A Moonlight Fable

: The Door In The Wall And Other Stories

There was once a little man whose mother made him a beautiful suit

of clothes. It was green and gold and woven so that I cannot

describe how delicate and fine it was, and there was a tie of

orange fluffiness that tied up under his chin. And the buttons

in their newness shone like stars. He was proud and pleased by his

suit beyond measure, and stood before the long looking-glass when

first he put it on, so astonished and delighted with it that he

could hardly turn himself away.



He wanted to wear it everywhere and show it to all sorts of

people. He thought over all the places he had ever visited and all

the scenes he had ever heard described, and tried to imagine what

the feel of it would be if he were to go now to those scenes and

places wearing his shining suit, and he wanted to go out forthwith

into the long grass and the hot sunshine of the meadow wearing it.

Just to wear it! But his mother told him, "No." She told him he

must take great care of his suit, for never would he have another

nearly so fine; he must save it and save it and only wear it on

rare and great occasions. It was his wedding suit, she said. And

she took his buttons and twisted them up with tissue paper for fear

their bright newness should be tarnished, and she tacked little

guards over the cuffs and elbows and wherever the suit was most

likely to come to harm. He hated and resisted these things, but

what could he do? And at last her warnings and persuasions had

effect and he consented to take off his beautiful suit and fold it

into its proper creases and put it away. It was almost as though

he gave it up again. But he was always thinking of wearing it

and of the supreme occasion when some day it might be worn without

the guards, without the tissue paper on the buttons, utterly and

delightfully, never caring, beautiful beyond measure.



One night when he was dreaming of it, after his habit, he

dreamed he took the tissue paper from one of the buttons and found

its brightness a little faded, and that distressed him mightily in

his dream. He polished the poor faded button and polished it, and

if anything it grew duller. He woke up and lay awake thinking of

the brightness a little dulled and wondering how he would feel if

perhaps when the great occasion (whatever it might be) should

arrive, one button should chance to be ever so little short of its

first glittering freshness, and for days and days that thought

remained with him, distressingly. And when next his mother let him

wear his suit, he was tempted and nearly gave way to the temptation

just to fumble off one little bit of tissue paper and see if indeed

the buttons were keeping as bright as ever.



He went trimly along on his way to church full of this wild

desire. For you must know his mother did, with repeated and

careful warnings, let him wear his suit at times, on Sundays, for

example, to and fro from church, when there was no threatening of

rain, no dust nor anything to injure it, with its buttons covered

and its protections tacked upon it and a sunshade in his hand to

shadow it if there seemed too strong a sunlight for its colours.

And always, after such occasions, he brushed it over and folded it

exquisitely as she had taught him, and put it away again.



Now all these restrictions his mother set to the wearing of

his suit he obeyed, always he obeyed them, until one strange night

he woke up and saw the moonlight shining outside his window. It

seemed to him the moonlight was not common moonlight, nor the night

a common night, and for a while he lay quite drowsily with this odd

persuasion in his mind. Thought joined on to thought like things

that whisper warmly in the shadows. Then he sat up in his little

bed suddenly, very alert, with his heart beating very fast and a

quiver in his body from top to toe. He had made up his mind. He

knew now that he was going to wear his suit as it should be worn.

He had no doubt in the matter. He was afraid, terribly afraid, but

glad, glad.



He got out of his bed and stood a moment by the window looking

at the moonshine-flooded garden and trembling at the thing he meant

to do. The air was full of a minute clamor of crickets and

murmurings, of the infinitesimal shouting of little living things.

He went very gently across the creaking boards, for fear that he

might wake the sleeping house, to the big dark clothes-press

wherein his beautiful suit lay folded, and he took it out garment

by garment and softly and very eagerly tore off its tissue-paper

covering and its tacked protections, until there it was, perfect

and delightful as he had seen it when first his mother had given it

to him--a long time it seemed ago. Not a button had tarnished, not

a thread had faded on this dear suit of his; he was glad enough for

weeping as in a noiseless hurry he put it on. And then back he

went, soft and quick, to the window and looked out upon the garden

and stood there for a minute, shining in the moonlight, with his

buttons twinkling like stars, before he got out on the sill and,

making as little of a rustling as he could, clambered down to the

garden path below. He stood before his mother's house, and it was

white and nearly as plain as by day, with every window-blind but

his own shut like an eye that sleeps. The trees cast still shadows

like intricate black lace upon the wall.



The garden in the moonlight was very different from the garden

by day; moonshine was tangled in the hedges and stretched in

phantom cobwebs from spray to spray. Every flower was gleaming

white or crimson black, and the air was aquiver with the thridding

of small crickets and nightingales singing unseen in the depths of

the trees.



There was no darkness in the world, but only warm, mysterious

shadows; and all the leaves and spikes were edged and lined with

iridescent jewels of dew. The night was warmer than any night had

ever been, the heavens by some miracle at once vaster and nearer,

and spite of the great ivory-tinted moon that ruled the world, the

sky was full of stars.



The little man did not shout nor sing for all his infinite

gladness. He stood for a time like one awe-stricken, and then,

with a queer small cry and holding out his arms, he ran out as if

he would embrace at once the whole warm round immensity of the

world. He did not follow the neat set paths that cut the garden

squarely, but thrust across the beds and through the wet, tall,

scented herbs, through the night stock and the nicotine and the

clusters of phantom white mallow flowers and through the thickets

of southern-wood and lavender, and knee-deep across a wide space of

mignonette. He came to the great hedge and he thrust his way

through it, and though the thorns of the brambles scored him deeply

and tore threads from his wonderful suit, and though burs and

goosegrass and havers caught and clung to him, he did not care. He

did not care, for he knew it was all part of the wearing for which

he had longed. "I am glad I put on my suit," he said; "I am glad

I wore my suit."



Beyond the hedge he came to the duck-pond, or at least to what

was the duck-pond by day. But by night it was a great bowl of

silver moonshine all noisy with singing frogs, of wonderful silver

moonshine twisted and clotted with strange patternings, and the

little man ran down into its waters between the thin black rushes,

knee-deep and waist-deep and to his shoulders, smiting the water to

black and shining wavelets with either hand, swaying and shivering

wavelets, amid which the stars were netted in the tangled

reflections of the brooding trees upon the bank. He waded until he

swam, and so he crossed the pond and came out upon the other side,

trailing, as it seemed to him, not duckweed, but very silver in

long, clinging, dripping masses. And up he went through the

transfigured tangles of the willow-herb and the uncut seeding grass

of the farther bank. And so he came glad and breathless into the

highroad. "I am glad," he said, "beyond measure, that I had

clothes that fitted this occasion."



The highroad ran straight as an arrow flies, straight into the

deep blue pit of sky beneath the moon, a white and shining road

between the singing nightingales, and along it he went, running now

and leaping, and now walking and rejoicing, in the clothes his

mother had made for him with tireless, loving hands. The road was

deep in dust, but that for him was only soft whiteness, and as he

went a great dim moth came fluttering round his wet and shimmering

and hastening figure. At first he did not heed the moth, and then

he waved his hands at it and made a sort of dance with it as it

circled round his head. "Soft moth!" he cried, "dear moth! And

wonderful night, wonderful night of the world! Do you think my

clothes are beautiful, dear moth? As beautiful as your scales and

all this silver vesture of the earth and sky?"



And the moth circled closer and closer until at last its

velvet wings just brushed his lips . . . . .



And next morning they found him dead with his neck broken in

the bottom of the stone pit, with his beautiful clothes a little

bloody and foul and stained with the duckweed from the pond. But

his face was a face of such happiness that, had you seen it, you

would have understood indeed how that he had died happy, never

knowing the cool and streaming silver for the duckweed in the pond.