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Two Singular Men
by
As the Severed Lady, Mademoiselle Zoe’s professional duties were monotonous. They gave her abundant opportunities for observation and reflection, and, being young and of the feminine sex, she dreamed.
What she observed most was eyes. These were the eyes that looked at her as she rested in her little swing when on exhibition. Her gilt booth was very popular, for she was pretty, and some kind-hearted visitors at the show pitied the poor thing because she ended at the waist! But far from being depressed by the apparent absence of all below the lower edge of her gold belt with its glittering diamond buckle, she was cheerful, and now and then would sing a little song. Her sweetness of manner and voice and the plumpness of her rounded arms and shoulders were what had won Sampey’s heart and made him all the more zealous in his useful occupation of devising the names which Castellani bestowed on his freaks.
Hoolagaloo had suffered a turning of the head by his good fortune. He imagined that because he was monstrous he was great. That made him arrogant and presumptuous. He, too, loved Zoe. Thus it came about that a rivalry was established between Sampey and the Wild Man of Milo. How was it with Zoe? Which loved she?–or loved she either? Observing and reflecting, she dreamed. As it was eyes only that she saw, it was of eyes only that she dreamed.
“Ah,” sighed this innocent girl, “that I could see in reality the eyes of my dreams! So many, many eyes stare at me in my booth, and yet the eyes of my dreams come not! Blue eyes, brown eyes, black eyes, hazel eyes, gray eyes, all of every shade, but not yet have come the eyes I so long to see! Those which do come are commonplace; their owners are commonplace–just ordinary mortals. I’m sure that princes, knights, and heroes must have the eyes that beam on me as I sleep. I’m sure, indeed, that such eyes will come in time, and that by such a sign I shall know my hero, my master, my love!”
She cautiously asked the Wild Man of Milo about it one day, but his answer was a coarse guffaw; then, seeing that he had made a mistake, he kissed her. The hair of his tufted nose thus got into her pretty blue eyes, and she shuddered.
Then she went to Sampey, who was wise, cool, and politic. He listened, amazed, but attentive. The opportunity of his life had come. When he had gathered up his dismayed and scattered wits, he gravely answered:
“Muggie, these eyes that appear in your dreams–is it a particular color or a certain expression which they have?”
“Color,” she answered.
“What color?”
“A soft, pale, limpid amber.”
She said it so innocently, so earnestly, so sweetly, that he could doubt neither her sincerity nor her sanity. Thus the crisis had fallen upon him and had nearly crushed him.
Nevertheless, he set his wits at work. Pondering, analyzing, ransacking every nook in the warehouse of his mental resources, he fought bravely with despair. Presently a bright ray of intelligence, descended Heaven knows whence, swept across his thought-pinched face. This bright beam, growing more and more effulgent, mounting higher and higher till it illuminated all his faculties, finally lighted up his way to become one of the two singular men of this narrative.
“I see,” he said, trying to veil the glow of triumph in his face, “that you have not wholly mastered the problem of the eyes. True, it is only heroes that have amber eyes. But such eyes are a badge of heroism sent by heaven; and, though a man may not have been heroic in any outward sense, when the essence of true heroism is breathed into him his eyes, without his knowledge of the fact, may assume the amber hue of your dreams. Sometimes, in the development of the spirit of heroism, this color is only transient; in time it may become permanent. Muggie, these dreams indicate your destiny. You should marry none but a hero, and when he comes you will know him by his amber eyes.” With this Sampey sighed, for Muggie was looking earnestly into his gray eyes.