Something about Eve: A comedy of fig-leaves

by James Branch Cabell

He had known many lovelier and more brilliant women, alike in the relinquished world of Lichfield and in his journeying through the Marches of Antan. But Maya contented him: he had really not the heart to disappoint his Maya by not forcing upon her—after four prolonged and tender arguments,—those physical attentions which all women seemed to expect.

After that, she put aside her crown; and Gerald never saw it any more.

And after that, also, the date of his departure from her neat cottage was postponed until after Sunday, though it was quite understood that, the very first thing after a particularly early breakfast on Monday, he would pass on to enter into his appointed kingdom, and to possess himself of the Master Philologist’s great words, and to reanimate the Dirghic mythology in which he was a god, and would come to know the third truth over which he exercised celestial authority.

Meanwhile he stayed upon Mispec Moor, to regard with indulgence, and even with some pity, his predecessors in Maya’s affection, those beguiled men whom she had converted into domestic animals. His divine steed was for the while turned out to graze with those docile geldings that had once been knights and barons and reigning kings: all wandered contentedly enough about the neat cottage, along with a number of steers and sheep and three mules, who, also, had once been noblemen and well-thought-of monarchs.

Gerald saw that these animals seemed not dissatisfied with their transfiguring doom. Yet it appeared a bit wanton—even to him, who had once been a tortoise and a lion and a fish and a boar pig,—that these gentlemen should have been snatched from positions of responsibility and worldly honor, from thrones and tournaments and large bank accounts, and set to eating grass in a field. And Gerald sincerely pitied them for their ignorance as to the correct way in which to deal with the small magics of Maya.

The dear woman herself you could not blame. She could not help trying, out of pure kindliness and affection, to hold men back from daring and splendid exploits, because she really thought they would be much safer, and more happy, as domestic animals.

And, in fact, she justified her charitableness with a logic which was plausible. She argued that all men were better content after they had become domestic animals. She pointed out that her lovers, in particular—Why, but Gerald could see for himself how little vexed were her steers and geldings, now, by affairs of the heart. Upon every imaginable moral ground they had been made better by their double transformation. They did not run after lewd females, they were not bloodthirstily jealous of one another, and they were asleep every night at a respectable hour. If Gerald had only known them, as she had known them, when they were gentlemen of high distinction and reigning monarchs, he would never argue about an improvement so obvious.

Besides, domestic animals were spurred by magnanimity and altruism into no devastating wars, thrift did not often make them covetous of money, neither did self-respect induce them to spend money foolishly: religion did not lead mules to bray in any pulpit, nor did the conscientiousness of a sheep ever make of him an ever-meddling and pernicious pest. In fine, the domestic animals were undisfigured by any human virtues, and were quite easy to get along with. Whereas, if any woman attempted to have that many men about the house—! Maya, who had lost so many husbands (at least partially) did not complete the statement. But her expression made the aposiopesis eloquent.

Gerald had no smallest doubt but that, if he himself had not been divine and beyond her arts, Maya of the Fair Breasts would long ago, out of pure kindliness and affection, have transformed him too into a sheep or an ox or some other useful quadruped, and would thus have held him back from his appointed inheritance in Antan. And he did not blame her. The placid, stupid, rather lovable woman simply did not understand that to be contented was not all: she did not comprehend the obligations which were upon a god to live with generous splendor and to perform very tremendous feats in the way of heroism and of philanthropy.

Of course, just as she said, the exploits of a champion who came to enlighten and improve any place—even to redeem it from what, by the standards of the United States of America, was iniquitous and backward and probably undemocratic,—did of necessity upset the routine to which the inhabitants had grown accustomed. Antan, as Gerald looked down upon it from the porch of Maya’s cottage, seemed a contented and tranquil realm. No matter by howsoever un-American standards people might be living there, to redeem the place from those standards would bring upsetment and confusion. And it did seem almost a pity—just as Maya said,—to be bothering people who were contented enough, when you too were contented.... Even so, there was an obligation upon a god. To be contented, to have no cares to worry you by day, to lack for nothing by day, and every night to induce decorously through connubial affection a profound and refreshing slumber,—that was not everything a god desired. Yonder there was a third truth. Yonder was Gerald’s appointed kingdom, and not here upon Mispec Moor.