Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1906-07-14
THE DEMON OF :.
:. The BED HORROR
BY WILLIAM s. BIRoE.
adapted From the Portuguese,)

Nae GusauElz1RzD 0 $3.50 OG~
sat down in the desert with Abb
derah, the Arab, and the Arab told
his tale. An Elusive mirage had
lured the twain, Abderah and myself,
into the very Valley of the Dry
Bones, an arid and sandy gorge south
of Arabia Deserta. Our throats were
dry as vellum with thirst, and Abb
derah's voice had husky rattle
at is exactly year to-day" began
Adberah, the prince of his clan,
"since lara, the Beautiful, gave up
the ghost, and at every anniversary
thereof, | must tell my story or die.
l could give no reason" he went on
huskily, mo reason, on the cath of
a Saracen, why l married the low
born lara of the desert, of whose
parentage l knew nothing, except
that she was called lara, the Beauti-
ful-no reason in the world why I,
the prince Abderah, only son of the
king, and heir to the kingly domain,
should have married the low-born
lara, of whom and whose antece-
dents nobody knew anything whatso-
ever, except that she was gifted with
strange gifts and had dropped in
upon the domain suddenly, as If
from another world.
II did not love her; of that fact
I am certain. l did not even respect
her; of that fact I am equally GER
tain. hated her with an unaccount-
able perversity of hatred; of this
third fact l am just as certain as of
the two preceding. Three very good
reasons why 1 should not have done
what l did. Nevertheless, l did it
did indeed wed her after the manner
of my fathers, installing her, devil as
she was, in the ancestral palace of
an ancient and honorable race of
Saracenic kings.
"Trua che wac heautiful---strnran 90
ly beautiful, in her way; but that
was 20 reason why 1 should have
married an adventures. 1t was eX-
actly because she was beautiful in
her way that I hated her There
is a beauty of heaven: it pursues,
haunts, breaks like weird music in
all president dreams. l have con-
jured up its phantoms with hash
heesh, in opium browse, through
slumbrous nights of calm, opening
my eyes again upon earth with a wild
wish to die. There is a beauty of
earth it is like unto fagots under the
caldron of passion, like red wine in
the cup, like fitful fever in the blood.
1t is a glittering and sudden tiger,
that fever, that springs upon its prey
vehemently, feeding thereupon in the
jungle of home. There is a beauty
of hell, and it stings while it fascin-
ates-stings scorpion like, fascinat-
ing, serpent like, with sinuous,
loathsome, devilish fascination. This
last was the beauty of lara, the
Beautiful; and it stung me. fascin-
ated me-fascinated me though /
hated, stung me though loathed.
Now l think of it, l fancy the
creatures fascination was in that
devilish eye of hers. 1t was-I recol-
lect 1t distinctly--it was small, scin-
t,llant, and shot sudden, furtive rays
at its victim; lurid. without white,
and all a single round, devilish
pupil; bulbously prominent with
livid lids, and almost lashless edges;
oddly beautiful, strangely fascinat-
ing, intoxicating as the eye of an
Houri.
This was Zara's eye, and it fas-
cinated me with an unnatural fascin-
alton. l saw. it day and night and
the fever of its sting l mistook for
passion, though passion it was not
1t was the ain rab that l pursued to
an evil destiny.
There is an imp of the perverse, 4"
Abderah went on, his words rafting
like dry leaves in his parched throat,
IAN imp of the perverse, which has
more hand in human affairs than hui
mainly in general would be willing
to acknowledge.
1T is the logical basis or all trag-
edy, the prompt>r of all suicide, the
demon of all that is terribly mex
| plicable, as well as of all that is alb
surdly comical in human action. In
its play it is comedy, and you laugh 4;
| in its serious moods 1t Is tragedy,
often so original, so motiveless, SO
apparently put of mere within, that
you stare haggard with horror, yet
fascinated as you stare. 1t is either
a Puck or Mephistopheles latent in
| in every human heart-either dane
ing baboon or omnivorous hyena, as
may suit the whim of the hour.
Have you ever been tempted to
swallow poison simply because you
knew 1t would kill you, and for nc
other reason? Have you never been
taken with an almost uncomfortable
impulse to hurl yourself from a prec
ipice simply because you must not
and because you must not, therefore
you would? Have you never done
this or that, done 1t suddenly, mo
tivelessly, involuntarialy, simply be-
cause you did not wish and would
not have done it for all the world
Have you never pursued a pet pro
ject, toiled ceaselessly day and nigh
unto an end, only to spurn 1t will
your foot at the instant of Iealiza
tom, simply because so to spurn 4
was to spite yourself utterly? Hav,
you never assembled to dizzy heights
and kicked away the ladder at thu
last moment just because it nigh
prevent all human succor. because
in a word, for that very reason you
did It? II you have not you are