Les Mouches Fantastiques (amateur journal)/March 1918/Menilineanda Dies

The doctor had said, She will die at sunrise.

And the servants, in their colored capes, stood whispering before the great oak door with its iron bands. On either side of the wide door flamed huge tapers set in silver brackets, and at the far end of the lofty hall a fire in a stone place made fantastic shadows on the leather walls as the wind in the chimney caused it to flare and flicker. The servants stood whispering before the door until a nurse, hideous with age, bade them begone. Slowly, and with many curious glances behind, they defiled one by one down the tiled floor, past tall narrow windows that let in the starshine, towards a black door at the opposite end from the fireplace. The door was studded with nails and masked with a plain leather curtain. One by one the servants lifted the curtain and disappeared. Only the nurses remained in the vast hall. Her pallid lips twitched and her dim eyes opened and shut with astonishing rapidity. When the servants had all gone, she lifted the heavy iron bolt of the door, and opened it. Ponderously the door swung on its oiled hinges and disclosed a series of steps leading upwards. The nurse pushed the door back and begun to ascend the steps. Thus she mounted twenty-four, set in stairs of three, until she reached another door. This door was made of rosewood, inlaid with lapis-lazuli and nacre, and was quite small. The head of a bird was placed at one side of it knocker and a blue latch hung from its centre panel. But ​the nurse did not knock; she opened the door and stepped into a low room. The walls of this room were hung with rose silk, and silver hoops in which were placed candles were suspended from the ciling. by bronze chains. The floor was spread with wild beasts' skins, and strewn with sweet herbs. In a corner of the room stood a bed draped with blue and gold cloth, in which a fair girl was sleeping.

The nurse went to a casement and drew back the lattice. A soft breeze, perfumed with honeysuckle, stirred the curtains. For a long time she stood before the window, watching the landscape as it lay bathed in the tears of the moon. Faint opalescent mists rose in transparent lines towards the black sky. The eyes of the old waman opened and closed, her nostrils spread as she gasped in the salubrious air that brushed the elflocks on her cheeks. For nearly an hour she stood watching, before she drew the lattice.

Awakened by this noise, the girl say up in bed.. Her long yellow hair fell indisorderly array upon her golden pillow; her white lips, her sunken eyes, her colorless cheeks gave testimony of her condition. She was dying, she would surely die at daw, as the soctor had said.

"Nurse, nurse," she said, in a soft sweet voice, "Come and sit by me. I am so lonely. I have been waiting an eternity, I think. Did you look out, as I had bidden you, and have you burnt tapers to our Lady, that she might bring back my lover? I have bidden you do these things, and have you done what I have said?"

"I I have watched the starshine and the moonshine lying like a cloud on the garden and the long white road that leads to the world. But I have seen no horseman come down the road, nor have I seen any man walk out beside the hawthornes.. Only the shadows, like ghouls, have walked beside the hedges."

"Nurse, listen to me! I have a thrill within me tells me that my lover comes this way at dawn. Do not stare at me so. I have felt it all the night, and even in my dreams I have felt it. I shall be lovely for my lovely who is coming back at dawn. Bring me my round mirror and my comb of shell. Give me my rings, fetch me a colored garment, and ribbons for my hair. Fetch me all that is necessary for me to be beautiful for my lover. Open the casement, nurse, let me see the stars..... Oh, make haste, nurse, make haste! The stars are dying in their eternity, and I have so little time."

The nurse opened huge cedar chests and laid out her garments one by one; pale colored dresses of soft silks, great satin cloaks with buttons made of single jewels; shoes of silver and painted wood and leather stitched with silver thread, perfumed gloves seamed with pearls and sewn with little torqouise beads ---- all the soft things one should greet a lover in. Her heavy hair Menilineanda bound with a green ribbon, the color that is for Hope, and she hung curved sapphires in her ears. A single black pearl of inestimable value she placed on a silver pin, and hung it between her eyes, and opals she laid in ​perfurmed gloves seamed with pearls and sewn with little torquoise beads --- all the soft things one should great a lover in. Her hair Monilineande bound with a green ribbon, the color that is for Hope, and she hung carved sapphires in her ears. A single black pearl of inestimable valye she placed on a pin and hung it between her eyes, and opals she laid in bands about her neck. Her thin arms she clasped with bracelets and she gemmed her fingers with many rings. Her gown that she chose was of pale lavander, shot through with silver beams, like moonshine in the blue sea. Her feet she stuck in white leather shoes. The nurse brought the round steel plate that she might see herself. And when she looked, Menilineanda cried.

"Nurse, I am ugly. My lover's lips will fail before they meet mine own. He will not crush my little breasts with his ,desire, because I am not lovely as a bride should be. Bring me an ebony box you know of. I shall be beautiful."

When the box was brought, she took from it antimony for her eyes, and vermillion for her cheeks, and blue and white powders, and fine powdered gold; and with these unguents she made herself lovely as the dawn.

She sat beside her lattice, wearily leaning her fair head upon her hand. The wright of her jewels oppressed her. She was stiffled with the perfume of the night, her feet in their faery shoes lay upon the floor inanimate, like dead things. She sat in the window and felt the wind blow across her naked breast, fanning the fires that burned there to an easier glow.

As she sat pensive, and as the nurse dazed, a tall thing came in at the door that was closed, and stretched out bony hands to her. She turned away towards the window, and the things came up beside her, and kissed her softly where her little breasts hung; and she smiled somewhat, and was still. The nurse started, for in her dreams she had thought. The doctor had said she would die at dawn, and now it is dawn, and she is not dead.

The candles glittered in their silver sockets, the hoops swayed from side to side, and a single beam fell from the sun athwart the window the window, and touched the girl's painted face. The nurse felt a chilly blast pass through the room, as her mistress fell forward on the sill. Something thin and black walked softly through the door, bearing a pale purple soul in its bony hands.

And a lover in the garden underneath the window began an aubade.