It made of course no difference to the chemistry of Glauber’s Salts what name was given them or who had first discovered them. But it was a hobby-horse of Eszterhazy’s, one which he so far trusted himself never to ride along the nearer paths which lead to lunacy, that the pursuit of inorganic cathartics marked the real watershed between alchemy and chemistry. The ‘philosopher’ who, turning away from the glorious dreams of transmuting dross to gold, sought instead a means of moving the sluggish bowels of the mass of mankind and womankind, had taken his head out of the clouds and brought it very close to the earth indeed. Quaere: How did the dates of Ezekkiel Yahnosh compare with those of Johann Glauber? Responsum: Go and look them up. That the figures in the common books were unreliable, E.E. knew very well. He had also known (he now recalled) that there was a memorial to the great seventeenth-century Scythian savant somewhere in the back of the Great Central Reformed Tabernacle, commonly called the Calvinchurch, from the days when it—or its predecessor—was the only one of that faith in Bella.
Q.: Why might he not go right now and copy it? R.: Why not?—unless it were closed this hour on Sunday night. But this caveat little recked with the zeal of Predicant Prush, even now ascending into the pulpit, as Eszterhazy tried to collect his information as unobtrusively as possible from the marble plaque set in the wall. “My text, dear and beloved trustworthy brothers and sisters,” boomed the Preacher from beneath the sounding-board, “is Jeremiah, V. 6. Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evening shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: everyone that goeth out shall be torn to pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased. Miserable sinners, there is nevertheless hope in repentance!” cried out the Predicant in a plenitude of Christian comfort. And went on to demonstrate that the animals mentioned in the text were types, which is to say, foreshadowings, with the lion signifying the Church of Rome, the wolf implying Luther; and the leopard, recalcitrant paganism. As for transgressions and backsliding, Dr. Prush gave them quite a number for exempla, ranging from Immodest Attire to Neglect Of Paying Tithes. “Woe! Woe!” he cried, smiting the lectern.
But Eszterhazy was not concentrating on the sermon. There rang incessantly in his ear, as though being chanted into it by something sitting upon his shoulder, only the words a leopard shall watch over their cities . . .
And, when back at home, he examined his scant notes for the dates of Ezekkiel Yahnosh, he found that, really, all that he had written in their place was Jeremiah, V. 6.
Many a set of hoopshirts worn in Bella in their time, many a crinoline worn in Bella in its time, many a bustle worn in Bella (around about then or not a long span later being their time) had been fashioned in the ever-fashionable establishment of Mademoiselle Sophie, Couturière Parisienne. Mlle. Sophie was a native of a canton perhaps better known for its cuckoo-clocks than its haute couture, but she had nevertheless plied a needle and thread in Paris. She had plied it chiefly in replacing buttons in a basement tailor-shop until her vast commonsense told her to get up and go out of the basement into the light and air. She hadn’t stopped going until she reached Bella, and if her trip and her beginnings in business had indeed been ‘under the protection’ of a local textile merchant who sometimes visited Paris on business, why, whose affair was that? That is, who else’s affair? Nevertheless, most of the women’s garments in Bella owed nothing to the fact that Mlle. Sophie gained her bread by the pricks of her needle; and perhaps a slight majority of the women’s garments in Bella owed nothing at all to what was worn in Paris. Even as Eszterhazy paused to throw down and step upon a segar, several woman—evidently sisters—passed by dressed in the eminently respectable old high burger style: costly cloth stiff with many a winter day’s embroidery, the bodices laced with gold-tipped laces, each stiff petticoat of bright color slightly shorter than the one underneath. No one else even much noticed.
Still, someone laughed, and it was not a nice laugh. Eszterhazy did not move his head, but his eyes slightly moved. Just across the narrow street was Melanchthon Mudge, clad in fur-coat and fur-hat whose gloss must have represented a fortune in sable and other prime pelts: what was he laughing at? Slowly approaching was a woman by herself. She moved with difficulty. She had been limping with a side-to-side motion which caused her short and heavy body to rock in a manner that allowed little dignity. Nothing about her was rich, and certainly not the rusty black cloth coat which covered the upper part of her dingy black dress: truth to tell it was not even over-clean. Her face was not young and it was not comely and it seemed fuddled with effort. Such things as gallantry and pity aside, if one thought the grotesque laughable, then one would understandably laugh at the sight of her. But such laughter, merely the concomitant of a country culture which laughed at cripples and stammerers, was more puzzling when it came from Mudge. The woman clearly heard the laugh, was clearly not indifferent to it. She tried to walk on more swiftly, rocked and swayed more heavily; there was another laugh; abruptly Mudge walked off.
On the poor woman’s head was a bonnet of the sort which had been favored, perhaps a generation ago, by fashion in the North American provinces. So, on the spur of the moment, Eszterhazy, lifting his own hat, addressed her in English.
“You don’t have such picturesque native costume,” the slightest inclination of his head towards the wearers of the local picturesque costume, “in your own country, I believe, ma’am.”
She slowly rocked to a stop and looked at him with, at first, some doubt. “No, sir,” she said, “we don’t, and that’s a fact. We haven’t had the time to develop it. Utility has been our motto. Maybe too much so. You don’t know who I am, do you? No. But I know you, Mr. Estherhazy, if only by sight, for you’ve been pointed out to me. Reverend Ella May Butcher, European Mission, First Spiritualist Church, Buffalo, New York.” She extended her hand, he—automatically—had begun to stoop to kiss it—she gave a firm shake—he did not stoop. “My late husband was very well acquainted with President Fillmore. But you don’t know President Fillmore here.” She was in this correct. Neither Eszterhazy personally nor the entire Triune Monarchy had known President Fillmore: there . . . or anywhere.
“I’ve come to show those deep in sorrow that their beloved ones have been saved from the power of the shadow of death. It ain’t for me to say why the spirits of those who’ve passed over are sometimes pleased to use me as their medium, Mr. Estherhazy. We have settings on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, the Good Lord willing, at eight o’clock p.m. in the room at the head of the stairs in the old Scottish Rite hall. No admission charge is ever made; love offering only.” If Reverend Ella May Butcher was offered much such love, there was nothing to show it. The flat level of her voice did not vary as she asked, “Do you know that man who laughed at me just now?”
The shouting of the teamsters and the clash of hooves on the stone blocks obliged him to raise his voice. “We have met,” he said.
Widow Butcher looked at him with her muddy eyes. “There are spirits of light, sir; and there are spirits of darkness. That one’s gifts never came from the light. I have to go on now. I hope to see you at one of our settings. Thank you for your kindness.” He bowed slightly, lifted his hat, she lifted her skirts as high as was proper for a lady to lift them (a bit higher than would have been proper perhaps in London, but surely not too high for Bella and doubtless not too high for Buffalo, New York, where her late husband had been very well acquainted with President Fillmore), and prepared to cross the broader street. At this signal the filthy scarecrow which was the crossing-sweeper leaned both hands on the stick of his horrid broom and plowed her a way through the horse-dung. Eszterhazy watched as she poked in her purse for a coin; then a knot of vans and wagons went toiling by, laden high with barrels of goose-fat and rye meal and white lard and yellow lard. And when they had gone, so had she.