Something About Eve

    “To be refined in one’s taste is eminently praiseworthy. Ah, my dear fellow, if you but knew what shocking examples of bad taste we kings are continually encountering among our sycophants! And that reminds me, you said something about a princess...”

    “They have learned to despise the hasty and boisterous and, between ourselves, the very often disappointing ways of men—”

    “Ah, yes, no doubt!” said Gerald. “Men are a bad lot. But we were speaking of a princess—”

    “—And they have lovingly contrived more finespun and more rococo diversions without the crude assistance of any man. Then also they delight in playing with many well-trained pets,—with goats and large dogs and asses and, they tell me, with rams and with bulls also. The surprising and mysterious joys which blaze up among these flute-players are, thus, very violent and delicious.”

    Gerald said then that kindness to dumb animals was generally reckoned a most estimable trait in the United States of America, Whereas, in all quarters of that enlightened and hospitable republic, Gerald estimated, a princess—

    “Yet,” Horvendile went on, “these learned women do not forget, in mere pleasure-seeking, their religious duty of permitting no man to pass by unpleased. Go to them, therefore, you will be welcome. Yonder at this instant a religious festival is preparing. Yonder sweet-voiced Leucosia, who hereabouts is called Evadne, waits for you—”

    “But I have not the honor of knowing this Evadne—”

    “She is easily known, by her violet hair and her sharp teeth. Moreover, Gerald, her wise sisters—Teles, and Parthenope, and Radne, and Ligeia, and Molpe,—all these will greet you with ardor. They will deny to you no secret of their pious rites; they will share with you esoteric joys religiously. They will incite you to perform among their choir, in the most secret shrine of Koleos Koleros—”

    “But, really now, my dear fellow! I have no talent whatever for music. I would be quite out of place in any choir.”

    “These flute-players are very ingenious. They will find for you some suitable instrument. And there will be strange harmonies and much soft laughter at this festival: each reveller will pour out libations copiously: cups will be refilled and emptied until dawn. There will be for you perfumes and rose garlands and the most exquisite of wines and the most savory of dishes and other delicacies. Due homage will be paid to Koleos Koleros.”

    “Nevertheless,” said Gerald, “there is a phrase which haunts me—”

    “That dusky grove of laurels yonder is the hall of this pious feast. Nothing will be lacking to you at this feast if you attend it with proper religious exaltation; and you will discover abilities there which will surprise you.”

    “Ah, as to that now, Horvendile—! Yes, I have a man’s proper share of ability, I have quite enough ability for two persons. Nevertheless, there is a patriotic phrase which haunts me, and that phrase is E pluribus unum. For I have compunctions, Horvendile, which are translating that same phrase, a little freely, as ‘One among so many.’”

    “It seems to me a harmless phrase even in your paraphrase. More harm may very well come of the fact that these learned ladies will endeavor to cajole you out of the divine steed, so that he may be added to their trained pets—”

    “Oh! oh, indeed!” said Gerald. “But that is nonsense. The rider upon Kalki, and none other, has to fulfill that estimable old prophecy: and a deal of good such wheedlings will do any woman breathing, with a fine kingdom like that of mine set against a mere kiss or, it may be, a few tears!”

    “That matter remains to be attested in due time. Meanwhile, I can but repeat that if you do not render a man’s homage to the ruler of this place there is no doubt whatever that the slighted goddess will avenge herself.”

    “Sir,” Gerald now replied, with appropriate dignity, “I am, as were my fathers before me, a member of the Protestant Episcopal church. Is it thinkable that a communicant of this persuasion would worship a goddess of the benighted heathen? Do you but answer me that very simple question?”

    “In Lichfield,” Horvendile retorted, “to adhere to the religion of your fathers is tactful, and in this place also, as in every other place, tactfulness ought to be every wise man’s religion. Otherwise, you will be running counter to that which is expected of the descendants of Manuel and of Jurgen; and you may by and by have cause to regret it.”