The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories by E.M. Forster

Author:E.M. Forster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Short, Stories
Publisher: Jovian Press

OTHER KINGDOM

~

I.

“‘QUEM, WHOM; FUGIS, ARE YOU avoiding; ah demens, you silly ass; habitarunt di quoque, gods too have lived in; silvas, the woods.’ Go ahead!”

I always brighten the classics – it is part of my system – and therefore I translated demens by “silly ass.” But Miss Beaumont need not have made a note of the translation, and Ford, who knows better, need not have echoed after me. “Whom are you avoiding, you silly ass, gods too have lived in the woods.”

“ Ye–es,” I replied, with scholarly hesitation. “ Ye–es. Silvas – woods, wooded spaces, the country generally. Yes. Demens, of course, is de–mens. Ah, witless fellow! Gods, I say, even gods have dwelt in the woods ere now.”

“But I thought gods always lived in the sky,” said Mrs. Worters, interrupting our lesson for I think the third-and-twentieth time.

“Not always,” answered Miss Beaumont. As she spoke, she inserted “witless fellow” as an alternative to “silly ass.”

“I always thought they lived in the sky.”

“Oh, no, Mrs. Worters,” the girl repeated. “Not always.” And finding her place in the notebook she read as follows: “Gods. Where. Chief deities – Mount Olympus. Pan – most places, as name implies. Oreads – mountains, Sirens, Tritons, Nereids – water (salt). Naiads – water (fresh). Satyrs, Fauns, etc. – woods. Dryads – trees.”

“Well, dear, you have learnt a lot. And will you tell me what good it has done you?”

“It has helped me –” faltered Miss Beaumont. She was very earnest over her classics. She wished she could have said what good they had done her.

Ford came to her rescue. “Of course it’s helped you. The classics are full of tips. They teach you how to dodge things.”

I begged my young friend not to dodge his Virgil lesson.

“But they do!” he cried. “Suppose that long-haired brute Apollo wants to give you a music lesson. Well, out you pop into the laurels. Or Universal Nature comes along. You aren’t feeling particularly keen on Universal Nature, so you turn into a reed.”

“Is Jack mad?” asked Mrs. Worters.

But Miss Beaumont had caught the allusions – which were quite ingenious I must admit. “And Croesus?” she inquired. “What was it one turned into to get away from Croesus?”

I hastened to tidy up her mythology. “Midas, Miss Beaumont, not Croesus. And he turns you – you don’t turn yourself: he turns you into gold.”

“There’s no dodging Midas,” said Ford.

“Surely –” said Miss Beaumont. She had been learning Latin not quite a fortnight, but she would have corrected the Regius Professor.

He began to tease her. “Oh, there’s no dodging Midas! He just comes, he touches you, and you pay him several thousand percent, at once. You’re gold – a young golden lady – if he touches you.”

“I won’t be touched!” she cried, relapsing into her habitual frivolity.

“Oh, but he’ll touch you.”

“He shan’t!”

“He will.”

“He shan’t!”

“He will.”

Miss Beaumont took up her Virgil and smacked Ford over the head with it.

“Evelyn! Evelyn!” said Mrs. Worters. “Now you are forgetting yourself. And you also forget my question.

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