BEATRICE THE SIXTEENTH (4)

By: Irene Clyde
April 7, 2024

Beatrice the Sixteenth: Being the Personal Narrative of Mary Hatherley, M.B., Explorer and Geographer (1909), by the English feminist, pacifist, and non-binary or transgender lawyer and writer Irene Clyde (born Thomas Baty) introduces us to Armeria, an ambiguous utopia — to which we are introduced initially without any firm indications of its inhabitants’ genders. HiLoBooks is pleased to serialize this ground-breaking novel for HILOBROW’s readers.

BEATRICE THE SIXTEENTH: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13.

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IV

THE HOUSE

As I walked along, with odd reminiscences of the time when I was an atom of eight, and the beautiful head of the school, who was my object of hero-worship, met me in a storm, and for seven blissful minutes enveloped me, together with herself, in her own cloak, I tried to argue things out. Of course, as I came to see, there was no second declension in the language, and, consequently, no distinctively masculine adjectives (I am not alluding to strong expressions, of which the vocabulary contained a moderately picturesque assortment). So there was really no means of making or inferring any distinction of the kind.

“But you mentioned marriage a day or two ago,” I remarked. “How do you name the two parties to that?”

Ilex’s voice was not quite steady in answering: “Conjux.”

“Is the night air giving you cold?” I said. “It is my fault, in making you talk. I am so sorry!”

“No! Indeed, no,” said Ilex. “Ask me all you want to know. I like to tell you.”

“Well,” I said, after some demur, “how do you distinguish between the parties to a marriage? Is your word uxor, or posis, or what?”

“I do not know either of those words. Just conjux, or sometimes synzycë. Quite enough, do you not think? Both of them mean ‘a joined person.’ That is the definition of marriage, ‘the community between two persons of all human circumstances.’ They are appropriate names, I think. At all events, they are all we have — oh, except consors; but that is only used in rather poetical language.”

“And is this relation limited to two persons?” I inquired.

“There is a kind of movement, I believe,” said my informant, “in favour of extending it to three. Only it is considered very heretical, and hardly proper to talk about. Do they have triple unions in your country? I don’t want to insult you, and I know you have such very different ideas in many respects.”

“Not at all,” I said. “Such a relation is never thought of, and the two people who marry pride themselves on their devotion to one another.”

Ilex took a deep breath and said nothing.

We were walking on in a broad road, new to me, fringed, it seemed, with gardens, and lighted by numerous, though far from powerful, swinging lanterns, and less frequent lamps on bronze pedestals. The tinkle of a cithara sounded from more than one house where lights gleamed through the tree; the clear sound of laughter came pleasant floating on the air. It had a good-natured, open ring about it that I liked. We met the watch going its rounds — a picturesque group in the dark maroon figured silks, with curious maces and cymbals, and under the leadership of an officer who nodded familiarly to Ilex.

“Who are these?” I wanted to know; and on being told they were the watch, I pointed out that it could not be very difficult for criminals to evade their imposing array.

“But they are not detectives,” said Ilex. “Their business is just to see that the streets are quiet and safe.”

“They would supervise them much better, it strikes me,” I returned, “if they were scattered singly all over the quarter. Then there would be one on the spot nearly everywhere.”

“Oh, but think how extremely lonely and stupid they would get! Nobody would undertake the work.”

“Pay them!”

“You would get an undesirable class, I am afraid. Some of these, as it is, are rather a scratch lot, but they are supervised by their superiors who accompany them.”

“Does it matter very much what class of people you employ for this kind of police work?”

“Emphatically, yes. Perhaps you don’t appreciate the fact that they have powers of arresting people, locking them up, practically ruining them — or at least causing an infinity of trouble and annoyance. It is of the very first importance that they should be thoroughly well-bred, full of tact and consideration, and absolutely worth of every confidence. You can’t get that for a crown a week.”

No, I agreed that it did not seem likely.

We met few people on our way — a litter or palanquin escorted by a crowd of attendants, with torches and palm-leaf fans; knots of quiet, orderly citizens; a party of flute-players en route to a festival of some kind; but nothing worthy of particular mention. By the time we reached the house of Ilex the moon had risen and the mists had scattered. At the open door of the long, low house a lady, dressed in dark red, stood in the light that streamed from the interior. She met Ilex with a warm kiss, and performed the national salutation in my regard. Then she took me by the hand, and led me, followed by two young slaves in white, across the big hall or saloon into which we passed on entering, to a corridor giving access to several small rooms, and finally to a lesser, but handsomely decorated, hall, quite devoid of furniture. Doors opened on its on three sides.

“Will you have these rooms?” said the lady. “That door on the left leads to the garden; facing you there are a sleeping room and a bath. The two doors to the right,” — and she opened one — “are fitted up for your use during the day. But I hope you will only retire them occasionally, and have your meals with the rest of us, at all events. These — Nîa and Lyx — will wait on you. And we have supper ready now. May I take you with me?”

I was hardly prepared for the scene that met me in the supper room. Not less than twenty people were assembled round a long table. As usual, they sat, instead of reclining. On my arrival, accompanied by the lady in red, and joined by Ilex, they all courteously rose. There were no introductions. We three passed to vacant places at the board, and placed between Ilex and a tall, thin creature, who had some difficult in understanding me, I had leisure to look round and study the appearance of the apartment. There seemed to be corridors opposite me, concealed by pale golden hangings, which relieved the plainness of the walls. From the panelled ceiling swung a profusion of lanterns. A cabinet at one end of the room was flanked by two sentries carrying banners.

The walls, as I said, were plain. The only relief to their dark panelling consisted in small square plates of exquisite porcelain, let into the wood in sparing numbers, and mostly of blue and gold colouring. As to the table, it was minus any cloth, and decorated merely with the silver and other utensils of the meal.

After supper we adjourned to the great entrance hall, from the side of which led the street door. There were plenty of usual soft mats and sets, and opposite the door a huge fire blazed. Near the fireplace sat on a low stool a minstrel, and by her was a harp, not very much unlike our harps in shape. The rest of us formed a wide and irregular circle round her while she played. Whilst her fingers were on the strings her expression was hard and set, but as each movement concluded, she relaxed into a confidential moue, with a downward sweep of her eyelashes.

“That’s very nice, Ilôna,” said Ilex, after she had played a long time. “But you must be getting tired. And I have something to do that I can’t attend to while you are playing such good tunes — I have to listen to you instead.”

Evidently my first was mistress here! Who, then, were all the other inmates of the house — not all young, not many younger than himself?

I inquired of her.

“Sit down by me,” she said, “that’s the way, with your arm on my knee — and I’ll tell you. First, there are my two sisters, older than myself, both of them, but they prefer living with me to staying in their old home. They have not been so fortunate as I have in the way of worldly prosperity, so it is quite right they should come to me, and leave the old house less crowded. There is one of them, Mira, standing laughing beside that big vase. She is immensely useful in looking after the housekeeping for me. I don’t see Duruna.”

“Then there comes Darûna’s conjux, Amphôr, over there by the woodpile, telling dragon-stories, I expect, to those three children, who’ll dream of green scaly tails tonight, poor atoms! Two of them are Darûna’s — such a bright little thing the eldest is! — And the other (that one in grey) is the child of a friend of mine who died last year in the service of the country, as I shall possibly do this year,” she added, half to herself.

“Why?” said, startled.

“Perhaps I was taking a shady view of a things,” she admitted. “But the Uras people are determined to force a quarrel on us; and the contest will be to a bitter end.”

“Will they not be satisfied with changing the occupant of the throne?”

Ilex looked at me half-comprehendingly.

“Let our queen be ejected!” she said. “There is not a soul in Armeria who would not think herself a slave to allow it. And do you fancy Beatrice would live dethroned?”

“Forgive me,” I replied. “It is so customary in my part of my world for sovereigns to retire from business that I thought —”

“I see,” said Ilex. “You have not monarchs, but head officials, who can honourably accept dismissal into private life. No; they must crush us, or fail.”

“But,” I said, “have they any hope of doing that?”

“They don’t give us credit for honour. They think we will let them set up a ruler of theirs over us. And there a few of us, perhaps, who would —” Her hand moved with long, impetuous strokes through the thick fringe of a rug, the capable fingers dividing it in momentarily changing groups, as if she were already in her mind parcelling out realms and empires.

“And is the outbreak likely to be long delayed?”

“One can’t tell. From little things I notice I don’t think it can. It isn’t that I have anything very definite to go upon — trifles that, perhaps, may mean nothing.”

“I won’t believe,” I said, “that it is likely that this beautiful city, with all its treasures, may before long be in the hands of an enemy — a vindictive one, maybe.”

She stopped playing with the fringe.

“More likely than you think,” she said quietly. “And the Uras people — we know what to expect from them. They took Masa eight years ago, in Lybris. The houses were razed, the trees cut down, the valuables carried off, and the ancestral records burnt before the eyes of the survivors. The cattle and living things were killed, the people left to shift for themselves.”

“Surely that could not be here — here,” I repeated. I could not fancy the bright, peaceful streets blazing with the glare of burning houses — the marvellous carving and decoration thrown to the rubbish-heap — and of the courteous population a terrorised remnant watching the stiffening bodies of the slain. It could not be possible.

“You are a stranger and I tell you I this,” she resumed, “But you need not frighten anyone else by talking about it. You won’t? And it may quite likely never happen; one hopes always it may not. And, then, we are not like the Masa people; we may abandoned Alzôna to them, but we will not stay to watch them work their will. After all, what are homes and chattels? Unspeakably precious; but if they are so, what can take them from us? They are ours always, whether we can handle them and see them or not… I love this house of mind like a friend. What does it matter to me whether it is here for me to look at or not? It lives in my heart — it is part of me. Only,” she added, in a lower and sadder voice, “I am sorry for the children if harm should come.”

And then, as if she were anxious not to be too gloomy, she began to resume the thread of her description of the inhabitants of the house.

“That pleasant-looking creature in a blue robe over there is good enough to supervise my slaves for me. And Kâra — oh, Kâra, will you see whether I have a history of the Ten Years’ War? — She keeps my library in order. Then you see two rather elderly people, eating—  what is it? — Nutmeg cakes — one is a second cousin of mine, whom I am very glad to have with me. She lends a sort of air of sedateness and balance to the place, don’t you think? The other is her conjux; and let me see if I can pick out their four children.”

She began to look round, and I interposed: “Who is the lady in red who met me?”

At her inquiring look I repeated: “The lady who met us at the door, and took me to the rooms you have been so kind as to let me have — your conjux?”

Ilex coloured.

“I have no conjux, my good Anglian. And” — More quietly — “that is my eldest sister, Darûna. Now, let me see, who else is there? I showed you Mira. Playng chess to our left are Vera and Arix. The one is a royal treasurer, and the other, facing us, is busy writing an account of her travels in the Far West.”

“Are they relations?”

“Oh no! But we like to have them, and they like to be here. Of course, they pay their share of the expense. So does my cousin. But I think Calêna does not — she is to your right, talking to Pathis. Calêna’s conjux, Cyasterix, is crossing in front of the fire now. She is rather clever, but doesn’t get on somehow.”

“Who is the tall, thin person who sat next me at the table?”

“That is Amyctalis. Poor thing! She is never able to do much beyond making her clothes. And then there are two elderly personages who have settled themselves, I observe, near the harp — Enschîna, the dark one, and Plotar, the fair one. You will like Enschîna — any amount of information about things past, present, and to come! No; for new about things to come you must go to Plotar.”

“Is Plotar gifted with prophecy?”

“Oh, not personally. But all the astrologers in the place — well, what is it, Lôtz?” she demanded of a slave who approached us.

“The Lady Darûna would like to see you in the Violet Hall.”

Ilex rose at once and said sotto voce to me:

“I ought to tell you that, of course, those two I mentioned last — in fact, everyone but the chess players and my cousin’s family — are here on the understanding that I provide their entertainment, and they give me the pleasure of their presence.”

“It’s very good of you,’ I said, glancing up at here.

“Oh, we don’t put it that way,” she said. “Fancy how dull I should be without an interesting set of people to be about me! And we couldn’t comfortably see people like Cyastreix or Calenda badly off, just because they are not appreciated. Where would my position be if my circle of friends deserted me? I should be nowhere! But, from something you said the other night, I thought had better say so much to you. I don’t want you to think the relation between myself and them is one-sided. You will soon understand.”

And, with a shy smile, she was gone.

Immediately a person who had not been pointed out came to me, and amused me by relating folk-stories of the country by the square foot. She seemed a perfect encyclopedia of tales, and they interested me very much. One by one the other people went away to their own quarters, coming punctiliously to me, and wishing me a pleasant rest before they each left, to which T responded to the best of my ability. At last there were only two or three beside myself and my entertainer. Ilex returned, and we In our turn saluted the company and retired to my set of rooms, where I was finally left to my own devices and the company (the slaves having been dismissed to bed) of a decanter of sherbet, a pile of almond cakes and two cats.

But not to sleep. The room was small and a lantern with ruby glass sides scattered a light which sufficed to illuminate it in part. I had not been long lying awake when a door at the side of the chamber opened, and as I started in surprise, a being clad in loose whit muslin came in. On her head was an ornament of gold, and her arms were clasped with golden bracelets. I lay perfectly still and motionless. The strange creature moved noiselessly to a part of the room behind me, and I heard a cabinet open.

Every little creaking that I heard fancied was the mysterious visitant approaching my couch. Should start up and rouse the slaves, or should I lie quietly and wait? With a sudden thrill I saw her come in sight again. She had a palm-leaf fan in her hand now. Her face was beautiful, but vacant, and she seemed quite unconscious of my presence. Suddenly her eyes fell upon me, and — to my perturbation — she advanced at once towards the bed.

I am not ashamed to say that I slipped out and fled to the empty courtyard with moonlight; but I was at my wits’ end where to find the slaves or how to reach the rest of the house. Looking back, I saw the strange figure at the door of the room I had left. There was a stone staircase just by me in the masonry of the wall, and I shrank into it and reached the roof. There, as I looked over, was the figure below. She was, indeed, addressing me.

“Does your ladyship wish to spend the night on the roof? I will bring the cushions up, if so. But I would remind your ladyship that the night is cool, and will grow colder.”

“Who are you, please?” I asked.

“Nia, your ladyship.”

“In that dress!”

“It is the evening costume of the slaves of Lady Ilex.”

“I took you for a — a burglar, Nia! How magnificent you are in all that gold!”

“It is brass,” said Nia solemnly.

“Well, I know better than to sleep on the roof in this season. I will come back to my room. What brought you into it, Nîa?”

“If your ladyship had been awake it would have been my service to fan you or do your bidding.”

“Wait, then, till I come down to you.” My descent was as hurried as my going up had been, and I twice succeeded in striking against uncomfortably hard stones. On reaching Nia, I reflected that a slave’s lot could not be a very cheerful one, and determined to treat her in as friendly a way as possible. To begin with, I leant confidentially on her arm, and inquired, when she rested herself, if she was always ready to attend on her mistress.

“Lyx and I,” she explained, “arrange it between us, SO that we can always have sleep enough. Was that a bird, your ladyship?”

For a rustle of some kind sounded not far away. We stood, but could near nothing more.

“Nightbirds are generally silent,” I said.

“At any rate,” she added, “your ladyship may rest comfortably. I shall be watching.”

“Nonsense Nîa!” I told her. “Go to Lyx and get to sleep. I am not accustomed to be waited on so.”

We stood for a minute in the soft moonlight. Over the walls of the court a slender, pale tower rose some little distance away. A perfumed cactus made the air heavy with its fragrance. There was no sound but our own breathing.

I went in, but could not sleep.

Another look at the pearl and ivory night I must have. I opened the door, and, for another fright, there was a figure muffled up and half asleep, seated on the pavement. It was Nia.

I insisted on her going to bed, and accompanied her to the tiny recess where Lyx and she passed the night. Her fellow servant was awake and received strict injunctions to make her behave like a reasonable being, and take a night’s rest when she had the chance.

After this I gradually felt myself more inclined to sleep, and in due time I lost consciousness.

It was not long before I got acquainted with the ways of the house. None of the inmates of it seems to take life very seriously. Their time was not economised as it might have been, and they seemed to mix up work and pleasure in an unbusinesslike fashion. Their division of labour, too, was by no means systematic, and I am sure they could have got a great deal more accomplished by a judicious attention to organisation. However, it was not my business to suggest alternations in their mode of life. Mira, in a general, vague way, had the housekeeping arrangement in her hands. Lapris supervised the slaves and that meant a good deal, for the spinning and weaving, as well as many other pieces of work, were done by them; Kâra, the library, and the music. Arix and Vera had their own occupations. One could not expect the two old ladies Enschîna and Plotar to do very much. But it did strike me as very odd that Durna, Amphôr, Cyasterix, Calêna, and Amyctalis had no definite work. True, they were always ready to do anything they were asked, and they were never tired of designing, and painting, and writing, and so forth.

Indeed, Amphôr’s patterns for weaving were excellent. But they seemed to have no idea of obtaining regular employment on the one hand or of enjoying a life of mere pleasure on the other. They were simply devoted to pleasing one another.

As for the children, I never saw that they differed in any respect from the grown-up people in this.

They had no lessons, and went to no school. The elder ones learnt a good deal from the adults of the family, but in quite an informal way. They also read for their own information, and their plays — in which their older friends constantly joined them — were very elaborate and serious imitations of real life. I do not refer to their athletic amusements, which were mostly carried on out of doors.

But their grand occupation seemed to be simply to be allowed to take some small part in whatever was going on, or even just to be present and watch. I have heard a child crossly spoken to in Armeria, but never slightingly. The children were uniformly treated as reasonable beings, and, to my surprise, I was told that they attained their majority at twelve. They were certainly precocious and self-possessed. But I cannot say that they were either conceited or affected, as a class. It is possible that the ample share which was given them in the conduct of the affairs of the house stimulated their memory and acuteness as much as the set training of our English school do; or it may be that these faculties are best developed by natural growth, for I certainly found these children no inferior to European children of their own age.

The roomy house in which I was now quartered was built round a central courtyard. But there were in the blocks of buildings surrounding this oblong garden other smaller courts, such as the one out of which my own rooms opened. In one or two places, the single story gave place to a two, or even three, storied broad tower. A varied and picturesque effect was given by this means to the appearance of the building. One of the small courts, too, was almost entirely filled by a square pool of water in which fish darted about, to the endless delight of Appthis, the four-year-old baby of the house. Her enthusiasm was not even damped, though her dress was, when, at regular intervals, she slid in from the slippery marble edge. Somebody was generally at hand to step in and hand her out, a convenient point about the costume of the country being that you could kilt it up in a moment through your zone.

The slaves numbered nearly twenty. Besides those employed in the ordinary domestic duties, there were several whose work was spinning, weaving, plumbing, and So on. As to the more delicate operations of embroidery and sewing, the inmates of the house undertook these themselves; and the cooking was invariably under their own supervision. Not the slightest obstacle was put in the way of my going amongst the slaves, between whom and their owners the best relations appeared to subsist.

“What would happen,” I said to Mira one day, “if a slave refused to do what you told her?”

“I should get uncommonly cross,” laughed the good-humored lady in question.

“But if she persisted, or was always doing it?”

“Hm! I should get Ilex to talk to her.”

“And then?”

“Well, we might try stopping her sugar, or not letting her go out, or even, perhaps, shutting her up.”

She said this rather dubiously, as if such a thing would be an unheard-of sensation.

“And in the last resort? — For I suppose it would not pay to a keep a slave locked up always.”

“We would apply to the Government to transfer her to some other house.”

“And so she might circulate round the entire city?”

“No,” smiled Mira. “After failing to give satisfaction in three households, the authorities would conclude that there is something to blame in her, and transfer her to the State ergastula.”

“Suppose she is simply lazy or careless?”

“Much the same would happen.”

“And if she breaks things, or is — impolite?”

“Much the same. Of course, wilful damage is criminal, so is jeering, in anybody, slave or free.”

“Then, can an owner keep a slave shut up for life, or how long?”

“The chief of the district inquires periodically into the treatment of the slaves, and they would be transferred to another family if they were ill-treated.”

“Have they any remedy if they are spoken to harshly and brutally?” I asked, remembering what Cydonia said of Galêsa.

“You don’t want to try it, do you?” Mira observed. “I expect you would be safe if you did. It is theoretically possible to criminally insult a slave — practically it scarcely is.”

“Then if you struck them?”

“In that case, you see, proof is easier. And a slave has always a right to demand a transfer to another household, subject to the risk of finding herself in the ergastula at last.”

Mira did not seem to care to pursue the topic, which, she told me, was rather academic. I could hardly believe her; however, she assured me that it was extremely rare to find a slave sent to the egrastula, and not common to hear of a transfer.

My promised visit to the coffee pot maker’s was paid in the company of one of the younger members of the family. Accompanied by one or other of the household, I daily went about the city and visited the principal places of interest — concert halls, fencing schools, markets, theatres, baths, libraries. As in the towns of Greece and ancient Italy, the baths were the most expensive and elaborate and were constantly resorted to by the populace.

Sometimes we went beyond the walls of the city and visited the neighbouring villages and a country estate which belong to Ilex, and of which the produce supplied our table. Our favourite occasion of going out into the country was to exercise the children in the conduct of military operations, such as scouting, foraging, and so on. For this purpose, the youth of the community was organised into bands, which opposed one another, and were led by their elder and acuter members. The grown up people would accompany these expeditions and advise and criticise the operations. No pressure was put upon anyone to take part in such field-days, nor was any needed.

Games with balls were immensely popular, as they are everywhere. Going out with Calêna one morning — I think we were going to the market — we passed a gate which led into a grassy enclosure.

“Oh, come in here for a few minutes,” said my conductor; “I think I may show you something you have not seen before.”

The centre of the enclosure was sunk two or three feet below the level of the surrounding ground, and in the wide space so formed — it was very wide — frantically rushing about there were forty or fifty people. I could not help laughing, the scene was so ridiculous, for there seemed to no object in all this activity.

Suddenly a tiny object shot out of the scrambling heap and struck the rampart of earth.

“There!” said Calêna; “now you’ll see them start again.”

It dawned upon me that the object of the rushing crowds was to force with their feet a small ball, the size of a croquet ball, to one or other end of the enclosure. It was, in short, a sort of compound of billiards and football. The sides were distinguished by a spray of ivy in the hair of the one and a gilt cobra on the headdress of the other.

We stayed and watched the game for a long time. The extremely small size of the ball prevented rough play, and it was not permissible to pick it up with the hands, a or to push a player. Consequently, it could be played by pretty nearly anybody, old or young, and was, according to Calêna, very popular.

More restricted to the younger people was wrestling (of a kind of which neither Japan nor Cumberland would have recognised); and racing was also a favourite exercise of theirs. Gymnastics I never saw practised. I do not think the artistic genius of the race would have submitted to the strain and the ugliness of parallel bars and the trapeze.

Acrobatic and juggling feats, I found had a great fascination for these people. But it was a half-illicit joy; there was a sort of feeling that it was, on the whole, an undignified use of life to acquire a painful dexterity in balancing a ladder. And such entertainments were attended in a rather furtive fashion. It was not a thing one could with safety to one’s reputation repeat too often, to patronise them.

Every day I learnt more about the ideas and customs of the country. Thekla I often saw. Since I took advantage of the invitation she gave me to inspect her pictures, we grew good friends, and she even called for me at Ilex’s house one day, which was a most unconventional proceeding. An Armerian’s house is his castle, in this sense, that it is extremely unusual to ask to be admitted to it, however well one may know the owner. Nor is it at all common to be invited in, except for a formal entertainment. The Armerians meet one another for the ordinary interchange of conversation and civility at public places — such as the baths, the gardens, the chiefs’ palaces, and so forth.

But Thekla called one morning and asked to see me. The porter brought me the message, as I was the inner recesses of the establishment, being initiated by Darûna and Mira into the art — which was not much of an art, after all — of Armerian pâtisserie.

“When you have finished with Thekla,” said Ilex, who was playing at sewing in the corner of the stone hearth, and interchanging a volley of critical remarks with Mira, “you might ask her if she will have some coffee. I will meet you in the entrance hall.”

So I did, and Thekla stayed, and was made acquainted with the population of the house, who were decidedly impressed — so I gathered — by the visit of so extremely celebrated and unassuming a person. She took me home with her, and we had a solitary meal in a long, light gallery, open on one side to a hall of majestic proportions. In the house of which this formed part she lived, quite by herself, except for two or three free servants and her slaves. An army of pet animals made it less lonely; chief of these, an antelope.

Visits like these and hospitality on the part of all Ilex’s friends I owed to my foreign and mysterious origin. But that had other consequences as well.

One evening, a few days after I had settled down in my new abode, a loud knocking disturbed us as we listened to an account by Arix of perils by waters in the Western Ocean. The street gates opened, and through the waving muslin curtains one saw the glare of torches. A letter was brought in on a cushion to Ilex, with great reverence, and she opened and read it with a troubled expression. The interruption spoilt the story, and we all went early to our own apartments.

The next morning Ilex said to me: “The queen wants to see you.”

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RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.

SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague | Rudyard Kipling’s With the Night Mail (and “As Easy as A.B.C.”) | Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt | H. Rider Haggard’s When the World Shook | Edward Shanks’ The People of the Ruins | William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land | J.D. Beresford’s Goslings | E.V. Odle’s The Clockwork Man | Cicely Hamilton’s Theodore Savage | Muriel Jaeger’s The Man With Six Senses | & many others.