The Pale Roses lfteot-1 Page 4

"You have much to learn, my dear."

  The music filled the Ball and some of the guests left the floor to dance, hanging in the air around the orchestra, darting streamers of coloured energy in order to weave complex patterns as they moved.

  "They are very beautiful," said Catherine Gratitude. "May we dance soon, Werther?"

  "If you wish. I am not much given to such pastimes as a rule."

  "But tonight?"

  He smiled. "I can refuse you nothing, child."

  She hugged his arm and her girlish laughter filled his heart with warmth.

  "Perhaps you should have made yourself a child before, Werther?" suggested the Duke of Queens, drifting away from the dance and leaving a trail of green fire behind him. He was clad all in soft metal which reflected the colours in the Ball and created other colours in turn. "You are a perfect father. Your metier."

  "It would not have been the same, Duke of Queens."

  "As you say." His darkly handsome face bore its usual expression of benign amusement. "I am the Duke of Queens, child. It is an honour." He bowed, his metal booming.

  "Your friends are wonderful," said Catherine Gratitude. "Not at all what I expected."

  "Be wary of them," murmured Werther. "They have no conscience."

  "Conscience? What is that?"

  Werther touched a ring and led her up into the air of the Ball. "I am your conscience, for the moment, Catherine. You shall learn in time."

  Lord Jagged of Canaria, his face almost hidden by one of his high, quilted collars, floated in their direction.

  "Werther, my boy! This must be your daughter. Oh! Sweeter than honey! Softer than petals! I have heard so much — but the praise was not enough! You must have poetry written about you. Music composed for you. Tales must be spun with you as the heroine." And Lord Jagged made a deep, an elaborate bow, his long sleeves sweeping the air below his feet. Next, he addressed Werther:

  "Tell me, Werther, have you seen Mistress Christia? Everyone else is here, but not she."

  "I have looked for the Everlasting Concubine without success," Werther told him.

  "She should arrive soon. In a moment My Lady Charlotina announces the beginning of the masquerade — and Mistress Christia loves the masquerade."

  "I suspect she pines," said Werther.

  "Why so?"

  "She loved me, you know."

  "Aha! Perhaps you are right. But I interrupt your dance. Forgive me."

  And Lord Jagged of Canaria floated, stately and beautiful, towards the floor.

  "Mistress Christia?" said Catherine. "Is she your Lost Love?"

  "A wonderful woman," said Werther. "But my first duty is to you. Regretfully I could not pursue her, as I think she wanted me to do."

  "Have I come between you?"

  "Of course not. Of course not. That was infatuation — this is sacred duty."

  And Werther showed her how to dance — how to notice a gap in a pattern which might be filled by the movements from her body. Because it was a special occasion he had given her her very own power ring — only a small one, but she was proud of it, and she gasped so prettily at the colours her train made that Werther's anxieties (that his gift might corrupt her precious innocence) melted entirely away. It was then that he realized with a shock how deeply he had fallen in love with her.

  At the realization, he made an excuse, leaving her to dance with, first, Sweet Orb Mace, feminine tonight, with a latticed face, and then with O'Kala Incarnadine who, with his usual preference for the bodies of beasts, was currently a bear. Although he felt a pang as he watched her stroke O'Kala's ruddy fur, he could not bring himself just then to interfere. His immediate desire was to leave the Ball, but to do that would be to disappoint his ward, to raise questions he would not wish to answer. After a while he began to feel a certain satisfaction from his suffering and remained, miserably, on the floor while Catherine danced on and on.

  And then My Lady Charlotina had stopped the orchestra and stood on the platform calling for their attention.

  "It is time for the masquerade. You all know the theme, I hope." She paused, smiling. "All, save Werther and Catherine. When the music begins again, please reveal your creations of the evening."

  Werther frowned, wondering her reasons for not revealing the theme of the masquerade to him. She was still smiling at him as she drifted towards him and settled beside him on the floor.

  "You seem sad, Werther. Why so? I thought you at one with yourself at last. Wait. My surprise will flatter you, I'm sure!"

  The music began again. The Ball was filled with laughter — and there was the theme of the masquerade!

  Werther cried out in anguish. He dashed upward through the gleeful throng, seeing each face as a mockery, trying to reach the side of his girl-child before she should realize the dreadful truth.

  "Catherine! Catherine!"

  He flew to her. She was bewildered as he folded her in his arms.

  "Oh, they are monsters of insincerity! Oh, they are grotesque in their apings of all that is simple, all that is pure!" he cried.

  He glared about him at the other guests. My Lady Charlotina had chosen "Childhood" as her general theme. Sweet Orb Mace had changed himself into a gigantic single sperm, his own face still visible at the glistening tail; the Iron Orchid had become a monstrous newborn baby with a red and bawling face which still owed more to paint than to Nature; the Duke of Queens, true to character, was three-year-old Siamese twins (both the faces were his own, softened); even Lord Mongrove had deigned to become an egg.

  "What ith it, Werther?" lisped My Lady Charlotina at his feet, her brown curls bobbing as she waved her lollipop in the general direction of the other guests. "Doeth it not pleathe you?"

  "Ugh! This is agony! A parody of everything I hold most perfect!"

  "But, Werther…"

  "What is wrong, dear Werther?" begged Catherine. "It is only a masquerade."

  "Can you not see? It is you — what you and I mean — that they mock. No — it is best that you do not see. Come, Catherine. They are insane; they revile all that is sacred!" And he bore her bodily towards the wall, rushing through the nearest doorway and out into the darkened sky.

  He left his typewriter behind, so great was his haste to be gone from that terrible scene. He fled with her willy-nilly through the air, through daylight, through pitchy night. He fled until he came to his own tower, flanked now by green lawns and rolling turf, surrounded by songbirds, swamped in sunshine. And he hated it: landscape, larks and light — all were hateful.

  He flew through the window and found his room full of comforts — of cushions and carpets and heady perfume — and with a gesture he removed them. Their particles hung gleaming in the sun's beams for a moment. But the sun, too, was hateful. He blacked it out and night swam into that bare chamber. And all the while, in amazement, Catherine Gratitude looked on, her lips forming the question, but never uttering it. At length, tentatively, she touched his arm.

  "Werther?"

  His hands flew to his head. He roared in his mindless pain.

  "Oh, Werther!"

  "Ah! They destroy me! They destroy my ideals!"

  He was weeping when he turned to bury his face in her hair.

  "Werther!" She kissed his cold cheek. She stroked his shaking back. And she led him from the ruins of his room and down the passage to her own apartment.

  "Why should I strive to set up standards," he sobbed, "when all about me they seek to pull them down. It would be better to be a villain!"

  But he was quiescent; he allowed himself to be seated upon her bed; he felt suddenly drained. He sighed. "They hate innocence. They would see it gone forever from this globe."

  She gripped his hand. She stroked it. "No, Werther. They meant no harm. I saw no harm."

  "They would corrupt you. I must keep you safe."

  Her lips touched his and his body came alive again. Her fingers touched his skin. He gasped.

  "I must keep you safe."

  In a dream, he t
ook her in his arms. Her lips parted, their tongues met. Her young breasts pressed against him — and for perhaps the first time in his life Werther understood the meaning of physical joy. His blood began to dance to the rhythm of a sprightlier heart. And why should he not take what they would take in his position? He placed a hand upon a pulsing thigh. If cynicism called the tune, then he would show them he could pace as pretty a measure as any. His kisses became passionate, and passionately were they returned.

  "Catherine!"

  A motion of a power ring and their clothes were gone, the bed hangings drawn.

  And your auditor, not being of that modern school which salaciously seeks to share the secrets of others' passions (secrets familiar, one might add, to the great majority of us), retires from this scene.

  But when he woke the next morning and turned on the sun, Werther looked down at the lovely child beside him, her auburn hair spread across the pillows, her little breasts rising and falling in tranquil sleep, and he realized that he had used his reaction to the masquerade to betray his trust. A madness had filled him; he had raised an evil wind and his responsibility had been borne off by it, taking Innocence and Purity, never to return. His lust had lost him everything.

  Tears reared in his tormented eyes and ran cold upon his heated cheeks. "Mongrove was perceptive indeed," he murmured. "To be befriended by Werther is to be embraced by a viper. She can never trust me — anyone — again. I have lost my right to offer her protection. I have stolen her childhood."

  And he got up from the bed, from the scene of that most profound of crimes, and he ran from the room and went to sit in his old chair of unpolished quartz, staring listlessly through the window at the paradise he had created outside. It accused him; it reminded him of his high ideals. He was astonished by the consequences of his actions: he had turned his paradise to hell.

  A great groan reverberated in his chest. "Oh, now I know what sin is!" he said. "And what terrible tribute it exacts from the one who tastes it!"

  And he sank almost luxuriously into the deepest gloom he had ever known.

  5. In Which Werther Finds Redemption of Sorts

  He avoided Catherine Gratitude all that day, even when he heard her calling his name, for if the landscape could fill him with such agony, what would he feel under the startled inquisition of her gaze? He erected himself a heavy dungeon door so that she could not get in, and, as he sat contemplating his poisoned paradise, he saw her once, walking on a hill he had made for her. She seemed unchanged, of course, but he knew in his heart how she must be shivering with the chill of lost innocence. That it should have been himself, of all men, who had introduced her so young to the tainted joys of carnal love! Another deep sigh and he buried his fists savagely in his eyes.

  "Catherine! Catherine! I am a thief, an assassin, a despoiler of souls. The name of Werther de Goethe becomes a synonym for Treachery!"

  It was not until the next morning that he thought himself able to admit her to his room, to submit himself to a judgement which he knew would be worse for not being spoken. Even when she did enter, his shifty eye would not focus on her for long. He looked for some outward sign of her experience, somewhat surprised that he could detect none.

  He glared at the floor, knowing his words to be inadequate. "I am sorry," he said.

  "For leaving the Ball, darling Werther! The epilogue was infinitely sweeter."

  "Don't!" He put his hands to his ears. "I cannot undo what I have done, my child, but I can try to make amends. Evidently you must not stay here with me. You need suffer nothing further on that score. For myself, I must contemplate an eternity of loneliness. It is the least of the prices I must pay. But Mongrove would be kind to you, I am sure." He looked at her. It seemed that she had grown older. Her bloom was fading now that it had been touched by the icy fingers of that most sinister, most insinuating of libertines, called Death. "Oh," he sobbed, "how haughty was I in my pride! How I congratulated myself on my high-mindedness. Now I am proved the lowliest of all my kind!"

  "I really cannot follow you, Werther dear," she said. "Your behaviour is rather odd today, you know. Your words mean very little to me."

  "Of course they mean little," he said. "You are unworldly, child. How can you anticipate … ah, ah…" and he hid his face in his hands.

  "Werther, please cheer up. I have heard of le petit mal , but this seems to be going on for a somewhat longer time. I am still puzzled…"

  "I cannot, as yet," he said, speaking with some difficulty through his palms, "bring myself to describe in cold words the enormity of the crime I have committed against your spirit — against your childhood. I had known that you would — eventually — wish to experience the joys of true love — but I had hoped to prepare your soul for what was to come — so that when it happened it would be beautiful."

  "But it was beautiful, Werther."

  He found himself experiencing a highly inappropriate impatience with her failure to understand her doom.

  "It was not the right kind of beauty," he explained.

  "There are certain correct kinds for certain times?" she asked. "You are sad because we have offended some social code?"

  "There is no such thing in this world, Catherine — but you, child, could have known a code. Something I never had when I was your age — something I wanted for you. One day you will realize what I mean." He leaned forward, his voice thrilling, his eye hot and hard, "And if you do not hate me now, Catherine, oh, you will hate me then. Yes! You will hate me then."

  Her answering laughter was unaffected, unstrained. "This is silly, Werther. I have rarely had a nicer experience."

  He turned aside, raising his hands as if to ward off blows. "Your words are darts — each one draws blood in my conscience." He sank back into his chair.

  Still laughing, she began to stroke his limp hand. He drew it away from her. "Ah, see! I have made you lascivious. I have introduced you to the drug called lust!"

  "Well, perhaps to an aspect of it!"

  Some change in her tone began to impinge on Werther, though he was still stuck deep in the glue of his guilt. He raised his head, his expression bemused, refusing to believe the import of her words.

  "A wonderful aspect," she said. And she licked his ear.

  He shuddered. He frowned. He tried to frame words to ask her a certain question, but he failed.

  She licked his cheek and she twined her fingers in his lacklustre hair. "And one I should love to experience again, most passionate of anachronisms. It was as it must have been in those ancient days — when poets ranged the world, stealing what they needed, taking any fair maiden who pleased them, setting fire to the towns of their publishers, laying waste the books of their rivals: ambushing their readers. I am sure you were just as delighted, Werther. Say that you were!"

  "Leave me!" he gasped. "I can bear no more."

  "If it is what you want."

  "It is."

  With a wave of her little hand, she tripped from the room.

  And Werther brooded upon her shocking words, deciding that he could only have misheard her. In her innocence she had seemed to admit an understanding of certain inconceivable things. What he had half-interpreted as a familiarity with the carnal world was doubtless merely a child's romantic conceit. How could she have had previous experience of a night such as that which they had shared?

  She had been a virgin. Certainly she had been that.

  He wished that he did not then feel an ignoble pang of pique at the possibility of another having also known her. Consequently this was immediately followed by a further wave of guilt for entertaining such thoughts and subsequent emotions. A score of conflicting glooms warred in his mind, sent tremors through his body.

  "Why," he cried to the sky, "was I born! I am unworthy of the gift of life. I accused My Lady Charlotina, Lord Jagged and the Duke of Queens of base emotions, cynical motives, yet none are baser or more cynical than mine! Would I turn my anger against my victim, blame her for my misery, attack a little
child because she tempted me? That is what my diseased mind would do. Thus do I seek to excuse myself my crimes. Ah, I am vile! I am vile!"

  He considered going to visit Mongrove, for he dearly wished to abase himself before his old friend, to tell Mongrove that the giant's contempt had been only too well founded; but he had lost the will to move; a terrible lassitude had fallen upon him. Hating himself, he knew that all must hate him, and while he knew that he had earned every scrap of their hatred, he could not bear to go abroad and run the risk of suffering it.

  What would one of his heroes of Romance have done? How would Casablanca Bogard or Eric of Marylebone have exonerated themselves, even supposing they could have committed such an unbelievable deed in the first place?

  He knew the answer.

  It drummed louder and louder in his ears. It was implacable and grim. But still he hesitated to follow it. Perhaps some other, more original act of retribution would occur to him? He racked his writhing brain. Nothing presented itself as an alternative.

  At length he rose from his chair of unpolished quartz. Slowly, his pace measured, he walked towards the window, stripping off his power rings so that they clattered to the flagstones.

  He stepped upon the ledge and stood looking down at the rocks a mile below at the base of the tower. Some jolting of a power ring as it fell had caused a wind to spring up and to blow coldly against his naked body. "The Wind of Justice," he thought.

  He ignored his parachute. With one final cry of "Catherine! Forgive me!" and an unvoiced hope that he would be found long after it proved impossible to resurrect him, he flung himself, unsupported, into space.

  Down he fell and death leapt to meet him. The breath fled from his lungs, his head began to pound, his sight grew dim, but the spikes of black rock grew larger until he knew that he had struck them, for his body was a-flame, broken in a hundred places, and his sad, muddled, doom-clouded brain was chaff upon the wailing breeze. Its last coherent thought was: Let none say Werther did not pay the price in full . And thus did he end his life with a proud negative.