Gerald Durrell - The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium

“ Auprès de ma blonde, auprès de ma blonde,

Qu’il fait bon dormir . . .”

This was followed by a grating peal of hysterical laughter.

Half asleep as I was, it was a moment before I realized that the singing and laughter came from Octavius. The shock of suddenly hearing a human voice like that was considerable, and my heart was racing. I glanced down the room and saw that the cages containing the canaries and Octavius were still as I had placed them. Then I glanced in the mirror and sat transfixed in my chair. I suffered a revulsion and terror that surpassed anything that I had felt up until then. My wish had been granted and the thing from behind the door had appeared. As I watched it, how fervently I wished to God that I had left well alone, that I had locked the blue salon after the first night and never revisited it.

The creature — I must call it that, for it seemed scarcely human — was small and hump-backed and clad in what I could only believe was a shroud, a yellowish linen garment spotted with gobbets of dirt and mould, torn in places where the fabric had worn thin, pulled over the thing’s head and twisted round, like a scarf. At that moment, all that was visible of its face was a tattered fringe of faded orange hair on a heavily lined forehead and two large, pale-yellow eyes that glared with the fierce, impersonal arrogance of a goat. Below them the shroud was twisted round and held in place by one of the thing’s pale, black-nailed hands.

It was standing behind the big cage that had contained the canaries. The cage was now twisted and wrenched and disembowelled like a horse in a bull ring, and covered with a cloud of yellow feathers that stuck to the bloodstains on the bars. I noticed that there were a few yellow feathers between the fingers of the creature’s hand. As I watched, it moved from the remains of the canary cage to the next table where the parrot cage had been placed. It moved slowly and limped heavily, appearing more to drag one foot after the other than anything else. It reached the cage, in which the reflection of Octavius was weaving from side to side on his perch.

The real bird in the room with me was still singing and cackling with laughter periodically. In the mirror the creature studied the parrot in its cage with its ferocious yellow eyes. Then, suddenly, the thing’s hand shot out and the fingers entwined themselves in the bars of the cage and wrenched and twisted them apart.

While both hands were thus occupied the piece of shroud that had been covering the face fell away and revealed the most disgusting face I have ever seen. Most of the features below the eyes appeared to have been eaten away, either by decay or some disease akin to leprosy. Where the nose should have been there were just two black holes with tattered rims. The whole of one cheek was missing and so the upper and lower jaw, with mildewed gums and decaying teeth, were displayed. Trickles of saliva flooded out from the mouth and dripped down into the folds of the shroud. What was left of the lips were serrated with fine wrinkles, so that they looked as though they had been stitched together and the cotton pulled tight.

What made the whole thing even worse, as a macabre spectacle, was that on one of the creature’s disgusting fingers it wore a large gold ring in which an opal flashed like flame as its hands moved, twisting the metal of the cage. This refinement on such a corpse-like apparition only served to enhance its repulsive appearance.

Presently it had twisted the wires enough so that there was room for it to put its hands inside the cage. The parrot was still bobbing and weaving on his perch, and the real Octavius was still singing and laughing. The creature grabbed the parrot in the reflection and it flapped and struggled in its hands, while Octavius continued to sing. It dragged the bird from the broken cage, lifted it to its obscene mouth and cracked the parrot’s skull as it would a nut. Then, with enjoyment, it started to suck the brains from the shattered skull, feathers and fragments of brain and skull mixing with the saliva that fell from the thing’s mouth on to the shroud.

I was filled with such revulsion and yet such rage at the creature’s actions that I grasped my stick and leapt to my feet, trembling with anger. I approached the mirror and as I did so, and my reflection appeared, I realized that (in the minor) I was approaching the thing from behind. I moved forward until, in the reflection, I was close to it and then I raised my stick.

Suddenly the creature’s eyes appeared to blaze in its disintegrating face. It stopped its revolting feast and dropped the corpse of the parrot to the ground, at the same time whirling round to face my reflection with such speed that I was taken aback and stood there, staring at it, my stick raised. The creature did not hesitate for a second, but dived forward and fastened its lean and powerful hands round my throat in the reflection.

This sudden attack made my reflection stagger backwards and it dropped the stick. The creature and my reflection fell to the floor behind the table and I could see them both thrashing about together. Horrified I dropped my stick and, running to the mirror, beat futilely against the glass. Presently all movement ceased behind the table. I could not see what was happening but, convinced the creature was dealing with my reflection as it had done with the dog and the cat, I continued to beat upon the mirror’s surface.

Presently, from behind the table, the creature rose up unsteadily, panting. It had its back to me. It remained like that for a moment or two; then it bent down and, seizing my reflection body, dragged it slowly through the door. As it did so I could see that the body had had its throat torn out.

Presently the creature reappeared, licking its lips in an anticipatory soft of way. Then it picked up the ebony stick and once more disappeared. It was gone some ten minutes and when it came back it was — to my horror and anger — feasting upon a severed hand, as a man might eat the wing of a chicken. Forgetting all fear I beat on the mirror again. Slowly, as if trying to decide where the noise was coming from, it turned round, its eyes flashing terribly, its face covered with blood that could only be mine.

It saw me and its eyes widened with a ferocious, knowing expression that turned me cold. Slowly it started to approach the mirror, and as it did so I stopped my futile hammering on the glass and backed away, appalled by the menace in the thing’s goat-like eyes. Slowly it moved forward, its fierce eyes fixed on me as if stalking me. When it was close to the mirror it put out its hands and touched the glass, leaving bloody fingerprints and yellow and grey feathers stuck to the glass. It felt the surface of the mirror delicately as one would test the fragility of ice on a pond, and then bunched its appalling hands into knobbly fists and beat a sudden furious tattoo on the glass like a startling rattle of drums in the silent room. It unbunched its hands and felt the glass again.

The creature stood for a moment watching me, as if it were musing. It was obvious that it could see me and I could only conclude that, although I possessed no reflection on my side of the mirror, I must be visible as a reflection in the mirror that formed part of the looking-glass world that this creature inhabited. Suddenly, as if coming to a decision, it turned and limped off across the room. To my alarm, it disappeared through the door, only to reappear a moment later carrying in its hands the ebony stick that my reflection had been carrying. Terrified, I realized that if I could hear the creature beating on the glass with its hands it must be in some way solid. This meant that, if it attacked the mirror with the stick the chances were that the glass would shatter and that the creature could then, in some way, get through to me.