Changeling, and Other Stories
slick as be-damned; and Russian angels are always sighing and groaning
and drinking tea; and American angels, brisk lads would convince a
dying man he was the devil and all for strength and energy. And me
nothing but a poor sort of fellow that knows nothing but animals; you
see, I 'd better be keeping my mouth shut in that kind of assembly.
"I 'll tell you what I will do. I 'll get through my work early, and
contrive to hang around the squares and gardens of heaven, and any one
of these days the Grand Man Himself will be passing by and He 'll see
the glint of my old red whiskers, and He 'll stop the archangels and
the powers and dominions, and come over, so kindly He is."
"'Where have you been hiding yourself, Michael John?' He 'll say. 'And
how's all your care?'
"'They 're fine, Sir. They 're grand,' I 'll say. 'Sure, 't is to the
queen's taste they are--barring a wee bit of trouble that's not worth
mentioning.'
"'And, sure, what's troubling you, my poor lad?'
"''T is not worth troubling your Deity about. 'T is not so!'
"'Out with it now, Michael John!' Himself will say.
"''T is that my little people, Sir, do be worrying hard that man is
after them a bit strong, and if Yourself would just direct him to be a
wee bit easy'--and I 'll tell Him what you all say.
"Is n't that the jewel of a plan? Is n't that the great scheme
entirely?"
"We think it's rotten!" champed the crocodile.
"Well, that's all I can do," the angel told them. "If you 've got a
better plan--"
"We have decided," the lion rumbled, "that if you could do nothing, we
could. We can stalk man as he stalks us. We will not wait for him to
come out; we will descend upon him. We will lie in wait for him in the
way. I shall come to the villages with my kind and the spotted
leopards that purr like the rumbling of drums, and the striped hissing
snakes; and the rhinoceros shall lumber through the streets, and the
great river-horse shall no longer avoid his frail boats but seek them."
"And my brother the elephant will crush him beneath his terrible
knees," the tiger snarled, "and trample his little houses. And the
wild boar with tusks like knives will strike at him from the ground.
And from the jungle I will come forth with the moon, and when dawn
comes there will be wailing, if any are left to wail, and the small
winged things of the jungle will assault him night and day, and there
will be terror through the land."
"And there will be terror through the sea," the white bear prophesied.
"Our sister the whale will no longer flee but fight, and the sails of
ships will quiver and the bulwarks give. And we will push icebergs in
the paths of iron ships. The millions and millions of herring and cod
will help. And the swordfish will founder the life-boats. And out of
the gray-green depths of the sea the devil-fish will arise, his long,
seeking tentacles over the gunnels--"
"Oh, childer, childer dear!" the angel implored.
"And our cousins the birds will help us," the lion took up the litany.
"The eagle and the hawk in their strength, and even the little sparrows
in their number. They will buffet with wings, they will peck with
their sharp beaks, the innumerable folk of the air."
"And from the North," the tiger promised, "the wolves will come out
with their red eyes, their slavering fangs, and the fox will revolt,
with his teeth sharp as a dog's."
"And the things of the field will revolt," the bear went on, "the
patient kine, the sheep and goats, and the vibrations of battle will
put panic on the horse so that he will smash his traces with his hoofs,
and smash men's heads. And the turmoil will craze the dog, so that he
will attack those he loves."
"For God's sake, children dear, will you stop breaking my heart!"
"Death and terror on the land!" prophesied the lion.
"Death and terror on the sea!" promised the great white bear.
"My dears, will you let me put sense at you? Will you listen to me a
moment?" the angel pleaded. "'T is for your own sakes I ask. Will you
just listen?
"What will become of you if you do all this?
"Don't you know that man will come against you with all his weapons and
mechanical contrivances, his poison gas and his torpedoes, and wipe you
off the face of your own earth? Childer dear, you have no idea of the
terrible fellow he is at all. Myself, angel and all as I am, when I
see some of those fellows coming hell-for-leather in their motor-cars,
I leap like a hare out of their way, I do so. And oftentimes I 'm
shaking in the legs for hours after it. I don't mind telling you. He
'll kill you surely, childer dear."
"He 'll kill us anyway," fluted the elephant. "What matter to-day or
to-morrow or a century from now? We die. What of the Irish elk, with
horns like banners, so proud in his green pastures? What of the great
buffalo, lord of the plains?--where is he? If we die, let us die
together, fighting shoulder to shoulder!"
"Besides, maybe it's worse than man you 'd have."
"What is worse than man?"
"Maybe God Himself would come down against you, maybe," the angel's
voice falls to a sacred whisper; "maybe He will uncover His face!"
There is a movement of awe, or terror among the animals. The silent
multitude back of the speakers rustles like leaves. The lion speaks:
"Even that we will brave, if we cannot have justice."
For a little while they look at one another in awed tension. The
animals are frightened, the angel is frightened. One would think they
were terrified by their temerity, and were awaiting the avenging
thunder of God. The angel plucks up courage. He gives a little
nervous laugh.
"Now, here we are, my dear little people, making fools of ourselves as
usual; letting our feelings run away with us. You 'd think it was at a
political meeting you were, with you giving out manifestos and
ultimatums, and wanting to die.
"Let us get down, now, to facts. Let us examine what material we have,
and draw deductions.
"We were all agreed that we are here by the wisdom of God, and being
here in that wise, are subject to his wishes in every way. Even old
Go-by-the-ground--" he looks at the crocodile--"knows that."
"Now, from what I 've heard from the angels who are higher up,--from
them, let me tell you, that are absolutely on the inside,--God designs
to make out of man the perfect being. He intends to combine your
bravery--" he turns to the lion--"and your wisdom--" to the
elephant--"with your beauty"; he is addressing the tiger.
"What about me?" champs the crocodile.
"Och, be damned to you! Man," he goes on didactically, "is essentially
a creature of progress. He is the only being that builds houses--"
From the background comes a shrill squeak from the beaver.
"I mean houses with rooms--"
There is the angry droning of bees.
"What I mean is this: houses with fireplaces and pots and pans and what
not. None of us will deny," he finishes lamely, "the enormous progress
of man."
"I deny it," the lion stormed. "Can I forget the great black armies of
the South, the glistening men with the silver armlets and the short
keen spears? Not even of me were they afraid, those! Their drums
resounded through veldt and plain, They asked only of the earth what
they needed for their good. And when they hunted they hunted fair.
They matched their strength against our speed. And their knowledge
against our knowledge. And at night they sang and they danced beneath
the moon.
"And now they are farm servants to the men who come overseas. They are
not clean, as they once were. Their bodies that once were naked and
glistening are caked with mud and covered with rags. And some of them
are driven into the bowels of the earth, and the sunlight and the
moonlight they were born to is kept from them. And they dig diamonds
for men who are not satisfied with the luster of stars. And they who
once fought me in the open with a spear now skulk with a gun."
"I remember an India that was," the tiger snarled, "a land of rajahs
and temples, of brown dancing girls and men who played little flutes.
They grew the green sugar-cane, and cotton they might spin on great
wooden wheels. And their smiths hammered brass into strange antique
shapes. And they worshiped God with singing and dancing in cool
temples.
"What are the rajahs now, that once were the wonder of the earth, but
little helot princes? And the ranees--the cinnamon-colored queens with
the minute silver bells upon their bud-like toes--but despised native
women? Are the bazaars filled with the quaint work of smiths? No, but
with the meretricious trinkets of the West. And black-coated men seek
to turn them from native immemorial gods. And the machine that throws
pictures the mummers make, fights against the music and the dancing and
the temple bells.
"The beauty I stand for is passing away."
"In Burma, whence I come," said the elephant, "there are jungles deeper
than the jungle of Africa, or the Indian jungles. Great mossy trees,
and painted flowers, and great brown rivers rolling to the sea. And
the men there are beautiful as women, and the women beautiful as
flowers.
"And once they paddled down the great brown river in glistening black
canoes. They wore great gaudy sashes and had a flower in their teeth
or a flower in their hair. Under the shadow of the great trees they
paddled. And when they saw me they made reverence, saying, 'Our lord,
the elephant!' On little reeds they made sweet, plaintive music.
"And now the great ancient trees are being cut down, and floated on the
bosom of the hurt brown rivers. And the peace of the jungle is
disturbed with the cough of the motor-boat, and oil is heavy on the
warm jungle smells. And the men, beautiful as women, are clothed in
soiled white garments; the rounded child-like bodies of the brown women
chafe under a huddle of clothes. And when I am observed, the white man
asks, demands, the help of the little brown men to hunt me, to whom
they once did reverence, and I seem to hear no more sweet, plaintive
music.
"From the quiet river I have seen the painted barges of the Pharaohs
move along under the sweeps of the negro slaves. Color and majesty and
dignity. And the shaven priests chanted their litanies at the change
of the moon. And from the Sahara the desert tribes brought tribute and
treasure to Egypt, the men with the white horses and the black tents.
And the nodding dromedaries and camels and their tinkling bells. And
the kings raised their pyramids, and the multitude of men like ants
listened at sunrise to the great masonic prayer. And they left the
Sphinx to denote their mystery. And Cleopatra, who was Lilith reborn,
played with Rome for a doll.
"All these things have I seen: the magic of great Moses, and the flight
of the Little God of Galilee; the perfumed Pharaohs; the sinister
yellow priests; the gnarled masons at their secret prayers; and
Cleopatra brown as a berry, magnificent as jewels, venomous as a snake;
and the sculptor at work on the Sphinx.
"And now tourists unwrap the great kings, and hucksters chaffer where
once the trains of the prince-merchants of Tyre passed, and we shall
never see a Cleopatra any more.
"But I am not complaining. Men do not swim as well as in the elder
days, nor handle a boat as surely."
"I know nothing of painted Pharaohs," said the great white bear, "nor
anything of Indian queens. In the North are neither kings nor masons,
but day and night and ice, and a little people. In summer is the great
sun, white light, and grass that is green for a little, and the thunder
of breaking bergs, and in winter no sun but the flaming aurora and the
white illimitable miles!
"And the swarthy little people were happy then. In the long nights