Kophetua the Thirteenth

by Julian Stafford Corbett

It was a scene that it is difficult for us even to imagine. Costume in Oneiria was as yet entirely untainted by revolutionary ideas. Rumours of the new fashions had indeed reached the country, but they had been ignored as the ridiculous affectations of low-bred fanatics. The fantastic modes of the century were in the heyday of their glory, and indeed had reached a degree of extravagance which it was natural to look for in so advanced and elegant a court as that of Kophetua XIII. In no other spot on earth perhaps could you have seen the vulgar handiwork of Nature so completely effaced as in his ballroom to-night.

Under mountains of powdered curls, and forests of ribbons, in which crouched large tropical birds, the women limped on tiny, high-heeled shoes, as though their exquisite refinement could not endure the comparatively crude ideas of their Creator; every characteristic of their humanity was distorted or obliterated past all recognition with yard-long stomachers, high-peaked stays, and hoops that mocked at Heaven; and the men pursued them in every extravagance, with patch and powder and paint, with stiff full skirts and grotesque headgear, as though refinement were only to be found in effeminacy. It was a living garden of artificial flowers, where the natural blossoms on figured satins seemed to deride the unnatural bloom on disfigured faces.

Still it was a brilliant kaleidoscopic scene as the rooms filled up, and coteries fell into groups to chat till the King appeared. For there was an immense deal of gossip to be got through. On the question of the hour nobody knew anything, and every one had something to tell. General Dolabella was completely invested the moment he entered the rooms, and a lisping fire was at once opened on him to compel him to surrender his authoritative information.

For of course the General knew all about it. He was a minister, uniting in his own person the offices of Commander-in-chief and Director of Public Worship. It was said to have been the last act of the founder to bring together these two portfolios. He looked upon the standing army and the Church as the two great enemies of personal liberty, and it is supposed his idea was that no one man would ever be able to develop both to a dangerous degree of efficiency; or, as others conjectured, he hoped by drawing the two departments into close proximity to increase the chance of friction between them. In this the arrangement was very successful, though it certainly led to some extraordinary results.

General Dolabella had held his place for many years, and was regarded successful administrator. He was a man of two sides, as he often said himself, and perhaps his success was due to that. It was undoubtedly this gift which had won him the confidence of the Kallikagathist party and placed him at its head. It had procured him, besides, advantages such as few enjoy. Though a married man, with a growing family, he was a professed misogynist. It was the tone which the King gave to the Court, and the General was nothing if not fashionable. He spoke of his marriage as an imprudence of his youth. But it did not stand in his way. His wife, of whom it must be said he stood a little in awe, was so entirely deceived by the tone of his conversation, that she never interfered with his little flirtations, and it must be confessed he had not a few. There was hardly a woman at Court whom he had not loved in his time. To an ordinary man it would have been difficult to reconcile such tastes with the character of a professed misogynist, but the dually constituted General was not an ordinary man. He from the first made it his mission to convert the women of the Court to the creed professed by the men, beginning with the prettiest as being probably the most dangerous heretics. If he had not as yet made many converts, he had succeeded in vastly amusing himself and his little friends, and it was with the satisfied smile of a popular cavalier that the General received the broadside of questions his fair besiegers delivered.

"I protest, you should have declared war in proper form," said the gallant warrior, as he balanced himself on his tight satin shoes, with his elbows squeezed closely in to his pinched waist, and his white hands, half hidden in lace, toying mincingly before him with his cane. "This procedure is extremely uncanonical. Had you sent me a trumpet to blow a formal citation I should have been prepared for you. But where was ever a woman," he added, with the sweetest smile, "who would not take a mean advantage if she could?"

"You are a vastly provoking man, General," said one of his oldest experiments. "You know all about them, and could tell us if you chose."

"May I die," answered the Minister, "if I know more than yourselves."

"But we know nothing," they cried, in excited chorus.

"Well, then," said Dolabella, with an air of pity, "I suppose I must tell you what I have heard, or your poor little hearts will ache with curiosity."