Steven Millhauser - The King in the Tree

“ ’Tis well represented, Augustus,” Georgiana said. “But I do not much care to spend the whole of a summer afternoon walking in the bowels of the earth listening to ceaseless shrieks of torment.” And Juan, who would have liked nothing better, looked with regret at the cruel fruit, the vulture’s beak, the twisted mouths and hopeless eyes, as they made their way out of the pit and up the flight of steps.

“This way lies Elysium,” Hood said, leading them along the right-hand path. “I think you will prefer it, Georgiana.” Suddenly, around a bend, the path opened into a brilliantly lit realm of meadows and streams, of shady groves and river-banks. The ceiling was painted bright blue, with here and there a white cloud, blue-shadowed. A large lake held a scattering of islands.

“What a perfect place for tea!” exclaimed Mary. Hood, his cheeks flushed with pleasure, led them to the shore of the lake, where a smiling ferryman ushered them onto his boat and poled them to an island. Tea was served by a footman in livery under a spreading oak.

“Now tell me, by my soul!” Hood cried, lifting an arm. “What think you of my Paradise?”

“Oh, Augustus!” Mary cried. “I could stay here — oh, my!” Covering her mouth with a hand, she gave a little laugh. “Why, I almost said: forever.”

“Sir,” said Georgiana, “you look displeased, here in Elysium.”

“Madam,” Juan answered, “upon my word, ’tis all a wonder. And yet, I hope it may not strike you as fantastic, but some prefer Tartarus.”

At this Georgiana burst into laughter; Mary started to smile, forced herself to be serious, and suddenly began laughing uncontrollably; Hood laughed until tears poured from his eyes; and Juan, sitting on a cushioned chair in Elysium, surrounded by the good-natured laughter of friends, smiled tensely as he bent to sip his tea.

Two nights later he found himself pacing back and forth in his moonlit bedroom. As if idly he stepped to the open casement window. There he stood looking out at the sharp tree-shadows on the grass below and a distant glimmer of river. A moment later he sprang onto the ledge, climbed partway down the wall along the two projecting stones, and leaped lightly to the ground. Quietly he made his way around the guest wing to the sloping front lawn, which he followed down to the river. He walked among the osiers, pushing aside branches that made lines in the surface of the water. After a while he stopped, resting one hand on a broad osier branch at the height of his shoulder. With a sudden motion he pulled himself up onto the tree, and as he did so his arm remembered something from long ago, when as a boy he swung himself into an orange tree in his father’s orchard. Juan climbed several branches and settled halfway up, resting each leg along a separate branch. He sat looking out at the clear dark water on one side of his tree and, on the other side, the moon-bright house, sharply outlined against the blue-black sky. Up there, near the top of the slope, he became aware of two dim forms. They were drifting down toward the river. The long, full gowns glowed in the moonlight, and in the stillness he could hear the lap of river water against the bank, the cry of insects, a sharp bark from the kennels, the sound of silk rustling on grass.

“. . mysterious message that you. .”

“. . do not wish to be overheard by. .”

They began to walk along the osier path.

“. . strangely, Mary. This urgent matter you speak of— does it really require nocturnal flight, hushed whispers, and perambulation beneath a canopy of stars?”

“ ’Tis not entirely for my sake that I—”

“Do you mean—”

“Rather, for mine,” Juan said, dropping lightly from the tree and sweeping his plumed hat to the ground. “If you would allow me but a single—”

“Is it the fashion in Seville, Sir, for men to jump out of trees?”

“In Seville, Madam, ’tis the fashion for men to jump out of clouds.”

“And in your cloudy Seville, Sir, has it never happened, that two women accosted at night have cried out for help? What say you to that, Sir?”

“Madam, ’tis I who am desperately in need of help, which you alone—”

“But where on earth is Mary?”

“Not far,” she called, invisible among the osiers.

“I fear I have deeply offended you.”

“My sister has offended me. Come, Sir, we can walk a little way, if you like.”

Juan, walking beside her along the osier path, was aware of nothing but the moonlight rippling over her silk gown and lace cap, as if she were dissolving into the summer night. A melancholy exhilaration seized him: he was walking at night, alone, along the river, with a Georgiana who was nothing but the dream of a summer night — for how could it be otherwise? He had waited for this moment too feverishly, and now that it was here he could only walk, rippling beside her, a dream beside a dream. And that was good; that was as it should be. For when you are flesh and blood, Georgiana, then you keep me at a distance, with your cool smile and your eyes glancing away, but when you are a dream we can walk forever in the fleshdissolving night. And because everything is permitted in a dream, Don Juan walked close beside her, so that along with the smell of the river and the trees he could inhale the subtle scent of her face and hair; and bending his face to hers, he whispered the words, the dream-words, the foolish words that he had uttered ten thousand times without giving them a thought but that now, in his dream-walk by the river, seemed to be charged with a new, mysterious meaning: “I love you”— whispered them with such fervent quietness that he wondered whether he had only imagined them, there at the edge of the world. But at once Georgiana stiffened and drew back, saying, “I must go back now. Mary!”—and Juan, stung with the sharp sense of coming up from the bottom of the sea, heard the crushed-paper sound of her gown hurrying up the lawn and saw, as he turned to look after her, his hand suspended in the air, as though he had forgotten it.

The next day Georgiana kept to her room. She wasn’t feeling well, Mary reported, a little breathlessly, throwing him a look. In the unforgiving sunlight Juan rehearsed the events of the night with fascinated revulsion: the childish plan, the idiotic leap from the tree, the wordless walk, the breathed-out words that had affected Georgiana like a lash across the cheek— and again he saw himself leaning close to her, his eyes red with exhaustion and longing, an unhealthy flush in his cheek, a repulsive vein beating in his neck, and Georgiana stiffening, drawing back, and a look in her eyes — or had he imagined it? — of rage and sorrow.

The sight of Mary, eager to console him, her eyes heavy with sympathy, filled him with anger. In the morning he rode hard, in the open countryside. When he returned to the house he went up to his sitting room and flung himself across the sofa. He came down to dinner at four, saw that Georgiana was still absent, and returned to his rooms. All night Don Juan lay brooding in his bed, and the next day, when he tried to rise, it seemed to him that he was being held down by a great weight resting on his chest. As he lay there, in the curtained light of morning or afternoon, breathing with difficulty, his heart beating rapidly against the bones of his chest, his cheeks warm and his eyes burning, Don Juan saw that he was not alone.

Rising over him, pressing into him but soaring through the canopy to the height of the ceiling, stood a dark angel with wings of fire and an upraised flaming sword. The angel pressed into him heavily, so that Juan thought his chest would crack, but at the same time the creature seemed to be composed of trembling light or fire. Its gaze was directed straight ahead, in an attitude not so much of pride as of absolute authority. And Juan knew that this triumphant angel, the angel of his inner fever, was the terrible angel of Love, who crushed his victims,