Deciduous Cabell*

It used to be Mr. Cabell's aim and custom to "write perfectly of beautiful happenings." He still writes perfectly, that is to say, with great solicitude for the antique rhythm and consonance of his finical phrases, but his passion for beautiful happenings has been lapped by the irony of surfeit. Either that, or things in Poictesme/-are working out to natural conclusions and Mr. Cabell, as a determined realist, reports them with a deciduous emphasis so that no misapprehension may remain. Queen Freydis has faded. The hair of Melicent, once a golden net where dreams were tangled, will grow straggly and fall out. The Domnei idea (worship of women) has proved wholly untenable, and no one ever discovers a posset or cantrap to confound Koschei, the god of things as they are.

So this continuance of affairs in Poictesme, after the passing of that brave grey rascal, Dom Manuel, from his castle at Storisende, and during the adolescence of Coth's prying young son, Jurgen, is a faintly tiresome recital of disappointments, frustrations, pedantic sorceries and middle-aged bawdinesses among the nine remaining Knights of the Silver Stallion, who disband perforce and go to their destinies as their leader has gone to his.

Young Horvendile, Manuel's satanic overlord, tells them off quietly. Dame Niafer has already taken up with a holy man and begun the legend of Manuel, making him out ridicuously admirable for posterity, as a pious widow should. Gonfal of Naimes is told to go southward and does so, becoming a champion of misadventure among the Transcendentalists of Inis Dahut, enjoying the favors of their dark queen, Morvyth, while younger, less sensible men scour the earth for some marvelous token that will win her hand.

Miramon Lluagor, who was Manuel's Seneschal of Gontaron, retires to Vraidex, his mountainy magic-seat, and is temporarily rid of his talkative wife, Gisele, by wishing her into the middle of the next week. (It is during Miramon's manipulation of the bright bees of Toupan that Koschei almost falls.)

Coth of the Rocks, Jurgen's pink, robust, mustachioed parent, goes westward looking for Manuel. He becomes involved with most of the queens and several younger persons on this pilgrimage, but at last manages an interview with his old chief. A western god blows him home--by most Rabelaisian means --to bowse, wench, let the absurd legend of Manuel grow, and to die in his sleep.

Other knights, other fates, the perplexity of which is somewhat relieved by an appendix, a much-needed calendar of events during the years 1239-1300 in legendary France.

The Author. There had been so many and such distinguished Cabells in Virginia, that James Branch, who was born at Richmond 47 years ago, was early moved to thread their genealogy back through several centuries. He was a precocious youth, had taught French and German while still a student at the College of William and Mary. Yet there is nothing, save the genealogical bent, to suggest how he became fascinated by the Middle Ages to the extent of creating in them a land and populace of his own, spun only partially out of moldering legend. This world has long since been his only real one*. With eyes "heavy-lidded and sleepy . . . insolent and a little bored," he occasionally glances up at the 20th Century to mock or pay it a cunning jibe in return for the years of neglect it accorded him before Jurgen had the honor of being suppressed. Only under great constraint will he leave his tolerant, amused wife and drowsy country house, which, strange to say, is not stored with astonishing things, but is rather dull and efficient, with mediocre books on its shelves.

In September, Publisher John Day will offer another new tale, The Music from Behind the Moon, wherein, it is said, the Cabell philosophy will be redefined. For the present, a short definition of that philosophy might be had by steeping in bitterness not unlike Poe's the motto often heard in Poictesme: "Mundus vult decipi."

*THE SILVER STALLION--James Branch Cabell--McBride ($2.50)

/-Pronounced Pwa-tame.

*So real has it Become for others that Cabell enthusiasts are now flocking to buy an antique map of Poictesme (pronounced "Pwa-tame") drawn "from the yellowed parchments of Philip Borsdale (circa 1679)." by Frank C. Pape, illustrator of various Cabell volumes and also of some works of M. Anatole France.