The Circus of Dr. Lao Read online

  "How are you going to find the fairest virgin, though?" demanded the man who had interrupted before.

  "We will hold a beauty contest here and now," said the priest. "Let all our virgins line up; we will choose the loveliest by popular acclaim. It will be a great honor for her. Besides, it is better that only one should die than the whole populace. That is the theory of sacrifice. So let all the virgins line up here. Please, now! Quickness is essential. Yottle is very angry. Hurry! Hurry!"

  A dozen girls formed a nervous row.

  "Acgh!" said the priest in disgust, "there are more girls than this in Woldercan. I can see more with my own eyes. Come! Come!"

  Some realist reminded him one of the specifications was on the count of true maidenhood.

  "Gracious," said the priest. "Of course. That explains it. Very well. As I walk behind these girls, my children, and hold my hand over their respective heads, you will, by your applause, indicate the one you wish for the bride of Yottle."

  Facing the faces of the people of Woldercan, the twelve lumps of ripe but untasted sex stood posing, stood waiting for the accolade that would bring to one of them the crown of beauty, the caress of death. The old trembly priest doddered behind the girls, holding over their fair, triumphant heads — fair with grace and charm, triumphant with youth and life — his wrinkled hands. And throbs in greater and lesser volumes of applause spread through the congregation as over each head in turn the priestly hands were questioningly poised. And over the twelfth head, a dark little, proud little, exquisite little head, as the aged hands were raised, the applause became thunderously loud, ever increasing, rising, and echoing; and the bride of Yottle had been chosen.

  But from the throng there came a great choking cry. And the man who had interrupted the high priest's prayer knelt in sudden, sunken, awful misery. For Woldercan had chosen his sweetheart, his betrothed.

  The priest consoled him ineffectually. "Yottle's ways are not always to be understood, brother," he said. "And Yottle doubtless inspired the people to choose her. Peace, brother, and fear nothing. Glory awaits her."

  The people were keyed to a tottering pitch. "Come!" they called. "Come. Never mind him. Let's have the sacrifice."

  "Yes," said the priest. "Now bow your heads."

  Acolytes in an honor guard hush-hushed the congregation as, a little behind them, the virgin walked to the altar. A strange dark light was on her face, and above her head a faint pallid halo hung. She was of Woldercan no more; they knew it. Staring at her with twisted, side glancing eyes, they wondered, now that she was consecrate, why they had not perceived her holiness before. And the temple of her flesh moved through the throng in the temple of Yottle, a sweeter, holier temple, more mysterious and provocative of a greater adoration than the stone temple through which she walked.

  Her lover flung up his head pathetically, and he screamed tragically:

  "Oh, stop her! Stop her! Good God Almighty, stop her! Let me die instead. Let us all die rather than let her even be touched. That brazen image; this lovely girl; kill the one to placate the other? Madness! Oh, hell and heaven, do not slay her for that idol!"

  "Be still!" said the people. "Sit down! You are hysterical. Yottle has spoken and we will sacrifice her to him. Glory to Yottle's name! From him all wisdom stems and flowers. Do your duty, priest."

  From the coign beneath the dais of ivory, the high priest lifted the sacred stone ax. He directed the virgin to unclothe herself that she might go to Yottle unhampered by linen and cotton coverings. The Woldercanese were shaking and roaring with excitement. The temple itself seemed to quiver.

  The old priest expectorated in his thin palms and hoisted the ax.

  Then did the lover spring up like a hind and dash through the multitude to the side of his loved one. Shrieking "No, no!" and "Stop, stop!" he grappled with the high priest, fighting furiously for the monolithic tool. The people of Woldercan bellowed ferociously as a fury fell upon them. It seemed that, mob-like, they would storm the altar.

  But very quietly, yet with a horrid, impatient suddenness, Yottle fell forward off his ivory dais. His upraised hand caught the battling lover on the head, cracking it like a nut. Unable to escape, priest and virgin, too, were crushed by the fall of his great brazen body. There beneath the altar lay three corpses and the great god Yottle.

  High from the fair heaven came loaves of manna, falling to the hungry Woldercanese. And for their crops a thin wispy rain came weeping into the wind, drizzling and dripping.

  Then the ends of the tent fell outward and down, and the circus of Doctor Lao was over. And into the dust and the sunshine the people of Abalone went homewards or wherever else they were going.

  ***

  THE CATALOGUE

  (An explanation of the obvious which must be read to be appreciated)

  I. THE MALE CHARACTERS

  DOCTOR LAO: A Chinese.

  MR. ETAOIN: A corrector of errors.

  APOLLONIUS OF TYANA: A legend.

  AN OLD-LIKE PARTY IN GOLF PANTS: A bore.

  A QUARANTINE INSPECTOR: A good party man.

  ANOTHER QUARANTINE INSPECTOR: A good party man.

  ISKANDER: A legend.

  ISKANDER'S CAPTAIN: Diogenes of Damos. An expert with a longbow; could hit an obolus three out of seventeen tries at nineteen paces.

  KUBLAI KHAN: In his day he was China.

  LUTHER: A voice, not a face; likewise a harried homunculus; likewise ultimately the owner of a fine statue.

  A RAILROAD TRAFFIC OFFICER: Described in the text.

  UNGAUBWA: A black priest, differing from that other black priest, Montanus, both as to creed and virility.

  JOHN ROGERS: Learned the plumbing trade at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen. Never made a hell of a lot of money at it, however. A good union man.

  PAUL CONRAD GORDON: His father was way up in the bond business back in Detroit. Paul majored in mechanical engineering but after he graduated got a job as an aluminum salesman. It paid more.

  SLICK BROMIEZCHSKI: His old man was a Polish immigrant, but Slick was so hot at football in high school that one of the temples of higher education made it worth his while to keep on with his culture. Mentioned as all-America end in some of the lesser sporting journals during his junior year,

  CLOWNS: Pantaloons whose hearts are bursting.

  CROWD OF MEXICANS LARRY KAMPER SHOULDERED HIS WAY THROUGH: Peons, agrarians, hacendados, padrones, prizefighters, bullfighters, laborers.

  BILL: William R. Johnston. He had been drinking the night before he saw the parade and didn't feel so good that morning. Shot a good game of golf.

  BILL'S FRIEND: Murray R. Kaldwell. In the ready-to-wear business. A sound merchandise man and a good window-dresser. Didn't like at all the kind of ads Steele would lay out for him in the Tribune.

  TEDDY ROOSEVELT: An American President.

  A RUSSIAN.

  HARVEY: Harvey R. Todd. When Frank Tull told him and Helen what he had seen at the circus, Harvey and Helen always regretted they hadn't gone.

  A FAUN: See Praxiteles.

  JOE: A voice, not a face. Tenor, but rasping.

  FRANK TULL: Described in the text. A good man before a jury.

  PETTY CHINESE PRINCES: Wang Wei, Wang Foo, Wang Goo, Wang Chow. Not even legends any more.

  LARRY KAMPER: Described in the text. After he got to Panama, he got into trouble and stood special court-martial for violation of Article of War Number ninety-six. They sent him up for nine months in the guardhouse, and while Larry was there he became awfully efficient at policing up around the post. Awfully nice chap, if you didn't expect too much of him. Good guy to go on a drunk with. The dirtier the story you told him, the louder he'd laugh. Old Larry didn't give a damn whether school kept or not and was the first to tell you so.

  HARRY MARTINEZ: His forefathers came to this country a little after Hernando Cortez. His foremothers, Mayans, Toltecs, and Aztecs, were already here.

  LARRY KAMPER'S FRIEND: Walter R. Dones. A truck
driver, temporarily out of employment. He wasn't so good at spotting a truck, but he could keep one running, and that was more than most of the other guys could do.

  POLICE FORCE OF ABALONE: Ex-cowpunchers, ex-railroad men, ex-bootleggers, ex-sheriffs, ex-contractors, ex-farmers. Mighty good policemen, too. Of course, they'd cut one another's throats now and then playing politics and all, but, hell, a guy's got to look out for himself these days. It's a goddam cinch no one else will.

  "TRIBUNE" AD MANAGER: Everybody liked him, and those who were under him said he was the best boss they'd ever had.

  STEELE: Just dumb enough so that most merchants would listen to him when he wanted to sell them a little display space.

  "TRIBUNE" CITY EDITOR: An able man. Should have been on a better paper, but his health kept him in Abalone.

  CHINESE TROOPS IN TONGSHAN, CHINA: Members of Chang Tsolin's Manchurian forces. Coolies dressed in scarecrow uniforms, handed guns they didn't know how to shoot, and dubbed soldiers. No pay. Rations, a couple of doughballs every day. None regretted he had only one life to give for China.

  PANCHO VILLA: A legend.

  THE DEAD MAN APOLLONIUS BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE: Arnold R. Todhunter. A homesteader. Later on, when a Tribune reporter interviewed him about the hours he spent in the arms of death, he testified he was just on the point of being issued a harp and a gown when Apollonius reclaimed his clay. He said Heaven reminded him more than anything else of an advertisement he had once read of Southern California.

  A CONDEMNED CHINESE DESERTER: Lin Tin Ho. Age thirty. Survived by his wife and two daughters. A Shanhaikwan farmer. Impressed into the service on May 11. Shipped to Tongshan May 18. Deserted May 19. Captured May 20. Tried and sentenced May 21. Executed May 22. Pictures of his execution still may be purchased in Tientsin and Peiping. Lots of tourists and missionaries have them. The thing to do is buy one of those snapshots showing Lin getting pistoled, take it home with you carelessly intermixed with pictures of temples and canals, and then when your friends, who are looking over your Chinese album, run across it, why, just nonchalantly pass it off as a little thing you took yourself. There's no way to check up on you, unless someone you show it to has seen it before.

  RED, BLACK, AND WHITE PEOPLE OF ABALONE: American Indians such as Papagos, Pimas, Apaches, Yaquis, and Yumas. Aframericans such as quadroons, high yallers, octoroons, seal-skin browns, and mulattoes. Whites such as Spanish Americans, Texans, Easterners, Californians, and health-seekers and dude ranchers.

  NEBULOUS PEOPLE SOME DAY TO BURY MRS. CASSAN: A minister, an undertaker, a gravedigger, some mourners, and some morbid curiosity-seekers.

  NEBULOUS PEOPLE SOME DAY TO EXHUME FRANK TULL: A contractor, a straw boss, and seven laborers. They didn't do it on purpose. They were fixing to dig the holes for the foundation of a new T.B. sanatorium and didn't know they were scratching into sepulchral ground.

  DOCTOR BROWNE: He found some pots in an arable field between Buxton and Brampton but belonging to Brampton; burial urns they were.

  PHINEAS TAYLOR BARNUM: See his autobiography.

  CIGARETTE FIENDS: Serfs of the narcotic lady nicotine.

  GAUTAMA: Wherever he sat, ultimately a bo tree flourished.

  GLASSBLOWERS: Artisans.

  RESURRECTED SUPERMEN: Usually disappointments, for their legends have towered higher than they are able to reach.

  DARK MEN IN MRS. CASSAN'S LIFE: Wops, Spicks, Frawgs, and furriners.

  TURBANED MYSTIC: Swami. Yogi. Mahatma. Krishna.

  UNSCRUPULOUS FINANCIERS AND POLITICIANS: Bankers. Aldermen.

  HERMES: A legend.

  CITY CLERK: A voice over the telephone.

  MEN THAT STAYED OUT ON THE HILLS WITH THEIR FLOCKS: This was before the cattle-sheep feuds of the West. But, anyway, these men and their followers are largely responsible for the wealth of sheepherder stories that flood the world today. And where there is fire, there must be smoke. The Book of Leviticus contains many a specific warning, Godspoken to Moses, about the penalties of loving your livestock unwisely and too well.

  RAILROAD TRAFFIC OFFICER'S FELLOW-WORKER: Howard R. Ginter. He looked like he might be a prizefighter, but in reality he was just a bookkeeper. He made very good home brew.

  ASTROLOGERS OF CHALDEA: Starwatchers.

  GEOLOGIST FROM THE UNIVERSITY: Understood cleavages and erosion and, from a single jawbone, he could tell what the hind foot and the fundament of the beast were like.

  ROUGH-LOOKING MEN WHO LOADED KATE ON THE TRUCK: Leslie R. Stevens, George R. Smith, Peter R. Summerton, and Claude R. Watson. They never did figure out just what the hell Kate was, but they complained to Luther that the thing was awful damn heavy.

  FORGOTTEN EGYPTIAN TAXIDERMIST: Originally an embalmer of princes, hakims, bashas, chosroeses, and effendis, he extended his art to the preservation of dead animals. He knew about the circulation of blood long before Harvey did.

  MONK FROM TIBET: He lived in a yurt, ate tea thick with butter, wondered a lot about life, took a vow of chastity but broke it when he was in Alexandria, discovered the Ovis poli and the spectacled bear, not knowing what he had discovered, knew some good jokes, and died without ever being really satisfied.

  SIMPLE FOLK BY A LAKESIDE WHO SAW THE YOUNG SATYR: Greek agriculturalists.

  THE LITTLE FAT BROWN BOY'S FATHER: A spearer of fishes and a good husbandman. When he planted rice seeds rice came up. When he planted plantain seeds plantain came up. When he planted his own seed the little fat brown boy came up.

  MASTER OF THE DUROC JERSEY PIG: James R. Sawyer, a small farmer in Missouri. If it hadn't been for his eyes seeing things and his belly wanting them, the money that he might have saved would have made a considerable pile.

  THE CHINESE TRAVELER FROM THE NORTHERN CAPITAL: Liu Beaow. A scholar, but a secret apostate to the teachings of both Gautama and Con Fu Tze.

  THE GUYS PANCHO VILLA 'DOBE-WALLED: There were two outstanding ones. One had been a notorious killer himself, and when he stood there facing the Villa rifles and looking at the sun and sky for the last time, he broke down and cried as no baby ever cried. The other was an unfortunate who had never killed anyone nor even hurt anyone, but he belonged to the wrong party. He faced the rifles with calmness and waved a good-by to his friends.

  THE NOBODY THAT DIDN'T LAUGH WHEN PANCHO VILLA 'DOBE-WALLED THE GUYS: Harry Martinez, Felix Bustamante, Carlos Villalobos, Carlos Delgado, Michael Pierpont, Pierre Maeyer, Pancho Villa, the seven members of the firing squad, and the guys that got killed.

  THE BELVEDERIAN DOCTOR: He taught his students that it was better to live a life rather than earn a living.

  HIGH PRIEST OF YOTTLE: Converted to the faith at the age of forty-seven. Ordained at fifty-seven. Went on an evangelical mission which lasted seven years. Saved and baptized the heathen right and left. Succeeded to the high-priestship in his ninety-seventh year. Died steadfast in the faith.

  MAN WHO INTERRUPTED THE HIGH PRIEST: A lowborn, argumentative, vulgar, deceitful fellow.

  A REALIST IN WOLDERCAN: He had that sort of thing on his mind all the time.

  II. THE FEMALE CHARACTERS

  KATE: A sad memory.

  THE RAILROAD MAN'S WIFE: Martha. Calm, sad, insecure; sometimes she laughed; laughing, she wondered; wondering, she wanted to cry.

  MISS AGNES BIRDSONG: The boys all said she was damned good company after she learned to smoke and drink. Doctor Lao's circus broadened her outlook, gave her things to think about when sleepless she tossed on her couch of nights, when bored she listened to her pupils botch syntax of days.

  MRS. HOWARD T. CASSAN: Described in the text.

  THE WIFE OF PLUMBER ROGERS: Sarah. Loved her children, liked her husband, was content in Abalone, cooked good things to eat, kept a neat home, dreamed of no miracles, desired no victories, fretted when it was time to fret, laughed when it was time to laugh.

  TWO SHEPHERDESSES: Dora Beaulais and Dulce Bonaventura.

  A CHORUS OF NYMPHS: Dorothy, Louise, Hilda, Elsie, Laura, Dorothy, O
pal, Eva. Dorothy, Isabel, Helen, and Hildegarde; Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy.

  FIVE COLORED GIRLS: Quintet of pigmented maidens. Pigmented quintet of girls. Girlish quintet of pigmentation.

  MRS. FRANK TULL: Before her marriage, Valerie Jones. Frank was a disappointment to her. She was a disappointment to Frank. There were in her life other disappointments, too. For instance, Nature had not endowed her with all the lovely beauty she thought her due, so, in order to augment what little which she had, she covered herself with objects themselves lovely and beautiful, and strove through theirs to add to her lack. From tiny holes in her ears she hung gold and jeweled pendants. Into the pores of her cheeks she rubbed ointments and greases of suave colors. Over her legs she drew stockings of sheer silk. Around her wrists she placed gauds of silver and bright stones. Up her fingers she slid little hoops of metal embossed with carbon. Upon her lips she dabbed rouge. Her abdomen she upheld with a belt and a corset. Her breasts she fitted into pert pouches. Over her feet she laced tight little shoes. Around her shoulders she flung animal skins. Her hair she had permanently waved. Powder she put on her neck and upon her throat; and under her arms, previously shaven smooth, she syringed a deodorant. Thus she managed to change her color, her figure, and her smell, and at the same time gleam with bright metal and glossy fur and dull silk and brilliant stones. Yet, by heaven, even then she still did not attain that beauty she so much desired; and because of that failure of attainment she would occasionally fall sick, and naught would cure the sickness save that Frank buy her more bright stones.

  HELEN: Wife of Harvey. Was afflicted with the vice of lying.

  "TRIBUNE" LADY REPORTER: Ardath Williams. A better newspaperperson than the men she competed with. At the same time a mother. At the same time a daughter.

  A SCULLION MAID: She was for sale. She could be had.