 ALL GOLD CANION It was the green heart of the canyon where the walls swerved back from the rigid plan and relieved their harshness of line by making a little sheltered nook and filling it to the brim with sweetness and roundness and softness. Here all things rested. Even a narrow stream ceased its turbulent downrush long enough to form a quiet pool. Knee deep in the water with drooping head and half-shot eyes draws the red-coated, mini-ant-leared buck. On one side, beginning at the very lip of the pool, was a tiny meadow, a cool, resilient surface of green that extended to the base of the frowning wall. Beyond the pool a gentle slope of earth ran up and up to meet the opposing wall. Fine grass covered the slope, grass that was spangled with flower with hair in their patches of color, orange and purple and golden. Below the canyon was shut in. There was no view. The walls leaned together abruptly and the canyon ended in a chaos of rock, moss covered and hidden by a green screen of vines and creepers and boughs of trees. Up the canyon rose far hills and peaks, the big-foot hills, pine-covered and remote, and far beyond, like clouds upon the border of the slay, towered minarets of white where the Sierra's eternal snows flashed austerely the blazes of the sun. There was no dust in the canyon. The leaves and flowers were clean and virginal. The grass was young velvet. Over the pool three cottonwood sent their scurvy fluffs fluttering down the quiet air. On the slope the blossoms of the wine-wooded Manzanita filled the air with springtime motors, while the leaves, wise with experience, were already beginning their vertical twist against the coming eridity of summer. In the open spaces on the slope, beyond the farthest shadow reach of the Manzanita, poised the Mariposa lilies like so many flights of jeweled moths suddenly arrested and on the verge of trembling into flight again. Here and there that wood's harlequin and the madrone permitted itself to be caught in the act of changing its pea-green trunk to matter-red, breathed its fragrance into the air from great clusters of waxen bells. Creamy white were these bells shaped like lilies of the valley with the sweetness of perfume that is of the springtime. There was not a sigh of wind. The air was drowsy with its weight of perfume. There was a sweetness that would have been chlorine had the air been heavy and humid, but the air was sharp and thin. It was as starlight transmuted into atmosphere, shot through and warmed by sunshine, and flower drenched with sweetness. An occasional butterfly drifted in and out through the patches of light and shade, and from all about rose the low and sleepy hum of mountain bees, feasting cyber-ites that jostled one another good-naturedly at the board, nor found time for rough discurdicy. So quietly did the little stream drip and ripple its way through the canyon that it spoke only in faint and occasional gurgles. The voice of the stream was as a drowsy whisper, ever interrupted by dozing and silences, ever lifted again in the awakenings. The motion of all things was a drifting in the heart of the canyon. Sunshine and butterflies drifted in and out among the trees. The hum of the bees and the whisper of the stream were a drifting of sound, and the drifting sound and drifting colors seemed to weave together in the making of a delicate and intangible fabric which was the spirit of the place. It was a spirit of peace that was not of death, but of smooth-falsing life, of quietude that was not silence, of movement that was not action, of repose that was quick with existence without being violent with struggle and travail. The spirit of the place was the spirit of the peace of the living, somulent with the easement and content of prosperity, and undisturbed by rumors of far wars. The red-coated, mini antlered buck acknowledged the lordship of the spirit of the place and dosed knee-deep in the cool, shaded fool. There seemed no flies to vex him, and he was languid with rest. Sometimes his ears moved when the streamer roared and whispered, but they moved lazily with, for knowledge, that it was merely the stream-grown gargoless at discovery that it had slapped. But there came a time when the buck's ears lifted, intense with swift eagerness for sound. His head was turned down the canyon. His sensitive, quivering nostril scented the air. His eyes could not pierce the green screen through which the stream rippled away, but to his ears came the voice of a man. It was a steady, monotonous sing-song voice. Once the buck heard the harsh clash of metal upon rock. At the sound he snorted with a sudden start that jerked him through the air from water to meadow and his feet sank in the young velvet while he pricked his ears and again scented the air. Then he stole across the tiny meadow, pausing once and again to listen, and faded out of the canyon like a wreath, soft-footed and without sound. A clash of steel-shod souls against the rocks began to be heard, and the man's voice grew louder. He was raised in a sort of chant and became distinct with nearness so that the words could be heard. Turn around and turn your face unto them sweet hills of grace, the powers of sin you are scornin'. Look about and look around, fling your sin-pack on the ground. You will meet with the Lord in the mornin'. The sound of scrambling accompanied the song and the spirit of the place fled away on the heels of the red-coated buck. The green screen was burst asunder and a man peered out of the meadow and the pool in the sloping side hill. He was a deliberate sort of man. He took in the scene with one embracing glance, then ran his eyes over the details to verify the general impression. Then, and not until then, did he open his mouth and vivid and solemn approval. Smoke a life in snakes of purgatory. Will you just look at that? Wood, and water, and grass, and a hillside. Pocket hunters delight, and a coyose is paradise. Cool green for the tired eyes. Pink pills for pale people ain't in it. A secret pasture for prospectors and a resting place for tired burrows, by dam. He was a sandy, complexed man in whose face geniality and humor seemed to salient characteristics. It was a mobile face, quick-changing to inward mood and thought. Thinking was in him a visible process. I'd is chased across his face like wind-plaws across the surface of a lake. His hair, sparse and unkempt of growth was as indeterminate and colorless as his complexion. It would seem that all the colors of his frame had gone into his eyes, for they were startlingly blue. Also they were laughing and merry eyes, within them much of the naivety and wonder of the child. And yet, in an unassertive way, they contained much of the calm, self-reliance and strength of purpose founded upon self-experience and experience of the world. From out the screen of vines and creepers he flung ahead of him a miner's pick in shovel and gold pan. Then he crawled out himself into the open. He was clad in faded overalls in blue cotton shirt with hobnailed brogands on his feet and upon his head a hat whose shapelessness and stains advertised the rough usage of wind and rain and sun and camp smoke. He stood erect, seeing wide-eyed the secrecy of the scene and senuously inhaling the warm, sweet breath of the canyon garden through nostrils that dilated and quivered with delight. His eyes narrowed till laughing sweats of blue. His face wreathed itself in joy and his mouth curled in a smile as he cried aloud. Jumping dandelions and happy hollyhocks but that smells good to me. Talk about your attire of roses and cologne factories. They ain't in it. He had the habit of soliloquy. His quick-changing facial expressions might tell every thought and mood, but the tongue perforce ran hard after repeating like a second Boswell. The man lay down on the lip of the pool and drank long and deep of its water. Tastes good to me, he murmured, lifting his hand and gazing across the pool at the side hill while he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The side hill attracted his attention. Still lying on his stomach, he studied the hill formation long and carefully. It was a practice die that traveled up the slopes to the crumbling canyon wall and back and down again to the edge of the pool. He scrambled to his feet and favored the side hill with a second survey. Which good to me, he concluded, picking up his pick and shovel and gold pan. He crossed the stream below the pool, stepping agilely from stone to stone. Where the side hill touched the water, he dug up a shovel full of dirt and put it into the gold pan. He squatted down, holding the pan in his two hands, and partly immersing it in the stream. Then he imparted to the pan a deaf circular motion that sent the water slursing in and out through the dirt and gravel. The larger and wider particles worked to the surface, and these, by a skillful dipping movement of the pan, he spilled out and over the edge. Occasionally, to expedite matters, he rested the pan, and with his fingers raked out the large pebbles and pieces of rock. The contents of the pan diminished rapidly until only fine dirt and the smallest bits of gravel remained. At this stage he began to work very deliberately and carefully. It was fine-washing, and he washed fine and finer with a keen scrutiny and delicate and fastidious touch. At last the pan seemed empty of everything but water, but with a quick semi-circular flirt that sent the water flying over the shallow rim into the stream, he disclosed a layer of black sand on the bottom of the pan. So thin was this layer that it was like a streak of paint. He examined it closely, and the midst of it was a tiny golden speck. He dribbled a little water in over the depressed edge of the pan. With a quick flirt, he sent the water sluicing across the bottom, turning the grains of black sand over and over. A second tiny golden speck rewarded his effort. The washing had now become very fine, fine beyond all need of ordinary placer mining. He worked the black sand a small portion at a time up the shallow rim of the pan. Each small portion he examined sharply so that his eyes saw every grain of it before he allowed it to slide over the edge in a way. Telllessly, bit by bit, he let the black sand slip away. A golden speck no larger than a pinpoint appeared on the rim, and by his manipulation of the riveter had returned to the bottom of the pan. And in such fashion another speck was disclosed and another. It was his care of them. Like a shepherd he herded his flock of golden specks so that not one should be lost. The last of the pan of dirt nothing remained but his golden herd. He counted it, and then, after all his labor, sent it flying out of the pan with one final swirl of water. But his blue eyes were shining with desire as he rose to his feet. Seven, he muttered aloud, asserting the sum of the specks for which he had toiled so long and which he had so wantonly thrown away. Seven, he repeated, with the emphasis of one trying to impress a number on his memory. He stood still for a long while, surveying the hillside. And his eyes was a curiosity new aroused and burning. There was an exultance about his bearing in a keenness like that of a hunting animal catching the fresh scent of game. He moved down the stream a few steps and took a second pan full of gold. Again came the careful washing, the jealous herding of the golden specks and the wantonness with which he sent them flying into the stream after he had counted their number. Five, he muttered and repeated, five. He could not furbear another survey of the hill before filling the pan further down the stream. His golden herds diminished. Four, three, two, two, one. Were his memory tabulations as he moved down the stream. One speck of gold rewarded his washing. He stopped and built a fire of dry twigs. Into this he thrust the gold pan and burned it until it was blue-black. He held up the pan and examined it critically. Then he nodded approbation. Again such a color background he could defy the tiniest yellow speck to elude him. Still moving down the stream he panned again. This angle speck was his reward. A third pan contained no gold at all. Not satisfied with this he panned three times again, taking his shovels of dirt within a foot of one another. Each pan proved empty of gold and the fact, instead of discouraging him, seemed to give him satisfaction. His oation increased with each barren washing till he arose, exclaiming jubilantly. If it ain't the real thing may God knock off my head with sour apples. Returning to where he had started operations he began to pan up the stream. At first his golden herds increased. Increased prodigiously. Fourteen, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-six ran his memory tabulations. Just above the pool he struck his richest pan. Thirty-five colors. Almost enough to save he remarked regretfully as he allowed the water to sweep them away. The sun climbed to the top of the sky. The man worked on. Pan by pan he went up the stream. The mentality of results steadily decreasing. It's just beautiful the way it peters out. He exalted when the shovel full of dirt contained no more than a single speck of gold. And when no specks at all were found in several pans he straightened up and favored the hillside with a confident glance. Aha, Mr. Pocket! he cried out as though to an auditor hidden somewhere above him beneath the surface of the slope. Aha, Mr. Pocket! I'm a common. I'm a common and I'm surely going to get here. You hear me, Mr. Pocket? I'm going to get here as soon as pumpkins ain't cauliflower's. He turned and flung a measuring glance that the sun poised above him in the azure of the cloudless sky. Then he went down the canyon following the line of shovel holes he had made in filling the pans. He crossed the stream below the pool and disappeared through the green screen. There was little opportunity for the spirit of the place to return with its quietude and repose for the man's voice raised in ragtime song still dominated the canyon with possession. After a time with a greater clashing of steel-shod feet on rock, he returned. The green screen was tremendously agitated and had surged back and forth in the throes of a struggle. There was a loud grating and clanking of metal. The man's voice leaped to a higher pitch and was sharp with imperitiveness. The large body plunged and pounded. There was a snapping and ripping and rending and amid the shower of falling leaves a horse burst through the screen. On its back was a pack and from this trailed broken vines and torn creepers. The animal gazed with astonished eyes at the scene into which it had been precipitated then dropped his head to the grass and began contendably to graze. A second horse scrambled into view slipping once on the mossy rocks and regained an equilibrium when its hooves sank into the yielding surface of the meadow. It was riderless, though on its back was a high-horned Mexican saddle scarred and discolored by long usage. The man brought up the rear. He threw off-pack and saddle with an eye to camp location and gave the animals their freedom to graze. He unpacked his food and got out frying pan and coffee pot. He gathered an armful of dry wood and with a few stones made a place for his fire. "'My,' he said, but I've got an appetite. I could scoff iron filings and horseshoe nails and thank you kindly, ma'am, for a second helping.' He straightened up and while he reached for matches in the pocket of his overalls, his eyes traveled across the pool to the hillside. His fingers had clutched the matchbox, but they relaxed their hold and the hand came out empty. The man wavered perceptively. He looked at his preparations for cooking and he looked at the hill. "'Yes, I'll take another whack at her,' he concluded, starting to cross the stream. "'There ain't no sense in it, I know,' he mumbled apologetically. "'But keep and grub back and I'll get a hurting on, I reckon.' A few feet back from his first line of test pans he started a second line. The sun dropped down the western sky, the shadows lengthened, but the man worked on. He began the third line of test pans. He was cross-cutting the hillside, line by line, as he ascended. The center of each line produced the richest pans while the ends came where no colors showed in the pan. And as he ascended the hillside, the lines grew perceptibly shorter. The regularity with which their length diminished served to indicate that somewhere up the slope, the last line would be so short as to have scarcely length at all and beyond that could come only a point. The design was growing into an inverted V. The converging sides of this V marked the boundaries of the gold-bearing dirt. The apex of the V was evidently the man's goal. Often he ran his eye along the converging side and on up the hill, trying to define the apex, the point where the gold-bearing dirt must cease. Here resided Mr. Pocket, for so the man familiarly addressed the imaginary point above him on the slope, crying out, Come down out of that, Mr. Pocket. Be right, smart, and agreeable, and come down. All right, he would add later, and a voice resigned to determination. All right, Mr. Pocket, it's plain to me I got to come right up and snatch you out bald-headed, and I'll do it. I'll do it, he would threaten still later. Each pan he carried down to the water to wash, and as he went higher up the hill the pans grew richer until he began to save the gold in an empty baking-powder can which he carried carelessly in his hip pocket. So engrossed was he in his toil that he did not notice the long twilight of oncoming night. It was not till he tried vainly to see the gold color in the bottom of the pan that he realized the passage of time. He straightened up abruptly. An expression of whimsical wonderment and awe overspread his face as he drawled, gosh darn my buttons if I didn't plum forget dinner. He stumbled across the stream in the darkness and lighted his long-delayed fire. Flapjacks and bacon and warmed-over beans constituted his supper. Then he smoked a pipe by the smoldering coals, listening to the night sounds and watching the moonlight stream through the canyon. After that he unrolled his bed, took off his heavy shoes, and pulled the blankets up to his chin. His face showed white in the moonlight like the face of a corpse. But it was a corpse that knew its resurrection for the man rose suddenly on one elbow and gazed across at his hillside. Good night, Mr. Pocket, he cried sleepily. Good night. He slept through the early gray of morning until the direct rays of the sun's modest closed eyelids when he awoke with his start and looked about him until he had established the continuity of his existence and identified his present self with the days previously lived. To dress he had merely to buckle on his shoes. He glanced at his fireplace and at his hillside, wavered but fought down the temptation and started the fire. Keep your shirt on, Bill. Keep your shirt on, he admonished himself. What's the good of Russian? No use in getting all head up and sweaty. Mr. Pocket will wait for you. He ain't a running away before you can get your breakfast. Now, what you want, Bill, is something fresh in your bill of fare, so it's up to you to go and get it. He cut a short pole at the water's edge and drew from one of his pockets a bit of line and a draggled fly that had once been a royal coachman. Maybe they'll bite in the early morning, but he was flattered as he made his first cast into the pool, and a moment later he was gleefully crying, What'd I tell ya, eh? What'd I tell ya? He had no real nor any inclination to waste time, and by main force and swiftly he drew out of the water a flashing ten-inch trout. Three more caught in rapid succession furnished his breakfast. When he came to the stepping stones on his way to his hillside he suddenly thought and paused. I'd just better take a hike downstream away, as he said. There's no telling what cuss may be snooping around. But he crossed over the stones and with the eye really odd or take that hike, the need of precaution passed out of his mind and he fell to work. That nightfall he straightened up. The small have his back was stiff with stooping toil, and as he put his hand behind him he was resting muscles, he said. Now, what do you think of that? By dam, I queen forgot my dinner again. If I don't watch out I'll sure be degeneratin' into a two-meal-a-day crank. Pockets is the damnedest thing I ever saw for makin' a man absent-minded. He communed that night as he crawled into his blankets. Nor did he forget to call up the hillside. Good night, Mr. Pocket. Good night. The sun and snatching a hasty breakfast he was early at work. A fever seemed to be growing in him, nor did the increasing richness of the test-pans allay this fever. There was a flesh in his cheek other than that made by the heat of the sun, and he was oblivious to fatigue in the passage of time. When he fell to pen with dirt he ran down the hill to wash it. Nor could he forebear running up the hill again, panting and stumbling profanely, to refill the pan. He was now a hundred yards from the water, and the inverted V was assuming definite proportions. The width of the paydirt steadily decreased, and the man extended, in his mind's eye, the sides of the V to their meeting place far up the hill. This was his goal, the apex of the V, and he panned many times to locate it. Just about two yards above that man's needle-bush in a yard to the right, he finally concluded. Then the temptation seized him. As plain as the nose on your face, he said, as he abandoned his laborious cross-cutting and climbed to the indicated apex, he filled the pan and carried it down the hill to wash. He contained no trace of gold. He dug deep, and he dug shallow, filling and washing a dozen pans, and was unrewarded even by the tiniest golden speck. He was enraged at having yielded to the temptation and cursed himself blasphemously and pridelessly. Then he went down the hill and took up the cross-cutting. Slow and certain, Bill, slow and certain, he crewned. Short cuts to fortune ate in your line, and it's about time you know it. Yet wise, Bill, yet wise. Slow and certain's the only hand you can play, so go to it and keep to it too. As the cross-cuts decreased, showing that the sides of the V were converging, the depth of the V increased. The gold trace was dipping into the hill. It was only a 30 inches below the surface that he could get colors in his pan. The dirt he found the 25 inches from the surface and the 35 inches yielded barren pans. At the base of the V, by the water's edge, he had found gold colors at the grass roots. The higher he went up the hill, the deeper the gold dipped. To dig a hole three feet deep in order to get one test pan was a task of no mean magnitude, while between the man and the apex intervened an untold number of such holes to be. And there's no telling how much deeper it'll pitch, he sighed, in a moment's pause, while his fingers soothed as aching back. Feverish with desire, with aching back and stiffening muscles, with pick and shovel gouging and mauling the soft brown earth, the man toiled up the hill. Before him was the smooth slope spangled with flowers and made sweet with their breath. Behind him was devastation. It looked like some terrible eruption breaking out on the smooth skin of the hill. His slow progress was like that of a slug, befalling beauty with a monstrous trail. Though the dipping gold trace increased the man's work, he found consolation in the increasing richness of the pans. Twenty cents, thirty cents, fifty cents, sixty cents were the values of the gold found in the pans, and at nightfall he washed his banner pan, which gave him a dollar's worth of gold dust from a shovel full of dirt. All that is just my luck to have some inquisitive cuss come buttoned in here on my pasture. He mumbled sleepily that night as he pulled the blankets up to his chin. Suddenly he sat upright. Bill, he called sharply, now listen to me Bill, do you hear? It's up to you, tomorrow morning, to bose you round and see what you can see. Understand? Tomorrow morning, and don't you forget it. He yawned and glanced across at his side hill. Good night, Mr. Pocket, he called. In the morning he stole a march on the sun, for he had finished breakfast when its first rays caught him, and he was climbing the wall of the canyon where it crumbled away and gave footing. From the outlook at the top he found himself in the midst of loneliness. As far as he could see, chain after chain of mountains, heaved themselves into his vision. To the east his eyes, leaping the miles between range and range and between many ranges, brought up at last against the white-peak Sierras. The main crest, where the backbone of the western world reared itself against the sky. To the north and south he could see more distinctly the cross-systems that broke through the main trend of the sea of mountains. To the west the ranges fell away, one behind the other, diminishing and fading into the gentle foothills that, in turn, descended into the great valley which he could not see. And in all that mighty sweep of earth he saw no sign of man nor of the handiwork of man, save only the torn bosom of the hillside at his feet. The man looked long and carefully. Once, far down his own canyon, he thought he saw in the air a faint hint of smoke. He looked again and decided that it was the purple haze of the hills made dark by a convolution of the canyon wall at its back. Hey, you, Mr. Pocket, he called down into the canyon. Stand out from under. I'm a-comin', Mr. Pocket, I'm a-comin'. The heavy brogands on the man's feet made him appear clumsy-footed, but he swung down from the giddy height as lightly and eerily as a mountain goat. A rock turning under his foot on the edge of the precipice did not concert him. He seemed to know the precise time required for the turn to culminate in disaster, and in the meantime he utilized the false footing itself for the momentary earth contact necessary to carry him on into safety. Were the earth's loop so steeply that it was impossible to stand upright, the man did not hesitate. His foot pressed the impossible surface, but for a fraction of the fatal second and gave him the bound that carried him onward. Again, where even the fraction of a second's footing was out of the question, he would swing his body past by a moment's hand grip on the jutting knob of rock, a crevice, or a precariously rooted shrub. At last, with a wild leap and yell, he exchanged the face of the wall for an earth slide and finished the descent in the midst of several tons of sliding earth and gravel. His first pan of the morning washed out over two dollars in coarse gold. It was from the center of the V. To either side, the demunition and the values of the pans was swift. His lines of cross cutting holes were growing very short. The converging sides of the inverted V were only a few yards apart. Their meeting point was only a few yards above him, but the base streak was dipping deeper and deeper into the earth. By early afternoon, he was sinking the test holes five feet before the pans could show the gold trace. For that matter, the gold trace had become something more than a trace. It was a placer mine in itself and the man resolved to come back after he had found the pocket and work over the ground. But the increasing richness of the pans began to worry him. By late afternoon, the worth of the pans had grown to three and four dollars. The man scratched his head perplexedly and looked a few feet up the hill at the man's Anita voice that marked approximately the apex of the V. He nodded his head and said orically, It's one of two things, Bill. One of two things. Either Mr. Pocket spilled himself all out and down the hill, or else Mr. Pocket's that damn rich you maybe won't be able to carry him all away with you. And that would be hell, wouldn't it now? He chuckled at contemplation of so pleasant a dilemma. Nightfall found him by the edge of the stream, his eyes wrestling with the gathering darkness over the washing of a five dollar pan. Wished ahead in electric light to go on working, he said. He found sleep difficult that night. Many times he composed himself and closed his eyes for slumber to overtake him, but his blood pounded with too strong desire, and as many times his eyes opened and he murmured wearily, wished it was sun up. Sleep came to him in the end, but his eyes were open with the first paling of the stars, and the gray of dawn caught him with breakfast finished and climbing the hillside in the direction of the secret abiding place of Mr. Pocket. The first crosscut the man made there was space for only three holes, so narrow had become the pastry, and so close was he to the fountainhead of the golden stream he had been following for four days. Be calm, Bill. Be calm. He admonished himself when he broke ground for the final hole where the sides of the V had alas come together in a point. I've got the almighty cinch on you, Mr. Pocket, and you can't lose me. He said many times he sank the hole deeper and deeper. Four feet, five feet, six feet, he dug his way down into the earth. The digging grew harder. His pick grated on broken rock. He examined the rock. Rotten quartz was his conclusion as with the shovel he cleared the bottom of the hole of loose dirt. He attacked the crumbling quartz with the pick bursting the disintegrating rock asunder with every stroke. He thrust his shovel into the loose mass. His eyes got a gleam of yellow. He dropped the shovel and squatted suddenly on his heels. As a farmer rubs the clinging dirt from fresh dug potatoes so the man, a piece of rotten quartz held in both hands rubbed the dirt away. Suffering sardinopolis, he cried, lumps and chunks of it lumps and chunks of it. It was only half rock he held in his hand. The other half was virgin gold. He dropped it into his pan and examined another piece. Little yellow was to be seen but with his strong fingers he crumbled the rotten quartz away till both hands were filled with glowing yellow. He rubbed the dirt away from fragment after fragment tossing them into the gold pan. It was a treasure hole. So much had the quartz rotted away that there was less gold than there was of gold. Now and again he found a piece to which no rock clung, a piece that was all gold. A chunk where the pick had laid open the heart of the gold glittered like a handful of yellow jewels and he cocked his head at it and slowly turned it around and over to observe the rich play of the light upon it. Talk about your too much gold diggins the man snorted contemptuously. Why this digging would make it look like thirty cents. This digging is all gold. And right here and now I named this year canyon all gold canyon, bagash. Still squatting on his heels he continued examining the fragments and tossing them into the pan. Suddenly there came to him a premonition of danger. It seemed a shadow had fallen upon him but there was no shadow. His heart had given a great leap up into his throat and was choking him. Then his blood slowly chilled and he felt the sweat of his shirt cold against his flesh. He did not spring up or look around. He did not move. He was considering the nature of the premonition he had received trying to locate the source of the mysterious force that had warned him striving to sense the imperative presence of the unseen things that threatened him. He saw things hostile made manifest by messengers refined for the sense to know and this aura he felt but knew not how he felt it. His was the feeling as when a cloud passes over the sun. It seemed that between him and life had passed something dark and smothering and menacing a gloom as it were that swallowed up life and made for death his death. Every force of his being impaled in front the unseen danger but his soul dominated the panic and he remained squatting on his heels in his hands a chunk of gold. He did not dare to look around but he knew by now there was something behind him and above him. He made believe to be interested in the gold in his hand. He examined it critically turned it over and over and rubbed the dirt from it and all the time he knew that something behind him was being at the gold over his shoulder. Still feigning interest in the chunk of gold in his hand he listened intently and he heard the breathing of the thing behind him. His eyes searched the ground in front of him for a weapon but they saw only the uprooted gold worthless to him now in his extremity. There was his pick a handy weapon on occasion but this was not such an occasion. The man realized his predicament he was in a narrow hole that was seven feet deep his head did not come to the surface of the ground he was in a trap he remained squatting on his heels he was quite cool and collected but his mind considering every factor showed him only his helplessness. He continued rubbing the dirt from the quartz fragments and throwing the gold into the pan there was nothing else for him to do yet he knew that he would have to rise up sooner or later and face the danger that breathed at his back. The minutes passed and with the passage of each minute he knew that by so much he was nearer to the time he must stand up or else and his wet shirt went cold against his flesh again at the thought or else he might receive death as he stooped there over his treasure. Still he squatted on his heels rubbing dirt from gold and debating in just what manner he should rise up. He might rise up with a rush and claw his way out of the hole to meet whatever threatened on the even footing above the ground or he might rise up slowly and carelessly and faint casually to discover the thing that breathed at his back. His instinct and every fighting fiber of his body favored the mad clawing rush to the surface. His intellect and the craft there favored the slow and cautious meeting with the thing that menaced in which he could not see and while he debated a loud crashing noise burst on his ear. At the same instant he received a stunning blow on the left side of his back and from the point of impact fell a rush of flame through his flesh. He sprang up in the air but halfway to his feet collapsed. His body crumpled in like a leaf withered in sudden heat and he came down his chest across his pan of gold his face in the dirt and rock his legs tangled and twisted because of the restricted space at the bottom of the hole. His legs twitched convulsively several times. His body was shaken as with a mighty ague. There was a slow expansion of the lungs accompanied by a deep sigh. Then the air was slowly very slowly exhaled and his body has slowly flattened itself down into inertness. Above, revolver in hand, a man was peering down over the edge of the hole. He peered for a long time at the prone and motionless body beneath him. After a while the stranger sat down on the edge of the hole so that he could see into it and rested the revolver on his knee. Reaching his hand into a pocket he drew out a wisp of brown paper. Into this he dropped a few crumbs of tobacco. This combination became a cigarette brown and squat with the ends turned in. Not once did he take his eyes from the body at the bottom of the hole. He lighted the cigarette and drew its smoke into his lungs with a caressing intake of the breath. He smoked slowly. Once the cigarette went out and he relighted it. And all the while he studied the body beneath him. The cigarette stubbed away and rose to his feet. He moved to the edge of the hole. Spanning it, a hand resting on each edge and with the revolver still in the right hand he muscled his body down into the hole. While his feet were yet a yard from the bottom he released his hands and dropped down. At the instant his feet struck bottom he saw the pocket miner's arm leap out and his own legs knew the same grip that overthrew him. In the nature of the jump his revolver hand was above his head. Swiftly as the grip had flashed about his legs just as swiftly he brought the revolver down. He was still in the air as following the process of completion when he pulled the trigger. The explosion was deafening in the confined space. The smoke filled the hole so that he could see nothing. He struck the bottom on his back like a cat's. The pocket miner's body was on top of him. Even as the miner's body passed on top the stranger crooked in his right arm to fire and even in that instant the miner with a quick thrust of elbow struck his wrist. The muzzle was thrown up and the bullet thudded into the dirt of the side of the hole. The next instant the stranger felt the miner's hand grip his wrist. The struggle was now for the revolver. The man strove to turn it against the other's body. The smoke in the hole was clearing. The stranger lying on his back was beginning to see dimly. But suddenly he was blinded by a handful of dirt deliberately flung into his eyes by his antagonist. In that moment of shock his grip on the revolver was broken. In the next moment he felt a smashing darkness descend upon his brain and in the midst of the darkness even the darkness ceased. But the pocket miner fired again and again until the revolver was empty. Then he tossed it from him and breathing heavily sat down on the dead man's legs. The miner was sobbing and struggling for breath. Measly skunk he panted. I camped on my trail and let me do the work and then shooting me in the back. He was half crying from anger and exhaustion. He peered at the face of the dead man. It was sprinkled with loose dirt and gravel. And it was difficult to distinguish the features. Never lay eyes on him before the miner concluded his scrutiny. Just a common and ordinary thief damn him. And he shot me in the back. He shot me in the back. He opened his shirt and felt himself front and back on his left side. Went clean through and no harm done. He cried jubilantly. I'll bet he aimed right all right. But he drew the gun over when he pulled the trigger, the cuss. But I fixed him. Oh, I fixed him. His fingers were investigating the bullet hole in his sight and a shade of regret passed over his face. It's going to be stiffer in hell, he said. And it's up to me to get mended and get out of here. He crawled out of the hole and went down the hill to his camp. Half an hour later he returned to his backpack course. His open shirt disclosed the rude bandage with which he had dressed his wound. He was slow and awkward with his left hand movements, but that did not prevent him using the arm. The bite of the pack rope under the dead man's shoulders enabled him to heave the body out of the hole. Then he set to work gathering up his gold. And to exclaim, he shot me in the back, the measly skunk. He shot me in the back. When his treasure was quite cleaned up and wrapped securely into a number of blanket-covered parcels, he made an estimate of its value. Four hundred pounds, or I'm a hot-and-tot, he concluded, say two hundred in quartz and dirt that leaves two hundred pounds of gold. Bill, wake up. Two hundred pounds of gold. Two thousand dollars. And it's yarn. All yarn. He scratched his head delightedly and his fingers blundered into an unfamiliar groove. They quested along it for several inches. It was a crease through his scalp where the second bullet had plowed. He walked angrily over to the dead man. You would, would you? He bullied. You would, eh? Well, I fixed you good and plenty and I'll give you a decent burial, too. That's more than you'd have done for me. He dragged the body to the edge of the hole and toppled it in. It struck the bottom with a dull crash on its side, the face twisted up to the light. The miner peered down at it. And you shot me in the back, he said accusingly. With pick and shovel he filled the hole. Then he loaded the gold on his horse. It was too great a load for the animal, and when he had gained his camp he transferred to his saddle horse. Even so he was compelled to abandon a portion of his outfit, pick and shovel and gold pen, extra food and cooking utensils and diverse odds and ends. The sun was at the zenith when the man forced the horses at the screen of vines and creepers. To climb the huge boulders the animals were compelled to up-rear and struggle blindly through the tangled mass of vegetation. Once the saddle horse fell heavily and the man removed the pack to get the animal on its feet. After it started on its way again the man thrust his head out from among the leaves and peered up at the hillside. The measly skunk, he said, and disappeared. There was a ripping and tearing of vines and boughs. The trees surged back and forth marking the passage of the animals through the midst of them. There was a clashing of steel-shot hooves and now and again an oath or sharp cry of command. Then the voice of the man was raised in song. Turn around and turn your face unto them sweet hills of grace the powers of Sin Yoos Cornyn. Look about and look around fling your sin pack on the ground. You will meet with the Lord in the morning. The song grew faint and fainter as this island scrapped back the spirit of the place. The stream once more drowsed and whispered, the hum of the mountain bees rose sleepily. Down through the perfume-weighted air fluttered the snowy fluff to the cottonwoods. The butterflies drifted in and out among the trees and all over blazed the quiet sunshine. All we remained, the hoof marks in the meadow and the torn hillside to mark the boisterous trail on the piece of the place and passed on. End of All Gold Canyon Recorded by Tom Crawford in Kool, California, USA in July of 2009. In Roughing It by Mark Twain, Chapter 60 there is also a description of pocket mining or perhaps one should say pocket miners. It is also available at libraryvox.org The Birthday of the Infanta by Oscar Wilde This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Greg Marguerite The Birthday of the Infanta by Oscar Wilde It was the Birthday of the Infanta. She was just 12 years of age and the sun was shining brightly in the gardens of the palace. Although she was a real princess and the Infanta of Spain she had only one birthday every year just like the children of quite poor people so it was naturally a matter of great importance to the whole country that she should have a really fine day for the occasion. And a really fine day it certainly was. The tall striped tulips stood straight up upon their stalks like long rows of soldiers and looked defiantly across the grass and said, We are quite as splendid as you are now. The purple butterflies fluttered about with cold dust on their wings visiting each flower in turn. The little lizards crept out of the crevices of the wall and lay basking in the white glare. And the pomegranates split and cracked with the heat and showed their bleeding red hearts. Even the pale yellow lemons that hung in such profusion from the mouldering trellis and along the dim arcades of colour from the wonderful sunlight and the magnolia trees opened their great gloob-like blossoms of folded ivory and filled the air with a sweet, heavy perfume. The little princess herself walked up and down the terrace with her companions and played at hide and seek round the stone vases and the old moss-grown statues. On ordinary days she was only allowed to play with children of her own rank so she had always to play alone but her birthday was an exception and the king had given orders that she was to invite any of her young friends whom she liked to come and amuse themselves with her. There was a stately grace about these slim Spanish children as they glided about. The boys with their large-plumed hats and short, fluttering cloaks, the girls holding up the trains of their long, brocade gowns and shielding the sun from their eyes with huge fans of black and silver. But the Infanta was the most graceful of all and the most tastefully attired after the somewhat cumbrious fashion of the day. Her robe was of gray satin, the skirt and the wide-puffed sleeves heavily embroidered with silver and the stiff corsets studded with rows of fine pearls. Two tiny slippers with big pink rosettes peeped out beneath her dress as she walked. Pink and pearl was her great gauze fan and in her hair which, like an oriole of faded gold, stood out stiffly round her pale little face as she had a beautiful white rose. From a window in the palace the sad melancholy king watched them. Behind him stood his brother Don Pedro of Aragon whom he hated and his confessor, the grand inquisitor of Granada, sat by his side. Satter even than usual was the king for, as he looked at the Infanta bowing with childish gravity to the assembling counters or laughing behind her fan at the grim Duchess of Albuquerque who always accompanied her. She thought of the young queen, her mother, who but a short time before, so it seemed to him, had come from the gay country of France and had withered away in the somber splendor of the Spanish court, dying just six months after the birth of her child and before she had seen the almonds blossom twice in the orchard or plucked the second year's fruit from the old gnarled fig tree that stood in the center of the now grass-grown courtyard. So great had been his love for her and offered even the grave to hide her from him. She had been embalmed by a Moorish physician who in return for this service had been granted his life, which for heresy and suspicion of magical practices had been already forfeited, men said, to the Holy Office. And her body was still lying on its tapestry beer in the black marble chapel of the palace just as the monks had borne her in on that windy March day nearly twelve years before. Once every month the king wrapped in a dark cloak and with a muffled lantern in his hand went in and knelt by her side, calling out Mi reina, Mi reina and sometimes breaking through the formal etiquette that in Spain governs every separate action of life and sets limits even to the sorrow of a king. He would clutch at the pale, jeweled hands in a wild agony of grief and try to wake by his mad kisses the cold painted face. Today he seemed to see her again as he had seen her first at the castle of Fontainebleu, when he was but fifteen years of age and she still younger. They had been formally betrothed on that occasion by the papal nuncio in the presence of the French king and all the court, and he had returned to the escurial bearing with him a little ringlet of yellow hair and the memory of two childish lips bending down to kiss his hand as he stepped into his carriage. Later on had followed the marriage, hastily performed at Bergos, a small town on the frontier between the two countries, and the grand public entry into Madrid with the customary celebration of high mass at the Church of La Atocha and more than usually Salem Otto Daffay, in which nearly three hundred heretics, amongst whom were many Englishmen, had been delivered over to this secular arm to be burned. Certainly he had loved her madly and to the ruin, many thought, of his country, then it wore with England for the possession of the Empire of the New World. He had hardly permitted her to be out of his sight. For her he had forgotten or seemed to have forgotten all grave affairs of state. And with that terrible blindness that passion brings upon its servants he had failed to notice that the elaborate ceremonies by which he sought to please her did but aggravate the strange malady from which she suffered. When she died he was, for a time, like one bereft of reason. Indeed there is no doubt but that the great trappist monastery at Granada, of which he was already titular prior. Had he not been afraid to leave the little infanta at the mercy of his brother, whose cruelty even in Spain was notorious, and who was suspected by many of having caused the queen's death by means of a pair of poisoned gloves that he had presented to her on the occasion of her visiting his castle in Aragon. Even after the expiration of the three years of public mourning that he had ordained by his minions by royal edict, he would never suffer his ministers to speak about any new alliance. And when the emperor himself sent to him and offered him the hand of the lovely Archduchess of Bohemia, his niece, in marriage, he bade the ambassadors tell their master that the king of Spain was already wedded to sorrow. And that though she was but a barren bride he loved her better than beauty. An answer that caused his crown the rich provinces of the Netherlands and its instigation, revolted against him under the leadership of some fanatics of the Reformed Church. His whole married life, with its fierce fiery colored joys and the terrible agony of its sudden ending, seemed to come back to him today as he watched the infanta playing on the terrace. She had all the queen's pretty petulance of manner, the same willful way of tossing her head, the same proud, curved, beautiful mouth, the same wonderful smile, Vraise, who reared the Français, indeed, as she glanced up now and then at the window or stretched out her little hand for the stately Spanish gentleman to kiss. But the shrill laughter of the children grated on his ears and the bright, pitiless sunlight mocked his sorrow, and a dull odor of strange spices, spices such as embalmers used seemed to taint, or was it fancy, the clear morning air. He buried his face in his hands and when the infanta looked up again the curtains had been drawn and the king had entered. She made a little moo of disappointment and shrugged her shoulders. Surely he might have stayed with her on her birthday. What did the stupid state affairs matter, or had he gone to that gloomy chapel where the candles were always burning and where she was never allowed to enter? How silly of him when the sun was shining so brightly and everybody was so happy! Besides he would miss the sham bullfight for which the trumpet was already sounding, to say nothing of the puppet or the other wonderful things. Her uncle and the grand inquisitor were much more sensible. They had come out on the terrace and paid her nice compliments, so she tossed her pretty head and, taking Don Pedro by the hand, she walked slowly down the steps towards a long pavilion of purple silk that had been erected at the end of the garden, the other children following in strict order of precedence, those who had the longest names going first. A procession of noble boys fantastically dressed as toreadors came out to meet her, and the young count of Tierra Nueva, a wonderfully handsome lad of about fourteen years of age, uncovering his head with all the grace of a born Hidalgo and Grand D of Spain, led her solemnly into a little guilt and ivory chair that was placed on a raised dais above the arena. The children grouped themselves all around, fluttering their big fans and whispering to each other, and Don Pedro and the grand inquisitor stood laughing at the entrance. Even the Duchess, the Camara Mayor as she was called, a thin, hard-featured woman with a yellow ruff, did not look quite so bad-tempered as usual, and something like a chill smile flitted across her wrinkled face and twitched her thin, bloodless lips. It certainly was a marvelous bullfight, and much nicer the Infanta thought than the real bullfight that she had been brought to see at Seville on the occasion of the visit of the Duke of Parma to her father. Some of the boys pranced about on richly caparis and hobby horses brandishing long javelins with gay streamers of bright ribbons attached to them. Others went on foot waving their scarlet cloaks before the bull, and vaulting lightly over the barrier when he charged them. As for the bull himself, he was just like a live bull, though he was only made of wicker work and stretched hide, and sometimes insisted on running around the area on his hind legs, which no live bull ever dreams of doing. He made a splendid fight of it, too, and the children got so excited that they stood up on the benches and waved their lace handkerchiefs and cried out, Bravo, Toro! Bravo, Toro! Just as sensibly as if they had been grown up people. At last, however, after a prolonged combat during which several of the hobby horses were gored through and through, and their riders dismounted, the young count of Tierra Nueva brought the bull to his knees, and having obtained permission from the Infanta to give the coup de gras, he plunged his wooden sword into the neck of the animal with such violence that the head came right off and disclosed the laughing face of little Monsieur de Laurent, the son of the French ambassador at Madrid. The area was then cleared amidst much applause, and the dead hobby horses dragged solemnly away by two moorish pages in yellow and black liveries. And after a short interlude during which a French posture master performed upon the tightrope, some Italian puppets appeared in the classical tragedy of Safa Nisba on the stage of a small theatre that had been built up for the purpose. They acted so well, and their gestures were so extremely natural that at the close of the play the eyes of the Infanta were quite dim with tears. Indeed, some of the children really cried and had to be comforted with sweetmeats, and the grand inquisitor himself was so affected that he could not help saying to Don Pedro that it seemed to him intolerable that things made simply out of wood and colored wax and worked mechanically by wires should be so unhappy and meet with such terrible misfortunes. An African juggler followed who brought in a large flat basket covered with a red cloth, and having placed it in the centre of the arena he took from his turban a curious reed pipe and blew through it. In a few moments the cloth began to move, and as the pipe grew shriller and shriller, two green and gold snakes put out their strange wedge-shaped heads and rose slowly up, swaying to and fro with the music as a plant sways in the water. The children, however, were rather frightened at their spotted hoods and quick-darting tongues, and were much more pleased when the juggler made a tiny orange tree grow out of the sand and bear pretty white blossoms and clusters of real fruit. And when he took the fan of the little daughter of the Marquis de la Torres and changed it into a bluebird that flew all around the pavilion and sang, their delight and amazement so bound. The solemn minuet, too performed by the dancing boys from the church of Nuresta Senor del Pilar, was charming. The Infanta had never before seen this wonderful ceremony which takes place every year at Maytime in front of the high altar of the Virgin and in her honour. And indeed none of the royal family of Spain had entered the great cathedral of Saragossa since a mad priest, supposed by many to have been in the pay of Elizabeth of England, had tried to administer the Prince of Astorias. So she had known only by hearsay of Our Lady's Dance as it was called and it certainly was a beautiful sight. The boys wore old fashioned court dresses of white velvet and their curious three-cornered hats were fringed with silver and surmounted with huge plumes of ostrich feathers. The dazzling whiteness of their costumes as they moved about in the sunlight being still more accentuated by their swarthy faces and long black hair. Everybody was fascinated by the grave dignity with which they moved through the intricate figures of the dance and by the elaborate grace of their slow gestures and stately bowels, and when they had finished their performance and doffed their great plumed hats to the Infanta, she acknowledged their reverence with much courtesy and made a vow that she would send a large wax candle to the shrine of Our Lady of Pilar in return for the pleasure that she had given her. A troop of handsome Egyptians as the gypsies were termed in those then advanced into the arena and sitting down cross-legs in a circle began to play softly upon their zithers moving their bodies to the tune and humming almost below their breath a low dreamy air. When they caught sight of Don Pedro they scowled at him and some of them looked terrified for only a few weeks before he had had two of their tribe hanged for sorcery in the marketplace at Seville. But the pretty Infanta charmed them as she leaned back peeping over her fan with her great hands and they felt sure that one so lovely as she was could never be cruel to anybody. So they played on very gently and just touching the cords of the zithers with their long pointed nails and their heads began to nod as though they were falling asleep. Suddenly with a cry so shrill that all the children were startled and Don Pedro's hand clutched the agate pommel of his dagger. They leapt to their feet and whirled madly round the enclosure beating their tambourines and whirled love-song in their strange guttural language. Then at another signal they all flung themselves again to the ground and lay there quite still, the dull strumming of the zithers being the only sound that broke the silence. After that they had done this several times they disappeared for a moment and came back leading a brown shaggy bear by a chain and carrying on their shoulders some little Barbary apes. The bear stood upon his head with the utmost gravity and the wise men played all kinds of amusing tricks with two gypsy boys who seemed to be their masters and fought with tiny swords and fired off guns and went through a regular soldier's drill just like the king's own bodyguard. In fact the gypsies were a great success. But the funniest part of the whole morning's entertainment was undoubtedly the dancing of the little dwarf. When he stumbled into the arena waddling on his crooked legs and wagging his huge misshapen head off into a loud shout of delight and the Infanta herself laughed so much that the Camero was obliged to remind her that although there were many precedents in Spain for a king's daughter weeping before her equals there were none for a princess of the blood royal making so merry before those who were her inferiors in birth. The dwarf however was really quite irresistible and even at the Spanish court always noted for its cultivated passion for the horrible so fantastic little monster had never been seen. It was his first appearance too. He had been discovered only the day before running wild through the forest by two of the nobles who happened to have been hunting in a remote part of the great corkwood that surrounded the town and had been carried off by them to the palace as a surprise for the Infanta, his father who was a poor charcoal burner being but too well pleased to get rid of so ugly and useless a child. Perhaps the most amusing thing about him was his complete unconsciousness of his own grotesque appearance. Indeed he seemed quite happy and full of the highest spirits. When the children laughed he laughed as freely and as joyously as any of them and at the close of each dance he made them each the funniest of bowels smiling and nodding at them just as if he was really one of themselves and not a little misshapen thing that nature in some humorous mood had fashioned for others to mock at. As for the Infanta she absolutely fascinated him. He could not keep his eyes off her and seemed to dance for her alone and when at the close of the performance remembering how she had seen the great ladies of the court throw bouquets to Caffarelli, the famous Italian treble whom the Pope had sent from his own chapel to Madrid that he might cure the king's melancholy by the sweetness of his voice. She took out of her hair the beautiful white rose and partly for a jest and partly to tease the matter threw it to him across the arena with her sweetest smile. He took the whole matter quite seriously and pressing the flower to his rough coarse lips he put his hand upon his heart and sank on one knee before her grinning from ear to ear and with his little bright eyes sparkling with pleasure. This so upset the gravity of the Infanta that she kept on laughing long after the little dwarf had ran out of the arena and expressed a desire to her uncle that she immediately repeated. The Camada however on the plea that the sun was too hot decided that it would be better that her highness should return without delay to the palace where a wonderful feast had been already prepared for her including a real birthday cake with her own initials worked all over it in painted sugar and a lovely silver flag waving from the top. The Infanta accordingly rose up with much dignity and having given orders that the little dwarf was after the hour of siesta and conveyed her thanks to the young count of Tira Nueva for his charming reception she went back to her apartments the children following in the same order in which they had entered. Now when the little dwarf heard that he was to dance a second time before the Infanta and by her own express command he was so proud that he ran out into the garden kissing the white rose in an absurd ecstasy of pleasure and making the most uncouth and clumsy gestures delight. The flowers were quite indignant at his daring to intrude into their beautiful home and when they saw him capering up and down the walks and waving his arms above his head in such a ridiculous manner they could not restrain their feelings any longer. He is really far too ugly to be allowed to play in any place where we are, cried the tulips. He should drink poppy juice and go to sleep for a thousand years said the great scarlet lilies and they grew quite hot and angry. He is a perfect horror screamed the cactus. Why he is twisted and stumpy and his head is completely out of proportion with his legs. Really he makes me feel prickly all over and if he comes near me I will sting him with my thorns. And he has actually got one of my best blooms exclaimed to the white rose tree. I gave it to the Infanta this morning myself as a birthday present and he has stolen it from her. And she called out thief, thief, at the top of her voice. Even the red geraniums who did not usually give themselves airs and were known to have a great many poor relations themselves curled up and disgust when they saw him. And when the violets meekly remarked that though he was certainly extremely plain still he could not help it. They retorted with a good deal of justice that that was his chief defect and that there was no reason why one should admire a person because he was incurable and indeed some of the violets themselves felt that the ugliness of the little dwarf was almost ostentatious and that he would have shown much better taste if he had looked sad or at least pensive instead of jumping about merrily and throwing himself into such grotesque and silly attitudes. As for the old sundial who was an extremely remarkable individual and had once told the time of day to know less a person than the Emperor Charles V himself he was so taken aback by the little dwarf's appearance that he almost forgot to mark two whole minutes with his long shadowy finger and could not help saying to the great milk-white peacock who was sunning herself on the balustrade that everyone knew that the children of kings were kings and that the children of charcoal burners were charcoal burners and that it was absurd to pretend that it wasn't so. A statement with which the peacock entirely agreed and indeed screamed out certainly, certainly in such a loud harsh voice that the goldfish who lived in the basin of the cool, splashing fountain put their heads out of the water and asked the huge stone tritons what on earth was the matter. But somehow the birds liked him. They had seen him often in the forest dancing about like an elf after the eddying leaves or crouched up in the hollow of some old oak tree sharing his nuts with squirrels. They did not mind his being ugly a bit. Why, even the nightingale herself who sang so sweetly in the orange groves at night that sometimes the moon leaned down to listen was not much to look at after all. And besides, he had been kind to them and during that terribly bitter winter when there were no berries on the trees and the ground was as hard as iron and the wolves had come down to the very gates of the city to look for food he had never once forgotten them but had always given them crumbs out of his little hunch of black bread and divided with them whatever poor breakfast he had. So they flew round and round him with their wings as they passed and chattered to each other and the little dwarf was so pleased that he could not help showing them the beautiful white rose and telling them that the Infanta herself had given it to him because she loved him. They did not understand a single word of what he was saying but that made no matter for they put their heads on one side and looked wise which is quite as good as understanding a thing and very much easier. The lizards also took an immense fancy to him and when he grew tired of running about and flung himself down on the grass to rest they played and romped all over him and tried to amuse him in the best way they could. Everyone cannot be as beautiful as a lizard they cried. That would be too much to expect and though it sounds absurd to say so he is really not so ugly after all provided of course that one shuts one's eyes and does not look at him. The lizards were extremely philosophical by nature and often sat thinking for hours and hours together there was nothing else to do or when the weather was too rainy for them to go out. The flowers however were excessively annoyed at their behavior and at the behavior of the birds. It only shows they said what a vulgarizing effect this incessant rushing and flying about has. Well-bred people always stay exactly in the same place as we do. No one ever saw us hopping up and down the walks or galloping madly through the grass after dragonflies. When we do want change of air for the gardener and he carries us to another bed this is dignified and as it should be. But birds and lizards have no sense of repose and indeed birds have not even a permanent address. They are mere vagrants like the gypsies and should be treated in exactly the same manner. So they put their noses in the air and looked very haughty and were quite delighted when after some time they saw the little dwarf scramble up from the grass and make his way across the terrace to the palace. He should certainly kept indoors for the rest of his natural life, they said. Look at his hunched back and his crooked legs and they began to titter. But the little dwarf knew nothing of all this. He liked the birds and the lizards immensely and thought that the flowers were the most marvelous things in the whole world except, of course, for the Infanta. But then she had given him the beautiful white rose and she loved him and that made a great difference. How he wished that he had gone back with her. She would have put him on her right hand and smiled at him and he would have never left her side but would have made her his playmate and taught her all kinds of delightful tricks. For though he had never been in a palace before, he knew a great many wonderful things. He could make little cages out of the rushes for the grasshoppers to sing in and fashion the long-jointed bamboo into the pipe that Pan loves to hear. He knew the cry of every bird and could call the starlings from the treetop or the heron from the water. He knew the trail of every animal and could track the hair by its delicate footprints and the bore by the trampled leaves. All the wild dances he knew, the mad dance in red rain with the autumn, the light dance in blue sandals over the corn, the dance with white snow wreaths in winter and the blossom dance through the orchards in spring. He knew where the wood pigeons built their nests and once when a fowler had snared the parent birds he had brought up the young ones himself and built a little dove-cott for them in the cleft of a parlor dome. They were quite tame and used to feed out of his hands every morning. She would like them and the rabbits that scurried about in the long ferns and the jays with their steely feathers and black bills and the hedgehogs that could curl themselves up into prickly balls and the great wise tortoise that crawled slowly about shaking their heads and nibbling at the young leaves. Yes, she must certainly play with him. He would give her his own little bed and would watch outside the window till dawn to see that the wild-horned cattle did not harm her nor the gaunt-wolves creep too near the hut. And at dawn he would tap at the shutters and wake her and they would go out and dance together all the day long. It was really not a bit lonely in the forest. Sometimes a bishop rode through on his white mule reading out of a painted book. Sometimes in their green velvet caps and their jerkins of tanned faulkners passed by with hooded hawks on their wrists. At vintage time came the grape-treaders with purple hands and feet wreathed with glossy ivy and carrying dripping skins of wine and the charcoal-burners sat round their huge braziers at night watching the dry logs charring slowly in the fire and roasting chestnuts in the ashes and the robbers came out of their caves and made merry with them. Once too he had seen a beautiful procession winding up the long, dusty road to Toledo. The monks went in front singing sweetly and carrying bright banners and crosses of gold and then in silver armor with matchlocks and pikes came the soldiers and in their midst walked three barefooted men in strange yellow dresses painted all over with wonderful figures and carrying lighted candles in their hands. Certainly there was a great deal to look at in the forest and when she was tired he would find a soft bank of moss for her or bury her in his arms for he was very strong though he knew that he was not tall. He would make her a necklace of red, briny berries that would be quite as pretty as the white berries that she wore on her dress and when she was tired of them she could throw them away and he would find her others. He would bring her acorn cups and do drenched anemones and tiny glow worms to be stars in the pale gold of her hair. But where was she? He asked the white rose and it was no answer. The whole palace seemed to sleep and even where the shutters had not been closed heavy curtains had been drawn across the windows to keep out the glare. He wandered all around looking for some place through which he might gain entrance and at last he caught sight of a little private door that was lying open. He slipped through and found himself in a splendid hall. Far more splendid he feared than the forest. There was so much more gilding everywhere and even the floor was filled with stones fitted together into a sort of geometric pattern. But the little Infanta was not there. Only some wonderful white statues that looked down on him from their Jasper pedestals with sad blank eyes and strangely smiling lips. At the end of the hall hung a richly embroidered curtain of black velvet powdered with suns and stars, the king's favorite devices, embroidered on the color he loved best. Perhaps she was hiding behind that. He would try at any rate. So he stole quietly across and drew it aside. No, there was only another room, though a prettier room he thought than the one he had just left. The walls were hung with a many-figured green aris of needle-wrought tapestry representing a hunt, the work of some Flemish artists who had spent more than seven years in its composition. It had once been the chamber of Jean-Néphou as he was called, that mad king who was so enamored of the chase that he went in his delirium to mount the huge rearing horses and to drag down the stag on which the great hounds were leaping, sounding his hunting-horn and stabbing with his dagger at the pale flying deer. It was now used as the council room, and on the center table were lying the red portfolios of the ministers, stamped with the gold tulips of Spain and with the arms and emblems of the House of Hopsburg. The little dwarf looked in wonder all around him and the strange silent horsemen that galloped so swiftly through the long glades without making any noise seemed to him like those terrible phantoms of whom he had heard the charcoal-burners speaking, the Camprachos, who hunt only at night and if they meet a man turn him into a hind and chase him. But he thought of the pretty Infanta and took carriage. He wanted to find her alone and tell her that he too loved her. Perhaps she was in the room beyond. He ran across the soft, moorish carpets door. No, she was not here either. The room was quite empty. It was a throne room, used for the reception of foreign ambassadors, when the king, which of late had not been often, consented to give them a personal audience. The same room in which many years before envoys had appeared from England to make arrangements for the marriage of their queen, then one of the Catholic sovereigns of Europe with the emperor's eldest son. The hangings were of gilt cordove and chandelier with branches for 300 wax lights hung down from the black and white ceiling. Underneath a great canopy of gold cloth on which the lions and towers of Castile were broidered in seed pearls, stood the throne itself, covered with a rich pall of black velvet studded with silver tulips and elaborately fringed with silver and pearls. On the second step of the throne was placed the kneeling stool of the Infanta, with its cushion of cloth of silver tissue and below that again and beyond the limit of the canopy stood the chair of the papal nuncio, who alone had the right to be seated in the king's presence on the occasion of any public ceremonial, and whose cardinals had with its tangled scarlet tassels lay on a purple tabaret in front. On the wall facing the throne hung a life-sized portrait of Charles V in hunting dress with a great mastiff by his side, and a picture of Philip II receiving the homage of the Netherlands occupied the center of the other wall. Between the windows stood a black ebony cabinet, inlaid with plates of ivory on which the figures from Holbein's Dance of Death had been graved by the handsome said of that famous master himself. But the little dwarf cared nothing for all this magnificence. He would not have given his rose for all the pearls on the canopy nor one white petal of his rose for the throne itself. What he wanted was to see the Infanta before she went to Julian and to ask her to come away with him when he had finished his dance. Here in the palace the air was close and heavy, but in the forest the wind blew free and the sunlight with wandering hands of gold moved the tremulous leaves aside. There were flowers too in the forest, not so splendid perhaps as the flowers in the garden, but more sweetly scented for all that, hyacinths in early spring that flooded with waving purple the cool glands and grassy nulls. There were yellow primroses that nestled in little clumps round the gnarled roots of the oak trees. Bright selendine and blue speedwell and irises, lilac and gold. There were grey catkins on the hazels and the fox-gloves drooped with the weight of their dappled bee-haunted cells. The chestnut had its spires of white stars and the hawthorn its pallid moons of beauty. Yes, surely she would come if he could only find her. The fair forest and all day long he would dance for her delight. A smile lit up his eyes at the thought and he passed into the next room. Of all the rooms this was the brightest and the most beautiful. The walls were covered with a pink flowered luka damisk patterned with birds and dotted with dainty blossoms of silver. The furniture was of massive silver festooned with florid wreaths and swinging cupids. In front of the two large wooden peacocks and the floor which was of sea-green onyx seemed to stretch far away into the distance. Nor was he alone. Standing under the shadow of the doorway at the extreme end of the room he saw a little figure watching him. His heart trembled. A cry of joy broke from his lips and he moved out into the sunlight. As he did so the figure moved out also and he saw it plainly. The Infanta! Never Be Held. Not properly shaped as all other people were but hunchbacked and crook-limbed with huge lolling head and mane of black hair. Little Dwarf frowned and the monster frowned also. He laughed and it laughed with him and held its hands to its sides just as he himself was doing. He made it a mocking bow and it returned him a low reverence. He went towards it and it came to meet him copying each step that he made and stopping when he followed with amusement and ran forward and reached out his hand and the hand of the monster touched his and it was cold as ice. He grew afraid and moved his hand across and the monster's hand followed it quickly. He tried to press on but something smooth and hard stopped him. The face of the monster was now close to his own and seemed full of terror. He brushed his hair off his eyes. It imitated him. He struck at it and it retreated. What is it? He thought for a moment and looked round at the rest of the room. It was strange but everything seemed to have its double in this invisible wall of clear water. Yes, picture for picture was repeated and couch for couch. The sleeping fawn that lay in the alcove by the doorway had its twin brother that slumbered and the silver Venus that stood in the sunlight held out it echo. He had called to her once in the valley and she had answered him word for word. Could she mock the eye as she mocked the voice? Could she make a mimic world just like the real world? Could the shadows of things have color and life and movement? Could it be that— He started and taking from his breast the beautiful white rose he turned round and kissed it. The monster had a rose of its own, petal for petal the horrible gestures. When the truth dawned upon him he gave a wild cry of despair and fell sobbing to the ground. So it was he who was misshapen and hunched back, foul to look at and grotesque. He himself was the monster and it was at him that all the children had been laughing and the little princess who he had thought loved him she too had been merely mocking at his ugliness and making merry over his twisted limbs. Why had they not left him in the forest where there was no mirror to tell him how awesome he was? Why had his father not killed him rather than sell him to his shame? The hot tears poured down his cheeks and he tore the white rose to pieces. The sprawling monster did the same and scattered the faint petals in the air. It groveled on the ground and when he looked at it it watched him with a face drawn with pain. He crept away lest he should see it and covered his eyes with his hands. He crawled like some wounded thing into the shadow and lay there moaning. And at that moment the Infanta herself came in with her companions through the open window and when they saw the ugly little dwarf lying on the ground and beating the floor with his clenched hands in the most fantastic and exaggerated manner they went off into shouts of happy laughter and stood all around him and watched him. His dancing was funny, said the Infanta, but his acting is funnier still. Indeed he is almost as good as the puppets only of course not quite so natural. And she fluttered her big fan and applauded. But the little dwarf never looked up and his sobs grew fainter and fainter and suddenly he gave a curious gasp and clutched his side and then he fell back again and lay quite still. That is capital, said the Infanta after a pause, but now you must dance for me. Yes, cried all the children, you must get up and dance for you are as clever as the Barbary apes and much more ridiculous. But the little dwarf made no answer. And the Infanta stamped her foot and called out to her uncle who was walking on the terrace with the Chamberlain reading some dispatches that had just arrived from Mexico. And the Infanta called out to her uncle who was walking on the terrace with the Chamberlain reading some dispatches that had just arrived from Mexico where the Holy Office had recently been established. My funny little dwarf is sulking, she cried. You must wake him up and tell him to dance with me. They smiled at each other and sauntered in and Don Pedro stooped down and slapped the dwarf on the cheek with his embroidered glove. You must dance, he said, pétate mon sire, you must dance, the Infanta of Spain and the Indies wishes to be amused. But the little dwarf never moved. A whipping master should be sent for, said Don Pedro wearily and he went back to the terrace. But the Chamberlain looked grave and he knelt beside the little dwarf and put his hand upon his heart. And after a few moments he shrugged his shoulders and rose up and having made a low bow to the Infanta he said, Mi bella princesa, your funny little dwarf will never dance again. It is a pity for he is so ugly that he might have made the king smile. But why will he not dance again, asked the Infanta Chamberlain? And the Infanta frowned and her dainty rose leaf lips curled in pretty disdain. For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts, she cried and she ran out into the garden. End of The Birthday of the Infanta by Oscar Wilde.