Ida a Novel (15 page)

Why are sailors, farmers and actors more given to reading and believing signs than other people. It is natural enough for farmers and sailors who are always there where signs are, alone with them but why actors.

Well anyway Ida was not an actress nor a sailor nor a farmer.

Cuckoos magpies crows and swallows are signs.

Nightingales larks robins and orioles are not.

Ida saw her first glow worm. The first of anything is a sign.

Then she saw three of them that was a sign.

Then she saw ten.

Ten are never a sign.

And yet what had she caught.

She had caught and she had taught.

That ten was not a sign.

Andrew was Andrew the first.

He was a sign.

Ida had not known he was a sign, not known he was a sign.

Ida was resting.

Worse than any signs is a family who brings bad luck. Ida had known one, naturally it was a family of women, a family which brings bad luck must be all women.

Ida had known one the kind that if you take a dog with you when you go to see them, the dog goes funny and when it has its puppies its puppies are peculiar.

This family was a mother a daughter and a granddaughter, well they all had the airs and graces of beauties and with reason, well they were. The grandmother had been married to an admiral and then he died and to a general and then he died. Her daughter was married to a doctor but the doctor could not die, he just left, the granddaughter was very young, just as young as sixteen, she married a writer, nobody knows just how not but before very long she cried, every day she cried, and her mother cried and even her grandmother and then she was not married any longer to the writer. Then well she was still young not yet twenty-one and a banker saw her and he said he must marry her, well she couldn’t yet naturally not the writer was still her husband but very soon he would not be, so the banker was all but married to her, well anyway they went out together, the car turned over the banker was dead and she had broken her collar-bone.

Now everybody wanted to know would the men want her more because of all this or would they be scared of her.

Well as it happened it was neither the one nor the other. It often is not.

The men after that just did not pay any attention to her. You might say they did not any of them pay any attention to her even when she was twenty-three or twenty-four. They did not even ask not any of them. What for.

And so anybody could see that they could not bring good luck to any one not even a dog, no not even.

No really bad luck came to Ida from knowing them but after that anyway, it did happen that she never went out to see any one.

She said it was better.

She did not say it was better but it was better. Ida never said anything about anything.

Anyway after that she rested and let them come in, anybody come in. That way no family would come that just would not happen.

So Ida was resting and they came in. Not one by one, they just came in.

That is the way Andrew came he just came in.

He took a walk every afternoon and he always told about what happened on his walk.

He just walked every afternoon.

He liked to hear people tell about good luck and bad luck.

Somebody one afternoon told a whole lot.

Andrew was like that, he was born with his life, why not. And he had it, he walked every afternoon, and he said something every minute of every day, but he did not talk while he was listening. He listened while he was listening but he did not hear unless he asked to have told what they were telling. He liked to hear about good luck and bad luck because it was not real to him, nothing was real to him except a walk every afternoon and to say something every minute of every day.

So he said and what were you saying about good luck and bad luck.

Well it was this.
¹⁶

The things anybody has to worry about are spiders, cuckoos goldfish and dwarfs.

Yes said Andrew. And he was listening.

Spider at night makes delight.

Spider in the morning makes mourning.

Yes said Andrew.

Well, said the man who was talking, think of a spider talking.

Yes said Andrew.

The spider says

Listen to me I, I am a spider, you must not mistake me for the sky, the sky red at night is a sailor’s delight, the sky red in the morning is a sailor’s warning, you must not mistake me for the sky, I am I, I am a spider and in the morning any morning I bring sadness and mourning and at night if they see me at night I bring them delight, do not mistake me for the sky, not I, do not mistake me for a dog who howls at night and causes no delight, a dog says the bright moonlight makes him go mad with desire to bring sorrow to any one sorrow and sadness, the dog says the night the bright moonlight brings madness and grief, but says the spider I, I am a spider, a big spider or a little spider, it is all alike, a spider green or gray, there is nothing else to say, I am a spider and I know and I always tell everybody so, to see me at night brings them delight, to see me in the morning, brings mourning, and if you see me at night, and I am a sight, because I am dead having dried up by night, even so dead at night I still cause delight, I dead bring delight to any one who sees me at night, and so every one can sleep tight who has seen me at night.

Andrew was listening and he said it was interesting and said did they know any other superstition.

Yes said the man there is the cuckoo.

Oh yes the cuckoo.

Supposing they could listen to a cuckoo.

I, I am a cuckoo, I am not a clock, because a clock makes time pass and I stop the time by giving mine, and mine is money, and money is honey, and I I bring money, I, I, I. I bring misery and money but never honey, listen to me.

Once I was there, you know everybody, that I I sing in the spring, sweetly, sing, evening and morning and everything.

Listen to me.

If you listen to me, if when you hear me, the first time in the spring time, hear me sing, and you have money a lot of money for you in your pocket when you hear me in the spring, you will be rich all year any year, but if you hear me and you have gone out with no money jingling in your pocket when you hear me singing then you will be poor poor all year, poor.

But sometimes I can do even more.

I knew a case like that, said the man.

Did you said Andrew.

She, well she, she had written a lovely book but nobody took the lovely book nobody paid her money for the lovely book they never gave her money, never never never and she was poor and they needed money oh yes they did she and her lover.

And she sat and she wrote and she longed for money for she had a lover and all she needed was money to live and love, money money money.

So she wrote and she hoped and she wrote and she sighed and she wanted money, money money, for herself and for love for love and for herself, money money money.

And one day somebody was sorry for her and they gave her not much but a little money, he was a nice millionaire the one who gave her a little money, but it was very little money and it was spring and she wanted love and money and she had love and now she wanted money.

She went out it was the spring and she sat upon the grass with a little money in her pocket and the cuckoo saw her sitting and knew she had a little money and it went up to her close up to her and sat on a tree and said cuckoo at her, cuckoo cuckoo, cuckoo, and she said, Oh, a cuckoo bird is singing on a cuckoo tree singing to me oh singing to me. And the cuckoo sang cuckoo cuckoo and she sang cuckoo cuckoo to it, and there they were singing cuckoo she to it and it to her.

Then she knew that it was true and that she would be rich and love would not leave her and she would have all three money and love and a cuckoo in a tree, all three.

Andrew did listen and the man went on.

And the goldfish.

Yes said a goldfish I listen I listen but listen to me I am stronger than a cuckoo stronger and meaner because I never do bring good luck I bring nothing but misery and trouble and all no not at all I bring no good luck only bad and that does not make me sad it makes me glad that I never bring good luck only bad.

They buy me because I look so pretty and red and gold in my bowl but I never bring good luck I only bring bad, bad bad bad.

Listen to me.

There was a painter once who thought he was so big he could do anything and he did. So he bought goldfish and any day he made a painting of us in the way that made him famous and made him say, goldfish bring me good luck not bad, and they better had.

Everything went wonderfully for him, he turned goldfish into gold because everything he did was bold and it sold, and he had money and fame but all the same we the goldfish just sat and waited while he painted.

One day, crack, the bowl where we were fell apart and we were all cracked the bowl the water and the fish, and the painter too crack went the painter and his painting too and he woke up and he knew that he was dead too, the goldfish and he, they were all dead, but we there are always goldfish in plenty to bring bad luck to anybody too but he the painter and his painting was dead dead dead.

We knew what to do.

Andrew was more interested, and the dwarfs he said.

Well this is the way they are they say we are two male and female, if you see us both at once it means nothing, but if you see either of us alone it means bad luck or good. And which is which. Misfortune is female good luck luck is male, it is all very simple.

Oh yes anybody can know that and if they see one of us and it is the female he or she has to go and go all day long until they see a dwarf man, otherwise anything awful could happen to them. A great many make fun of those who believe in this thing but those who believe they know, female dwarf bad luck male dwarf good luck, all that is eternal.

Silence.

Suddenly the goldfish suddenly began to swish and to bubble and squeak and to shriek, I I do not believe in dwarfs neither female nor male, he cried, no not in a cuckoo, no not in spiders, no, the only thing I believe in besides myself is a shoe on a table, oh that, that makes me shiver and shake, I have no shoes no feet no shoes but a shoe on a table, that is terrible, oh oh yes oh ah.

And the cuckoo said,

Oh you poor fish, you do not believe in me, you poor fish, and I do not believe in you fish nothing but fish a goldfish only fish, no I do not believe in you no fish no, I believe in me, I am a cuckoo and I know and I tell you so, no the only thing I believe in which is not me is when I see the new moon through a glass window, I never do because there is no glass to see through, but I believe in that too, I believe in that and I believe in me ah yes I do I see what I see through, and I do I do I do.

No I do not believe in a fish, nor in a dwarf nor in a spider not I, because I am I a cuckoo and I, I, I.

The spider screamed. You do not believe in me, everybody believes in me, you do not believe in spiders you do not believe in me bah. I believe in me I am all there is to see except well if you put your clothes on wrong side to well that is an awful thing to do, and if you change well that is worse than any way and what do I say, if you put your clothes on wrong everything will go well that day but if you change from wrong to right then nothing will go right, but what can I do I am a green spider or a gray and I have the same clothes every day and I can make no mistake any day but I believe oh I believe if you put your clothes on wrong side to everything will be lovely that you do, but anyway everybody has to believe in me, a spider, of course they do, a spider in the morning is an awful warning a spider at night brings delight, it is so lovely to know this is true and not to believe in a fish or in dwarfs or in a cuckoo, ooh ooh, it is I, no matter what they try it is I I. I.

The dwarfs said, And of whom are you talking all of you, we dwarfs, we are in the beginning we have commenced everything and we believe in everything yes we do, we believe in the language of flowers and we believe in lucky stones, we believe in peacocks’ feathers and we believe in stars too, we believe in leaves of tea, we believe in a white horse and a red-headed girl, we believe in the moon, we believe in red in the sky, we believe in the barking of a dog, we believe in everything that is mortal and immortal, we even believe in spiders, in goldfish and in the cuckoo, we the dwarfs we believe in it all, all and all, and all and every one are alike, we are, all the world is like us the dwarfs, all the world believes in everything and we do too and all the world believes in us and in you.

Everybody in the room was quiet and Andrew was really excited and he looked at Ida and that was that.

Part Six

Good luck and bad luck

No luck and then luck.

Ida was resting.

She was nearly Ida was nearly well.

She could tell when she had been settled when she had been settled very well.