Some Christmas Stories | Page 6

another, looking over his shoulder! Down upon the grass, at the tree's
foot, lies the full length of a coal-black Giant, stretched asleep, with his
head in a lady's lap; and near them is a glass box, fastened with four
locks of shining steel, in which he keeps the lady prisoner when he is
awake. I see the four keys at his girdle now. The lady makes signs to
the two kings in the tree, who softly descend. It is the setting-in of the
bright Arabian Nights.
Oh, now all common things become uncommon and enchanted to me.
All lamps are wonderful; all rings are talismans. Common flower-pots
are full of treasure, with a little earth scattered on the top; trees are for
Ali Baba to hide in; beef-steaks are to throw down into the Valley of
Diamonds, that the precious stones may stick to them, and be carried by
the eagles to their nests, whence the traders, with loud cries, will scare
them. Tarts are made, according to the recipe of the Vizier's son of
Bussorah, who turned pastrycook after he was set down in his drawers
at the gate of Damascus; cobblers are all Mustaphas, and in the habit of
sewing up people cut into four pieces, to whom they are taken
blind-fold.
Any iron ring let into stone is the entrance to a cave which only waits

for the magician, and the little fire, and the necromancy, that will make
the earth shake. All the dates imported come from the same tree as that
unlucky date, with whose shell the merchant knocked out the eye of the
genie's invisible son. All olives are of the stock of that fresh fruit,
concerning which the Commander of the Faithful overheard the boy
conduct the fictitious trial of the fraudulent olive merchant; all apples
are akin to the apple purchased (with two others) from the Sultan's
gardener for three sequins, and which the tall black slave stole from the
child. All dogs are associated with the dog, really a transformed man,
who jumped upon the baker's counter, and put his paw on the piece of
bad money. All rice recalls the rice which the awful lady, who was a
ghoule, could only peck by grains, because of her nightly feasts in the
burial-place. My very rocking-horse,--there he is, with his nostrils
turned completely inside-out, indicative of Blood!--should have a peg
in his neck, by virtue thereof to fly away with me, as the wooden horse
did with the Prince of Persia, in the sight of all his father's Court.
Yes, on every object that I recognise among those upper branches of
my Christmas Tree, I see this fairy light! When I wake in bed, at
daybreak, on the cold, dark, winter mornings, the white snow dimly
beheld, outside, through the frost on the window-pane, I hear Dinarzade.
"Sister, sister, if you are yet awake, I pray you finish the history of the
Young King of the Black Islands." Scheherazade replies, "If my lord
the Sultan will suffer me to live another day, sister, I will not only
finish that, but tell you a more wonderful story yet." Then, the gracious
Sultan goes out, giving no orders for the execution, and we all three
breathe again.
At this height of my tree I begin to see, cowering among the leaves-- it
may be born of turkey, or of pudding, or mince pie, or of these many
fancies, jumbled with Robinson Crusoe on his desert island, Philip
Quarll among the monkeys, Sandford and Merton with Mr. Barlow,
Mother Bunch, and the Mask--or it may be the result of indigestion,
assisted by imagination and over-doctoring--a prodigious nightmare. It
is so exceedingly indistinct, that I don't know why it's frightful--but I
know it is. I can only make out that it is an immense array of shapeless
things, which appear to be planted on a vast exaggeration of the

lazy-tongs that used to bear the toy soldiers, and to be slowly coming
close to my eyes, and receding to an immeasurable distance. When it
comes closest, it is worse. In connection with it I descry remembrances
of winter nights incredibly long; of being sent early to bed, as a
punishment for some small offence, and waking in two hours, with a
sensation of having been asleep two nights; of the laden hopelessness
of morning ever dawning; and the oppression of a weight of remorse.
And now, I see a wonderful row of little lights rise smoothly out of the
ground, before a vast green curtain. Now, a bell rings--a magic bell,
which still sounds in my ears unlike all other bells--and music plays,
amidst a buzz of voices, and a fragrant smell of orange-peel and oil.
Anon, the magic bell commands the music to cease, and