Jesse Ball - The Village on Horseback - Prose and Verse, 2003-2008

It happened that a man returned from his day’s labor to find three young women living in his house. The first was black-haired, the second yellow-haired, and the hair of the third was scarlet. They gave him different reasons for their arrival. The first said they had been drowned in a lake by their father, who could not bear their taking lovers, and this is where they had emerged.

The second said they were tinkers, and had come to fix his pots. The third said they were commissioned by a lord to find the only honest man in Christendom. The beauty of but one of these girls would have lit the rooms of his house as by some small descended sun. The presence of three was uncanny and hardly to be borne. “I think you have come to take a husband,” said the man. And the girls laughed, and it was true that one would remain. But which? Each day, the three would tell stories, and he would guess at who was lying. And always he would catch the black-haired girl, while the others could deceive him. For her lies were grand, implausible affairs, and a signal delight. The girls slept in his bed, all three, while he laid out a mat on the kitchen floor, and wrapped himself in a single woolen blanket. Each night he would hear their murmuring, as they composed the next day’s lies. Finally, he took to writing these lies down in a leather book. For one year they stayed, and when they left all three left together, in the night. And when he looked at the book he had kept, he saw that he had only ever written down the tales the black-haired girl had told. He saw also, that he had been wrong, and that some tales he had thought false, now seemed true. A book, he thought to himself, a book of lies and truths. All equally redeeming, all damning, all brought upon us by these ghosts, our selves, and where we walk, where we have walked, where we will walk yet, guided by a chorus whose nature must always be hidden.

And therefore, simply keep a cup, dusted lightly with poison, within your cupboard. When the time comes, let your fellow pour the drink, first in your cup, then in his. Drink well and long to various healths. The health of life. The health of love. And the health of hate. By then, he will be beyond help, or health, and you may say what you like for as long as you like, as well or as poorly as you know how.

composed of: BESTIARY nos. 1–17 and LATER MANUAL

If, in a crowd of thousands there is preserved one who knows me, then I go free.

The first dream in which I had the sensation of my true situation while asleep occurs in the 207th night; the second in the 214th.

Hervey de Saint-Denys, 1867

I woke in the midst of a deep sleep,

some sleep such as comes over

the entirety of the world, that lasts

an infinite and indefinite period;

that, when finished, is scarcely marked

by those who slept. Out in the world

things were quiet. I went to the house

of the girl I love. She was asleep.

I dressed her, and took her with me

over my shoulder. By the river I picked

cornflowers. It was a glorious day.

From a great distance I saw a picnic,

a party of revelers, a dog. But so far,

would we ever reach them?

My girl did not answer, but looked

lovely I may tell you, in blue cotton.

I began to cross the plain.

If the day stays still we may

yet reach the other side,

to picnic there in ten years’ time.

There are three walking by the small river,

dividing the world’s belongings

into three. A hatted man in a road-stained cloak.

To the left, a miller bent upon a stick, who seems,

though crippled, to ask no help of his daughter,

she who wanders there

in the composition, the daylight rolled up

like a map against her scarlet hair.

They have been talking some time it seems

without passing beyond that row of hills

the young traveler would have crossed to come

to this crisis, to this dwelling place.

And yes, there is a mill, some four brushstrokes

delicately upon a distant withered lawn. Economy

constitutes this life: the daughter has but one

dress, that she wears; she has but one suitor,

soon to pass away; but one father, hateful,

gathering the plurals of sadness to himself;

one sadness, shared like bread; one world, beyond,

evoked once by the single traveler who has seen her

stark against foreshortened youth. For they grow old,

these wild daughters, bound to fathers

in grim lands. In them grief is a yellow tree, encircled

by a fence of bird-like angels. No shout will cause

this flock to rise to air. And here the light

is never strong enough for the face upon waking,

though it pools where the animals sleep,

and comes radiant at night through unreachable

fields, through windows which, seen with closed eyes,

confirm all dread — elsewhere there is a dance

that many have joined. She winces, and her one hand

is joined by the other, as if it were the painter himself, who,

painting an arm to hold the arm which looked

so hard to bear, had given himself away.

He was this traveler, Arravelli, who lied and yet did not lie,

a young man who said he would return.

Whatever you do by the margin,

don’t touch the tree line. It’s poisonous.

Grandfather planted it sixty years ago

to keep things out. He’s the only one

it cares for. You should see

the old man take a walk. He goes along

the forest edge, whistling, “St. Pierre is Home”

and it opens like a door

into some other wooden room.

It was a gray sun that stood at the door that day

and asked me for some water. Deny the sun

a cup of water? I could not.

And let me tell you something else. If it had asked

for a bed I’d have given it a bed. If it had asked

for a roasted calf, I’d have given it a roasted calf.

Soon after it left, I felt empty. I went

back to my needlepoint — three yellow bees

trying to escape from the Archangel Gabriel.

They’d stung him rather badly

on his hands and on the loose and careless

portions of his wings.

to be told at gatherings

The resignation of the sheriff left nothing to be done. The populace of that tiny hamlet poured out into the cramped streets, half-dressed and quarrelsome. Shops were broken into. Women were vigorously affronted. Men too were affronted, with equal vigor and panache. Many living near the municipal zoo were beaten by a crowd of contrary children. I taught everyone a hymn I had written, complete with musical accompaniment. It went:

Kill us if you like,

but you won’t like Hell

when you do (when you do)

come to (come to)

in the heat (in the hot)

in the hot (in the heat)

in the goddamn fire of the Lord.

I pretend now to have made it up, but actually an old woman sang it to me when I menaced her husband with my little knife. I wanted their clothing, particularly her aubergine housecoat.