And it was good: Franklin was touched that they had come. For they were all gathered now, those for whom his work mattered at all; and what difference did it make if he had to shut it all up in a box, so long as they were here to see it, on this special occasion. They had all been very quiet — Stella had noticed nothing, but sat transfixed beside the projector, her face tense with delight — and as Franklin put in the third reel he was pleased that they would see it to the end. For the voyage was not a collection of separate adventures but a gradual accumulation, a pressure in a direction, culminating in the rhythmic release of the dark side of the moon. And as the cartoon entered its last phase, he felt it was working, despite a few adjustments that would be necessary here and there. He could feel the silent excitement in the room. The end was coming: after a nightmare pursuit through melting moonscapes, by creatures who kept changing their shapes, the boy seized a moon bird that changed into a chalk eraser, and with it he began to erase. He erased the fluttering white moongirl with long moon hair, the moon fountains, the line of moon hills, the white horizon line — and at last he and the monkey stood alone in a black world. Then he turned to the monkey and began to erase him, in quick strokes that sent up puffs of chalk dust. He paused for only a moment before he began to erase himself: first his legs, then his body, next his head. He erased both arms, and now there was nothing left but the fingers grasping the eraser. And so it was nearly done. He had made the voyage to the dark side of the moon, from which no traveler returned. Quickly the eraser extracted itself from the fingers and erased them. Now the eraser began to spin: faster and faster it spun, growing larger and larger, vanishing in a blur, erasing the blackness itself, until there was only a white, blank world, on which the words THE END swiftly wrote themselves. And it was good: he had done what he set out to do. Perhaps he could rest now, for he was very tired.
The reel of film continued to click through the projector as the applause began. It was light at first, a spatter of appreciative claps. But it did not stop: led by Max the applause grew louder, Franklin could distinguish Cora’s swift vigorous claps and Kroll’s little persistent ones, muffled as if he were wearing gloves, but tireless for all that. His mother, standing now, clapped slowly, while his father, still raising and lowering his right hand gravely, struck his left palm against the top of the chair in time to the rhythm of his counting. They were all standing, even Kroll had risen to applaud him in the warm and intimate dark. “Please,” Franklin said, holding up his hands, “this is really, this is really.” Tears of gratitude ran down his cheeks; and as he bowed his head, for he was very tired, the applause grew louder and louder until it was one continuous roar.
The Princess, the Dwarf, and the Dungeon
THE DUNGEON. The dungeon is said to be located so far beneath the lowest subterranean chambers of the castle that a question naturally arises: is the dungeon part of the castle itself? Other underground chambers, such as the storage cellars, the torture chamber, and the prison cells used for detention during trial, are merely the lowest in an orderly progression of descending chambers, and maintain a clear and so to speak reasonable relation to the upper levels of the castle. But the dungeon lies so far beneath the others that it seems part of the dark world below, like the place under the mountain where ogres breed from the blood of murdered children.
THE CASTLE. The castle lies on a steep cliff on the far side of the river, three hundred feet above the water. In bright sunlight the castle seems to shine out from the darker rock of the cliff and to thrust its towers gaily into the blue sky, but when the air darkens with clouds the castle draws the darkness into itself and becomes nearly black against the stormy heavens. From our side of the river we can see the Princess’s tower, the battlements of the outer wall, including the vertical stone spikes on the merlons, and two arched gates of darker stone. Beneath the Princess’s tower lies her walled garden. We cannot see the garden walls or the garden itself, with its paths of checkered stone, its turf-covered benches, and its shady bower of trelliswork sheltering two couches covered in crimson silk. We cannot see the courtiers walking in the Court of the Three Fountains. We cannot see the Prince’s oriel overlooking the slate roof of the chapel, we cannot see the row of marble pillars three of which are said to come from the palace of Charlemagne at Ingelheim, we can only imagine the hall, the brewhouse, the bakehouse, the stables, the orchard, the park with its great alleys of shade trees, the dark forest stretching back and back and back.
TALES OF THE PRINCESS. There was once a beautiful Princess, whose skin was whiter than alabaster, whose hair was brighter than beaten gold, and whose virtue was celebrated throughout the land. One day she married a Prince, who was as handsome as she was beautiful; they loved each other entirely; and yet within a year their happiness turned to despair. Some held the Prince to blame, saying he was proud and jealous by nature, but others accused the Princess of a secret weakness. By this they meant nothing less than her virtue itself. For her virtue, which no one questioned, made her secure against the attentions of admirers, and prevented her from imagining even the possibility of unfaithfulness. Because of her deep love for the Prince and her knowledge of her own steadfastness, she failed to fortify herself with haughtiness, reserve, and a sense of formidable propriety. Instead, while acting always within the strict constraints of court etiquette, she was unaffected in manner, generous in spirit, and open to friendship with members of her husband’s intimate circle. Moreover, her love for the Prince led her to follow closely all matters at court, in order that she might understand all that concerned him and advise him sagely. It was therefore in no way unusual that she should take an interest in the stranger who arrived one night on a richly caparisoned horse, and who quickly won the friendship of the Prince by virtue of his nobility of bearing, his boldness of spirit, his thirst for knowledge, and his gift of ardent speech, but who nevertheless, saying only that he was a margrave, and that he came from a distant land, bore on his escutcheon the word Infelix: the Wretched One.
THE TWO STAIRWAYS. The stairways are circular and are composed of heavy blocks of stone that wind about a stone newel. Both stairways spiral to the right, in order to give the advantage to the defender, who with his right hand can wield his sword easily in the concavity of the round wall, while the attacker on the lower step is cramped by the newel’s outward curve. One stairway winds up past slitlike openings that give higher and higher glimpses of the little river, the little town with its double wall, the little mills along the riverbank, until at last it reaches the chamber of the Princess at the top of the tower. The other stairway begins in a subterranean corridor beneath the torture chamber and winds down and immeasurably down, in a darkness so thick that it feels palpable as cloth or stone. After a time the steps begin to crumble, sprouting black vegetation; gradually the outlines of the steps become blurred, as if the reason for steps has been forgotten. This stairway, which some imagine to narrow slowly until there is space only for the rats, descends to the dungeon.