This gives place, in from six to eight Weeks, to a Sobriety that includes thoughts of Transmigration, Levitation, Myopia and Blight. The Eye trickles, the Breath is short, the Spleen is distended, and the Epiglottis rises and falls like the continual swallowing of the Heart. Whereupon the Veins are seen to lift themselves, the Nerves twitch, the Palms become moist, the Feet lose their activity, the Bowels contract, and, as in the old Days when a Person in the last stages of Hydrophobia sometimes found small Whelps in the Urine, in the Waters of such is seen the fully Robed on-marching Figure of Venus no larger than a Caraway Seed, a Trident in one Hand an d a Gos-Wasp on the left Fist.
One such, in the Death Agony, is said to have passed a whole School of Trulls, couched on a Conch Shell, which such, emitting Fire, raged until they had brought the Body of the Fluid to such Flame in its Night Vase, that it resembled a burning Brandy, and so ran upon the Sufferer that she was seen to be re-entered in a burst of Smoke, and was thus, in less than a Second, a charred and glowing Ember. Be this as it may, there have been some and several who hold the Sickness and the Signs of such are diverse to the Point where Classification becomes almost impossible; an whole Anatomy would needs be penned to get at so much as the smallest Tendril of the Malady, Grief and Agony.
Others be of a Temper that nothing will discountenance them save Vanity. These are seen twining Ivy in their Hair, or dashing a Sprig of Bay athwart the Temples, while intoning, “I am I!” nor deigning to have Trouhle whatsoever, unless someone demand “What of it?” which does send them into such a Fury that the very Raiment of their Company is in Danger, and so distorted are their Faces by bootless Pride, that they resemhle, in no small degree, the Wolf despoiled of her Litter.
Still others are of a different Dye, and are sweet and tender always, and find much Pleasure in making Sacrifices and Gifts, and in strewing Roses before the oncoming of their Adored. In such one sees the limpid Eye, the upcurved Mouth, the silken Child’s Hair, the bonne mine, the regnant Temper, the strong Heart and the Courage that goes for Folly. Such can be counted on at all hours, and are buried when dead, with the look of the good Clock which has heen never slow or fast, but has tolled the exact hour for the duration of Mortality, and is silenced only and unrecording, for that the Lord put forth his Shears and cut down the Weights.
MAY hath 31 days
SWEET May stood putting on her last venereal Touches while Patience Scalpel held forth in that divine and ethereal Voice for which she was noted, the Voice of one whose Ankles are nibbled by the Cherubs, while amid the Rugs Dame Musset brought Doll Furious to a certainty.
“What”, said Patience Scalpal, “can you women see in each other? Where is the Parting of the Ways and the Horseman that hunts? Where”, she reflected, “there is Prostitution and Drunkeness, there is bound to be Immorality, or I do not count the Times, but what is this?”
“And”, said Dame Musset, rising in Bed, “that’s all there is, and there is no more!”
“But oh!” cried Doll.
“Down Woman”, said Dame Musset in her friendliest, “there may be a mustard seed!”
Now the sisters Nip and Tuck, two hearty Lasses who claimed all of Spain as their Torment, knocking on the Shutters, were let in. “We come”, said they “to let you know there is a Flail loose in the Town who is crying from Corner to Niche, in that lamenting Herculean Voice that sounds to us like a Sister lost, for certainly it is not the Whine of Motherhood, but a more mystic, sodden Sighing. So it seems to us, as Members of the Sect, we should deliver to you this piece of Information, that you may repair what has never been damaged.”
“It shall be done, and done most wily well”, said the Dame, buckling on her Four-in-hand, and clapping her Busby athwart her roguish Knee, “Where was she last seen, and which way going?”
“She was ramping in the Bois”, said Nip, “and tearing through the Champs Elysèes,” said Tuck, “and was last seen in a Cloud of Dust, hot foot after an historic Fact.”
“A grain, a grain!” lamented Doll.
“She shall be thrown”, said Dame Musset, regarding not, “and well branded, i’ the Bottom, Flank, or Buttocks-boss. To scent, we will chase her into a very Tangle of Temptation!”
Now who was it these good Women hunted but Bounding Bess, noted for her Enthusiasm in things forgotten, and having paced it ably up the dusty Lengths of the Elyseés, they suddenly came upon her, compounding Maxims by the Wayside. She was grand at History, and nothing short of magnificent at Concentration, so it was that the Sisters Nip and Tuck and the good Saint Musset came to a Pause, and she nowise aware of them, saying to herself (for who ever held that Soliloquy was for Hamlet alone?) “There have been great Women in History and though now they face upward, they have me to repine. Not the least of these was somewhat turned to Love. The good Catherine of Russia thought nothing of twittering over a Man at ten, and at twelve thundering down Diderot, or some as fine, and in like manner was not Sappho herself, though given to singing over the limp Bodies of Girls like any noisy Nightingale, nevertheless held in great Respect by the philosophers of her time? Therefore if I sense in myself a tendency to that Trifle of Craft known hereabouts as Miss Spiritus, who sings Psalms for the Rosicrucians, or whatever that new Cult may be, why should I, in yielding to that Impulse, necessarily come a Cropper, and be found witless and wanting, though laid all of a Stretch on some enchanting Green? One can but try! Nay, but I think it a Chance in a million to prove, no matter what the Mount, that one may come down well enough in one’s Wits, to yet be taken seriously when discussing the Destiny of Nations.”
“That woman’s Feet”, said Dame Musset, in that hard, practical and clear Voice, which has been heard coming from all Lungs the World over, an they blow in a Spartan Chest, “are all Heels, and what do they ever portend but a pedant. They are always gaited thus, and know not whether they are walking into or out of Truth. She is not for us!” and so saying, she cracked her Whip against her Boot, turning toward a Pasty Shop hard by, Nip at her Heels, but sensing a short Sound in the Herd, the Dame turned back, there to behold (as was her Custom) Miss Tuck seated a little too close to History, or whatever it was that Bounding Bess radiated, and toying, in that brief Second, with minor Details that went as far back as the Fall of Rome.
“She is, has been, and ever will be,” said Miss Nip, “a darling Detriment to Sleep and Sequence, and will, no doubt, come home as riddled as a Medlar, resembling, in no small degree, the first Round of a Butcher’s Picnic, or the premier Half of a Trunk Murder, for that Girl,” she said pleasantly, “has in her a trifle of Terrier Blood, and must be forever worrying at every Petticoat as ever dangled over a Hip in this our time!”
“Tis a blessing,” commented Dame Musset, selecting two of the happiest combinations in Cake, “that some of us are mortal and must suffer Death. The Future needs it, as we need Sleep. I live,” she added, “for two remaining Ferocities, Food and Understanding!”
“Tell me about it!” said Nip, for she was at best a little curious, being hard pressed by Journalism, and could not let a Morsel go, though she knew well that it could be printed nowhere and in no Country, for Life is represented in no City by a Journal dedicated to the Undercurrents, or for that matter to any real Fact whatsoever.
“In my day,” said Dame Musset, and at once the look of the Pope, which she carried about with her as a Habit, waned a little, and there was seen to shine forth the Cunning of a Monk in Holy Orders, in some Counry too old for Tradition,” in my day I was a Pioneer and a Menace, it was not then as it is now, chic and pointless to a degree, but as daring as a Crusade, for where now it leaves a woman talkative, so that we have not a Secret among us, then it left her in Tears and Trepidation. Then one had to lure them to the Breast, and now,” she said, “You have to smack them, back and front to ween them at all! What joy has the missionary,” she added, her Eyes narrowing and her long Ears moving with Disappointment, “when all the Heathen greet her with Glory Halleluja! before she opens her Mouth, and with an Amen! before she shuts it! I would,” she said, “that there were one Woman somewhere that one could take to task for Lethargy. Ah!” she sighed, “there were many such when I was a Girl, and in particular I recall one dear old Countess who was not to be convinced until I, fervid with Truth, had finally so floored her in every capacious Room of that dear ancestral Home, that I knew to a Button, how every Ticking was made! And what a lack of Art there is in the Upholstery Trade, for that they do not finish off the under Parts of Sofas and Chairs with anything like the Elegance showered upon that Portion which comes to the Eye! There should,” she added, with a touch of that committee strain which flowed in a deep wide Stream in her Sister, “be Trade for Contacts, guarding that on which the Lesbian Eye must, in its March through Life, rest itself. I would not, however,” she said, “have it understood that I yearn with any very great Vastness for the early eighties; then Girls were as mute as a Sampler, and as importunate as a War, and would have me lay on, charge and retreat the night through, as if,” she finished, “a Woman, be she ever so good of Intention and a Martyr, could wind herself upon one Convert, and still find Strength in the Nape of her Neck for the next. Still,” she remarked, sipping a little hot tea, “they were dear Creatures, and they have paced me to a contented and knowing fifty. I am well pleased. Upon my Sword there is no Rust, and upon my Escutcheon so many Stains that I have, in this manner, created my own Banner and my own Badge. I have learned on the Bodies of all Women, all Customs, and from their Minds have all Nations given up their Secrets. I know that the Orientals are cold to the Waist, and from there flame with a mighty and quick crackling Fire. I have learned that Anglo Saxons thaw slowly but that they thaw from Head to Heel, and so it is with their Minds. The Asiatic is warm and willing, and goes out like a Fire cracker; the Northerner is cool and cautious, but burns and burns, until,” she said reminiscently, “you see that Candle lit by you in youth, burning about your Bier in Death. It is time now that I find me a Nightlight, and just what Fusion of Bloods it be, I have not as yet determined, but — I think I have found it.”