Leader Scott (Re Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick) - "Fra Bartolommeo"

Henry van Dyke - "The Unruly Sprite"

Bernard Mandeville - "An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War"

AEsop - "The AEsop for Children"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Argonauts

E >> Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa) >> The Argonauts




"Pain-ted pots!"

Then in her breast a great orchestra began to play: hoarse,
discordant, wheezing, and her head, grown suddenly heavy, fell
into the pillow deeply. Prom the assembly of men standing there
at the door, the most famous, the small sprightly, iron-gray
Frenchman, with a face greatly thoughtful, advanced a few steps,
stood at the bedside, and after some minutes, with his hands
resting on the laboring bosom, cast into the deep silence which
possessed the room these words:

"The agony!"

As if in answer to that word, at the very door, behind the cloud
of black garments, was heard a loud hand-clap. That was Darvid,
who, with a movement most unexpected for him, had in this manner
wrung his hands, intertwining them with a strength which almost
broke his fingers, and then raised them above his head.

So the giantess had sprung over all the mountains--and had come!



CHAPTER IX

From street to street, and from one alley of the public garden to
another, passed Arthur Kranitski, with the step and the mien of a
person who is strolling through a city without great desire or
object. In his shining hat and well-fitting fur coat, on the
costly collar of which traces of wear were observable, the man
seemed notably older and poorer in some sort than he had been
during a past which was still recent. In his erect form and
springy step one might discover that disagreeable effort with
which people guard themselves when they fear lest observers may
penetrate their sad secret in some way. But despite every effort
Kranitski's secret was manifest sometimes in his stooping
shoulders, drooping head, pendant cheeks, and dimmed glances. All
this was the more evident since Pan Arthur was advancing in the
full gleam of the sun which flooded with light the sidewalks of
the streets and the alleys of the great public garden. The end of
the winter had been exceptionally mild and serene, the snow had
almost melted away, and only, here and there, mingled its dull
white with the azure of the sky and the golden hue of the
atmospheres. While passing multitudes of people, Kranitski raised
his hand to his hat frequently, and at times, with a smile which
was winning, nay, almost seductive, he made movements as if to
approach, or even spring forward to those whom he greeted; but
they, with a courteous though prompt inclination, moved past the
man swiftly. These persons were stylish young gentlemen
conversing with one another vivaciously, or young ladies
hastening to some point. They returned bow after bow, but none
took note of Kranitski's desire to draw near, or, at least, none
had the wish to observe it. Each man or woman had some person at
his side or hers with whom to converse, and was going, or even
hastening, to some place. How recent and intimate had been his
acquaintance with those persons!--lie had known them from early
childhood. He knew everything touching them: the names and
life-histories of their parents, the nicknames given them in jest
or in tenderness, names given at an age when they were barely
lisping. He knew every chamber, almost every corner of the houses
in which they had been reared. He had raised many of them in his
strong arms from the floor--he who at that time was the praised,
the beloved, the sought for. He who had amused and entertained
them, was he, indeed, to imagine a day when they would pass him
at a distance and indifferently? How could he? He with rosy
glasses on his eyes, those eyes famed at that period for beauty,
had been given to tenderness and attachments; he had considered
the feelings and relations of men as eternal. But from various
causes a multitude of his relations with people had ended
already--and now they were ending to the last one. He had the
vivid sensation of hanging in a vacuum, and felt a growing need
to grasp after something or someone lest he might tumble into a
place which he knew not, but which he felt must be abyss-like. At
the beginning of his walk he thought that in that bright hour of
the day when throngs of gayly-dressed people were covering the
sidewalks, and the middle of the street was filled with passing
carriages, some person would stop him, would invite him, would
attend him somewhere, or take him to some place. What was he to
do now? Whither was he to go? Baron Emil, whose mediaeval mansion
had been in recent days almost his one refuge from weariness and
lonely tedium, had gone to his estate to make trips in various
directions and search in village cottages and under their roofs
for remnants of art which were genuine or suitable. He was to
return soon; but, meanwhile, Kranitski could not sit in the broad
chair before Tristan, who was giving obeisance on the wall of the
chamber to Isolde, nor sit at the table where, besides
gastronomic tidbits, he found conversation to which he was
accustomed, nor in presence of the Triumph of Death sweeping
through the air on bat wings, or experience the tone of
beyond-the-worldness. With the departure of the baron he lost the
only ground on which he met Maryan--that dear child. The very
thought now of Maryan, from whom after so many years of life in
common he was separated, brought tears to Kranitski's eyelids.

He took a seat on a bench of the garden, and wishing to light a
cigarette drew the golden case from his pocket. He did not light
the cigarette, however; for there, beyond the low paling near
which he was sitting, passed a splendid carriage drawn by two
horses and bearing servants in livery. In that carriage sat a man
of thirty years, at sight of whom Kranitski pushed forward as if
to rush after him, as if to fly like the wind to him. This young
man was the son of Count Alfred, of him whom Kranitski had nursed
with endless devotion during illness under the sky of Italy. In
those days the young man was a child, and remembered little of
the hours in which Kranitski had occupied in his family the place
of the best of friends, and somewhat that of the most faithful of
servants. Afterward he forgot those hours completely, and put
away by degrees "that excellent Kranitski," who was growing old;
and though this Kranitski, on a time, had rendered some sort of
service to the young man's father, he had been rewarded richly by
resorting to the house for years, and, very likely, by loans of
money given frequently and with no thought of payment. Very
wealthy and a frequent traveller, Count Arthur's son had too many
affairs on his head, and too many in it to cherish any desire of
stuffing it further with old-fashioned trumpery. Kranitski soon
observed this frame of mind in the young son of his former friend
and protector, and he had long considered that house as lost and
its master as a stranger. This did not sadden him at first over
much, for he had a port, which he entered with, full sail at all
times. But now the passing sight of that young man struck his
heart with something which cut and burned at the same instant.
Services are forgotten, ties are broken, the past is rejected;
oh, the ingratitude of mankind! And still with what delight would
he have ridden through the streets of the city on such a spring
day in that carriage with rubber ties, bearing the persons within
it on yielding cushions, with the soft movement of a cradle. With
a still greater feeling of delight would he have conversed while
going with someone who possessed the same habits, tastes, and
relations which he had; with what vivid satisfaction would he
halt before one of the best restaurants of that city to have an
exquisite lunch, between walls decorated with taste, and amid
sounds of joyfulness. But all those things which on a time were
as cheap as good-morning, are now as remote and unattainable as
the blue sky above him.

In his closely drawn coat, and bent over so much that his
shoulders took the form of a half-circle; in his hat, from
beneath which black hair was visible and a row of furrows above
his dark brows, he gazed at the street which stretched along
outside the paling, and in his fingers, covered with Danish
gloves, he twirled the golden toy from habit. The hat shone like
satin above his head, and on tire cigarette-ease, which he
twirled in his fingers, the sun-gleams were crossing one another.

The street beyond that paling lay before a square which was
rather extensive; this square seemed dominated by two lofty
buildings, before the ornamented fronts of which there was a
great movement of people. Through the broad doors of these
buildings a throng of men went in and came out, equipages stopped
before them; on the steps which led up to them halted, advanced,
decreased, and again increased a crowd of figures clad in black,
noisy, gesticulating, occupied passionately in some work. No
wonder! These were the bank and the exchange, which stood with
opposing fronts, and, with their multitude of windows, seemed to
gaze eye to eye at each other. Kranitski looked neither at these
piles nor the throng of men circulating about them. He had never
had anything in common with activity in those buildings. But all
at once he bent forward a second time and fixed his eyes on a
carriage which passed the paling, or rather he fixed them on the
man sitting in it.

It was Aloysius Darvid who, on that sunny day, was in an open
carriage drawn by a pair of large, costly horses, which, in light
harness without mounting, stepped slowly, with grace and
importance. On the box sat a coachman and footman, in high hats
and immense fur collars; in the carriage, finished in sapphire
damask, a man of not large stature, slender, with pale face,
ruddy side-whiskers, and with the glitter of a golden spark in
the glasses which covered his eyes. Slowly, with dignity, the
carriage with muffled sound of rubber-bound wheels halted before
the bank entrance. The footman sprang from the box, stood at the
door, and taking a card from his master's hand hurried into the
building. Five minutes had not passed when out came two serious
persons who approached the carriage hastily, and began to
converse with the man sitting in it. Surely officials, even
dignitaries of the bank, whom he had summoned by two words
outlined on the card. To go to them, to ascend the high steps, he
had not time perhaps, so they ran down those steps to him. They
did not walk down, they ran, and now, with the most courteous
smiles in the world and with raising of hats above their
important heads, these men seemed to counsel with him about
something, to indicate some point, to promise. While he, ever
unchanged, perfectly polite though cold, with a shade of sarcasm
on his lean face, rather listened than spoke, and with a golden
spark in his glasses, against a background of bright sapphire
damask, had the seeming of a demi-god.

In five minutes' time the conversation was over. Darvid inclined
with befitting profoundness; the officers bowed much lower their
hats above their heads. With the muffled sound of rubber tires,
with the slow and important gait of the splendid horses, that
carriage moved on, described a large circle and stopped at the
long and broad steps leading up to the edifice opposite. Here the
footman opened the carriage door; Darvid alighted and began to
ascend the steps where a dense throng of men, dressed in black,
opened before him as a wave opens to an oncoming vessel. That
must be no common craft; for, along the wave of men, quivers
passed as they pass through one living organism at the touch of
an electric current. The opening throng formed eddies, whispered,
was silent; a number of hands were raised toward heads, and hats
or caps hung in the air; a multitude of faces were turned toward
that one face, and fixed their eyes on it. These movements had in
them an expression of timid curiosity, an expression which seemed
almost humble. The most confident stepped forth from the throng
with bared heads, and with steps which were either too slow or
too hurried, but never such steps as they made habitually. These
men approached the newly arrived and spoke to him of something;
they were doubtless inquiring, taking counsel, perhaps
petitioning; for all those acts were expressed in their
movements, and on their faces. Thus was formed something like
that retinue of the elite who surround a demi-god, and between
the two walls of people, along the splendid steps of the stairway
they went up with him higher and higher to the entrance of the
temple, and vanished there with him. The heads of the common
crowd were covered with hats and caps now, but many eyes, unable
to gaze on Phaeton himself, turned to his chariot, and were fixed
for a long time yet on its sapphire-colored damask, which was
warmed by the sunrays, and on those two splendid animals which,
standing there in trained fixedness, seemed like bronze steeds of
the sun before the gates of that money mart.

Kranitski, sitting on the garden bench, had grown rigid in the
posture described above--his mouth awry, his eyes gleaming. So
this is what has happened! In a few weeks after the death of the
hapless Cara he is active and triumphant; he hurls his lariat on
the golden calf and captures new millions. A demi-god! A Titan!
The king of markets! He sweeps forward in seven-league boots over
roads, at the crossing-points of which are Americans with
milliards, they are millionnaires no longer, but masters of
milliards. He is the man who, as Baron Emil said, knows how to
will.

Still, how small he seemed and devoid of desire at the hour when
he stood near the corpse of his daughter, joined with the silent
smoke of the censer, which rose like light mist in the air. How
petty he appeared at that juncture, crushed, as it were, by some
giant hand--not a demi-god in any sense, or a Titan, but rather
an insect, pushing into some narrow cranny to hide from a bird of
prey. Kranitski had seen Darvid then, for, on hearing of the
misfortune, no power on earth or in hell could have stopped him
from running, from flying to the house where it had happened.

That misfortune had pierced his heart. And straightaway he felt,
also, those inward and other pains which for some time had
attacked him without pity and more frequently; but, in spite of
his pains, he ran on without a thought that he had been forbidden
that house, or a thought of what might meet him within it. He
entered, and by well-known ways went directly to the chambers of
the lady. Happen what might, he must see, in such a terrible
moment, that woman, that saint, that mild and noble being. She
was surrounded by many; there was a throng of people about her,
but he did not see who they were, nor did he think what they
might say of him. Before his eyes was a mist which veiled all
things in front of him, save the face of that woman so dreadfully
changed and grown old recently; that woman who no longer had the
bright aureole of pale, golden hair above her forehead, but on
that forehead and across the whole width of it was the dark
furrow of a deep wrinkle. Without seeing, or greeting a person,
he walked up to her directly, and, dropping on his knees, pressed
to his lips the hem of her mourning garment. He did this without
the trace of a plan, without forethought; he did it through an
impulse which threw him at the feet of the woman. That action
came from his heart, and from his heart only. For never was
anyone like her, he thought. Many a time he had had fortune with
women. In life he had been loved, and had loved in various
fashions, but as he had loved her, never had he loved woman.

He did not remember; he was unconscious of what happened after
that; but it seemed that Irene seized in her arms the loudly
weeping lady; that Maryan was there also, and many other persons,
who, going in and passing out with silent tread and low words,
produced a sound something like the rustle of leaves when they
are falling. In some corner of the chamber he sat down, or stood
up, he cannot tell which, he only remembers that he was
surrounded by the odor of alder-blossoms which filled the
chamber, till, finally, he felt that it was late, that he had to
go out just as had others. He could not be with that beloved
being in her suffering; of all pains that was the most
unendurable. But life contains sometimes such cruelties. Life at
times is atrocious! He went once again to look at the "little
one," he saw her, and with her the demi-god, in such a position
that he thought: Here, too, is a man who is ended! At this point
of meditation Kranitski rested his elbow on the arm of the bench,
shaded his eyes with his palm, and placed before his imagination
that wonderful sight which seemed a fable, a dream to him.

What luxury, what originality of thought and taste! What a
mountain of gold was poured out there! The plan and the taste
were seemingly Maryan's. The grand drawing-room had been turned
into a grotto, which, from floor to ceiling, was covered with
soft folds of white crape and muslin, meeting above in a gigantic
rosette resembling the mystic four-leafed roses painted on Gothic
church-windows, save that this one at which the wavy drapery met
and hid walls and ceiling was as white and soft as if formed by
the fantastic play of cloud substance. But everything in that
chamber, the walls, the arch, the rosette, seemed made up of
clouds and of snow, on which had fallen an immense rain of white
flowers, white only. In garlands, woven together, or cast about
without order by the movement of hands, they clung to the walls
and the vault, covered the floor, were scattered over everything,
were visible everywhere, and seemed to have fallen out of every
place. Aside from them and among them, there was nothing but
abundance of light; stars, bunches, columns were formed of
lights, burning in branch-holders and candlesticks. It is unknown
where they were invented, so uncommon were these holders and
candlesticks, so fantastic. They were so peculiar in style that
it would seem as if they had been brought from the dream-world of
an excited fancy to the world of existence. There was no color,
no tinsel, no emblem of death, nothing in that sea of snowy
whiteness save an avalanche of snow-covered flowers and the
dazzling gleam of burning tapers, with the odor of
lilies-of-the-valley, roses, alder-blossoms, hyacinths, to which
was added incense of some kind, as peculiar as was everything in
that chamber. This incense, burning it was unknown in what place,
sent hither and thither through the air, from time to time, small
grayish cloudlets of smoke amid the gleam of the lights and
tinged by the gold of them. In that chamber were virginity, with
an atmosphere of mysticism, inventiveness unwilling to recognize
the impossible--a chapter of magic, a strophe of a poem, and in
it, as a central point for all else, was the slender form of Cara
on a lofty place, fallen asleep calmly, arrayed as in a bridal
robe, with her delicate face, which, in the pale, golden hair,
with a shade of whiteness barely discernible, emerged from the
flood of snowy crape and flowers. In that flood of snowy white,
in that gleaming brilliance of the tapers, in that richness of
intoxicating odors, in that atmosphere of haze moving from the
burning censer, Cara was sleeping calmly, with the smooth arches
of her dark brows below the Grecian outline of her forehead; on
her closed lips was a smile which was almost gladsome.

It must have been late at night when Kranitski rose from his
knees and found himself alone in that chamber. Outside the words
and prayers of watchers were heard murmuring beyond the doors and
the walls, but there the sleep of death seemed to reign alone.
After a while, however, something rustled near one of the walls.
Kranitski looked around and saw a man who seemed at first to be
an undefined patch on the snowy background. After a few seconds
he recognized Darvid's features in ruddy side-whiskers, but he
strained his eyes rather long inquiring whether he was not
mistaken. Neither sorrow nor despair, commonly roused by death in
the living, but something still greater and beyond that was
depicted in the look and the posture of Darvid. His eyes, usually
so clear, so positive, so like glittering steel, had in them now
an abyss of thought at the bottom of which terror was secreted,
while the form of the man seemed shrunk and crushed down. Neither
irony, nor energy, nor bold certainty of self was in it now. He
looked smaller than usual, and in the manner of bending his head
forward there was something of the vanquished. The soft folds at
which he stood surrounded him in such a way that he seemed
flattened and recalled definitely, like an insect in flight which
was trying to push through a narrow crack to escape before
something immense which was swooping down suddenly. He turned his
eyes toward Kranitski, recognized the man, and casting an
indifferent glance at him, gazed again in another direction at
the enormous something. He had no feeling of hatred, or contempt,
or offence. Kranitski on his part had none of those feelings
either. He thought that various tales and dramas represent mortal
enemies who, in moments like that, reach their hands to one
another and are reconciled. Pathos is not truthful! It has no
sufficient reason. What are men's quarrels or agreements in
presence of--this? He looked a little longer at the maiden
sleeping under the shower of white blossoms, and whispered:
"Death! yes, yes! death! eternal sleep!" then, with drooping
head, he went forth from that grotto, which was snow-white and
gleaming with lights. He was so broken that he dragged himself
out of it rather than walked.

Now, on the bench of the garden, Kranitski raised his face from
his palms and looked at the exchange. The porch with its broad
steps was empty, but Darvid's carriage was there yet, showing a
spot of gleaming sapphire in the sunny air, the horses stood in
trained fixedness, like statues cast from bronze. Kranitski's
lips were awry with distaste.

With a bitterness to which his mild nature came rarely, he
whispered:

"Labor! iron labor!"

With lips full of gall, not thinking now of straightening his
shoulders or giving his steps an appearance of elasticity, he
dragged along from street to street, halting sometimes for a
moment before the gates of the grandest houses. Each one of these
reminded him of something, of some brilliant or happy moment, of
some fragment of the past. This one he had entered while going to
one of the smaller or greater "stars of his existence;" out of
that one he had gone when taking the ailing Count Alfred to
Italy; through this one he had hurried daily to do some kindness
for Prince Zeno; that one brought to him the memory of a certain
ball, so brilliant that it bordered upon fairy-land. Now all
these gates and those mansions are for him like that hall which
guests have deserted, in which the lights are extinguished, and
through which a man finds his way with a night-lamp--remembering,
as he passes, a spot where had gleamed the naked shoulders of a
beauty; or another, where the faces of joyous comrades had smiled
at him; a third, where had risen the odor of flowers, or the odor
of roast pheasants.

At last, late in the afternoon, Mother Clemens heard a ring in
the antechamber, and ran along the floor in her clattering old
overshoes, hastening to answer the door-bell. On her broad
shoulders was a barred kerchief, in her hand was a needle with a
thick thread, and above her eyes, now growing dim, a second pair
of eyes, which were glass, in spectacles raised to the woman's
wrinkled forehead.

"Hm!" commenced she immediately, "I thought that thou hadst
fastened for the day in some pleasant company; but, Arabian
adventure! thou hast returned before evening. This is well, for
guests have been here, and they will come again shortly."

"Guests?" inquired Kranitski, and his face cleared somewhat, but
briefly, because Clemens snorted.

"Yes, one of them was very important. Be pleased with the honor!
Berek Shyldman! He said that next week, as God is God, he would
sell thy furniture."

Seeing, however, that Kranitski, after he had removed his coat,
dragged his feet through the little drawing-room, and that red
wrinkles came out above his brows, she grew mild and spoke in
better humor:

"But thou mayst take delight in two other guests who came. Great
dandies, and of thy company, though young enough to be thy sons."

"Who were they? who? who? Speak, mother!"

"How can I remember those Arabian names? But they left
cards--wait, I'll bring them this minute--I put them in the
kitchen."

She turned toward the kitchen, but right behind her, stepping
almost on her heels went Kranitski, delighted and impatient, he
almost snatched from her hand two visiting cards, on which he
read the names: Maryan Darvid and Baron Emil Blauendorf.

"Ah!" cried he, "those dear children! The baron has returned
then! And his first thought after returning was of me! What a
heart! I go; I run!"

And, indeed, he ran to the door of the antechamber, radiant,
rejuvenated, but Mother Clemens stood in his way, squaring out
her shoulders in the checkered kerchief.

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.