Brian W. Aldiss THE YOUNG SOLDIER’S HOROSCOPE Within the shade of a ruinous triumphal arch sat an astrologer. I sometimes passed his way when going to the theatre, if I was seeking to avoid my creditors. We had astrologers enough in the city; the reason why I liked and noticed this one was his plumpness. Considering his trade, he was a cheerful-looking man. He sat in a creaking chair upon a little rough platform on which a rug of Oriental design had been flung, his books beside him, and gazed out across the rooftops to the trees beyond, with an expression suggesting he was on good terms with his own mysterious universe. One day in the eighth month, as I passed that way, a girl with golden hair was consulting the astrologer. Near the top of the arch, a ragged hole fringed by ferns let in shafts of sunlight, which chanced to gleam on the girl’s hair as she stood below; or perhaps it was that she had stationed herself in that position deliberately. I saw how the sunbeams lent her an aura of additional gold about her head and how a posy of flowers had been bound in with the ribbon which confined her tresses. Only then did I recognise her as La Singla, enchanting star of our company. She thanked the astrologer with pretty and well-rehearsed gestures and, as she turned away, I crept up and caught her about the waist, kissing her velvet cheeks. “Oh, Prian, I pray—Do not kiss me in the public view! My husband is jealous enough already!” “But your husband trusts me!” “My husband does not trust me, and that’s the whole trouble! You know him for what he is—an old fox who smells mischief even when there’s none about. He says I’m too pretty, but I don’t believe that.” Ah ha, thought I to myself, there’s a little mystery here! La Singla was married to Lemperer, manager of our company, and I well knew that both he and she consulted an astrologer who lived almost opposite their house, which we called our theatre. Why was she speaking with the plump astrologer? Did her first words not give me a clue: “My husband does not trust me?” Crafty and watchful though Lemperer was, he must recently have had fresh reason not to trust his pretty wife. So—perhaps she had a lover. I wondered which of the actors it might be. “Well, now, my pretty Singla, it is common knowledge that your beauty is unrivalled, particularly at night by limelight, so it is natural that Lemperer should want reassurance. If you’ll come down a side way with me, and give me a kiss, then I’ll testify to him of your entire faithfulness and set his mind at rest” “Nonsense!” “That way, we shall all do each other a kindness!” She looked up at me with her somewhat blank stare, so that I could notice—as had I not done scores of times before—that her eyebrows were a little too heavy and a crop of fine golden hair lay along her upper lip. Far from deterring my ambitions, these details merely spurred me on. “You are coming with us to the ombres chinoises at noon? You will say a good word to him then, on my behalf?” I nodded and led her down an alley which led to a side canal. There stood a house where horses were kept for towing barges. Taking her arm, I pulled her just inside the stable door and there exacted payment, plus a slight extra levy in the form of a hand down the front of her bodice, which I thought she could well afford, her exchequer being in such good condition; besides, the transaction was not our first. We were old customers, each of the other. Yet she drew away and made me walk on, although I knew the smell of hay and leather would never deter her from such dealings. So there very likely was another lover! Over the bridge we went, she with her dainty feet twinkling, keeping her thoughts to herself, I with an eye on the world, thinking how well it looked and how reasonably everyone was occupied, whether walking or working or merely spitting down off the parapet of the bridge, as two blackamoors were doing, to the amusement of a nearby baby. A travelling man playing a little phonograph for kopettos leaned against a tree and doffed his hat ironically to La Singla. “You have admirers everywhere, I see,” I remarked. “He always comes to watch my performances. He is penniless, yet once he declared his love for me!” “As every man must who cannot control his tongue.” “That rogue could not control his fortune. He hasn’t a bean left and is reduced to playing phonografo in the street, yet his illustrious parents lie in a marble tomb topped by an azure dome on the banks of the Savoiardi Lagoon!” “If I had to choose between the two occupations, his preference would be mine. His illustrious parents have a mouldy job by comparison!” “Dear Prian, you forget that I know by heart the comedies from which you resurrect your old jokes.” “Am I likely to believe that, when I’ve heard you dry up so often on stage?” The Lemperer house stood in a fashionable street containing many prosperous houses, as well as several decayed ones. There were always people hanging about in its outer court, waiting to see Lemperer, hoping to secure his favours—not to mention beggars and poor entertainers who competed for favours from those who hoped for Lemperer’s. In his fashion, he was a man with influence. Yet his household was like a disordered warehouse. Hardly a room or hall that was not filled with some property he had acquired or some costume he was thinking of acquiring. So kind was his heart that many rooms were occupied by impoverished relations or actors; yet so irritable was his spleen, that these dependents were always changing, arriving with laughter or leaving with tears and threats, so that there was a perpetual coming and going, and one long hoo-ha in the house. At the centre of it all was Lemperer, wizened, fussy, deft, light-footed, articulate, angular, amusing, never entirely dressed, prancing round in his satin slippers and waistcoat, his peruke on the tilt, words, words, words pouring from his narrow lips. A figure of fun a good deal funnier than many of the figures of fun he played. A dangerous figure of fun. He was making a spectacle of himself as La Singla and I entered, prancing round a tall man in an ankle-length cloak and his follower, a lizard-man who held on a leash two fine panthers from the Orient. “Go away, I tell you—apply at the menagerie in the square, where they are eager to take anything with fur on its body, however mangy! Just get those cats out of here, fast! They’ll stink the house out and eat all my actors, too, by the way they’re licking their chops.” In fact, the beasts were yawning, from boredom or illness. The man in the long cloak answered in a melancholy voice, “Sire, I have supplied theatres from Rome to Tolkhorm in the North, and sometimes with beasts less fine, less docile, less fragrant, than these two elegant pussies, and I can assure you that animals do adorn whatsoever entertainment you put on. I guarantee you that from the bottom of my convictions.” “You may guarantee me from the bottom of your boots, you mountebank, and it will make no difference to me. My entertainments entertain without the necessity for animals widdling against the scenery, let me tell you!” As he pranced about, one of the panthers moved forward by perhaps the length of a whisker, and immediately Lemperer went sprawling backwards and landed in an armchair, exactly as in the scene in The Year-Long Feast. “The monster’s going to eat me! Help, help! Oh, the brute went for me, you set him on me! Help! Get out, you swindler, before I have you thrown out! Do you think we all want a dose of rabies? Where’s my wife?” But La Singla was already running to him, throwing out her arms and shrieking. She shrieked considerably more than the average human being, and somewhat musically. The man in the long cloak turned, beckoned impatiently to his assistant, and stalked out. The panthers trotted off with relief. Several of the players were standing about, laughing in an idle way. I clapped my friend Portinari on the shoulder and made to move, saying, “I must go upstairs and prepare myself for Albrizzi”—that being the name of the character I was currently getting up. “No, no, spare yourself, my friend—it’s all been changed. Albrizzi is postponed! We are to do The Visionaries next! Word has just come summoning us to play The Visionaries next week at Vamonal.” I clutched my forehead. “Are we players or serfs! Lemperer swore to us we would never do The Visionaries ever again. We were almost pelted off the stage last time!” “You know the taste of audiences in Vamonal. A visiting Duke of Ragusa is to be present and he has specially requested the piece.” “Then I know his taste as well. The thing’s at least a century out of fashion. And my part of Phalante the Bankrupt is so small. How did Lemperer come to consent to such a degrading idea?” Lemperer came up panting, still wearing La Singla about his neck, in time to hear what I said. “Prian, Prian, my dear fellow, you know how funny you are as Phalante, the old apothecary. Juggling your wooden spoons and shouting, ‘Why, this table silver alone is part of the fabled treasure of Troy and worth an entire ransom—half a ransom...’ And Melissa thinks you a conqueror of the world and falls in love with you! Oh, come now, admit it’s droll and nobody could take the part but you!” “Nobody is fool enough,” I said. “Let’s at least drop that business with the spoons!” “In Vamonal, they won’t know how foolish you are, I promise! There—my promise as a genius of the theatre! They’ll all be Melissas and truly believe you a conqueror!” So he cajoled us, and so we gathered ourselves together and went into the courtyard to rehearse, with poor simple Gilles holding the prompt book. Standing about, we went through our lines as well as we could. It was a comedy of illusion, with all the characters mad or deluded and believing themselves to be other than they were. The old father with his three daughters had to see them married off between four competing suitors—a simple piece that had to be taken at a fast pace for its jokes to work at all. At twelve noon, when the bell of the nearby church was chiming, Lemperer cried enough and released us. He buried his head in his hands. “That I should live to see men of straw mouthing like men of wood! Pity the poor Duke of Ragusa who will have to sit through your terrible bout of arthritis, my dear friends! All right, come back early tomorrow and we will try it again. Meanwhile, I shall scour the city for a man who can hire me two panthers to bring a little life to the proceedings!” * * * * For all Lemperer’s reproaches, we were a cheerful crowd who pushed in to see the ombres chinoises. On our way to the shadow theatre, we refreshed ourselves with wine at Nicol’s tavern before going into the little shady garden, where performances were held in a large Oriental tent, covered with carpets and tapestries to make the darkness inside more intense. These shadow plays were coming into fashion so much that we feared it might affect our business, though it was hard to imagine that audiences would prefer the shades of puppets to real live actors, once the novelty was over. Now here was the Great Charino’s Ombres Chinoises, newly set up, and offering the public The Saga of Karagog, preceded by The Broken Bridge—and charging high admission prices. As we filtered into the gloom, Lemperer plucked me aside and whispered in my ear, “Prian, darling fellow, you sit by me, if you will, for of course I want your criticism of the performance.” “Then you should have paid for my ticket, if you are retaining me in a professional capacity.” “Your criticism is too amateurish for that luxury. Don’t go above yourself, that’s my sincere warning, or you could find yourself landed with playing the dog the next time we do Beppo’s Downfall . . . No, you see, I also need a more personal word with you about my little naughty wife.” He squeezed my wrist hard, indicating the need for silence. A lizard-girl came round selling comfits, and we made ourselves as comfortable as possible until harpsichord music struck up and the curtains parted. We were pleased to see that scarcely a dozen people were attending the show, apart from our own company. The screen was a sheet some four feet long by three high. On it shadows pranced, picked out by brilliant flares behind. Principal characters moved near to the screen, and so were densely black, while lesser characters and the scenery were moved at a greater distance, so that they appeared in greyer definition. In this way, great variety was achieved, and the scenic effects were striking, with clouds and water well imitated. The Great Charino’s chief novelty was that parts of his puppets, such as their faces, and the clothes of the more important personages, were cut away and replaced by coloured glass, to give dazzling effects on the screen. Although few of the puppets were jointed, their movement was good and the commentary reasonably funny, if time-honoured. What was most amazing was the way in which, after a moment of watching the screen, one accepted the puppets for reality, as if there were no other! “I don’t want to do her an injustice in any way at all, and the Virgin herself knows that I cherish the tiresome baggage dearly, but my darling Singla is too fond of hopping in and out of beds that really aren’t fit for her lovely and unruly body. Now she’s hopped into one bed too many . . . I’ve been hearing rumours, Prian . . .” At that moment, La Singla, acting perhaps on some disconcerting feminine intuition, thrust her pretty head between ours and said, “What are you two whispering about? Isn’t it a dainty show?” “Go away, my love, my honey pot,” whined Lemperer. “Go and flirt in the dark with Portinari—he knows where to stop, if you don’t! Prian and I are talking business.” La Singla snorted like a cute little pig and withdrew. “You need to be more coaxing than that to a wife to keep her faithful, maestro!” I said. The Broken Bridge was reaching its conclusion. I had seen it many times in many forms, but never so well done. The boatman was rowing across the river with every appearance of reality; his back was cunningly jointed to make the movement lifelike. Behind him, snow sparkled on high mountains. The only snag was that sweat poured off the faces of the audience, so intense was the heating of the flares which achieved the lighting effects. “I am tired of coaxing the jade! Would not any woman give her maidenhead to be married to a successful man like me, a creative man? But now she’s gone too far—much too far, Prian. I can be a vindictive man when the spirit moves me, you understand!” To help me understand this point, he pinched me hard on the wrist, so that I cried out with surprise and pain just as the plesiosaur began to munch up the ill-natured labourer mending the bridge. At that, the audience burst into laughter. “This time she has had the impertinence to fall in love with some worthless coxcomb—yes, I know not who he is, but I found one of his impertinent letters to her, tucked in with her chemises —just this morning, when I was looking for spare laces to my corset. I mean to have the coxcomb waylaid and beaten soundly. No man meddles with my wife’s affections and fails to pay the price!” Each of these points he emphasised with further pinches. I was careful not to give the audience further cause for laughter—an intention the more easily carried out because, in his agitation, Lemperer had seized me by the throat and pushed my head backwards over the seat, so that, like Paul Riviere in the farce of the three kings, I was “trapped between chocolate-time and eternity.” At last I broke away and slapped down his hand. “We may be the best of friends, maestro, but this is no reason to kill me outright! Do you imagine I am the coxcomb you seek? Faith, for my honour, I would as leave climb into bed with you as with your spouse, so great is my respect for you.” “Pardon, pardon, I am naturally a man of passion and I forget myself. I trust you implicitly or I would not be taking you into my confidence. It’s no joke to be cuckolded—even worse to have to admit it. Why, I’m as virile as ever I was—No, no, Prian, before this wretched shadow play ends, listen!—I have my thugs and my spies to my command, never fear, but I want you to tell me if you have seen La Singla acting in any way untoward. In any way! I want you to watch her closely, since you are her friend and she trusts you, as I do.” “I won’t add to your number of spies.” “No, no, damn you, nothing dishonourable—just tell me what you see that’s suspicious, and keep watching, eh? And I’m thinking we should build up the part of Phalante the Bankrupt. Such a funny part, especially when you play it You’ve seen nothing untoward with her?” It was not for me to mention La Singla’s visit to the plump astrologer, which was innocent for all I knew. “I find it hard to believe such a virtuous woman would deign to deceive her husband, especially such a husband as you!” He dug me in the ribs with an elbow notorious for its lethal bone structure. “She doesn’t get much peace from a hot-blooded fellow like me, let me tell you here and now, but every woman is a rake at heart. Men are souls of virtue compared.” Peace had not fallen on the river. The broken bridge remained unrepaired. Sunset was coming on. Sweet aromatic herbs were lit to one side, to affect the audience with their pleasant odours. A fleet of plesiosaurs cruised placidly up the stream, and the tips of the mountains turned pink as the valley disappeared in shadow. It was suddenly affecting, and it was over. “Rubbish, rubbish!” Lemperer cried, jumping on his chair. “Not a witty line in the whole thing! Karagog had better improve on that dismal performance or I shall not be able to sit it through!” But most people were amused. Now they cried for cold drinks to slake their thirsts, so hot was it in the tent Portinari came to sit next to me and we drank sherbet together. “Well, it was a bagatelle, but very pleasing—and it had novelty!” “When I was a boy, an old man on the Stary Most used to give The Broken Bridge in a barrel, with a candle for light. It is probably many centuries old.” “Like The Visionaries ... All the same, this had artistry.” “Artistry enough. ‘Hokum maybe, but striking theatre,’“ I quoted. “It reminded me of reality without making any ineffectual attempts to imitate it slavishly.” “Besides, reality is so unpleasant . . . Think how we sit here in—well, moderate comfort, watching a succession of pictures, while behind the screen poor sweating half-naked wretches feed flares hot enough to roast themselves with.” “Isn’t that the nature of all art—that the artist should suffer agonies to yield his audience one single twitch of delight!” “Ah, then you have agreed to play Phalante once more! What else was old Lemperer talking about?” Fortunately, I was spared telling any lies by a resounding series of chords on the harpsichord and the lighting up of the screen, onto which diverse dazzling figures burst, full of life and colour. Out jumped Karagog, with his long arms and his funny red hat such as they wear still in Byzantium, and the fun began. Although the story was little enough, plots are always less important than what they are stuffed with, and here the stuffing was of the richest. Karagog tried to become a schoolmaster, but failed so miserably that the scholars chased him from the school; tried to join the circus, but fell from the high wire into a soup tureen; joined the army, but became terrified at the sound of cannon. Images pelted across the screen. The puppet master had contrived a zoetrope effect, so that, in the circus scenes, acrobats and jugglers skipped, leaped, and danced across the screen, some of them tossing clubs and balls as they went. And the parade of the soldiers, all in their great plumed hats, was magnificent, for they swung their arms as they went and the music played lillibullero. The battle scene commenced. The screen darkened. Shots and screams were heard, and vivid cries of “Fire!” A lurid flickering light crossed the battlefield, where soldiers stood ready. Smoke was in the auditorium now—I heard Lemperer coughing and cursing. All at once the screen itself burst into flames, and the puppet operators were revealed behind, running madly from the flames. The whole tent was ablaze! “You see—realism carried too far!” Portinari said, gasping with laughter as we ran out. A pile of broadsheets stood by the exit and I grabbed one as we went by. Outside, all was pandemonium. The puppets were being flung unceremoniously into a cart, while the assistants threw buckets of water at the blaze and the manager screamed. The flames were spreading to some bowers with trellises where wisteria grew. “This will improve our attendance figures, I imagine,” Lemperer said, rubbing his hands. “What a blaze! It was madness to have flares inside a tent, as they did! Let’s just hope they don’t get it under control too quickly!” Ashes of burnt tent were falling like autumn leaves. One settled on La Singla’s shoulder, she screamed, and Lemperer beat at it with blows which would have extinguished Vesuvius, so that his poor wife fell away from him shrieking in pain. Turning to me, gesturing ferociously, he said, “What an end to worry if she too went up in flames, eh?” Portinari and I, and some of the others in the cast of The Visionaries, went to cool down in the nearest wine shop. In its darkest recess stood a keg of Bavarian beer, and of this the pair of us ordered two tankards. With mutual pledges, we lifted it foaming and amber and living to our lips. “What an old bastard Lemperer is!” said Portinari, wiping his mouth and sighing. “I wonder we work for him” “Yet he has his humorous points. I recall when I first applied to him, I asked if he had any hints for a young actor and he said, ‘Yes, one above all: keep the sunny side of forty.’“ “Good advice—which I for one mean to follow.” I pulled out from my shirt the broadsheet I had picked up in the pleasure gardens and showed him the rhyme in black letters set at its foot: Our Shadow Figures, with their mimic strife, They are but to Amuse or chase your Care, And beg Indulgence from you Phantoms there, Within the greater Raree-show of Life. From Orient and Far Cathay come they. Even like you, Someone behind the Screen Controls their Acts—so think, when you have seen, Your Life like theirs is but a Shadow-Play! We roared with laughter over it. “It was this inflammatory stuff, and not the flares which set the tent alight,” I said. “I could do as well before you drain your tankard,” said Portinari. “You have little faith in my capacity for Bavarian beer!” I raised my tankard to my lips and commenced to drink, while my portly friend screwed his face into a ghastly enough grimace to make his Muse cower in submission. As I set the tankard down, he raised a hand, uttering a cry of triumph. “There’s no Free Will—or if so, ‘tis as rare As is Free Beer! Our puppets teach you this. But this analogy is neither here nor there . . .” “Yes, ‘For puppets have no Hearts to give the Fair.’“ “No, no, wait—’Since Humans, unlike Puppets, Drink and Piss,’ It has to be an A,B,A,B, rhyme scheme!” “I concede victory, my fabulous fat friend, and will prove to you that free beer is not so scarce as you may think . . .” Eventually I made my way home for a siesta, going slowly by way of the coolest and most shadowed alleys. Much was on my mind besides the beer, for the shadow play had given me a splendid notion for our own comedy. So the surprise was not entirely as pleasant as it might have been when I turned in at my archway in the Street of the Woodcarvers. A female form slipped out of the shadows toward me, to reveal itself as La Singla. She was full of apprehension that she might have been followed and insisted on coming upstairs with me—not that I long resisted the idea, for her perturbation lent her added prettiness. How demurely and professionally she turned her bangled Iberian wrists in expressing that disquiet! Of course, she wished to find out from me what her husband had been saying before the fire started—wished so insistently that she pressed me against the door of my own bed chamber. “Ah, so you are involved in some deep affair, Mistress Lemperer! Else why should you be so anxious! You delightful creature, you have certainly come to a man who can take your mind off your troubles.” “Do not sport with me! Tell me what my husband said—you know as well as I that he cannot be trusted. Tell me, and I will give you a kiss and go.” “It’s a friendly opening offer. Firstly, you must tell me who your fortunate lover is, then I will help you.” She looked very unhappy. “That I cannot do, for I do not trust you entirely.” “So! Whom do you trust? Well, who could trust you?” But I began to feel sorry for her and eventually told her what her husband had said, confirming that I had not revealed her visit to the plump fortune-teller. She gave me my reward—and largesse beyond—and when I had seen her out, I fell on my bed and went at once to sleep. * * * * That evening I left the Street of the Woodcarvers rather later than usual. I had spent some while working on my idea, conceived in the ombres chinoises. My inspiration was this: that I should play Phalante as a soldier rather than as an apothecary, and we could then bring in some contemporary business referring obliquely to the bankrupt military state of Byzantium, which would naturally amuse a Duke of Ragusa. I rummaged in my chest and produced most of the uniform needed, even to a fine pair of soft cuffed boots. I equipped myself with a wooden sword in scabbard, which hung from a heavy scarf crossing over the coat from one shoulder, and a fine cravat dividing in two and falling near to my waist, in the fashion of Croatian mercenaries. Regarding me in my cheval glass was a gallant military figure! He saluted me. All he lacked for true effect was a plumed tricorne hat. What battlefield would not have been enhanced by his apparition on it? He was fully as colourful as any puppet—and I could work all his joints with greatest flexibility! I began to work them, marching my gallant soldier back and forth before the mirror. What a swagger he had! How alert and fierce he was, fit to cut down fifty Ottomans! How speedily and yet gracefully he drew his sword, tempered from best Toledo timber! There lay one of the pleasures of being a player. I could be who or what I would, merely by changing my outer clothes. An old man, a young man? Rich or poor? Soldier, judiciary, cut-purse, monk, apothecary, noble, beggar, miller . . . ? All trades, professions, ranks, and degrees were within me—wise man or fool, it needed only the appropriate dress for the appropriate character to be called forth, to take me over, to live my life for a brief hour. I had been such a necromancer that my every mouthful of food had been eaten by the correct star, such an elder statesman that my every limb had trembled and creaked for weeks after, such a jackanapes that all my friends shunned me while the piece was running! By no more than the trifling adjustment of my hat, I had plumbed the wells of folly or scaled the mountains of truth. I was that instrument, an actor, which could strike out all the chords of human feeling. Only one trifling disability attended this great gift: among the dazzling concourse within me, my own self was often lost to view. The next morning I allowed the cockerels to rouse me earlier than usual. Today I would be a soldier, and go to Lemperer’s rehearsal as a soldier. In that fashion, I could persuade him more readily to my idea; he could resist a costume no more than I. It was a shame I would have to borrow a plumed hat from him. But would not La Singla love me a little more for seeing me in these wondrous feathers? While dressing, I gazed down at the street, which the bustle of the day had already wakened. Apprentices were coming and going, often with food and drink, laundry women were about, and the milk cart was rumbling along the street, pulled by an ox with silver bells on its horns. And I saw a soldier there, happening to catch his gaze as he glanced up at my window. He wore a plumed tricorne such as I coveted! Going down at leisure, I bought a pasty at the bakers shop, still hot from the oven, and munched it as I went along. I would be in time for Mass, for once . . . Resurget igitur caro . . . But before getting to the cathedral, I could not resist turning off, as customary, to walk under the ruined arcade and see the Night Guard dismiss in the square. I stood munching at one end of the arcade, sunning myself and watching the bright uniforms and smart movements of the Guard. Nearby, in ferny shade, two magicians crouched in an alcove, muttering over a great bronze globe. Their two corrupt boys played barefoot by them with caduceus and other implements. In the shadows behind, among their tarpaulins, a sacrificial goat stared fixedly up at a rent in the masonry, through which a tattered and blasted pine grew. One of the magicians had a malign and stupid face, which stretched sideways like a toads in a smile as he turned and beckoned to me. As I moved away, I was aware of someone following. I stepped back behind a crumbling column. Past hurried the very same young soldier I had seen from my window walking in the street below! So military were my thoughts that, on impulse, I drew my sword and confronted him. “Spare me!” he cried, throwing out his arms. “I intend you no harm. It was your acquaintance I wanted, not your life, by any means.” He was a handsome little figure, if a trifle gaunt, and no more than a couple of years my senior. I envied him his curly brown moustache, although there was something none too trustworthy in his look. Liking the situation and his anguish, which I noted for future rendering, I kept my sword point at his throat. This tableau was broken by one of the magicians. Under his black enveloping gown, he must have been a cripple, for he crawled across the paving stones, thrusting out one gnarled brown hand and saying to us, with a display of yellow fangs, Take heed, young masters, for you two are unknowingly involved in one bed, and trouble is about to befall one or other of you!” I put up my sword and ran, and the soldier ran too. “That wizard lies!” cried the soldier. “I have less than no inclination to climb into your bed!” “Nor I into yours! Sooner into a river bed!” We halted and glared at each other. Then he reluctantly smiled and held out his hand. “I never take the word of whores or soothsayers. I am Captain Pellegrino de Lasinio, black sheep of the Lasinio family of Dakka, and I admit I was following you.” “And I am the actor Prian, appearing on the boards as Bryan de Chirolo, star of the merchants’ company. Unlike you, I am a soldier only in dress.” “As a professional soldier can observe . . . But of course the deception would take anyone else.” “By the same token, I observe you are the black sheep of your family. Tell me why you follow me. I covet your hat—what of mine do you covet?” His manner became downcast, he stared gloomily down at his boots. “Your peace of mind I mainly covet. In what a carefree manner did you stroll along, eating your cake! As for me—well, I am desperately in love!” I burst out laughing. “Come, Lasinio! Did my manner so easily deceive you? Every day I am in love anew. Every hour some fresh beauty takes my heart by storm. Why, only last afternoon —no, only my ability as an actor conceals the perfect turmoil in which I live!” “My turmoil is very far from perfect. You see, the love of my life is already married—and to such a mean and lecherous old curmudgeon that her every hour is a misery. Come, let’s walk—it will help me conceal my agitation! Yes, she breaks her heart for my sake but dare not leave this antique satyr of hers.” “It’s a sad tale, my friend, but your course is clear—you must either love elsewhere or winkle her away from the antique satyr.” We had begun to walk in the general direction of Lemperer’s, but almost at once Lasinio stopped again and grasped me by the arm. “This is desperate, for tomorrow I must leave Malacia and go with my regiment to fight against the forces of Suliman the Magnificent, which even now besiege the gates of Tuscady. So by tonight I must have definite pledges from my love, and bear her hence. You can help—you must help!” “You need a wily attorney!” “I need you, Bryan de Chirolo, for you know the lady of my affections. She visited your apartments last afternoon; I followed her. She is the beautiful, the divine, the ever-adorable La Singla!” The hussy! A captain of mercenaries! It was now my turn to start walking. My present companion was the rogue Lemperer was making all the fuss about; he had delivered himself into my hands, just as had La Singla! What a sheepish black sheep! As I wondered how the situation could be turned to my advantage, the fellow began to resolve that question too. “I know that her senile old goat of a husband trusts you, Bryan. You will soon be again in her presence. Take her a message from me. You see, I fear him, in case he sets his followers on me. I’ll stay here. You go to her, tell her how desperate in love of her I am—will you do this!” “Say on.” “Tell her I have my pistol primed and stand with its muzzle ever and anon at my temple, so acute are my fits of despair. Will you do this?” “Say on.” “Tell her—out of the venerable old twit’s hearing, naturally— that I will have a Paris waiting at the Stary Most at midnight tonight, that I shall be in it, waiting to bear her away—” “To Tuscady?” “To Tuscady, for there goes our regiment.” “Am I to inform this divine, this adorable, this ever-lovely creature that her tryst is with you or with Suliman the Magnificent?” An unsoldierly pout, which the moustache was totally unable to conceal, stole over his features. “What I need is help, not mockery! Suppose you were to give your life in a foreign field on the morrow? Would you feel so jovial as now you do?” We had paused again, the better to maul each other conversationally, and I saw, glancing over my shoulder, that we were being watched from behind an ancient obelisk bearing only the letters S.E.X.T.U.S. Why should the lame magician follow us? I felt uneasy and knew it was time to make a deal with my soldier friend. “I sorrow for you, Captain Lasinio—though I trust that if you sincerely believed you were to fall under a swinging scimitar tomorrow, you would be on your knees in San Marco’s now, rather than ordering indiscreet Parises.” “Just recall that you are playing the soldier now, not the priest! Will you take my message persuasively to the irresistible possessor of my heart?” “I will, truthfully and exactly, omitting no detail of your masterly plan—on one condition. You must lend me your hat—no, I know you can hardly fight and bleed without it, but she shall return it to you at midnight tonight. By then, it should have worked my purpose with Lemperer or not, as the case may be. Lend it to me today!” “If your purpose distracts him from his darling wife, then yes, a thousand times.” “Once suffices, if it carries your tricorne with it!” So I put his hat upon my head, where it fitted well and certainly felt as nobly as on his. We shook hands and parted, and he stepped away immediately into the deep shadow of a side lane, and was lost For a moment I stood there; but the notion that a beady sorcerer’s eye was upon me made me move. There was much I wished to ponder upon concerning the most favourable disposition of my knowledge. Since the hour was still early, I decided I would muster my thoughts over a glass of hot chocolate. Choosing a table as well hidden from common view as possible, I sat myself at one of the cafes by the canal side. It was agreeable to be addressed as “Captain,” and to receive more spirited service than usual. I stroked my upper lip. For the part of Phalante, if Lemperer accepted my idea, I would grow as brave a moustache as any member of the Lasinio family ever sported. If I played the cards in my hand right, not only would Lemperer be forced to accept my idea, but his wife should be mine at midnight, and let who would oppose the affairs of the Turkish sultan! As I threw down a denario on the table and left, two thugs ran out from a nearby doorway and pinned my arms before I could draw my sword. As may be imagined, I fought with audacity, yelling for help at the same time—yet was powerless to resist every kick behind and clout over the shoulders that the two vagabonds chose to give me. They made no attempt to snatch my purse. Instead they dragged me toward the canal. Inch by inch I battled against them —uselessly! My offers to pay them rather than ruin my uniform fell on their senseless ears with no effect. Splash! Oh, swans, oh, geese!—How sorry was I to disturb your territory in that rude way! Rising like a demonstration of the hydraulic art, I came to the surface in time to see my two assailants running off. Almost within my reach stood a monumental block of stone from which the lions head jutted above the water line; the lion carried an iron ring in its mouth. I grasped the ring and pulled myself up with the aid of patrons of the cafe who came to my assistance now that danger was past. A nearby bargeman fished out Lasinio’s hat and set it on my head, where it continued to pour water down my face for some while. I was surrounded by a crowd which showed its sympathy by laughing so much that I was obliged to break through their ranks and run. In the early moments of my ducking, I imagined that this was some scheme of Lasinio’s, obscurely furthering his purpose. Then the truth dawned on me: this was Lemperer’s work! Anxious to see that his wife remained faithful, by force if necessary, he had found out about Lasinio and set his traps for that soldier of fortune. And his thugs had mistaken me for Lasinio. Why not? Did I not look every inch the military man? Very well. The maestro should be confronted with the evidence of what his men had done to an innocent man! I squelched in the direction of his house, intent on humiliating him. How promptly, I thought to myself, the lame magician’s prophecy (which I now fully understood) had been carried out! There was something suspect in that promptness; perhaps the magician himself drew a modest retainer from Lemperer—such things were not unknown. Now I meant to pay him out. My way lay past the ruinous triumphal arch under which sat the plump astrologer on his little platform. As I came up to it, I halted in surprise. There before the astrologer, just as yesterday —for the hour was about the same—stood the golden La Singla, on whose account I had just been ducked. I stepped behind one of the fallen capitals and watched her, spotlighted in the same ray of sunshine as the day before. How pliant her movements, how expressive her gestures! Only a skilled actress could have been so affectingly natural. I saw the astrologer bend toward her as if fascinated. I saw them speak, although their low-spoken words did not reach me. But, so telling were her gestures, I understood everything going on between them. She told him that she had returned as promised yesterday to receive from him the horoscope he was going to cast for her. What delicate expression! The girl should have joined the pantomimi, who use no words! Yet she was not so much a mistress of gesture that I could grasp at first whose the horoscope was; only as he tugged a scrip of paper from his sleeve and handed it to her did I understand that this was not hers but the young soldier’s horoscope! She was receiving Lasinio’s fate! With precise timing, La Singla produced from the pocket tied by ribbon to her skirt one single silver coin and pressed it into the astrologer’s palm. Her posture as she reached upward was beautiful to see. The man managed to bow without rising from his chair. Straightway, she opened his scrip and cast her fair eyes down at what was written there. The exquisite droop of her wrist! The delicate retreat of colour from her face! The pretty way her lips opened and her affrighted fingertips flew in dismay to her brow! Her melting look of sorrow! What art! From where I, a distant groundling, stood, the actress’ subtle cheironomy made the contents of the soldier’s horoscope as clear as if I scanned them myself. Lasinio’s hours in the shadow play of life were numbered! She and the astrologer gestured, looked almost fearfully toward the east. Ah, Suliman, thy cruel sword! Thy conquering power against the giaour! Alas, poor Lasinio! So young! So soon! And the stars so rudely conjoined against thee! With trembling limbs, with ashen countenance, La Singla tucked the paper into her breast and ran from the place, as in her last exit in the Albrizzi piece. And, at the last moment, her glances toward my place of concealment! As I suspected—instinctive little actress though she was, her best was called out only by an audience; she had been aware all along that I watched her! A moment before—no more than a moment—and I had thought that she would rush straight to Lasinio with her grim tidings and persuade him to let the mercenaries leave at midnight without him. Now, weighing the meaning of that last glance of hers, I knew she was more art than heart! —Real though her anguish was, her delight in pantomime was more real. The Paris might well trundle off at midnight, but La Singla would not be inside; she preferred to play out her roles, not to eyes glazing in death before the walls of Tuscady, but to eyes that could appreciate to the full her capabilities. Her nature was such that military necessity would always have to bow before artistic temperament. In other words—the pleasure I had had with her the previous afternoon was but a beginning. . . . Drenched though I was by my ducking, it was a Prian full of high hope who marched in to humiliate Lemperer and to berate him for his mistake. I noticed that La Singla slipped in at the side doorway. I made a grand entrance and confronted Lemperer before a dozen witnesses, dripping dramatically upon his carpetings. “My dearest Prian, what a misfortune!” Up went his withered hands, expressing sorrow and remorse, as he skipped before me. “You of all people to be beaten up in the street like a common adulterer! What a sight you must have made, to be sure, and how the heartless wretches who saw you launched among the fishes must have bellowed with uncouth laughter! What a reluctant Neptune! What a paltry Poseidon!” Arming myself against the titters of my friends, I said to him, “It’s no use apologising, Lemperer! You and I are parting company from this hour unless I have full recompense for such a villainous error by your henchmen!” He grasped my arm, though daintily, and dragged me toward his inner office. “Come into my sanctum, dear boy, my poor aquatic dragoon, and let us talk privately. Why, even your feather’s drooping! We can sort this out with no hard feeling, I’m certain!” Once we were in the room he closed the door behind us and locked it, continuing to talk with no change in tone, though a certain amount of venom mixed with the rheum in his eyes. “But I would hate you to think my henchmen made any sort of error, my fishy loverboy! They don’t make errors. Oh, no! They’d know you in any getup, however unbecoming. They followed my dear little wife yesterday at noon, and saw you coax her up to your desperate room, and counted the hours before she left again, and then watched her meeting with that goat-blooded mercenary, Lasinio, and reported all to me. . . .” With each conjunction, he was clouting me fiercely round the shoulders with his stick for emphasis. “And I took appropriate action to deal with you both, and I paid the astrologer to cast a false horoscope for Lasinio, and I paid the bodyguard to pitch you into the canal, and I’m delighted to see that all went so well!” “And you realise I am soaking your lovely Persian carpet! Is this what I get for trusting you? Why, I told Captain Lasinio to stay away from your wife, and now this is my reward!” He burst into laughter. “You are for all the world like Karagog! In every role you have little success! Your lover was not much of a performance, your soldier was—if I may say so—a washout! You’d better stick to acting!” I began to sneeze. “The chill of that canal has done for me. Like Lasinio, I’ll die young!” “No catching cold!” His expression changed. “We don’t want you laid up—you aren’t getting out of The Visionaries as easily as that!” He ran forward to try and help me take off some of my wet clothes, snatching down a golden robe he had used for the part of Prospero not two weeks before. I sneezed the harder. Gradually his false concern turned real. Unlocking the door, he burst from the room crying for La Singla to come. “Bring a compress! Minister to this palsied player—and try to keep your hands off him! We must have him fit for the evening’s performance, if he’s fit for nothing else!” Two minutes more, and she was in my arms. But Phalante the Bankrupt was played before the Duke of Ragusa as an apothecary as usual, in ordinary apothecary’s clothes, without uniform.