A Ballroom Basilisk, 1897

I'm just going to leave this story here without any commentary.

Happy Halloween!

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GONE WITH A BASILISK.

A LURID SHORT STORY.

BY G. L. Calderon

Reginald passed his hand wearily over his aching brow, and glided languishing between the purple portières.  Within was a chaos of whirling muslin and hungry faces swimming on a sea of passionate, throbbing music.  There was a mist before his eyes; grinning heads floated restlessly by, gibbering in the shell-like ears of painted women.  Amid the fevered maelstrom, one figure loomed large and close upon his attention.  It was the hostess.  A hot wet hand pressed his.  “Law! what a squash!” he murmured in her ear, then plunged into the stream, and was borne away to the other side of the room.

.     .     .     .     .   

He had stood long buried in pensive gloom, sometimes on one leg, sometimes on the other.  His hair hung dank.  The room was deserted.  The distant howl and clutter told him that the guests were at supper.  He gazed moodily round the ghastly emptiness of the apartment.  Then, moved by some impulse, he bent his steps to a corner where a recess had been fitted for the jaded coyings of those that could dance no more.  Within this cavern all was dark.  But as he peered into the shade of it he became aware of two green phosphorescent eyes bent upon him from within.  He bowed his head resignedly, and knew there was no escape.  There was a spell in those lurid eyes he must obey.  He sank upon the seat beside her and gazed upon her features.  As he got used to the light he became aware that her face was freckled, with an undercurrent of livid pink.

.     .     .     .     . 

“You are a Basilisk!” he murmured, fingering her throbbing auburn hair.

.     .     .     .     . 

Dance upon dance they had danced together.  At times they sat silent, his hand in hers.  The intoxication of the Basilisk had entered into his blood.  He thought with a passionate regret of the days of his boyhood.  A moment came when her head was turned aside to fling a word to a bleak-eyed chaperon.  He strung his trembling limbs for one last effort, and tottered feebly to the door.  He yearned for liberty; but the spell was on him as in a dream.  While he clung trembling to the doorpost a voice thrilled across the polished floor.  “I see you!” — and he knew that his opportunity was gone.

.     .     .     .     . 

It was a waltz.  Reginald and the Basilisk danced as wildly as the wildest there.  Suddenly they paused beneath the chandelier.  Seizing her by the chin he gazed into her eyes, giddy and uncertain.  The freckles seemed to chase one another over her cheek.  She dragged him down and pressed a dozen warm kisses on his lips.  “You are mine! mine!” she almost shrieked.  Gargoyle faces laughed leering out of the circumambient uncertainty; they were in the throng of jaded merrymakers, but alone, oh, so alone!

.     .     .     .     . 

He was standing by the open window with an anemic thing in mauve.

“The end of life,” she said, “is finding pearls in other people’s oysters.”

“That is a paradox,” he answered.

“Truth is a paradox,” said she.  He looked inquiringly. 

“You are a Ibsenist, I see.”

“The Serpent was an Ibsenist,” she replied, with her collected smile.

“The Sea Serpent?” he queried, and the muscles of his neck relaxed a little.  Then, hastily brushing the dewdrop from his brow, “This atmosphere is too rarified for me,” he murmured.  Again that faraway look in his eye.  He seemed to yearn for a thing forgotten.

.     .     .     .     . 

Suddenly the thing in mauve found that it stood alone.  A trodden twig sighed and broke without in the stifling summer night.  She looked into the garden and saw nothing.  Only two green stars seemed to glow mistily out of the gloom beneath the privet-bush.  Then a whisper passed and died in the treetops, and those green stars were no more.  Reginald was gone.  He had followed the baleful eye out into the gloom.

.     .     .     .     . 

There is a little house with creepers on Clapham Rise.  The few passengers in the street shrunk hurriedly away and pass on.  There is no sign of life there.  Only sometimes a green gleam from behind the French blinds and the plash of weary kisses.

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Originally published in The Pall Mall Gazette on November 11, 1897.  Reprinted in The New-York Tribune on December 5, 1897.

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More information about George L. Calderon (1868-1915) and his life and works may be found at Calderonia.  They do not yet appear to be aware of the Basilisk.

Comments

[Patrick Miles]

This is a quite amazing find! Congratulations! As the author of the first full-length biography of George Leslie Calderon, GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS (2018), I searched 23 journals between 1890 and 1915 for his stories and articles, but missed this one, possibly because it's in an entirely different position in the paper from usual. Calderon had been a correspondent of the 'Pall Mall Gazette' in Russia 1895-97, but all his pieces for them then were unsigned and he was presumed to have left Russia sometime in the autumn of 1897. So 'Gone with a Basilisk' could have been submitted in Russia or when he got home. His next story seems to have been in 'The Cornhill Magazine', December 1897. 'Gone with a Basilisk' is unlike any other of Calderon's stories, but full of characteristic linguistic touches. Ideal for Halloween!

[Susan de Guardiola]

Thank you, Patrick, and thank you for your very helpful website on Calderon! I'd love to hear more about the characteristic linguistic touches, since that story is really unlike anything I've ever seen before. I will have to read your biography!

(For anyone else who'd like to know more - follow the link to the Calderonia website above, or find Patrick's biography here)

[Marion Tuininga]

Dear Susan,
I live in Holland and we have a large collection of antique and modern dance books for sale. Do you know of anyone who would be interested in buying them? There are a number in Dutch, of course, but also a large number in English. We could provide titles if necessary but need to know if there is any interest first.

[Susan de Guardiola]

Marion,
I might certainly be interested! I'll drop you an email about this.