Something About Eve

    Said Tenjo: “I enter, proud and erect. I take my fill of delight imperiously, irrationally, and none punishes.”

    The head priestess replied, “Not yet.”

    Tenjo said then, “But in three months, and in three months, and in three more months, the avenger comes forth, and mocks me by being as I am, and by being foredoomed to do as I have done, inevitably.”

    This ceremony being discharged, they all entered the adytum, and then the three priestesses led Gerald toward the collapsed and shrivelled idol which was in the adytum. And Gerald whistled.

    “—For do you call this,” said Gerald, “a nose?”

    “Sir,” replied the priestesses, “we do. As, likewise, do all other well-conducted persons.”

    “Yet, I would call it,” said Gerald, whose naturally fine color was now perceptibly heightened by Tenjo’s excellent wine, “another member.”

    “Such, sir,” they answered him, “is not our custom.”

    “Nevertheless,” said Gerald, waggling very gravely his red head, “nevertheless, it is written in the scriptures of the Protestant Episcopal church that, even as great ships are turned about in the sea’s roaring main with a very small helm, even so is every man guided in the main by a small member—”

    They said, “Yet, sir—”

    “And this member is not well spoken of by the Apostolic Fathers. This member has ruined virgins: its conquests are stained with blood: it has caused the widow to regret: it has deceived the wisest and most elderly of men. It is, in fine, a member whose blushing hue is wholly proper to its iniquitous history.”

    They replied, “Still, sir—”

    “It is an over proud and wild member. Most justly is it written that every kind of beasts and of birds and of serpents and of things in the sea is to be tamed, and has been tamed, by human kind; but that this member can no man tame; for it is an unruly member, seeking ruthlessly its prey; a rebellious member, prominent in uprisings; a member very often full of deadly poison.”

    They said, “None the less, sir—”

    “I deduce that this member here represented is not worshipful. I deduce that it is not well for you of Lytreia to worship this shrivelled image of a tongue, for all that you call it a nose.”

    “But, sir, while there is much piousness and erudition in what you say, you must understand that the word ‘nose’ is a word with connotations and with a reputed correspondence in anatomy—”

    “I do not at all understand that saying, and so I cannot quite see your point of view. I merely know that, in consonance with the words of St. James the Just, and according to the scriptures of the Protestant Episcopal church, this member is a tongue. And I admit that this tongue, which your heathenish upbringing induces you to call a nose, is in a peculiarly bad way. But the divine word of Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, has been pledged to help and to preserve this idol. So we will see what can be done about it.”

    Then Gerald moistened his finger-tip with a drop of the water from the Churning of the Ocean. As the Lady of the First Water-Gap had done to Gerald’s forehead, so Gerald did to the shrivelled idol of Lytreia.

    It was changed. Its limpness departed; its coloring quickened; corded large blue veins, very intricately forked and branched, arose about its now glowing surface, which revealed also many tiny veins that were brightly red and astonishingly tortuous. It became enormous and high-standing and robust and succulent. It throbbed and jerked. It was hot to the touch: and the roughened cartilage of its erect tip-end now glistened with imperial purple.

    And everywhere at that same instant the magic of Evaine was lifted from Lytreia, and the nose of every man regained its proper proportions and vigor. Young couples to the right hand and to the left could be seen withdrawing to sneeze in private: the girls were already producing their handkerchiefs. And the three priestesses began to bathe the rejuvenated idol with refreshing water: they wreathed it with leaves of the Indian wood-apple; they placed before it flowers and incense and sweetmeats. Meanwhile they chaunted a contented song in honor of the Holy Nose.

    Tenjo and all the older lords and dowagers of Tenjo’s court had kneeled in worship. Gerald only remained standing as arrogantly erect as was the idol which people worshipped in Lytreia.

    “I honor in a civil way,” said Gerald, “the spirit of this tongue—”

    “But this,” said Tenjo the King, now speaking almost peevishly, “is not a tongue. It is the Holy Nose of Lytreia.”

    “Do you not be flying, my dear fellow, upon the wings of bad temper, into the face of scripture and of logic! In a civil way, I repeat, I honor this member. I personally am rather fond of talking. Nevertheless, as being myself a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, and as being also a self-respecting member of the Dirghic mythology, I must decline to worship this so restive and inflammable member of any man’s body.”