naked torso of a woman, only where the legs should be, was a conglomeration of those squares which were coloured red, and in place of the genitalia, a red shield on which was written in black, The Knave of Diamonds. I thought, Of course, this is the destiny of her daughter; but I said nothing.

  ‘I had not then looked at the diagram in the left-hand corner, which was a larger agglomeration of black squares, with a black spot at the centre. “That is hell,” someone said, and I thought, I might have suggested the other as her daughter’s destiny, it wasn’t the worst possible.

  ‘I looked again carefully at the squares on the board, being anxious to arrange in my mind all the colours in their right order. “Black, Brown, Red, Pink, Buff, Yellow, White,” I said, then saw that I had left out Mauve, and didn’t know where to put it in.

  ‘On the right-hand margin of the board I now noticed some compartments, divided from one another by cardboard partitions. I understood that these contained the materials for magical experiments; for in the centre was a long-shaped partition with a number of small phials, containing, I suppose, drugs and perfumes. Each phial was of a different colour and design, some perhaps astrological. One I remember was quite transparent, another black with a pair of silver wings, a third black with a white skull-and-cross-bones. The daughter began to demonstrate the uses of these phials to me, but our attention was soon distracted from the board and turned towards a show in a cyclorama against the wall opposite.