BEATRICE THE SIXTEENTH (6)

By: Irene Clyde
April 29, 2024

Beatrice the Sixteenth: Being the Personal Narrative of Mary Hatherley, M.B., Explorer and Geographer (1909), by the English feminist, pacifist, and non-binary or transgender lawyer and writer Irene Clyde (born Thomas Baty) introduces us to Armeria, an ambiguous utopia — to which we are introduced initially without any firm indications of its inhabitants’ genders. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize this ground-breaking novel for HILOBROW’s readers.

BEATRICE THE SIXTEENTH: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13.

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THE LATTICED DOOR

Nothing could be heard of Thekla. That was always the tale day after day, until one forgot to ask any longer. The free servants produced to the royal inquisitors a note unmistakably in the vanished artist’s handwriting, enjoining them to leave for her country house, and prepare it for a visit from her, with two friends, within a week or so. They had been daily expecting to hear from her, but, finding themselves in comfortable quarters and their own mistresses, they had not troubled themselves to communicate with her.

Her slaves were closely questioned, but nothing could be made of them beyond the statement that she had gone out early in the day with her colours and brushes, saying she might be away for some time, which they at first thought meant for a few hours, but they afterwards concluded that she must have gone to her country estate when she did not return. Not being sure, they could not give a definite answer to callers, and thought it best simply to say their mistress was not in.

“It was none of our business,” said the porter, “to go explaining to visitors where we thought she was, or to chatter to callers about our mistress’s affairs,” which was a just observation, though entitled to less weight than it received, for it was the authenticated custom of slaves to impart such particulars pretty freely to outsiders.

For some days, when I went to the palace, Queen Beatrice was invisible. At the time Ilex used to have to attend daily as a kind of secretary to a military council which met there, and I used to accompany her, and remain left in the company of the ladies of the Court during the sitting.

We missed the queen’s presence: it focused the interest of affairs. Without it, our company of courtiers was aimless and disorganised. We fell to lounging idly about in twos and threes, and no one seemed to care to begin anything. In these rather demoralising circumstances I found myself one day occupying a divan with the beautiful favourite Opanthë. We were alone, and in the next room a lively party had, for once, started a noisy piece of merriment, to which they were giving themselves up with abandon and much laughter.

Opanthë yawned slowly and delicately, and, slowly turning, she took notice of me. Her sinuous silken form lay indolently on the cushions. With a start like a spring uncoiled, she looked cautiously round, bent towards me, and said, hurriedly and swiftly:

“You are playing your part well. You don’t know, perhaps, that I am on your side. Or have they told you? You see, I know who you are, so you may trust me.”

“Really,” I said, for I was at first too much astonished to see what she meant, “I don’t know what you mean. Do you mind explaining?”

“Excellent! Now not another word! Don’t speak — there is no need. You and I and Uras understand each other; that’s enough!”

Here some of the revellers burst in, panting and flushed, and I had time to grasp the meaning of her words and to fix on a line of action. There seemed only one explanation. She held the theory that I was from Uras, and so strongly as to run the risk of declaring herself on the same side. The horror of the position overcame me.

Here, in the heart of the queen’s advisers, there was — to put it bluntly — a traitor! Should I unmask her? I felt my hands clench.

My caution, the outcome of years of desert travelling, suggested that the better plan was to wait.

To make an open, or even a secret, accusation against one of the most trusted officers of the royal household, and one of the most intimate councillors of the queen, was more than I was prepared to do without consideration. My own position was not of the securest; even a hint to the authorities to suspect Opanthë would raise an immediate doubt of my own good faith. They would think at once that I was trying to bolster up my own insecure credit by impugning hers. Moreover, it would not, I reflected, be easy to make people believe that she, as an agent of Uras, would confide with such readiness as I thought the matter over, it appeared to me so incredible that anyone would believe that the unimpulsive Opanthë should make such damaging revelations to me without very good reason, that I decided not even to tell Ilex what had happened.

“Suppose,” I thought, “that this is all a blind, a ‘put-up job,’ that Opanthë is testing my credibility for her own or the Court’s better information? She has said nothing that I am bound to bring to the Government’s knowledge. Least said, soonest mended. I tell Ilex, suppose? And Ilex may insist on the queen’s being told; may even tell her, in spite of any promise she gives me, if she thinks it her duty. And then, if that, or anything like it, happens, I shall have accused a powerful Court lady of the blackest treason on the strength of a few words which she can deny or explain away.”

My reasoning may or may not have been satisfactory — it scarcely was, to myself — but away at the back of it was the feeling that the direction of delicate affairs is, like trumps at whist, better in one hand than two. And, in short, I preferred to keep the shock I had just received to myself, until a favourable opportunity should arrive of making use of the information I had so unexpectedly acquired. It was not necessary at present to inform Ilex or anybody. Being useless, it was an irresistible inference that, in the particular circumstances, it would be dangerous.

I did not doubt that Opanthë would be very well assured that no evidence could be procurable against her to corroborate any charge I might make. And, without formulating a charge, how could I obtain her removal from the queen’s counsels? It was best to let her plot, and to make my own counterplots. Ilex was a dear creature, but I did not know her capacity for diplomacy, and our recent discussion had made me uncertain as to her code of morals. It is no good using a drug unless you know its nature.

“Mêrê, you’re very dull. Is something the matter?” said Cydonia. Her voice was kind and half subdued, but I saw Opanthë’s eyes fixed on us with a fiery sparkle in them, accompanied by an unaccustomed darkening of the fair forehead.

“Now, why is this?” I mentally inquired. “Is she vexed at having gone so far? Does she bear some grudge against Cydonia? Or, perhaps, it is all just fancy on my part?”

She did her best, at least, to prove it so, for she came to us immediately with her most gracious smile which, I am bound to say, Cydonia received in exclusive measure — and engaged us in animated conversation. Usually calm and contemptuous, her lapses into cordiality, real or simulated, were very impressive. She sustained the burden of a lively talk without much assistance from her companion, who scarcely spoke and seldom smiled in answer. I soon withdrew, and watched them from a distance.

Puzzling over the possible meanings of every trivial occurrence (for I saw treason in a gesture and innuendoes in a smile) brought on a headache. I grew duller and duller, and welcomed the advent of Ilex with relief.

The next day it was that Chloris arrived, in a high state of excitement, to take me to the redoubtable Astrologer. She had carefully selected a lucky hour from the almanac, and had dressed herself in the appropriate colour for the time of day. It will be obvious, therefore, that she was rather disturbed when I informed her that my own dress, which was not of that tint, was the only one I possessed.

“Couldn’t you borrow one?” she anxiously suggested.

“Everybody’s away,” I said. “Iris blossom or something to look at in the country. And I should have been with them, only my headache yesterday prevented arrangements.”

She looked so distressed that I began:

“I might borrow from Lyx—”

“Fancy you in a slave’s dress!” she said indignantly.

“No, come along. It doesn’t really so very much matter, perhaps. And the Second Magician may have them to lend — I’m not sure.”

We passed between the silent porters at the door into the sun. It was an experience of exhilarating freshness. The house our own for the day, an interesting and curious interview in prospect — a little uncanny, maybe, but pleasantly exciting on that very account — a brilliant sky, flowers, and a perfect atmosphere. We went a long way off, into a part of the city strange to me, where a great tower of grey stone reared its head above all the surrounding buildings. As we approached it I thought the streets grew stiller and the people less frequent, whilst here and there could be seen a curious headdress of yellow, veil-like, that I had nowhere noticed before.

At last we reached the base of the tower. It stood in the midst of a colonnade, about which yellow-crowned figures sat and flitted in a stealthy way. Adjoining it was a low block of buildings of the same grey stone.

The entrance was a plain, round-headed arch. At either side was a statue of a dragon- like thing in green porphyry. Everything in the city was in such delicate taste that these grotesque effigies gave one an uncomfortable feeling. And there was something eerie, too, in the portly smoothness of the living guardians who stood behind them. They stared with a rapt, vacuous smile, not at us, but as though they saw sights which were hidden from our gaze — and not elevating sights, either. It was with an approach to a shudder that I passed these motionless, white-robed warders. Chloris did not mind them, however, and stepped briskly in, motioning me to follow. Through the arch, we reached a tiny courtyard with a stone stair, by which we gained the first floor of the tower. In a narrow and short passage here, screened off from the interior by a handsome wooden partition, sat a thin, brown person in yellow, before whom was a low barrier of a similar kind, crowned with a sort of desk. She was not weird at all, and nodded pleasantly and with a bright flash of her eyes above her sunken cheeks to Chloris.

“Is the Royal Astrologer at liberty to receive visitors?” my conductor asked.

“When they come from such distant countries, it would be inhospitable to deny them audience,’ was the answer. “Let my friends go into the Hall of Offering, and so soon as the Honourable Astrologer is free, they shall doubtless see her.” She pointed to a curtain in the woodwork.

“That’s fine!” said Chloris to me, after thanking the acolyte. “We don’t go into the place where most of the people wait, so we won’t have to wait our turn; but we can see the Astrologer as soon as there’s a chance.”

A tall, thin, dull pink figure thrust aside the curtain for us from the inside with rather a startling movement, and we were in an oblong room of moderate size, unlighted, except for the piercing of the panels and the flame of a single wrought-silver lamp — enough light to see that the other walls were of polished ebony, or some such wood, and that the furniture was even scantier than usual. A shelf projected near me, and I offered to use it as a seat, when Chloris interposed.

“Please don’t, if you don’t I mind. Not that I care, really, myself; but it is just a kind of prejudice. Come over here and sit in this little recess.”

“And why not here?” I said, crossing over.

“Oh, well, nobody does,” she returned. “Long ago, quite ages since, this used to be the principal antechamber to the Astrologer’s rooms, and on that shelf stood a statue of — you know — the Twelve Deities, under the form of a Lerasiote vinedresser, which they once jointly assumed. Everyone who came to consult the Astrologer made an offering before that place, and it was thought by everybody the most sacred place in Alzôna or the world.”

Her voice fell involuntarily, and we looked towards the vacant altar, half as if some emanation from its vanished tenants were still about it.

“Where is the statue now?” I asked, with a rather hushed voice.

“In the museum of the Theslyic quarter. It got to be too troublesome for the magicians to clean and repair it when it needed it. So it was sent out to be renovated, and as the offerings had dwindled down to a quarter drachma (that’s two pence three-farthings of your money),” she added, being proud of her arithmetic, “they were abolished altogether, and the statue never brought back!”

A sudden, strange sight then came before us.

At the far corner of the room a bright object began to appear, like a long streak of sunset cloud. How far distant to call it, I cannot say, but it grew rounder, and rose, until it floated in our view, a great globe of fire-red light. Slowly it ascended before us, not dazzling, but self-luminous, and shedding no particle of reflection on the chamber or its furnishings. I looked round. Chloris had gone; I was alone.

In an instant and without feeling any hand upon me, I was removed from the place, and found myself in a comfortable brown room, with a triple window, admitting the welcome daylight from the north. Chloris stood near a divan opposite.

“I forgot!” she panted, laughing. “When we come from the Hall of Offerings, they keep up the absurd old custom of doing it in that style. I should have told you! Are you nervous?”

I certainly felt rather unnerved and inclined to be disagreeable. But I had no time to exhibit any annoyance, or to give Chloris instruction in tact and consideration.

A tall and queenly personage wearing multitudinous folds of some soft, thin white stuff, and a winged helm of beaten gold, smiled gravely upon us, and held open a door.

Another voice from within pronounced our names.

“Stop a minute!” said Chloris in perturbation, to our introducer. “Can’t you lend us a bright-coloured dress? Don’t you keep them? Very well, then, you should! It really is altogether behind the times, this establishment. I do wonder at you, Perizôn! You used to have sense enough!”

And she led me in, with her youthful chin very much in the air. The hall we entered was of a very fair size, occupying nearly the whole area of the tower, for twenty feet or more of its height. A raised dais ran along the wall at one end, with a high partition at its edge, over which one or two figures seated on the dais itself appeared. There was plenty of light, and round the room, in deep silence, were seated persons whom I knew to be magicians. They were on gilded curule chairs, though some had slipped off them on to the rugs at their feet; and each was flanked on either hand by a rich cabinet of black oak, in which reposed the instruments of her art, and which also screened her from interruption. Between the bays formed by these high cabinets, which projected into the room, there were, on two sides of the apartment, windows. At the back of the great dais were seven colossal statues, appearing to sustain the roof, which was studded with stars. The statues were veiled thinly with gauze, and seven golden altars rose before them. As to the centre of the room, it was plain and empty, but for a few waiting aspirants, and an incense dish or two. We walked to the dais and ascended it close to the wall. I noticed that behind the statues the wall seemed to be full of stained glass, like jewellery. At one end of the dais, a plainly attired figure was seated, writing on her lap. In the centre, surrounded by parchments and papers, spread out on the long shelf above the partition, scattered on the floor, stuck in the perforations of her curiously wrought throne, sat the Royal Astrologer.

For a moment she took no notice of us. Then she stood up and rose to her full height. Turning silence. She advanced to me, pressed my hand (an unusual act, which somehow affected me strangely), and kissed Chloris.

“Come with me,’ she invited, in a low voice.

We passed up a stairway, through a corridor, and into small room, occupied by a a single person only, who was seated on the only available bench — a fixture it was, making a break in the cupboards and shelves that lined the walls. Chloris and I sat by her. She did not stir. The Astrologer stood before a small table, and looked inquiringly at us.

“Can you tell us — we want to know,” said Chloris — “where my friend comes from?”

“Why, she knows best!” said the magician, laughing in a good-natured way.

“Well, then, how to reach it, and how she came here. We are all absolutely puzzled!”

“Come!” the Astrologer said, “that is not so difficult. Don’t you want to know, Chloris, what kept Cydonia from taking you home from the festival at Ochthrys three nights ago?”

“I have had all that cleared up at first hand, thank you,” returned Chloris. “And I wouldn’t bother your Excellency with my private affairs. I couldn’t think of it,” she continued, with raised eyebrows.

“Well, I dare say I should dismiss you to Zolaris if you did,” the Astrologer replied. “But about this! I needn’t keep you while I make any experiments, because, for my own curiosity, I worked out the question some little time ago, and I’m ready to give you an answer to most points you care to put to me.

“Now, what do you say?”

The figure on the bench quitted its statuesque silence, and observed abruptly:

“Why not tell them straight out what you know?”

“Because,” said the Astrologer, “this method is the most convincing. Haven’t you any questions?” she went on, turning to me. Her eyebrows contracted as she bent a searching gaze on me — a look I have seen in the eyes of a caged hawk.

“Where is Arabia?” I asked, under this compulsion.

“Here.”

“Which is the road to Aleppo, then?”

“There is none.”

“No means of getting there?”

“I did not say that.”

“By camels?”

“No!”

“Then how?”

“In this way. Let me explain at full length, otherwise it will be unintelligible to you. Can you follow a difficult line of argument? You are a professional person; you can. Forgive me for asking you.

“When you say, ‘Where is Arabia? Where is Aleppo?’ There is only one answer possible for me to make: ‘Here.’ That is, you might float through all space, from star to star; and beyond the bounds of this star-system you can see, from one universe to another, and never find them. You might pass the limits of matter and search fresh universes, of which these of ours are the atomic dust, and never find them. You might shrink to the sphere of the ultimate atoms which create matter, and explore infinite new universes within each of these, and never find them. So far as space reaches, they are nowhere!

“But observe me. Space is penetrated through and through by spirit. In the nature of things there are more realms of space than one, and these realms penetrate and coexist with one another, though remaining perfectly independent. Let me illustrate by an example. Suppose two straight lines a and b. they intersect at a point AB. At the point AB, which is common to the two lines, the line b penetrates the line a. A denizen of the line a, if we can suppose such a thing — perhaps you have amused yourself with imagining the conditions of a being limited to one dimension, when you were learning geometry? — such a denizen of the line a incapable of imagining existence outside that line, wall be entirely unconscious, on arriving in its travels at the point AB, that it is in the line b as well!

“Now, suppose it begins to move along the line b: it is evident that it will be a good deal at a loss to account for itself. And it will meet with many extremely novel facts. Can you apply the parable?

“Think how different the same scenes appear to us at different times in ordinary life! It is just because we have got into a new realm of space — have got into a ‘new line,’ as we call it —only, in these cases, the line we have got on to is at such a very little angle from our old line that we are not puzzled or disturbed. But you have got considerably more of a jerk. What is the last thing you can remember about your travels in Arabia?”

“A camel-kick,” I said, half dubiously, half incredulously. “I was trying to unfasten my instrument case when the beast lifted his hoof, and —”

“Precisely so,” said the Astrologer loftily — “precisely so! The shock to the brain has sent you clean out of one plane of existence, so to speak — or line of existence, to keep to our old illustration — and set you down in another. In which,” she added, politely inclining her head, “we are very pleased to see you.”

“But no such thing has ever happened? Surely no such case is recorded?”

“It is not for me,” said she, “to divulge the secrets of my profession. It is sufficient that it is the only possible explanation.”

“Then is this my body?” I inquired helplessly. “Has it been turned over with me from my old scheme of things? Or have I been provided with a new one for use here?”

“That I really am not sure about,” said she apologetically.

“It’s her own,” remarked the statuesque figure. “The transit was on the axis of the intersection.”

“Now, really,” plaintively remonstrated the Astrologer, “you never seem able to get it out of your head, Apheloë, that that was a purely imaginary case. We assumed last night that the transit was on the axis, and worked out the results —”

“Oh yes, you’re right. I remember,” said the statue, with some asperity and without the least relaxation of her rigidity.

“Then,” I said, “my body is probably lying about loose in the Arabian desert somewhere?”

The Astrologer bowed.

“Most likely it is,” she said.

“Eaten, I should say,” said her companion.

“Anything that eats my remains will have had an unpleasant time with the contents of my pocket medicine case,’ I observed. “It contained some highly uncomfortable poisons.”

“Ah, they wouldn’t come with you,” said the Astrologer wisely. “You may consider yourself lucky — but no doubt your strength of will has something to do with it — in preserving so much of your appearance as you have.”

“Perhaps unlucky,” I said. “I might have improved my looks a little.”

She smiled politely, and Chloris, who was making friends with a pigeon that inhabited the recesses in the stonework of the tower, rose to go, suppressing an incipient yawn.

The Astrologer addressed her with a good deal of seriousness.

“I need not enforce on you, Lady Chloris, the absolute necessity of keeping secret this consultation. It will be to your own interest not —”

Chloris interrupted the solemn address.

“To speak the candid truth, I don’t understand a word you said. And I gave up trying to. Really, I thought you would have been some help.”

The magician glanced at me with a quizzical look, as though she would say: “You and I can make allowance for a child’s self-importance,” but made no remark.

As I passed her, I said:

“One word more. Can you place me back in the old state?”

“That is quite possible. Anytime you wish to try the experiment the best efforts of the College are at your disposal. It is a most interesting case.”

“And can I come back again?”

“Oh, certainly.”

“My best thanks. Some day I may apply to you. Stop! I don’t want to be dropped down in the middle of the desert. Can you deposit me somewhere about Hexham, in England?”

“With a little difficulty. You will have to travel, I am afraid, to the limits of the Western Ocean, until you come to a town where two colossi guard the entrance to the harbour. Beside them is a square temple whose walls are plated with bronze. In it you will find the person who can enable you to have your wish.”

“Now,” I added, “are journeys like these common? Do you go voyaging into strange states of existence yourselves in this style?”

She looked the least bit embarrassed, but, professionally calm, she made answer:

“We never have — there is no harm in telling you so. I will not say that we have not received visits from the inhabitants of other spheres. But we know little of them. There is a certain risk in the journey back which you will not experience, having made the transit already once. You have, so to say, established a groove, and your coming and going will be easy — even some of us who might be sufficiently attached to you, you might take with you.”

“Attached by a sufficiently substantial chain?” inquired Chloris sweetly from the stairs.

We descended, and were offered almonds and sherbet by the strange old creature, for whom I had somehow almost a liking.

Then we were dismissed by a narrow outer stair, which crept round two sides of the erection in a most dizzy and exciting fashion — though safe enough in reality — for weaker heads than ours.

The unprepossessing custodians were still smiling their mirthless smile, the dragoons stood grinning at us as we passed. It was a relief to dive away into the busy haunts of the people, among the crowded magazines and the lively cafes, where the cool green gardens overflowed with streams of bright humanity. We joined in the concourse. It was still early in the day, even as they, who rose at sunrise, measured it. There was a large open square, marble-paved, the four sides of which were composed of buildings of an uncommonly splendid kind. One-storied houses being the rule, it was rare to find such an assemblage of lofty erections. Their great height was thus made more impressive still. I had only been once here before, but I had no eyes today for the gleaming white columns, nor the delicate coping of the frieze, sharply cut against the deep shade within the colonnades. In the midst of the square there was drawn up in line a company of soldiers, which attracted all my attention. For I could not get rid of the uneasy feeling that in no long time the State would have to fight for its life. Hitherto I had had no opportunity of seeing the kind of way in which it would approach the business. One is accustomed in Europe to think of the training of a soldier as a compromise between instruction which develops individual initiative and drill which suppresses it. The tendency in Alzôna seemed to be to discard drill as an artificial prop, much as modern armies have discarded the manufacture of “Dutch courage.”

“It would be needful with an army of slaves,” remarked Chloris. “But practice and common sense give just as good results with intelligent, free people — that’s our idea; and then we preserve the power of all our soldiers to act independently upon occasion.”

The evolutions of the twenty or thirty who composed the body we were watching were certainly carried out with a precision and surety which was delightful to watch.

“And are you thinking of joining our army?” said serious voice behind me, with a a tinge of humour in it.

“Athroës, how very inconsiderate of you to startle us in that fashion,” said my friend.

It was indeed the eminent doctor. And the three of us spent a thoroughly unsatisfactory and charming afternoon — unsatisfactory, that is, to the harnessed modern mind. Athroës was at his or her best, and in a most gracious mood. Chloris kept quiet, and had only one or two slight passages of arms with her. Even then she seemed flattered at the serious way in which Athroës regarded her argument, instead of covertly laughing, as she often did at people. We had no less than three visits to the cafes, Athroës insisting that there was a particular kind of cake, which she was not in the end successful in obtaining anywhere. We strolled irresponsibly, into and out of concert-halls, theatres, and gymnasia. We sat beneath palms, where the scent of white flowers was heavy on the air; by the side of placid sheets of water, acacia-fringed; in the shade of terraced mounds, whose low summit blossomed with stretches of anemone, red and white.

“Come,” said Chloris, when Athroës and myself had concluded a lengthy disputation on a medical question, “let us join in this ballgame that’s being started here.”

“Me! I can’t play!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, you can!” she insisted. “You know the points to remember. Nothing is easier.”

Athroës warmly concurred in the suggestion. In a town where everybody is (more or less) the social equal of everyone else, there are no scruples about joining the company of strangers.

“But will they have us?” I inquired.

“Yes, of course; they’ll be only too pleased. The more the better. See, one of their sides is far too small. They will have to bring some over. Let us join it instead.”

And so I found myself — a respectable practitioner — taking the field in this absurd game. There were twenty-one of us a side in the event. Some treated it pretty much as a trial of skill and as a sort of active billiards or bowls; others, mainly the younger element, were much more energetic, and shortened their robes by pulling them through the zone, so as to give their limbs freer play — a constant practice with the people of the country when engaged in any active exercise. As one often does when learning a new game — at least, such is my experience — I covered myself with credit, a distinction which, I hasten to say, I entirely failed to live up to in the future. We had four points to the other side’s one when the players agreed to stop. I was surprised to know that the afternoon was over, and that a meal would be waiting our return to Ilex’s. We brought Athroës home with us, and had supper en famille.

“I must just go and get some pistachios that came to our house from Kytôna the other night,” declared Chloris. “I won’t be gone ten minutes.”

While she was away I took the opportunity of mentioning to Athroës where we had been in the morning. Chloris had never referred to it all day. She was obviously sore at the ill success of her idea, on which she had led me, as she thought, to build such expectations. Consequently, I did not like to say anything in her presence. But now I told the doctor.

“You would never guess where we went this morning?”

“No? Wouldn’t I?”

“To the Royal Astrologer’s! Chloris had an idea she could put me in the track of getting to my own country.”

“Well, and did she?”

“Hardly, though she kindly offered to export me, through the medium of a foreign brother magician. Her explanation was that I had been precipitated by a mental shock into a new plane of existence altogether.”

I gave a hearty laugh. After the matter-of-fact proceedings of the past few hours, there seemed a good deal of absurdity in the mysteries of the morning.

Athroës, I expected, would treat the suggestion with a still more emphatic contempt. To my surprise, however, she listened attentively, and merely exclaimed:

“Hm!”

“Well, surely it’s an absurd hypothesis?” I urged.

She slowly peeled the rind from a pomegranate.

“It’s the most reasonable explanation I’ve met with yet,” she remarked. “Surely you don’t believe in such fancies?”

“Look here,” said Athroës, tilting back her chair a little and balancing a section of the fruit on the point of a golden dagger-like knife, “I’m a physician. I don’t deal in metaphysic, nor yet in psychology. I leave that to others. I know very well that the conditions of the body operate on the mind to a certain extent, and to that extent I am willing to deal with it. I also am aware that the mind and its emotions operate on the body, and to that extent I am likewise prepared to consider it. But I am not, on that account, going to travel outside my science, and devote myself to a course of ethics. Nor am I going to give myself up to the study of the soul and its vagaries and become a psychologist. The magicians have that in hand, and I’m inclined to accept their results.”

I sat in silence awhile. Athroës did not seem disposed to enforce her views upon me — she never did — she applied herself, instead, to the dessert, and filled me a beaker of white liquid from a jar that stood near.

“Try this. Ilex gets it from the chestnut groves, and you won’t find much to beat it.”

Chloris was longer than ten minutes, and she had not long returned when there was a blaze of light and noise outside, and our travellers came back from their expedition. Athroës departed with Chloris, and for a short time the house was full of bustle and movement. But not for long: it was late, and Darûna gently but firmly induced us all to bed.

***

RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.

BEATRICE THE SIXTEENTH (6)

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