The Nightmare Had Triplets Read online

  Branch Cabell

  The Nightmare Had Triplets

  The Nightmare Had Triplets

  A trilogy

  by

  (James) Branch Cabell

  consisting of the novels

  SMIRT—SMITH—SMIRE

  Compiled as one volume

  for the enjoyment

  of the reader.

  Table of Contents

  SMIRT

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PART ONE. POINT OF DEPARTURE

  I. AFTERNOON OF A VIRTUOSO

  II. THE BLACK DOG

  III. LYING AWAKE

  IV. “THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF”

  V. RATIONALITY INTERVENES

  VI. REASONS FOR NOT TALKING

  VII. A LOST LEGEND

  PART TWO. OVERLOOKING A UNIVERSE

  VIII. THE ALL-HIGHEST CONFIDES

  IX. WHICH DEHORTS

  X. WHICH CONTINUES TO DEHORT

  XI. THE BLONDE PRINCESS

  XII. —& COMPANY

  PART THREE. BEYOND TWO TOMBS

  XIII. AT SMIRT’S GRAVE

  XIV. THE PUBLIC STILL AT LARGE

  XV. IS ABOUT TANA

  XVI. CAVES MAKE THE CAVE-MAN

  XVII. PATCHES OF MOONSHINE

  XVIII. FROM THE RADIATOR

  PART FOUR. TEACHES BY EXAMPLE

  XIX. THE STEWARDS OF HEAVEN

  XX.CONCERNS ROUTINE MATTERS

  XXI. EPILOGUE OF SOBRIETY

  XXII. ARACHNE RETURNS

  XXIII. WHAT MEMORY MADE

  XXIV. AESTHETICS OF ARATHRON

  XXV. RESULT OF MUCH READING

  PART FIVE. ABOUT A CHANGED PLANET

  XXVI. AIREL OF THE BROWN HAIR

  XXVII. AFFAIRS OF THE FAMILY

  XXVIII. INTRODUCES AN ANGEL

  XXIX. OF PIETY AND ORIANA

  XXX. CITY OF THE DEAD

  XXXI. WHICH BECOMES LOGICAL

  XXXII. IN THE PAPER PALACE

  XXXIII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF RANI

  XXXIV. IS PAST IN A JIFFY

  XXXV. THE WAY OF A MAID

  PART SIX. DIVINE STUMBLING-BLOCKS

  XXXVI. REFLECTIONS OF THE MASTER

  XXXVII. LITURGY OF WORSHIP

  XXXVIII. A LECTURE FOR DOROTHY

  XXXIX. THE OLD DIFFICULTY

  PART SEVEN. TOUCHES POETIC JUSTICE

  XL. REPRESENTING THE FIRM

  XLI. ALDEMIS PERCEIVES ALL

  XLII. THE WARNING OF ART

  XLIII. THE VERDICT OF ERUDITION

  XLIV. “LESBIA, ILLA LESBIA”

  PART EIGHT. FOR EACH HIS HOUR

  XLV. AT THIRTEEN O’CLOCK

  XLVI. HEIR PRESUMPTIVE

  XLVII. WHICH REFLECTS FRANKLY

  XLVIII. THE SPIDER MOVES IN

  XLIX. RECESSION OF THE PAST

  L. THE DREAM AND THE BUSINESS

  SMITH

  PART ONE. THE BOOK OF BRANLON

  I. HOW CHARLEMAGNE CAME

  II. THUS ROLAND REPORTED

  III. THE TALE OF TURPIN

  IV. EYES OF A GOD

  V. A PEDLAR REFLECTS

  VI. WHAT URC TABARON THOUGHT

  VII. MR. SMITH UPON FATHERHOOD

  PART TWO. THE BOOK OF VOLMAR

  VIII. HOW THEY BRAGGED

  IX. DOOM OF A LIAR

  X. THE BROWN PRIEST

  XI. GRIEF OF THE SOUTH WIND

  XII. MR. SMITH AS TO KEYS

  XIII. THE KING WITHOUT STAIN

  XIV. OBSERVATIONS IN OSNIA

  XV. REMARKS ON THE FRONTIER

  XVI. THE QUEEN’S PROGRESS

  XVII. PARTING IN ANGER

  XVIII. THE TRUTH OF IT

  PART THREE. THE BOOK OF ELAIR

  XIX. HOW THEY QUESTED

  XX. LANDS BEYOND COMMON-SENSE

  XXI. WOMEN BY THE WAY

  XXII. TALK WITH A TIPPLER

  XXIII. THE GRAY HOUSE

  XXIV. IN REGARD TO OINA

  XXV. MR. SMITH UPON MODESTY

  XXVI. THE WATER OF AIRDRA

  XXVII. A WIZARD’S ONE OVERSIGHT

  XXVIII. THE GREAT BURNING

  XXIX. HOW A WHILE PASSED

  XXX. TROUBLE AT SUPPER TIME

  XXXI. THE ETERNAL HUSBAND

  PART FOUR. THE BOOK OF CLITANDRE

  XXXII. HIGHWAY ROBBERY

  XXXIII. MR. SMITH PLAYS CHESS

  XXXIV. IN NICOLE’S ROOM

  XXXV. MAIDS OF HONOR

  XXXVI. REGARDING A WINDOW

  XXXVII. THE COMPASSION OF WOMEN

  PART FIVE. THE BOOK OF LITTLE SMIRT

  XXXVIII. MARRIAGE OF BEL-IMPERIA

  XXXIX. CONCLUSIONS OF MADAM TANA

  XL. THE DEAD HAND

  XLI. CHASTITY OF A SCHOLAR

  XLII. THE INGLORIOUS JOURNEY

  XVIII. ON A LOST GARMENT

  XLIV. PROSPERITY OF A FRAUD

  XLV. THE FROG THAT TALKED

  XLVI. RELATIVE TO TWO WOMEN

  XLVII. THE JUDGMENT OF MR. SMITH

  XLVIII. IN BLACK AND SILVER

  PART SIX. THE BOOK OF TANA

  XLIX. DEALS WITH CONTENTMENT—

  L. —WHICH A CLOCK QUALIFIES

  SMIRE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PART ONE. WHICH IS AN OLD STORY

  I. FOLK-LORE OF BRANLON

  II. ABOUT ELISSA

  III. OF SCHOLARSHIP AT TABLE

  IV. THE WANDERER’S NARRATIVE

  V. FIDELITY OF THE BEREAVED

  PART TWO. WHICH INVOKES CURSES

  VI. IARBUS IS EDITED

  VII. “NEC DEUS INTERSIT—”

  VIII. GOD OF THE SILVER BOW

  IX. DISPUTED OWNERSHIP

  X. TOUCHING UNHOLY COMPANY

  PART THREE. WHICH ADVANCES IN PERIL

  XI. THE LONG QUEST

  XII. WHAT PEOPLE SAID

  XIII. PERTAINS TO MIRIAM

  XIV. ELOQUENCE OF AN ANGEL

  PART FOUR. WHICH MEETS OPPOSITIONS

  XV. THE QUEST GOES ON

  XVI. OPINIONS AT RANDOM

  XVII. HE ADJOURNS JANE—

  XVIII. —AND DELIGHTS ARACHNE

  XIX. WE ENTER BRUNBELOIS

  PART FIVE. WHICH INVOLVES DUPLICITY

  XX. OF SMIRT IN OPULENCE

  XXI. A GOD’S REMORSE

  XXII. BEYOND THE ALL-HIGHEST

  XXIII. LOST LOVES RETURN

  XXIV. TO THE PUBLIC AT LARGE

  PART SIX. WHICH ARRANGES EVERYTHING

  XXV. HOW MOERA WAS MANAGED

  XXVI. COLLOQUY OF ANIMALS

  XXVII. “LAUGH AND LIE DOWN”

  XXVIII. REGARDING THE STARS

  XXIX. TRICKS OF AN OCULIST

  PART SEVEN. WHICH CONCERNS FRAILTIES

  XXX. IN THE PICTURE

  XXXI. HOW IT ALL BEGAN

  XXXII. ELAIR DIGS DEEP

  XXXIII. IS OF BRANLON REGAINED

  XXXIV. OF SMITH IN HIS KINGDOM

  XXXV. THROUGH A DREAM FOREST

  XXXVI. AS TO ARTISTS IN CLIOTH

  PART EIGHT. WHICH ENDS WITH APPLAUSE

  XXXVII. ON A GRAY BEACH

  XXXVIII. THE DARK FERRYMAN

  XXXIX. MORE CANINE CANDORS

  XL. VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

  SMIRT

  An Urbane Nightmare

  BY BRANCH CABELL

  “He accepts that middle world in which men take no side in great conflicts, and decide no great causes, and make great refusals. He thus sets for himself the limits within which art, undisturbed by any moral ambition, does its most sincere and surest work.”

  NEW YORK: MCMXXXIV

  ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY

  SMIRT

  COPYRIGHT, 1934

  BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES O
F AMERICA

  FIRST PUBLISHED, MARCH, 1934

  FOURTH EDITION, MARCH, 1934

  For

  GEORGE JEAN NATHAN

  Granting dullness might esteem

  Egoistic any dream

  Of an author’s loves and laurels,

  Rightly I recite its morals …

  Gifted, Smirt forever finds

  Everywhere inferior minds;

  Jesting, Smirt provokes insanely

  Each and all reared less urbanely;

  And, derided, Smirt derides.

  None the less, Smirt too decides

  Neither wit nor erudition

  Amply bolsters Smirt’s position …

  Thereupon, with heart unhurt,

  He perceives that Smirt stays Smirt,

  And attests this by imploring

  Naught of dullness save ignoring.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book attempts to extend the naturalism of Lewis Carroll. That seems an explanation demanded by honesty; and, in its turn, demanding a paragraph or so to explain it.

  In 1929, then, during the revising of The Cream of the Jest into its definitive version, the thought occurred to the writer of The Cream of the Jest that, with one striking exception, nobody had as yet published a dream-story combining any considerable length with even the most shadowy pretence to veracity. Here and there one found a short story which, in its stinted way, stayed veracious enough. Even in The Cream of the Jest one found, among forty chapters, four chapters which seemed veracious. But Lewis Carroll alone of mankind appeared to have written books which dealt, and which dealt only, with the true stuff of dreams; which covered entirely the course of a normal dream; and which progressed at all times, as a dream does normally progress, under the local regulations of dream land.

  In The Cream of the Jest one considered—a bit ruefully—a novel builded about the dreams of a novelist. But one considered, also, the real issue dodged, and dodged doubly, by the facts: (a) that the dreams of Felix Kennaston were indicated by extracts or summaries; and (b) that these dreams were induced by extraneous means, more or less magical. Turning thence to Jurgen, to The High Place, to Figures of Earth, and to yet other volumes emanating at diverse periods from the same typewriter, one discovered, in very ample quantity, the dream which this or the other magic induced, and which (in consequence of a reason well known to all students of goetia) conformed to the logic, and to the touchstones, and to the experience, of a person who is awake. None of these volumes recorded any dream from the authentic, the wholly familiar standpoint of a normal dreamer. And it seemed odd that, after so much yearlong traffic with dreams, the author of the Biography of the Life of Manuel had never once dealt realistically with any more realistic species of dream.

  Odder still seemed the fact that, when you came to think of it, there did not appear to exist in American literature, whether in its maturity or during its prolonged infancy in England, any full-length dream-story which obeyed the actual and well-known laws of a normal dream—with the ever-memorable exception of the two Alice books by Lewis Carroll. These books alone did preserve the peculiar, the unremittent movement of a normal dream, and the peculiar logic of a normal dream, and the peculiar legerdemain through which the people one meets, or the places visited, in a normal dream, are enabled unostentatiously to take visible form or to vanish, quite naturally, without provoking in the beholder’s mind any element of surprise; just as these books preserved, too, the ever-present knowledge, common to many dreamers, that, after all, they are dreaming.... But I forbear to particularize the true somnial touch with which matters are handled. My point is that, in 1929, these two books remained inexplicably unfellowed in our literature, as the sole known aesthetic instances—I believed—of an elaborate and unflinching naturalism applied to the lands beyond common-sense.

  Even here the precise might file an objection. Alice smells pepper in Wonderland, she smells the “scented rushes” in Looking-Glass Land; and, upon several occasions, Alice partakes of food, and of physic also—tasting, as you may recall, an unusual medicine which had “a sort of mixed flavor of cherry-tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffy, and hot buttered toast.” It is my strong personal belief that in no dream not induced by black magic or by gray magic did anybody ever smell or taste anything. So that small objection to the scientific exactness of Lewis Carroll is recorded in this place, for whatever it may be worth,—with the glad supplement that in every other important respect one finds his books to be triumphs in naturalism, with which the works of Flaubert, or of Zola, or of Tolstoi, let us say, cannot easily be compared.

  ***

  Returning to The Cream of the Jest, it seemed increasingly needful to the author of The Cream of the Jest, during the months which he gave over to revising The Cream of the Jest, that some novelist other than Lewis Carroll should treat a full-length dream, at full length, realistically. The trend of the time, one reflected, stayed definitely averse from any form of too timid restraint such as continued to enslave our creative writers. I mean (of course) that professed realists had given us, very multitudinously, the stark, the grim, and preferably the sex-flavored, truth about man’s life during his wideawake hours—the truth about just two-thirds of human existence,—without ever daring, it would seem, to venture beyond that rather vulgar fraction. All their novels displayed a quaint devotion to insomnia.

  The eight hours, more or less, which every human being devotes to sleep appeared to repel the professed realist; to bother him, in some obscure fashion; and to be a theme which no realist cared, or perhaps had the courage, to handle. Dreams had been analyzed and interpreted, ad, as the learned say, infinitum, and even, the impatient append, ad nauseam; but never since 1871 had any English or American writer dealt with any complete and convincing dream completely and convincingly.

  All this, too, in face of the plain fact that every normal person spends some third part of his existence in sleep, during which (according at least to such eminent authorities as Kant, Leibnitz, Descartes, and yet other reputable philosophers) every sleeper dreams continuously, and so, for eight hours per noctem, lives among supernatural surroundings and wields supernatural powers. Yet Lewis Carroll alone of our better-known realists had considered this huge field, this entire third of human life, with any seriousness or any veracity. And even this great pioneer had confined his explorings to the south temperate zone, as it were, in the callow, the sexless dreams of a child.

  It followed that nowhere in English prose literature was an adult dream represented from the actual point of view of a dreamer; and that some thirty-three per cent, of human experience remained untouched by any living creative writer at all truthfully. Since Bunyan’s time there had been an abundance of books which purported to record dreams; but, thus far, only two of them had tried honestly to obey the conditions of dream land, wherein all human beings pass a third of their lives.

  It really did seem a default which ought to be remedied.

  ***

  Here, in The Cream of the Jest, glimmered a fair starting point for that remedying. Caution whispered that to present the dreamer as one who lived as a litterateur during his waking hours would make it difficult for dullards to see in the proposed book anything save a re-writing of The Cream of the Jest. He could as easily be a painter, said caution, or, perhaps better still, a professional book reviewer; though indeed, for that matter, without any large difficulty, he could be made a stock broker, or a minister of the gospel (a notion with some fine possibilities), or a merchant, or a lawyer, or, yet more simply, a person of independent means. Such persons were still about in 1929. In brief, the sole needs of my protagonist as the tale shiftingly took form in 1929, seemed a fair allowance of literacy and of definite theories about art.

  Ah, but then—as experience forthwith assured me—but if I did make my protagonist a professional writer, no dullard anywhere would be able quite to avoid the belief I was writing about myself; and as a further, most salutary consequence, no dullard wou
ld fail to be rather cordially irritated. (It is for this reason, I remark in passing, that I always incline to make my protagonist a writer, or at the very least a potential writer, just as I labor toward much the same end when I hyphenate Richmond-in-Virginia.) Thus did experience woo me, outwhispering caution, and sturdily prompting me not to remit the pleasures promised by a continuance in mock egotism. And to the sage voice of experience I hearkened most reverently, because at my age one knows experience to be the best teacher.

  So, then, did experience lead me to decide that my protagonist, like Felix Kennaston (but, above all, like me, before my late conversion to naturalism) must perforce be a writer of romantic novels: and gradually my protagonist came closer toward me, solidifying, a little by a little, as it were, during his slow emergence from that shadowy realm in which the as yet uncreated characters of fiction abide restively; and he revealed to me, first of all, his inevitable name, his mot juste. After that, he revealed his dream, just as clearly as (but not a jot clearlier than) it had been revealed to him.

  ***

  He revealed also, as I came to convert this dream into words and sentences and punctuation marks, an unpliant obstinacy. “But that,” he would repeat, parrot-like, whensoever I attempted to touch up a bit improvingly his revealings, “that is not the way it was.” And there was no doing anything with the man until I had returned meekly to his far less attractive version of the affair in hand. From the beginning to the end of his story (which was not the real end, to be sure, because a great deal else happened afterward) he has thus caused me endless trouble.

  For my gradually evoked acquaintance insisted that dream he had lacked not merely the ability to smell or to taste anything. His power of vision also was circumscribed, indescribably. Oh, yes, he saw everything clearly enough, in so far as went any practical need. It was only that a sort of mistiness pervaded matters, driftingly, unpredictably. And besides, at times, one or another visual detail would seize on the attention, obsessing it, somewhat as though, from a shrouding fog, this particular detail—an eyebrow, it might be, or a red note-book, or perhaps a horn snuffbox—had been picked out by a flashlight. In consequence, you did not ever obtain a leisured and complete view of any person or of any place.