Sylvie and Bruno
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Lewis Carroll >> Sylvie and Bruno
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14 SYLVIE and BRUNO by LEWIS CARROLL
Is all our Life, then but a dream
Seen faintly in the goldern gleam
Athwart Time's dark resistless stream?
Bowed to the earth with bitter woe
Or laughing at some raree-show
We flutter idly to and fro.
Man's little Day in haste we spend,
And, from its merry noontide, send
No glance to meet the silent end.
CONTENTS
Preface [Moved to the end]
CHAPTER 1 Less Bread! More Taxes!
CHAPTER 2 L'amie Inconnue
CHAPTER 3 Birthday Presents
CHAPTER 4 A Cunning Conspiracy
CHAPTER 5 A Beggar's Palace
CHAPTER 6 The Magic Locket
CHAPTER 7 The Barons Embassy
CHAPTER 8 A Ride on a Lion
CHAPTER 9 A Jester and a Bear
CHAPTER 10 The Other Professor
CHAPTER 11 Peter and Paul
CHAPTER 12 A Musical Gardener
CHAPTER 13 A Visit to Dogland
CHAPTER 14 Fairy-Sylvie
CHAPTER 15 Bruno's Revenge
CHAPTER 16 A Changed Crocodile
CHAPTER 17 The Three Badgers
CHAPTER 18 Queer Street, number forty
CHAPTER 19 How to make a Phlizz
CHAPTER 20 Light come, light go
CHAPTER 21 Through the Ivory Door
CHAPTER 22 Crossing the Line
CHAPTER 23 An outlandish watch
CHAPTER 24 The Frogs' Birthday-treat
CHAPTER 25 Looking Easward
Preface [Moved to the end]
SYLVIE AND BRUNO
CHAPTER 1.
LESS BREAD! MORE TAXES!
--and then all the people cheered again, and one man, who was more
excited than the rest, flung his hat high into the air, and shouted
(as well as I could make out) "Who roar for the Sub-Warden?" Everybody
roared, but whether it was for the Sub-Warden, or not, did not clearly
appear: some were shouting "Bread!" and some "Taxes!", but no one
seemed to know what it was they really wanted.
All this I saw from the open window of the Warden's breakfast-saloon,
looking across the shoulder of the Lord Chancellor, who had sprung to
his feet the moment the shouting began, almost as if he had been
expecting it, and had rushed to the window which commanded the best
view of the market-place.
"What can it all mean?" he kept repeating to himself, as, with his
hands clasped behind him, and his gown floating in the air, he paced
rapidly up and down the room. "I never heard such shouting before--
and at this time of the morning, too! And with such unanimity!
Doesn't it strike you as very remarkable?"
I represented, modestly, that to my ears it appeared that they were
shouting for different things, but the Chancellor would not listen to
my suggestion for a moment. "They all shout the same words, I assure
you!" he said: then, leaning well out of the window, he whispered to a
man who was standing close underneath, "Keep'em together, ca'n't you?
The Warden will be here directly. Give'em the signal for the march up!"
All this was evidently not meant for my ears, but I could scarcely help
hearing it, considering that my chin was almost on the Chancellor's
shoulder.
The 'march up' was a very curious sight:
[Image...The march-up]
a straggling procession of men, marching two and two, began from the
other side of the market-place, and advanced in an irregular zig-zag
fashion towards the Palace, wildly tacking from side to side, like a
sailing vessel making way against an unfavourable wind so that the head
of the procession was often further from us at the end of one tack than
it had been at the end of the previous one.
Yet it was evident that all was being done under orders, for I noticed
that all eyes were fixed on the man who stood just under the window,
and to whom the Chancellor was continually whispering. This man held
his hat in one hand and a little green flag in the other: whenever he
waved the flag the procession advanced a little nearer, when he dipped
it they sidled a little farther off, and whenever he waved his hat they
all raised a hoarse cheer. "Hoo-roah!" they cried, carefully keeping
time with the hat as it bobbed up and down. "Hoo-roah! Noo! Consti!
Tooshun! Less! Bread! More! Taxes!"
"That'll do, that'll do!" the Chancellor whispered. "Let 'em rest a bit
till I give you the word. He's not here yet!" But at this moment the
great folding-doors of the saloon were flung open, and he turned with a
guilty start to receive His High Excellency. However it was only Bruno,
and the Chancellor gave a little gasp of relieved anxiety.
"Morning!" said the little fellow, addressing the remark, in a general
sort of way, to the Chancellor and the waiters. "Doos oo know where
Sylvie is? I's looking for Sylvie!"
"She's with the Warden, I believe, y'reince!" the Chancellor replied
with a low bow. There was, no doubt, a certain amount of absurdity in
applying this title (which, as of course you see without my telling
you, was nothing but 'your Royal Highness' condensed into one syllable)
to a small creature whose father was merely the Warden of Outland:
still, large excuse must be made for a man who had passed several years
at the Court of Fairyland, and had there acquired the almost impossible
art of pronouncing five syllables as one.
But the bow was lost upon Bruno, who had run out of the room, even
while the great feat of The Unpronounceable Monosyllable was being
triumphantly performed.
Just then, a single voice in the distance was understood to shout
"A speech from the Chancellor!" "Certainly, my friends!" the Chancellor
replied with extraordinary promptitude. "You shall have a speech!"
Here one of the waiters, who had been for some minutes busy making a
queer-looking mixture of egg and sherry, respectfully presented it on a
large silver salver. The Chancellor took it haughtily, drank it off
thoughtfully, smiled benevolently on the happy waiter as he set down
the empty glass, and began. To the best of my recollection this is what
he said.
"Ahem! Ahem! Ahem! Fellow-sufferers, or rather suffering fellows--"
("Don't call 'em names!" muttered the man under the window.
"I didn't say felons!" the Chancellor explained.)
"You may be sure that I always sympa--"
("'Ear, 'ear!" shouted the crowd, so loudly as quite to drown the
orator's thin squeaky voice) "--that I always sympa--" he repeated.
("Don't simper quite so much!" said the man under the window.
"It makes yer look a hidiot!" And, all this time, "'Ear, 'ear!" went
rumbling round the market-place, like a peal of thunder.)
"That I always sympathise!" yelled the Chancellor, the first moment
there was silence. "But your true friend is the Sub-Warden!
Day and night he is brooding on your wrongs--I should say your rights--
that is to say your wrongs--no, I mean your rights--"
("Don't talk no more!" growled the man under the window.
"You're making a mess of it!") At this moment the Sub-Warden entered
the saloon. He was a thin man, with a mean and crafty face, and a
greenish-yellow complexion; and he crossed the room very slowly,
looking suspiciously about him as if be thought there might be a
savage dog hidden somewhere. "Bravo!" he cried, patting the Chancellor
on the back. "You did that speech very well indeed.
Why, you're a born orator, man!"
"Oh, that's nothing! the Chancellor replied, modestly, with downcast
eyes. "Most orators are born, you know."
The Sub-Warden thoughtfully rubbed his chin. "Why, so they are!" he
admitted. "I never considered it in that light. Still, you did it very
well. A word in your ear!"
The rest of their conversation was all in whispers: so, as I could hear
no more, I thought I would go and find Bruno.
I found the little fellow standing in the passage, and being addressed
by one of the men in livery, who stood before him, nearly bent double
from extreme respectfulness, with his hands hanging in front of him
like the fins of a fish. "His High Excellency," this respectful man was
saying, "is in his Study, y'reince!" (He didn't pronounce this quite so
well as the Chancellor.) Thither Bruno trotted, and I thought it well
to follow him.
The Warden, a tall dignified man with a grave but very pleasant face,
was seated before a writing-table, which was covered with papers, and
holding on his knee one of the sweetest and loveliest little maidens it
has ever been my lot to see. She looked four or five years older than
Bruno, but she had the same rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, and the
same wealth of curly brown hair. Her eager smiling face was turned
upwards towards her father's, and it was a pretty sight to see the
mutual love with which the two faces--one in the Spring of Life,
the other in its late Autumn--were gazing on each other.
"No, you've never seen him," the old man was saying: "you couldn't,
you know, he's been away so long--traveling from land to land,
and seeking for health, more years than you've been alive, little Sylvie!"
Here Bruno climbed upon his other knee, and a good deal of kissing,
on a rather complicated system, was the result.
"He only came back last night," said the Warden, when the kissing was
over: "he's been traveling post-haste, for the last thousand miles or
so, in order to be here on Sylvie's birthday. But he's a very early
riser, and I dare say he's in the Library already. Come with me and see
him. He's always kind to children. You'll be sure to like him."
"Has the Other Professor come too?" Bruno asked in an awe-struck voice.
"Yes, they arrived together. The Other Professor is--well, you won't
like him quite so much, perhaps. He's a little more dreamy, you know."
"I wiss Sylvie was a little more dreamy," said Bruno.
"What do you mean, Bruno?" said Sylvie.
Bruno went on addressing his father. "She says she ca'n't, oo know.
But I thinks it isn't ca'n't, it's wo'n't."
"Says she ca'n't dream!" the puzzled Warden repeated.
"She do say it," Bruno persisted. "When I says to her 'Let's stop
lessons!', she says 'Oh, I ca'n't dream of letting oo stop yet!'"
"He always wants to stop lessons," Sylvie explained, "five minutes
after we begin!"
"Five minutes' lessons a day!" said the Warden. "You won't learn much
at that rate, little man!"
"That's just what Sylvie says," Bruno rejoined. "She says I wo'n't
learn my lessons. And I tells her, over and over, I ca'n't learn 'em.
And what doos oo think she says? She says 'It isn't ca'n't, it's
wo'n't!'"
"Let's go and see the Professor," the Warden said, wisely avoiding
further discussion. The children got down off his knees, each secured a
hand, and the happy trio set off for the Library--followed by me.
I had come to the conclusion by this time that none of the party
(except, for a few moments, the Lord Chancellor) was in the least able
to see me.
"What's the matter with him?" Sylvie asked, walking with a little extra
sedateness, by way of example to Bruno at the other side, who never
ceased jumping up and down.
[Image...Visiting the profesor]
"What was the matter--but I hope he's all right now--was lumbago,
and rheumatism, and that kind of thing. He's been curing himself,
you know: he's a very learned doctor. Why, he's actually invented
three new diseases, besides a new way of breaking your collar-bone!"
"Is it a nice way?" said Bruno.
"Well, hum, not very," the Warden said, as we entered the Library.
"And here is the Professor. Good morning, Professor! Hope you're quite
rested after your journey!"
A jolly-looking, fat little man, in a flowery dressing-gown, with a
large book under each arm, came trotting in at the other end of the
room, and was going straight across without taking any notice of the
children. "I'm looking for Vol. Three," he said.
"Do you happen to have seen it?"
"You don't see my children, Professor!" the Warden exclaimed, taking
him by the shoulders and turning him round to face them.
The Professor laughed violently: then he gazed at them through his
great spectacles, for a minute or two, without speaking.
At last he addressed Bruno. "I hope you have had a good night, my child?"
Bruno looked puzzled. "I's had the same night oo've had," he replied.
"There's only been one night since yesterday!"
It was the Professor's turn to look puzzled now.
He took off his spectacles, and rubbed them with his handkerchief.
Then he gazed at them again. Then he turned to the Warden.
"Are they bound?" he enquired.
"No, we aren't," said Bruno, who thought himself quite able to answer
this question.
The Professor shook his head sadly. "Not even half-bound?"
"Why would we be half-bound?" said Bruno.
"We're not prisoners!"
But the Professor had forgotten all about them by this time, and was
speaking to the Warden again. "You'll be glad to hear," he was saying,
"that the Barometer's beginning to move--"
"Well, which way?" said the Warden--adding, to the children,
"Not that I care, you know. Only he thinks it affects the weather.
He's a wonderfully clever man, you know. Sometimes he says things that
only the Other Professor can understand. Sometimes he says things that
nobody can understand! Which way is it, Professor? Up or down?"
"Neither!" said the Professor, gently clapping his hands. "It's going
sideways--if I may so express myself."
"And what kind of weather does that produce?" said the Warden.
"Listen, children! Now you'll hear something worth knowing!"
"Horizontal weather," said the Professor, and made straight for the
door, very nearly trampling on Bruno, who had only just time to get out
of his way.
"Isn't he learned?" the Warden said, looking after him with admiring
eyes. "Positively he runs over with learning!"
"But he needn't run over me!" said Bruno.
The Professor was back in a moment: he had changed his dressing-gown
for a frock-coat, and had put on a pair of very strange-looking boots,
the tops of which were open umbrellas. "I thought you'd like to see
them," he said. "These are the boots for horizontal weather!"
[Image...Boots for horizontal weather]
"But what's the use of wearing umbrellas round one's knees?"
"In ordinary rain," the Professor admitted, "they would not be of much
use. But if ever it rained horizontally, you know, they would be
invaluable--simply invaluable!"
"Take the Professor to the breakfast-saloon, children," said the
Warden. "And tell them not to wait for me. I had breakfast early,
as I've some business to attend to." The children seized the Professor's
hands, as familiarly as if they had known him for years, and hurried
him away. I followed respectfully behind.
CHAPTER 2.
L'AMIE INCONNUE.
As we entered the breakfast-saloon, the Professor was saying "--and
he had breakfast by himself, early: so he begged you wouldn't wait for
him, my Lady. This way, my Lady," he added, "this way!" And then, with
(as it seemed to me) most superfluous politeness, he flung open the
door of my compartment, and ushered in "--a young and lovely lady!"
I muttered to myself with some bitterness. "And this is, of course,
the opening scene of Vol. I. She is the Heroine. And I am one of those
subordinate characters that only turn up when needed for the
development of her destiny, and whose final appearance is outside the
church, waiting to greet the Happy Pair!"
"Yes, my Lady, change at Fayfield," were the next words I heard
(oh that too obsequious Guard!), "next station but one." And the door
closed, and the lady settled down into her corner, and the monotonous
throb of the engine (making one feel as if the train were some gigantic
monster, whose very circulation we could feel) proclaimed that we were
once more speeding on our way. "The lady had a perfectly formed nose,"
I caught myself saying to myself, "hazel eyes, and lips--" and here
it occurred to me that to see, for myself, what "the lady" was really
like, would be more satisfactory than much speculation.
I looked round cautiously, and--was entirely disappointed of my
hope. The veil, which shrouded her whole face, was too thick for me to
see more than the glitter of bright eyes and the hazy outline of what
might be a lovely oval face, but might also, unfortunately, be an
equally unlovely one. I closed my eyes again, saying to myself
"--couldn't have a better chance for an experiment in Telepathy!
I'll think out her face, and afterwards test the portrait with the
original."
At first, no result at all crowned my efforts, though I 'divided my
swift mind,' now hither, now thither, in a way that I felt sure would
have made AEneas green with envy: but the dimly-seen oval remained as
provokingly blank as ever--a mere Ellipse, as if in some mathematical
diagram, without even the Foci that might be made to do duty as a nose
and a mouth. Gradually, however, the conviction came upon me that I
could, by a certain concentration of thought, think the veil away,
and so get a glimpse of the mysterious face--as to which the two
questions, "is she pretty?" and "is she plain?", still hung suspended,
in my mind, in beautiful equipoise.
Success was partial--and fitful--still there was a result: ever and
anon, the veil seemed to vanish, in a sudden flash of light: but,
before I could fully realise the face, all was dark again. In each such
glimpse, the face seemed to grow more childish and more innocent:
and, when I had at last thought the veil entirely away, it was,
unmistakeably, the sweet face of little Sylvie!
"So, either I've been dreaming about Sylvie," I said to myself,
"and this is the reality. Or else I've really been with Sylvie,
and this is a dream! Is Life itself a dream, I wonder?"
To occupy the time, I got out the letter, which had caused me to take
this sudden railway-journey from my London home down to a strange
fishing-town on the North coast, and read it over again:-
"DEAR OLD FRIEND,
"I'm sure it will be as great a pleasure to me, as it can possibly
be to you, to meet once more after so many years: and of course I
shall be ready to give you all the benefit of such medical skill as
I have: only, you know, one mustn't violate professional etiquette!
And you are already in the hands of a first-rate London doctor,
with whom it would be utter affectation for me to pretend to compete. (I make no doubt he
is right in saying the heart is affected:
all your symptoms point that way.) One thing, at any rate, I have
already done in my doctorial capacity--secured you a bedroom on the
ground-floor, so that you will not need to ascend the stairs at all.
"I shalt expect you by last train on Friday, in accordance with your
letter: and, till then, I shalt say, in the words of the old song,
'Oh for Friday nicht! Friday's lang a-coming!'
"Yours always,
"ARTHUR FORESTER.
"P.S. Do you believe in Fate?"
This Postscript puzzled me sorely. "He is far too sensible a man,"
I thought, "to have become a Fatalist. And yet what else can he mean by
it?" And, as I folded up the letter and put it away, I inadvertently
repeated the words aloud. "Do you believe in Fate?"
The fair 'Incognita' turned her head quickly at the sudden question.
"No, I don't!" she said with a smile. "Do you?"
"I--I didn't mean to ask the question!" I stammered, a little taken
aback at having begun a conversation in so unconventional a fashion.
The lady's smile became a laugh--not a mocking laugh, but the laugh
of a happy child who is perfectly at her ease. "Didn't you?" she said.
"Then it was a case of what you Doctors call 'unconscious cerebration'?"
"I am no Doctor," I replied. "Do I look so like one? Or what makes you
think it?"
She pointed to the book I had been reading, which was so lying that its
title, "Diseases of the Heart," was plainly visible.
"One needn't be a Doctor," I said, "to take an interest in medical
books. There's another class of readers, who are yet more deeply
interested--"
"You mean the Patients?" she interrupted, while a look of tender pity
gave new sweetness to her face. "But," with an evident wish to avoid a
possibly painful topic, "one needn't be either, to take an interest in
books of Science. Which contain the greatest amount of Science,
do you think, the books, or the minds?"
"Rather a profound question for a lady!" I said to myself, holding,
with the conceit so natural to Man, that Woman's intellect is
essentially shallow. And I considered a minute before replying.
"If you mean living minds, I don't think it's possible to decide.
There is so much written Science that no living person has ever read:
and there is so much thought-out Science that hasn't yet been written.
But, if you mean the whole human race, then I think the minds have it:
everything, recorded in books, must have once been in some mind,
you know."
"Isn't that rather like one of the Rules in Algebra?" my Lady enquired.
("Algebra too!" I thought with increasing wonder.) "I mean, if we
consider thoughts as factors, may we not say that the Least Common
Multiple of all the minds contains that of all the books; but not the
other way?"
"Certainly we may!" I replied, delighted with the illustration.
"And what a grand thing it would be," I went on dreamily, thinking aloud
rather than talking, "if we could only apply that Rule to books!
You know, in finding the Least Common Multiple, we strike out a quantity
wherever it occurs, except in the term where it is raised to its
highest power. So we should have to erase every recorded thought,
except in the sentence where it is expressed with the greatest
intensity."
My Lady laughed merrily. "Some books would be reduced to blank paper,
I'm afraid!" she said.
"They would. Most libraries would be terribly diminished in bulk.
But just think what they would gain in quality!"
"When will it be done?" she eagerly asked. "If there's any chance of it
in my time, I think I'll leave off reading, and wait for it!"
"Well, perhaps in another thousand years or so--"
"Then there's no use waiting!", said my Lady. "Let's sit down.
Uggug, my pet, come and sit by me!"
"Anywhere but by me!" growled the Sub-warden. "The little wretch always
manages to upset his coffee!"
I guessed at once (as perhaps the reader will also have guessed, if,
like myself, he is very clever at drawing conclusions) that my Lady was
the Sub-Warden's wife, and that Uggug (a hideous fat boy, about the
same age as Sylvie, with the expression of a prize-pig) was their son.
Sylvie and Bruno, with the Lord Chancellor, made up a party of seven.
[Image...A portable plunge-bath]
"And you actually got a plunge-bath every morning?" said the Sub-Warden,
seemingly in continuation of a conversation with the Professor.
"Even at the little roadside-inns?"
"Oh, certainly, certainly!" the Professor replied with a smile on his
jolly face. "Allow me to explain. It is, in fact, a very simple problem
in Hydrodynamics. (That means a combination of Water and Strength.)
If we take a plunge-bath, and a man of great strength (such as myself)
about to plunge into it, we have a perfect example of this science.
I am bound to admit," the Professor continued, in a lower tone and with
downcast eyes, "that we need a man of remarkable strength. He must be
able to spring from the floor to about twice his own height, gradually
turning over as he rises, so as to come down again head first."
"Why, you need a flea, not a man!" exclaimed the Sub-Warden.
"Pardon me," said the Professor. "This particular kind of bath is
not adapted for a flea. Let us suppose," he continued, folding his
table-napkin into a graceful festoon, "that this represents what is
perhaps the necessity of this Age--the Active Tourist's Portable
Bath. You may describe it briefly, if you like," looking at the
Chancellor, "by the letters A.T.P.B."
The Chancellor, much disconcerted at finding everybody looking at him,
could only murmur, in a shy whisper, "Precisely so!"
"One great advantage of this plunge-bath," continued the Professor,
"is that it requires only half-a-gallon of water--"
"I don't call it a plunge-bath," His Sub-Excellency remarked,
"unless your Active Tourist goes right under!"
"But he does go right under," the old man gently replied. "The A.T.
hangs up the P. B. on a nail--thus. He then empties the water-jug
into it--places the empty jug below the bag--leaps into the
air--descends head-first into the bag--the water rises round him to
the top of the bag--and there you are!" he triumphantly concluded.
"The A.T. is as much under water as if he'd gone a mile or two down
into the Atlantic!"
"And he's drowned, let us say, in about four minutes--"
"By no means!" the Professor answered with a proud smile. "After about
a minute, he quietly turns a tap at the lower end of the P. B.--all
the water runs back into the jug and there you are again!"
"But how in the world is he to get out of the bag again?"
"That, I take it," said the Professor, "is the most beautiful part of
the whole invention. All the way up the P.B., inside, are loops for the
thumbs; so it's something like going up-stairs, only perhaps less
comfortable; and, by the time the A. T. has risen out of the bag, all
but his head, he's sure to topple over, one way or the other--the Law
of Gravity secures that. And there he is on the floor again!"
"A little bruised, perhaps?"
"Well, yes, a little bruised; but having had his plunge-bath: that's
the great thing."
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