“My friend, yes I have, and I believe … I know that all of life could be different. Despite the darkness of the world it ruined, humanity could still transform itself. Yes, humanity could.”
“You even have found yourself some creature comforts, lately. One of your minions bought you a mistress. I’m not sure I understand the appeal of that—for you.”
“I rather doubt I’d understand the appeal of your mistress, either.”
“I don’t understand that myself,” sighed the Man in Red. “A man imagines he’s cavorting like a rooster, while all the time he’s merely bleeding wealth. A mistress who cares nothing for you is an enemy in your bed. A mistress who does care for you is your hostage to fortune. A pity that my warnings were so useless. Good evening, sir.”
The Man in Red left, with serene and measured step. The crowd parted silently before him as he approached, and it surged behind him as he left.
Julian filtered through the crowd to Sparrow, where she knelt by the lantern, cautiously unwrapping fragile slides of painted glass.
He gripped her by the arm and dragged her to her feet. “Sparrow will sing tonight!” he announced, pulling her toward the stage. “Sparrow will sing her very best song for you! It’s very curious and unusual and antique! I believe it maybe the oldest song in the whole world.” He lowered his trembling voice. “Go on, Sparrow. Sing it, sing …”
Sparrow was in an agony of reluctance and stage fright.
Julian could not urge her to be brave, because he was very afraid. “This is the oldest song in the whole world!” he repeated. “Gentlemen, please try to encourage her …”
In her thready, nasal voice, Sparrow began to choke out her mournful little wail. Although her words meant nothing to anyone who listened, it was clearly and simply a very sad song. It was something like a sad lover’s song, but much worse. It was a cosmic sadness that came from a cold grave in the basement of the place where lovers were sad.
The lament of a mother who had lost her child. Of a child who could find no mother. A heartbreaking chasm in the natural order of being. A collapse, a break, a fall, a decay, a loss, and a lasting darkness. It was that sad.
Sparrow could not complete her song. She panicked, hid her face in her wrinkled hands and fled into a corner of the house.
Julian set to work on the magic lantern.
His student Practical Jeffrey came to his side. Jef spoke casually, in the local vulgar tongue. “Maestro, what was that little episode about? That was the worst stage performance that I’ve ever seen.”
“That was the oldest song in the whole world, Jef. And now, you have heard it.”
“I couldn’t understand one line of that lousy dirge! She’s a terrible singer, too. She’s not even pretty. If she were young and pretty, that might have been tolerable.”
“Don’t let me interfere with your pressing quest for a young and pretty girl, Jef.”
“I know that I didn’t understand all that,” Jef persisted, “but I know that something has changed. Not just that the old man is finally dead, or that the antique world is so rotten. We have to force the world to rise again in some other shape … For me, this was enough of that. I’m leaving you, maestro. I’m leaving your academy for good. I’ve had enough of all your teaching and your preaching, sir. Thank you for your efforts to improve me. I have to get to work now.”
Julian glanced up. He was not much surprised by Jef’s news. “You should stay to see this magic lantern, Jef. Projected images are extremely dramatic. They are very compelling. Really, if you’ve never seen one, they are absolutely wondrous. People have been known to faint.”
“I’m sure your phantoms are marvelous,” said Jef, pretending to yawn. “I’m going back to the Palace now, I have a family meeting … You stay well.”
Jef did not appear for the next night of the Venus seminar. Julian’s house and yard were densely packed, because word had gotten out about the magic lantern and its stunning effects. The little house roiled and surged with metalsmiths, sculptors, mural painters, orators, men of medicine, men of the law … Even a few women had dared to show up, with their brothers or husbands as escorts.
Practical Jeffrey had sent his apology for leaving the school, written in his sturdy, workmanlike calligraphy. He’d also shipped along a handsome banquet, and, as a topper, a wooden keg of the finest long-aged corn liquor. All the other students were hugely impressed by Jef’s farewell gesture. Everyone toasted him and agreed that, despite his singular absence from the proceedings, Practical Jeffrey was a gentleman of high style.
So the second night started lively and, lavishly lubricated by Jef’s magnanimity, it got livelier yet.
This night, the students put on a series of dramatic skits, performed in Old Proper English. These episodes involved the myths and heroes of remote antiquity: the Man who walked on the Moon, the Man who flew alone across the ocean, the Man who flew around without any machines at all, and was made of steel, and fought crime (he was always popular).
These theatricals were an unprecedented success, because the crowd was so dense, and so drunk, and because the graceless Dandy William Idaho was not there to overact and spoil anything.
Three of the masked Men in Red graced the scene with their presence, which made life three times more dangerous than life had been the night before. Julian watched them, smiling in his best mellow fashion, to hide his pride and his dread.
All his glamorous, shining young men, striking their poses on the tiny stage, with their young, strong, beautiful bodies … Maybe it could be said that Julian had saved them from deadly danger. It might also be said that he was fiddling as the city burned.
Julian knew that a settling of accounts was near. A time of such tension needed only one provocation. An obscure clash by night, a sudden insult offered, an insult stingingly returned, and Dandy William Idaho had been beaten senseless in the street. Bili was crushed, spurned, trampled on, and spat upon. Bili had never been the kind of kid you could hit just once.
Then the troubles started. Bitter quarrels, flung stones near glass houses … The police restored order through the simple pretext of attacking the foreigners. Everybody knew that the foreigners in the city were thieves, because so many had been forced to be thieves. No one of good sense and property was going to defend any thieves.
The police richly enjoyed the luscious irony of the police robbing thieves. So the police kicked in the doors of some of the wealthier foreigners, and seized everything they had.
Julian spent the night of that seminar activating an electrical generator. Electrical generators had been true fetish objects for the remote founders of Selder. Periodically, as a gesture of respect to antiquity, some scholar would disinter an old generator and rebuild another new generator in the same shape. So Julian owned a generator, packed in its moldering, filthy grease. It had elaborate, hand-etched schematics to explain how to work it.
This electrical night was not nearly so successful as the earlier seminar nights. After much cursing and honest puzzlement, the students managed to get the generator assembled. They even managed to crank it. It featured some spots of bare metal that stung the bare hand with a serpent’s bite. Other than that, it was merely an ugly curio. The generator did not create any visible mystical powers or spiritual transcendence. Society did not advance to a higher plane of being.
Next day, the emboldened police repressed some of the darker elements of the old regime. These arrogant time-servers were notorious for their corruption. So the police beat the fancy crooks like dogs and kicked them out the door, and the crowd cheered that action, too.