Read Ebook: The King of Alsander by Flecker James Elroy

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Ebook has 1384 lines and 69973 words, and 28 pages

So Norman began dreaming, at first as schoolboys dream of adventure, plot, swordsmanship, hidden treasures, dense jungles, heroic bravery, desperate efficiency and lost princesses. Then a poet's dream of hot suns, and open plains, and vast masses of swaying colour. Then he bethought himself of a multitude of pleasant practical schemes. John and he had often talked of a bicycling tour in Normandy. That would be inexpensive, but now it seemed so tame an affair. What of this delicately--named Alsander the Poet talked of? It sounded remote enough. To go somewhere where no one else had ever been would be better than reading books no one else had ever read. And one should go at an hour's notice, without making any plans. What a curiously-inspired man this old poet or artist was! Quite mad, no doubt, with his Holy Lady. And what did he mean by mentioning Norman's mother? Norman had no gods; he feared Death and loved Life. Well, since Life is short, and since one is sure of nothing, shall one not be bold? To-night!

The old man's words thrilled him. If, as the poet had suggested, a trumpet-voiced vulgarian in black can save a drinker from dirt and disease in a quarter of an hour, cannot a radiant poet save a dreamer from stagnation in ten minutes? Norman began to think hard, and his pulses were stirring for action, when the bell rang behind the shop. It was time for meat-tea.

Norman, with no feeling of any bathos, entered the parlour with the full intention of eating a hearty meal. He sat down opposite old William Price and began to cut himself enormous slices of bread. Meanwhile he looked at his father, and studied the old man's appearance carefully and cynically for the first time in his life. We often take some of our near relations for granted , and we never become acutely conscious of their existence or individuality unless they die, disappear, or make themselves offensive. Norman dispassionately scrutinized his father's stumpy red beard, curious veiled eyes, and fireless, thin face, remembered his equanimity and his shrewdness, and wondered with boyish shallowness and conceit--for he knew less about his father than about the man in the moon--what on earth he had in common with such a man outside human nature and the grocery business. The only recent change that Norman could observe in his parent was that he had certainly become fatter and more foolish since he had left his son to do all the grocery work. The lad was sure that the one salvation for his father would be to take the business on again, and his idea of effecting a dramatic departure--for a time, at least--grew almost a resolve.

Usually Norman never told his father anything that could possibly puzzle or worry the excellent old gentleman, and had maintained the rule that the elder generation is the last place where the new should expect sympathy. However, for want of something to talk about, Norman observed that a most peculiar person, describing himself as a poet, had been in the shop and had tried to persuade him to travel.

"To travel, eh?" said William Price. "What in?"

"Oh, he meant abroad."

"I've n'er bin abroa'," said the honest oil fellow, stifling his words in large mouthfuls of ham. "But I bin 'sfuras Wales."

"I'm longing to go," said Norman, "and I will go, too."

"Ah, yes," said the old man, paying no serious attention, as he leaned back in his wooden armchair. "I've often wanted to see it myself. Used to live down by the sea in Kent, and I was always wunnering what was the other side, and thinking I saw France, but it was only the clouds. I'm glad I never went there though; they say it's a very irreligious country."

Norman finished his meal in silence and folded up his napkin.

"Good night, father," he said, as he got up from his chair, leaving the old man still hard at work. "I expect you'll want to get to sleep now, it's been a tiring day."

"Indeed it has," said William Price. "Indeed it has."

"I'm going out for a stroll," said Norman, at the door.

But when, his meal finished, he began to doze in the armchair by the fire, even his confident son might have been startled to see him open his wide dark eyes, unfilmed, and smile as though he saw Paradise dawn upon the ceiling.

Norman walked up and down the village street, as though he hoped that the moon, Whose silver bow hung listlessly above, would send some barbed messenger of watery fire to confirm him in a resolution. Whether indeed the celestial lady did touch him somehow, or whether his vanity and naughty desire to startle the villagers was not more powerful, cannot say; but in a few minutes a strange decided mood swept over him, and when a quarter of an hour later he swung into the Blaindon Arms it was as a man resolved to say good-bye.

For neither business nor inclination had ever permitted Norman to lose touch with these heroes of the soil, the Blaindon working class. They were honest, strenuous, interesting fellows, a little too full perhaps of local colour, Though they were a little jealous of him, they were a kindly folk and bowed naturally to his superior wealth. Superior intellect they did not allow him to possess. For them he was a bright boy who'd got "notions."

He greeted little Nancy at the bar as a habitu? should, and asked for the time-table.

"Surely ye aren't goin' anywhere this tame o' nate," murmured John Oggs.

"Yes, I am," said Norman. "I'm just off abroad. And I've come to say good-bye."

"What!" said old Canthrop, a person who combined the functions of village patriarch and village imbecile, and was, in accordance with the universal custom of savage communities, almost worshipped in consequence. "What!" he repeated, making the mono-syllable rhyme with hat. "Aiy didn't know: no one tould me!"

"Well, you're the first to know as usual, Mr Canthrop. The old man doesn't know yet."

"What!" said old Canthrop, almost shrieking, "not tould yer feyther? Not tould yer feyther that yer goin' away?"

He rocked convulsively in his chair.

"Isn't that rather sudden of you, Mr Price?" said pleasant Nancy, simpering. She was a great friend of Norman's, and her voice was a little tremulous as she asked her question.

Thomas Bodkin, the sexton, who passed for a man of the world, and was drinking airily at the bar, leaned over and whispered very audibly, "It's a scrape, Nancy ... these young dogs ... must let 'em sow their oats ... eh, what?... We know."

Mr Bodkin's jerky mouthfuls passed in the inn for nimble elocution, his metaphors for the delicious slang of an old and experienced rake.

"Gawd!" ejaculated John Oggs, who was sitting behind him, "ye have it there, man, ye have it there!"

"What nonsense!" said Norman. "You don't imagine I should run away from trouble, do you? Or that I should be likely to get into trouble? Or that if I did I should be such a fool as to tell you anything about it?"

"Why did you, then?" said Thomas Bodkin. A roar of laughter greeted this vivacious sally.

Price looked round with rather priggish disgust. It was more than he could stand, this asinine mockery. "I came to say good-bye," he said.

"Till to-morrow, eh?" said the sexton. "You will not see me to-morrow," said Norman.

Another peal of laughter, during which Norman disappeared, a baffled Byron, punished by the native humour of honourable working men for trying to produce a cheap effect.

But his resolution had received its final confirmation. He could not face the ridicule of the morrow. He hurried back at once to the shop, and there on the counter wrote a concise note to his father. He thought it unnecessary to condole or excuse. He knew how delightful it would be for the old man to have anything happen to him at all, how he would enjoy being the centre of sympathetic interest in the village, and how thoroughly good it would be for his moral character to get back to business. He then took the Post Office Savings Bank book from the safe. There were ninety pounds odd in it, entered in his name, the profits that had accrued during his two years' management of the shop. Perhaps it was not strictly his; his father had established the business, and provided the initial stock. But then his father had laid by enough to keep him even in food for the next ten years, and Norman had done the work. It is the young who want money; Norman had never been able to see the object of saving money with immense toil over against the day when one should become infirm, insane, or dead. He uttered a vigorous oath against the Post Office system, which means a day's delay in withdrawal, sent the book up to headquarters at once, asking that it should be sent him by return to the Central Post Office, Southampton, posted it in the box opposite, and then considered what he ought to pack. He took a change of raiment, and then looked lovingly at the ponderous tomes on his shelves. Only the smallest could go with him.

"After all," said Norman, "I have read all these once. New lands, new books, and I am not going away for what John would call a reading party."

It was a splendid night. He set off down the High Street, on the main road to Southampton in a state of perilous exultation. Smoothly and quickly the tyred wheels bore him on out to infinity. The door of the Blaindon Arms stood open, and as he rolled noiselessly by he could hear Canthrop summing up his view of the situation for the fiftieth time,

"Bloody silly, I call it," said the old man, "bloody silly!"

I should subjoin a word to prevent any enthusiastic reader from taking the words of the old poet too seriously and wasting thirty pounds in going to Damascus. It is a very filthy town with electric trams and no drains.

The fares mentioned by the poet are of course third-class.

ALSANDER

Know'st thou the land where bloom the lemon trees, And darkly gleam the golden oranges? A gentle wind blows down from that blue sky....

With a spear of golden light and gradual splendour Dawn rose on her triumphal car. In winter men rise up to welcome her advent: wives cast off sleep and light fires in her honour; the good citizens draw the curtains to gaze out upon her beauty, stretching their lazy limbs. In winter Dawn arises to the sound of chattering and bustle, the herald of man's work in town and field. But in summer only the grey mists and the light-winged birds listen to her as she rings the bells of day.

Norman had seen new lands and cities, and had been wandering on foot for many weeks to south and east admiring all things, but never so satisfied with what he saw as to rest for a single day. At the first glimmer of light he leapt to his window, and whether Dawn rose broken upon the peaks or solemn on the plain, whether she wandered mysteriously down old winding streets, or set the city square clattering and clanging, it was early, ever early, that our heroic traveller left his mean abode to seek the unexpressed, unknown, ever-receding city of his heart's desire.

One night as he was trudging along he met a tramp, whose face he could hardly make out beneath the stars, who, learning that he was bound to Alsander, talked to him in English passionately of the beauties of that country, recommended him to learn its language, and then disappeared into the gloom. This confirmed the boy in his definite aim, and day after day he approached this certain goal, fired by the eloquence of the mysterious stranger. This night, being among the high mountains, he had found no inn; however, undaunted, he lay down on the roadside for an hour or two, then rose and strode on, pack on shoulder, through the shadows. Who could be tired of walking with the mountain wind ahead, the dim white road beneath, and the joy of watching for the dawn! "Ah!" he thought, "how I pity the six-legged at their desks! What for them is the sunrise curtain to the drama of a day? How indeed should they greet it, save with a cry of pain and a curse upon the light? But I will wander on."

Now had come that shining moment of Eternity when Aurora unravels the folds of her saffron robe across the sky and bares her wounded breast to the blue of morning. The boy swung round a corner of the highway, and suddenly beheld the valley far below. He saw quiet forests of tall golden trees and meadows so rich with gentian and wild pansy that even at that far height he could see them shine. To his left, at the edge of the plain, lay spear-sharp mountains, a little darker than the skies, whose distant hollows and tortuous cones ever hinted at the mystery of the next valley and the joy of things unseen. He saw the thin torrent which tumbled down in cascades behind the wall become a quiet and solemn river below leading to a curved strip of sea, of an intense unearthly colour, southern, fantastic, beyond all belief, and the sound of rushing waters seemed the only sound in the world. But most surprising of all, on a rocky mound between the mountains and the bay rose the white city of Alsander, with her legendary towers and red roofs all dreaming in the sunlight. In such deep slumber lay that perfect city, the boy held the very sight of it to be a dream. For there surely dwelt the good King and the bad King, the younger son and the three princesses, the dwarf, the giant and the gnome. Surely in those blue mountains lurked and lolled the devastating dragon who came down for his yearly toll of maiden flesh; surely in that blue sea swam all the shoal of nereids and dolphinous fishy beings whose song is dangerous to men. Thus appeared the city of Alsander to Norman as he gazed at it over the wall in silence. "Blessings on the head of that wonderful old tramp," said Norman, "who told me Alsander was the loveliest place in Europe and directed my steps on this glorious path; wherever he may be may joy attend him, so boldly did he bear the weight of years." Then down he went on his way again, humming to himself,

and the birds were frightened of his deep voice and the little green lizards fled up the walls as he strode on down the hill.

Many men can only enjoy beauty when they face it alone. These dark and solitary aesthetes love to ramble on the most horrible downs and heaths at intempestival morning hours, drinking in the miserable and fearsome aspect of the world. One such has said to me that he would walk half a day to avoid meeting a friend. I fear, too, that these characters consider their misanthropic tastes a self-evident mark of their superiority over the mass of men, who, herding together with vivacious chatter, much love-making, and explosion of corks, crowd to the prettiest places they know to enjoy Bank Holiday. Your lonely man claims a special communion with God or with the Spirit of Nature, or with the Rosicrucian mysteries of his own soul, so that his ramble becomes a sacrament, purifying by pity, terror and love. Norman was a little above this sort of rubbish: he felt dimly the cruelty of beauty and the menace of solitude. This sent him moving and set him longing--longing very definitely for human companionship. Thus he fell short of the self-sufficient man recommended by Aristotle, for which the reader may devoutly praise the Lord.

But the stilted style of this century can ill express the fluctuations of our hero's feelings. "Who is there" , "or what man of feeling and imagination can be found, who, upon contemplating the ineffable grandeur and unspeakable majesty of Nature, does not ardently aspire to hold at the same moment communion with some divinely tender female heart, to read in those liquid eyes his own reflections purged of their dross and transmuted into gold, to press those sensitive fingers and thereby lose himself in rapture among the gorgeous scenes that astonish and confound his gaze, to seal those fluttering lips with the memory of an unforgettable moment?"

To resume the use of the English language, Norman felt lonely, and for that very reason paid particular attention to the only figures discernible in the landscape. He came down and the figures came up, three companions they seemed to be. But presently Norman made out that the central figure was a girl, and her two shining companions were only the two pails she carried, slung from a yoke that passed behind her neck. "Life for me," said Norman to himself, as he and the girl drew near to each other at the combined rate of six miles an hour, "is crude marble, and I have come here to carve it into flowers, and the flowers of youth are the fairest of them all." Pleased with this ingenuous comparison, he looked up with a smile, and discovered that the neck which bore the yoke was a shapely one, and that there in front of him, not fifty yards away, stood a young girl, with her pails clanking at her side. She was dressed in a white frock and her head was covered with a white kerchief edged with gold.

The reader now dreads the inevitable love scene, and I, too, feel that an apology is needed. For so many novelists, ballad-makers, jongleurs, troubadours, minstrels, poets, and bards have sung the praises of perfect, adorable and captivating ladies that I am inclined to lament with one of them that

I have sung all love's great songs And have no new songs to sing, But I'll sing the old songs again.

And so I will. We will have those old songs again, for I will not give my heroine "plain but interesting features" or "a noble rather than beautiful countenance with intellect shining in her eyes," or even in a candid moment declare her to possess "a haunting plainness all her own." But apart from all this there is the truth to consider, and this young girl was assuredly one of the most perfect women God ever made by accident or Satan by design.

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