A Heart of Furious Fancies

A STORY

by WINONA McCLINTIC

IT WAS time to go to the Old Norse class at the University. I went to the campus very often in those days when I was adjusted to the great conspiracy. I was as contented with life as a reasonable person could expect to be. I had to read books on which the ink was not dry, and suffer similar annoyances, but I was kept going by my knowledge of the secret gesture.

I went downstairs and out of the house, building my singular defenses which would not outlive the day. I passed the house where the two little children lived.

“Here comes The Lady,” they screamed, dropping the wagon and running out to the street to watch me go. It was amazing that such little children could be taught to act so convincingly. I wished that the Director would teach them new lines. They said the same thing every day.

The sun was warm and they had put perfume on the wind, like flower scents or newly cut grass. Birds had been trained to sing. On some days they threw rain down on me. If they threw it down too long, I got sick; then they laughed and dressed up like doctors or men who sell cough medicine in drugstores. They waited until I came out of a building to throw the rain down; when I went back in, the rain stopped — they were saving it for the next time. Sometimes they threw hail down. It all depended on how they felt.

As I turned into the main street, I could hear the excitement going on behind the buildings.

“Here She comes,” they were saying in frantic glee and haste, “here comes The Lady.”

The Director was running up and down behind the false fronts, carrying his megaphone and shouting directions, but softly, so that I could not hear. With the precision of experts, they were able to keep at least three blocks ahead of me with the building. As I stepped on the proper block, I could hear them mumbling their lines, those who had speaking parts. The Director must be shouting to them: —

“Act like a mob scene! Come on now! Act like a mob scene! (This will give Her a turn. Ha ha.)”

So they came down the street toward me, some talking in mock conversation, others walking past casually, but looking at me slyly when they thought I would not see. There were prompters at each corner.

I was almost, at the gate of the campus. Past here, I was not called The Lady, for the students and professors claimed ignorance of my title. They had their little ways. Beside the gate a man looked at me intently, making sure, before pointing a finger at me. The nail was black and broken at the tip.

“J’accuse,” he whispered, showing yellow teeth as he smiled. “J’accuse you!”

I backed away from him. They laughed behind the buildings. A trained dog was sitting on the curb, playing dumb. Now, he walked over to me and tried to repeat what the man had said, but he could not pronounce the French. This was ghastly beyond belief.

“Ha ha,” the Director was saying to his assistants, “that gave Her a turn!”

I had just time to go up the steps and into the classroom. The professor was a floor above me, memorizing his lines and gathering his props. They painted false glasses on him; I had seen the smear lines near his ears on a day when he was late. The other students were pretending to read their notes. I sat down in the proper place and feigned that I was one of them.

“When The Lady comes,” I muttered, “I’ll say my lines to Her.” They had surpassed themselves on the language, inventing a middle voice and hiding words in the glossary at the back of the book. I could not lind them there, but the other students had keys and always found them.

The lecture was interesting in spite of what lay behind it. Determined not to be fooled today, I took no notes. That nay madness lies.

After class was over, I went up two flights to the English Office. They had the stairs finished by the time I got to them. They looked substantial, but bits of plaster and wood-shavings fell from the top now and then. The steps wobbled a little as I went up. In the English Office the paint was still not dry, but it was crowded with men running in and out, carrying papers and blue books. I waited for the secretary, who was saying lines on the telephone.

“I want to make an appointment to take the Master’s Oral next term,” I said in a loud voice. Everyone turned and looked at me in consternation — the Director had not prepared them for this unlikely event. The secretary responded with great stage presence and comic effect.

“You will have to come another time,” she said slyly, “the Master is not here today.”

Everyone laughed immoderately. I could never make them give the right answers.

“Come again at one o’clock,” said the secretary, appearing to relent.

I said thank you and went down the stairs rapidly, so that they could use the lumber for the building where I ate lunch. I was a little late, which made the waitresses angry. The coffee was bitter because it had boiled while they waited for me.

2

I WALKED around the streets for an hour, testing the people to see if they knew their lines. I went to a cigar store and checked the book racks, although I knew they had not printed any new ones for four months — they thought I was reading too much. Miss Otis Regrets was still there in its lurid cover, but I refused to buy it.

“I regret, too,” I whispered, “Ich regret alles.”

I looked at them quickly, but they preferred to ignore the comment. I tried to confuse them by buying a candy bar. This one was real but still warm from the oven. I had almost caught them at it.

I walked back to the campus. Students were coming out of classes. We had a good Director, who could handle so many characters in one scene. When I went back to the English Office, everyone was waiting. All through their usual lunch hour, writers had been busy, deleting and rewriting. Ill temper showed in the dialogue for the rest of the day.

The secretary said curtly that I should see the professor who was acting head of the department for this term. I went into the inner office and closed the door. The walls shook a little, for this was scenery which was seldom used. The head of the department put his cards on the table almost immediately.

“What are you doing at this school?” he asked sneeringly.

‟I am working for the Ph.D. in English with linguistic emphasis,” I answered bravely. I could no other. The professor cut the Gordian knot with a contemptuous flick of his hand.

“Do you think you are able to grasp philology?” he asked. It was a trap.

“Certainly,” I replied, but my doubts came over me. He stood up and tore his hair.

“You are a fraud!” he screamed. “What do you know about the dative case?”

I replied with dignity. “Everything,” I said. The trap snapped shut.

“What about Grimm’s Law?” shouted the professor in a frenzy. “What about Hoyles Law?

“I break them all!” I answered in ringing tones, He saw it was useless to browbeat me. His tone changed and became gentle, soothing.

“You don’t really want to be a philologist,” he murmured hypnotically, “a Lady Philologist? No man wants to pinch a Lady Philologist.”

I set my jaw, determining to go pinchless to the grave. Now he became frank, confiding. In this mood he was the most dangerous of all. The Director knew his men and of what high histrionics they were capable.

“My dear young Lady,” said the professor, “subterfuge is useless. Wo have been on to you from the start. You are a fraud. A fraud in Old English, a fraud in Old Irish, a fraud in Old Norse, a fraud in Gothic, frauds in German, Latin, French, and Old French!”

“You forgot Spanish,” I said weakly.

“You have reached new heights of fraudery in Spanish,” he added. ‟You have set a new low in frauddom. Remember, we know all about you.”

“All?” I asked, but hope was fading fast.

“All!” the professor said with finaliy. I could hear a low chuckle on the other side of the wall. The big scene had come off successfully and the Director was satisfied. I tried once more, putting forth feeble wings to soar into realms ol deduction where Verner and Holtzmann sported in the Urgermanisch dawn.

“I can read all those languages,” I said.

“Bah.” The head of the department was swollen with victory. “What about inchoate verbs, rhotacism, verschärfung, omphalic succession, West Germanic consonant gemination, Kinsey’s law of cause and effect?”

I was silent; I had no answer to that. “What shall I do?” I spoke with Russian somberness and resignation.

“Well, now, let’s see.” He shuffled around in the drawers of the desk. “We seem to have destroyed your photostatic records, by accident, of course. You will have to start in again from the beginning.”

“Freshman English?” I moaned in horror.

“No, just as a graduate student.” The professor was following strict orders. “But any more nonsense about degrees and we will sentence you to courses in Shakespeare, term after term, year after year. He wrote plays, you know, or someone of the same name did, who lived at about that time, we think.”

It was time to go. I thanked him for letting me waste his time. He turned back to his desk and I decided that now was the moment &emdah; I must strike a blow for reality. Fortunately, I had my wee penknife and a pair of white cotton gloves in my shoulder-strap bag. Gently, without his noticing, I inserted the thin blade into his back. I had been right all the time; just as I had suspected — no blood. The false cadaver was heavy for me, but I pushed and pulled, careful not to bump the knife. I wanted the Director to see it as soon as he came, that he might know who had committed this — ha ha — crime. I got the corpse behind the desk, where it could not be seen from the door. I had my hand on the knob when the prompter on the other side of the wall said the exit lines.

“Good-by,” he said in a gruff but friendly voice, “I hope I have helped you.”

“Very much,” I said, going out. “Thunk you, Mr. Swilliger, sir, professor, your honor.” The scenery shook a little as I closed the door. In the outer office everyone was still running about with bluebooks and papers.

“What courses are given in summer session?” I spoke like a Hemingway character.

“We have a Shakespeare course by a man from Harvard.” The secretary had not had to look it up in her little notebook. They always had the facts coördinated.

‟I’ll come back,” I said. In the corridor they had a large dog running past. I crouched against the wall to let him by, but he stopped and put his head on my shoulder. What an insult!

It was difficult getting past the crowds on Wheeler steps; the Director liked mass effects in the sunlight. I went into the library and read books of modern criticism. These books had been designed by experts to torment me. Tiring of the game, I hid five or six of the books behind the Serbian Drama section — this would give the prop man a run for his money. I laughed thinly; I was fifteen pounds underweight.

On the street, as I walked home, I saw mobs of students, all buying a special edition of the newspaper and clucking at the mock headlines. They were saying “Rhubarb, rhubarb” until I came close. Then, they said lines like “No one knows” and “POLICE BAFFLED.” I ignored the rabble; I did not care any more. There were fewer pedestrians as I came nearer home, and on the last block there was no one but a cat. He looked at me with knowledge in his round, yellow eyes. Kitty stood up, black and huge, smiling behind his whiskers.

‟Non!” came the whispered cat-voice, denying me for the first time. He denied me twice more, and the beast walked away, waving his black tail. This was a crisis for which I was not prepared. I shuddered to myself, shattered beyond renewal, the last barriers fallen. I would have to make the secret gesture.

I sat down on the curb, hoping that the paint would not leave stains on my skirt, struggling with singular defenses. I began to feel calm, for no reason. It was a beautiful world they had created, an illusion of beauty and reality, but they must forsake it. Until now, I had been forced to follow their rules and dialogue. I could not outwit them by saying the wrong lines or committing eccentricities. Far better to put them out of their misery! I went up the steps of my house, looking back down the street for the last time. The cherry trees were in bloom, if you could call it that.

Upstairs in my bedroom I prepared for the final annihilation. It saddened me to think of no future. The prospect, of a lonely old age stretched before me like the streets of a dead city: no Director, no prompters, no players strutting their brief hours with their brief candles and brief cases — only deserted sets, sagging at the corners with rainstreaked paint, colors faded by the sun. I shed a brief tear for the cat, who was feeling insecure and asking the Director if his French accent sounded authentic. It is difficult for a cat to learn French. I should have said something gracious like “Bonjour, pussycat,” or “Have you been in this country long?” The cat and the head of the department would console each other with weak tea and the promise of wittier lines on coming days. But that would be in a different drama, for it was time for me to take action. When one is The Lady, one must accept the responsibility.

Standing before the window which framed the hills, I performed the secret gesture which destroyed the actors, the life behind the scenery, and the illmade props which had made my days a burden to me.

Now there was no one in the world but The Lady, solitary in the sky, grass, and sea beyond the collapsing town. At last the voices had died away into the silence, whereof I am commander.