The Nightmare Had Triplets by Branch Cabell Page A

acquaintance of mine, a dentist, had lived sordidly for years upon the petty miseries of his clients, until one Christmas morning, when his wife gave him a handsome dressing gown very richly striped with blue and silver. She insisted that he wear it about the house during the holidays, and he humored her. He had been married for some time. But upon New Year’s eve, my dear sir, he removed from the parlor mantel an onyx clock, and with this clock he battered out his wife’s brains. That was not a great crime, I admit; there was about it nothing grandiose, yet it did have a neat touch of originality and of grotesque poetry, as it were, which the man had never displayed in filling teeth or in any of his bridgework; and it must be imputed—as indeed the coroner’s jury did impute it—to his unaccustomedly rich attire.”
        “No doubt, Smirt, you are right. Yet I would submit—”
        “Ah, but to what end, my dear fellow, when I am supported everywhere by zoology? For do you but observe the animal kingdom! It is the sheep, the rabbit, and the ignoble hyena who wear dull colors, where the tiger, the leopard, and the serpent go splendidly attired. These last-named feel themselves to be properly conspicuous; they ravage therefore with élan. They sin handsomely.”
        “Still, Smirt—”
        “I perceive your argument, Company. I follow you. It is wholly true that the larger birds of prey do not ever wear bright colors, and that the shark also might seem, to the superficial, to affect unostentation. But that, my dear fellow, that is because the one of these great criminals practises his profession in the bedazzling gold and blue of high heaven, and the other among the crimson coral reefs and the million-hued resplendent tropic seaweeds. Their sombreness among all this splendor thus lends to them just that sense of being conspicuous which, rather than mere brightness, the criminal needs to inspire him. Their sombreness, I would put it, compels the eye quite as inevitably as does the mourning garb of Hamlet at the gay court of Denmark.”
        “ Hamlet! yes, I remember Hamlet, ” replied Company. “ Hamlet is by Shakespeare. Shakespeare is the greatest of all writers of English.”
        “In his time, my dear sir,” Smirt answered; and he so fell into a sudden silence.
        “But, Smirt, that is what everyone tells me—that; Shakespeare is still the greatest of all writers of English. I am not like the old gentleman: I have written no book, and I do not pretend to be literary, you understand.”
        “And I do not argue the matter, Company. I know that many persons affect to admire the writings of that—of that person. Tastes differ: some few of us have learned to appreciate the delicacies and the splendors of prose writing as an actual art: and that is all.”
        Now the fiend looked at Smirt, for an instant, with a grin which Smirt did not like especially. But Smirt did not say anything further to this scarlet ignoramus; and if Smirt seemed a trifle stately and reserved, it was for a sufficient reason.
        “Your suggestions as to iniquity also shall be duly considered,” said Company, after making an entry in his little red book, “and in my modest way, I shall trust to profit by them. In the mean time,” he continued, just as the flash of lightning struck the ground noiselessly, and so vanished with every bit of Company except his voice, “in the mean time, this, I believe, is your grave, where I was instructed to leave you.”

PART THREE. BEYOND TWO TOMBS
     
        “ Even during the Han Period learned Confucian writers believed that prosperity, erudition and high official rank were secured by giving to one’s ancestors grave-sites on which they could look with satisfaction and gratitude. The lin, or unicorn, is related to have appeared in China from time as a harbinger of good government, or at the birth of a virtuous ruler. ”

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