"I read that in the Orient foxes follow priests and scholars,
in disguise as women, houses, mountains, gods, processions,
always discovered by their tails-" so I begin,
but my intended's father intercedes.
"Speaking of tales-my dear, you said you had a tale?"
My intended flushes. There are no rose petals, save for her cheeks. She nods and says:
"My story Father? My story is the story of a dream I dreamed."
Her voice is so quiet and soft, we hush ourselves to hear,
outside the inn just the night sounds: An owl hoots,
but, as the old folk say, I live too near the wood
to be frightened by an owl.
She looks at me.
"You, sir. In my dream you rode to me, and called,
-Come to my house, my sweet, away down the white road.
There are such sights I would show you.
I asked how I would find your house, down the white chalk road,
for it's a long road, and a dark one, under trees
that make the light all green and gold when the sun is high,
but shade the road at other times. At night
it's pitch-black; there is no moonlight on the white road…
"And you said, Mister Fox-and this is most curious, but dreams
are treacherous and curious and dark-
that you would cut the throat of a sow pig,
and you would walk her home behind your fine black stallion.
You smiled,
smiled, Mister Fox, with your red lips and your green eyes,
eyes that could snare a maiden's soul, and your yellow teeth,
which could eat her heart-"
"God forbid," I smiled. All eyes were on me then, not her,
though hers was the story. Eyes, such eyes.
"So, in my dream, it became my fancy to visit your great house,
as you had so often entreated me to do,
to walk its glades and paths, to see the pools,
the statues you had brought from Greece, the yews,
the poplar walk, the grotto, and the bower.
And, as this was but a dream, I did not wish
to take a chaperone
–some withered, juiceless prune
who would not appreciate your house, Mister Fox; who
would not appreciate your pale skin,
nor your green eyes, nor your engaging ways.
"So I rode the white chalk road, following the red blood path,
on Betsy, my filly. The trees above were green.
A dozen miles straight, and then the blood
led me off across meadows, over ditches, down a gravel path
(but now I needed sharp eyes to catch the blood-
a drip, a drop: The pig must have been dead as anything),
and I reined my filly in front of a house.
And such a house. A palladian delight, immense,
a landscape of its own, windows, columns,
a white stone monument to verticality, expansive.
"There was a sculpture in the garden, before the house,
A Spartan child, stolen fox half-concealed in its robe,
the fox biting the child's stomach, gnawing the vitals away,
the stoic child bravely saying nothing-
what could it say, cold marble that it was?
There was pain in its eyes, and it stood,
upon a plinth on which were carved eight words.
I walked around it, and I read:
Be bold,
be bold,
but not too bold.
"I tethered little Betsy in the stables,
between a dozen night black stallions
each with blood and madness in his eyes.
I saw no one.
I walked to the front of the house and up the great steps.
The huge doors were locked fast,
no servants came to greet me when I knocked.
In my dream (for do not forget, Mister Fox, that this was
my dream. You look so pale) the house fascinated me,
the kind of curiosity (you know this,
Mister Fox, I see it in your eyes) that kills
cats.
"I found a door, a small door, off the latch,
and pushed my way inside.
Walked corridors, lined with oak, with shelves,
with busts, with trinkets,
I walked, my feet silent on the scarlet carpet,
until I reached the great hall.
It was there again, in red stones that glittered,
set into the white marble of the floor,
it said:
Be bold,
be bold,
but not too bold.
Or else your life's blood
shall run cold.
"There were stairs, wide, carpeted in scarlet,
off the great hall,
and I walked up them, silently, silently.
Oak doors: and now
I was in the dining room, or so I am convinced,
for the remnants of a grisly supper
were abandoned, cold and fly-buzzed.
Here was a half-chewed hand, there, crisped and picked,
a face, a woman's face, who must in life, I fear,
have looked like me."
"Heavens defend us all from such dark dreams," her father cried.
"Can such things be?"
"It is not so," I assured him. The fair woman's smile
glittered behind her grey eyes. People
need assurances.
"Beyond the supper room was a room,
a huge room, this inn would fit in that room,
piled promiscuously with rings and bracelets,
necklaces, pearl drops, ball gowns, fur wraps,
lace petticoats, silks and satins. Ladies' boots,
and muffs, and bonnets: a treasure cave and dressing room-
diamonds and rubies underneath my feet.
"Beyond that room I knew myself in Hell.
In my dream…
I saw many heads. The heads of young women. I saw a wall-
on which dismembered limbs were nailed.
A heap of breasts. The piles of guts, of livers, lights,
the eyes, the…
No. I cannot say. And all around the flies were buzzing,
one low droning buzz.
-Beelzebubzebubzebub, they buzzed. I could not breathe,
I ran from there and sobbed against a wall."
"A fox's lair indeed," says the fair woman.
("It was not so," I mutter.)
"They are untidy creatures, so to litter
about their dens the bones and skins and feathers
of their prey. The French call him Renard,
the Scottish, Tod."
"One cannot help one's name," says my intended's father.
He is almost panting now, they all are:
in the firelight, the fire's heat, lapping their ale.
The wall of the inn was hung with sporting prints.
She continues:
"From outside I heard a crash and a commotion.
I ran back the way I had come, along the red carpet,
down the wide staircase-too latel-the main door was opening!
I threw myself down the stairs-rolling, tumbling-
fetched up hopelessly beneath a table,
where I waited, shivered, prayed."
She points at me. "Yes, you, sir. You came in,
crashed open the door, staggered in, you, sir,
dragging a young woman
by her red hair and by her throat.
Her hair was long and unconfined, she screamed and strove
to free herself. You laughed, deep in your throat,
were all a-sweat, and grinned from ear to ear."
She glares at me. The colour's in her cheeks.
"You pulled a short old broadsword, Mister Fox, and as she screamed,
you slit her throat, again from ear to ear,
I listened to her bubbling, sighing, shriek,
and closed my eyes and prayed until she stopped.
And after much, much, much too long, she stopped.
And I looked out. You smiled, held up your sword,
your hands agore-blood-"
"In your dream," I tell her.
"In my dream.
She lay there on the marble, as you sliced
you hacked, you wrenched, you panted, and you stabbed.
You took her head from her shoulders,
thrust your tongue between her red wet lips.
You cut off her hands. Her pale white hands.
You sliced open her bodice, you removed each breast.
Then you began to sob and howl.