The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) (54 page)

Then he went zealously to work on the problem again, and soon
evolved another scheme. The idea this time was to turn the maid
into a cat, and make some more Schwarzes, then Marget would not
be able to tell t other from which, and couldn't choose the right one,
and it wouldn't be lawful for her to marry the whole harem. That
would postpone the wedding, he thought.

It certainly had the look of it! Any blind person could see that.
So I gave praise, and was glad of the chance to do it and make un for bygones. He was as pleased as could be. In about ten minutes or
so we heard a plaintive sound of meyow-yowing wandering around
and about, away off somewhere, and 44 rubbed his hands joyfully
and said-

"There she is, now!"

"Who?"

"The lady's-maid."

"No! Have you already transmuted her?"

"Yes. She was sitting up waiting for her room-mate to come, so
she could tell her. Waiting for her mate to come from larking with
the porter's new yunker. In a minute or two it would have been too
late. Set the door ajar; she'll come when she sees the light, and we'll
see what she has to say about the matter. She mustn't recognize me;
I'll change to the magician. It will give him some more reputation.
Would you like me to make you able to understand what she says?"

"Oh, do, 44, do, please!"

"All right. Here she is."

It was the magician's voice, exactly counterfeited; and there he
stood, the magician's duplicate, official robes and all. I went invisible; I did not want to be seen in the condemned enchanter's
company, even by a cat.

She came sauntering sadly in, a very pretty cat. But when she
saw the necromancer her tail spread and her back went up and she
let fly a spit or two and would have scurried away, but I flew over
her head and shut the door in time. She backed into the corner and
fixed her glassy eyes on 44, and said-

"It was you who did this, and it was mean of you. I never did you
any harm."

"No matter, you brought it on yourself."

"How did I bring it on myself?"

"You were going to tell about Schwarz; you would have compromised your young mistress."

"It's not so; I wish I may never die if-"

"Nonsense! Don't talk so. You were waiting up to tell. I know all
about it."

The cat looked convicted. She concluded not to argue the case.

After thinking a moment or two she said, with a kind of sigh-

"Will they treat me well, do you think?"

"Yes."

"Do you know they will?"

"Yes, I know it."

After a pause and another sigh-

"I would rather be a cat than a servant-a slave, that has to
smile, and look cheerful, and pretend to be happy, when you are
scolded for every little thing, the way Frau Stein and her daughter
do, and be sneered at and insulted, and they haven't any right to,
they didn't pay my wage, I wasn't their slave-a hateful life, an
odious life! I'd rather be a cat. Yes, I would. Will everybody treat
me well?"

"Yes, everybody."

"Frau Stein, too, and the daughter?"

"Yes."

"Will you see that they do?"

"I will. It's a promi,r."

"Then I thank you. They are all afraid of you, and the most of
them hate you. And it was the same with me-but not now. You
seem different to me now. You have the same voice and the same
clothes, but you seem different. You seem kind; I don't know why,
but you do; you seem kind and good, and I trust you; I think you
will protect me."

"I will keep my promise."

"I believe it. And keep me as I am. It was a bitter life. You would
think those Steins would not have been harsh with me, seeing I was
a poor girl, with not a friend, nor anybody that was mine, and I
never did them any harm. I was going to tell. Yes, I was. To get
revenge. Because the family said I was bribed to let Schwarz in
there-and it was a lie! Even Miss Marget believed that lie-I
could see it, and she-well, she tried to defend me, but she let them
convince her. Yes, I was going to tell. I was hot to tell. I was angry.
But I am glad I didn't get the chance, for I am not angry any more;
cats do not carry anger, I see. Don't change me back, leave me as I am. Christians go-I know where they go; some to the one place
some to the other; but I think cats-where do you think cats go?"

"Nowhere. After they die."

"Leave me as I am, then; don't change me back. Could I have
these leavings?"

"And welcome-yes."

"Our supper was there, in our room, but the other maid was
frightened of me because I was a strange cat, and drove me out, and
I didn't get any. This is wonderful food, I wonder how it got to this
room? there's never been anything like it in this castle before. Is it
enchanted food?"

"Yes."

"I just guessed it was. Safe?"

"Perfectly."

"Do you have it here a good deal?"

"Always-day and night."

"How gaudy! But this isn't your room?"

"No, but I'm here a great deal, and the food is here all the time.
Would you like to do your feeding here?"

"Too good to be true!"

"Well, you can. Come whenever you like, and speak at the door."

"How dear and lovely! I've had -a narrow escape-I can see it
now.

"From what?"

"From not getting to be a cat. It was just an accident that that
idiot came blundering in there drunk; if I hadn't been there-but I
was, and never shall I get done being thankful. This is amazing
good food; there's never been anything like it in this castle before
-not in my time, I can tell you. I am thankful I may come here
when I'm hungry."

"Come whenever you like."

"I'll do what I can for pay. I've never caught a mouse, but I feel
it in me that I could do it, and I will keep a lookout here. I'm not so
sad, now; no, things look very different; but I was pretty sad when I
came. Could I room here, do you think? Would you mind?"

"Not at all. Make yourself quite at home. There'll be a special
bed for you. I'll see to it."

"What larks! I never knew what nuts it was to be a cat before."

"It has its advantages."

"Oh, I should smile! I'll step out, now, and browse around a
little, and see if there's anything doing in my line. Au revoir, and
many many thanks for all you have done for me. I'll be back before
long."

And so she went out, waving her tail, which meant satisfaction.

"There, now," said 44, "that part of the plan has come out all
right, and no harm done."

"No, indeed," I said, resuming my visible form, "we've done her
a favor. And in her place I should feel about it just as she does.
FortyFour, it was beautiful to hear that strange language and
understand it-I understood every word. Could I learn to speak it,
do you think?"

"You won't have to learn it, I'll put it into you."

"Good. When?"

"Now. You've already got it. Try! Speak out-do The Boy Stood
on the Burning Deck-in catapult, or cataplasm, or whatever one
might call that tongue."

"The Boy-what was it you said?"

"It's a poem. It hasn't been written yet, but it's very pretty and
stirring. It's English. But I'll empty it into you, where you stand, in
cataplasm. Now you've got it. Go ahead-recite."

I did it, and never missed a wail. It was certainly beautiful in
that tongue, and quaint and touching; 44 said if it was done on a
back fence, by moonlight, it would make people cry-especially a
quartette would. I was proud; he was not always so complimentary.
I said I was glad to have the cat, particularly now that I could talk
to her; and she would be happy with me, didn't he think? Yes, he
said, she would. I said-

"It's a good night's work we've done for that poor little blondehaired lady's-maid, and I believe, as you do, that quite soon she is
going to be contented and happy."

"As soon as she has kittens," he said, "and it won't be long."

Then we began to think out a name for her, but he said-

"Leave that, for the present, you'd better have a nap."

He gave a wave of his hand, and that was sufficient; before the
wave was completed I was asleep.

I WOKE UP fresh and fine and vigorous, and found I had been
asleep a little more than six minutes. The sleeps which he furnished had no dependence upon time, no connection with it, no
relation to it; sometimes they did their work in one interval, sometimes in another, sometimes in half a second, sometimes in half a
day, according to whether there was an interruption or wasn't; but
let the interval be long or short, the result was the same: that is to
say, the reinvigoration was perfect, the physical and mental refreshment complete.

There had been an interruption, a voice had spoken. I glanced
up, and saw myself standing there, within the half-open door. That
is to say, I saw Emil Schwarz, my Duplicate. My conscience gave
me a little prod, for his face was sad. Had he found out what had
been happening at midnight, and had he come at three in the
morning to reproach me?

Reproach me? What for? For getting him falsely saddled with a
vulgar indiscretion? What of it? Who was the loser by it? Plainly, I,
myself-I had lost the girl. And who was the gainer? He himself,
and none other-he had acquired her. Ah, very well, then-let him
reproach me; if he was dissatisfied, let him trade places: he
wouldn't find me objecting. Having reached solid ground by these
logical reasonings, I advised my conscience to go take a tonic, and
leave me to deal with this situation as a healthy person should.

Meantime, during these few seconds, I was looking at myself,
standing there-and for once, I was admiring. Just because I had
been doing a very handsome thing by this Duplicate, I was softening toward him, my prejudices were losing strength. I hadn't in tended to do the handsome thing, but no matter, it had happened,
and it was natural for me to take the credit of it and feel a little
proud of it, for I was human. Being human accounts for a good
many insanities, according to 44-upwards of a thousand a day was
his estimate.

It is actually the truth that I had never looked this Duplicate
over before. I never could bear the sight of him. I wouldn't look at
him when I could help it; and until this moment I couldn't look at
him dispassionately and with fairness. But now I could, for I had
done him a great and creditable kindness, and it quite changed his
aspects.

In those days there were several things which I didn't know. For
instance I didn't know that my voice was not the same voice to me
that it was to others; but when 44 made me talk into the thing
which he brought in, one day, when he had arrived home from one
of his plundering-raids among the unborn centuries, and then
reversed the machine and allowed me to listen to my voice as other
people were used to hearing it, I recognized that it had so little
resemblance to the voice I was accustomed to hearing that I should
have said it was not my voice at all if the proof had not been present
that it was.

Also? I had been used to supposing that the person I saw in the
mirror was the person others saw when they looked at me-whereas
that was not the case. For once, when 44 had come back from
robbing the future he brought a camera and made some photographs of me-those were the names which he gave the things,
names which he invented out of his head for the occasion, no
doubt, for that was his habit, on account of his not having any
principles-and always the pictures which were like me as I saw
myself in the glass he pronounced poor, and those which I thought
exceedingly bad, he pronounced almost supernaturally good.

And here it was again. In the figure standing by the door I was
now seeing myself as others saw me, but the resemblance to the self
which I was familiar with in the glass was merely a resemblance,
nothing more; not approaching the common resemblance of brother
to brother, but reaching only as far as the resemblance which a
person usually bears to his brotherin-law. Often one does not notice that, at all, until it is pointed out; and sometimes, even then,
the resemblance owes as much to imagination as to fact. It's like a
cloud which resembles a horse after some one has pointed out the
resemblance. You perceive it, then, though I have often seen a
cloud that didn't. Clouds often have nothing more than a brotherin-law resemblance. I wouldn't say this to everybody, but I believe
it to be true, nevertheless. For I myself have seen clouds which
looked like a brotherin-law, whereas I knew very well they didn't.
Nearly all such are hallucinations, in my opinion.

Well, there he stood, with the strong white electric light flooding
him, (more plunder,) and he hardly even reached the brother-inlaw standard. I realized that I had never really seen this youth
before. Of course I could recognize the general pattern, I don't
deny it, but that was only because I knew who the creature was;
but if I had met him in another country, the most that could have
happened would have been this: that I would turn and look after
him and say "I wonder if I have seen him somewhere before?" and
then I would drop the matter out of my mind, as being only a
fancy.

Well, there he was; that is to say, there I was. And I was
interested; interested at last. He was distinctly handsome, distinctly
trim and shapely, and his attitude was easy, and well-bred and
graceful. Complexion-what it should be at seventeen, with a
blonde ancestry: peachy, bloomy, fresh, wholesome. Clothes-precisely like mine, to a button-or the lack of it.

I was well satisfied with this front view. I had never seen my
back; I was curious to see it. I said, very courteously-

"Would you please turn around for a moment?-only a moment?
. . . Thank you."

Well, well, how little we know what our backs are like! This one
was all right, I hadn't a fault to find with it, but it was all new to
me, it was the back of a stranger-hair-aspects and all. If I had seen
it walking up the street in front of me it would not have occurred to
me that I could be in any personal way interested in it.