The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily, Page 2

  With a heavy thud the white projectiles hurtled down, right in the midst of the Grand Ducal army. Wherever they fell, the terrible masses of snow made a clean sweep.

  Fear, havoc and ruin to such an extent

  May well terrify the Duke’s regiment.

  The troops run hither and thither and shout:

  “The Old Man of the Mountains has put us to rout!”

  The bombardment of avalanches has told,

  And has made the soldiers’ blood run cold.

  Take flight! Take flight! For who will stop you?

  When fear once starts it gets atop you,

  And once a panic is on the wing,

  No one is left to halt the thing.

  Worms devour the slain,

  The Grand Duke rages in vain.

  The bears are victorious though gory,

  And the battle ends in glory.

  Chapter 2

  If you carefully follow the plan

  Depicting the battle scene,

  You will notice a curious man

  Away to the left in green.

  This was Professor Ambrose,

  Behind where the Duke’s oriflamme rose.

  Now tell us pray, Professor, about your magic powers –

  And whether, if you wish, you could turn pebbles into flowers

  And flowers into precious stones, ruby and emerald posies,

  And skunks and rats and warthogs into scented, crimson roses?

  Gone are the days of old

  When King Arthur was alive

  And a wand turned all to gold

  And made all the people thrive.

  The Professor can wave his wand

  But twice ere its power flies,

  And when he has woven the spells,

  Its magic for ever dies.

  Useless is dragon’s gizzard,

  Or beak of raven boiled,

  Two spells and then all is spoiled,

  And the wizard no more a wizard.

  But Ambrose is haunted still

  By a fear of becoming ill,

  And he jealously guards each spell

  To save it for making him well.

  He might live at ease, have a lot

  Of money, do nothing but play,

  Or eat seventeen times a day –

  But for these things he cares not a jot.

  And now that we have made that plain,

  Let us resume our tale again.

  When the Grand Duke’s army went forth to war against the bears, Ambrose had asked himself whether this would not be a good opportunity to regain favour with the tyrant and get himself recalled to court. It would be enough for him to use one of his spells and the bears would be decimated, and the Grand Duke would erect a statue to him. For that reason he wandered about unseen near the battle, ready to intervene at the right moment.

  But the discomfiture of the Grand Duke had been so unexpected that it took even the wizard by surprise. By the time he had drawn his magic wand out of his pocket to rescue the Grand Duke, the bears were well over the mountains shouting for victory, and the Grand Duke had given it up as hopeless. So then the wizard paused with his wand in mid air, struck by a new thought. “Why should I help that vile Grand Duke who drove me out like a dog?” pondered the Professor. “Why should I not instead become a friend of the bears, who are sure to be great simpletons? Why should I not make them nominate me minister? With the bears I need not waste my spells: I need only say a few difficult words and they will remain agape like so many idiots. What an opportunity!”

  Then he put his wand back again, and in the evening, when the victorious bears had encamped in a wood to feast on the provisions abandoned by the Grand Duke in his flight – when the moon rose behind the pine trees, sweetly lighting the meadows (for at the foot of the valley there was no more snow) – when in the solitude of the countryside they began to hear the melancholy hooting of the screech owl, Professor Ambrose took courage, went down towards the bears and presented himself to King Leander.

  Listen now to how he spoke, and to the wisdom which came from his lips.

  He explained that he was a wizard, a necromancer (which is the same thing), a diviner, a prophet and a sorcerer. He said that he could work white magic and black magic, that he could read the stars – in short that he knew a great quantity of extraordinary things.

  “Good,” replied King Leander very cordially. “I am really delighted that you came, because now you will be able to find my young son for me.”

  “And where is this son of yours?” asked the wizard, realizing that not everything was going to be as straightforward as he had imagined.

  “What a question!” exclaimed King Leander. “If I knew, what need should I have to ask of you?”

  “In short, you would like a spell?” stuttered the Professor, abashed.

  “Of course I want a spell! And what bother can such a little thing be to a great sage like yourself? I am not asking you for the moon, after all!”

  “Your Majesty,” begged Ambrose then, forgetting all the airs he had just put on. “Your Majesty, do you want to ruin me? I can only work one spell, only one in my whole life!” (Here he was telling a flat lie.) “You must wish to ruin me!”

  So they began to argue, Leander determined to discover the whereabouts of his son, the wizard determined not to yield. The bears, tired and replete, fell asleep, but these two continued arguing.

  The moon rose high in the sky and began to descend the other side – and still the two continued arguing.

  The night grew shorter, bit by bit, and still the discussion was not over.

  Dawn broke and the King and the wizard were still arguing.

  But things in life always happen when they are least expected: so, in the first rays of the sun, a large black cloud emerged from behind a neighbouring hill, like an advancing army.

  “The wild boars!” cried a sentinel posted on the outskirts of the wood.

  “The wild boars?” said Leander, surprised.

  “The wild boars themselves, Your Majesty!” replied the bear sentinel, conscientious like all good sentinels.

  It was in fact the horde of wild boars of Count Molfetta, the Grand Duke’s cousin, coming to the rescue. Instead of soldiers, this important nobleman had trained an army of huge, savage pigs to go into battle – and these were very wild and extremely brave, and celebrated all over the world. The Count cracked his whip from the hilltop on which he was standing so as to be out of danger. And on came the terrible boars at the gallop, their tusks whistling in the wind!

  Alas, the bears were still asleep. Scattered here and there about the wood, round the ashes of the fires where they had bivouacked, they were at that very moment dreaming the sweet dreams of morning, which are always the most beautiful. Even the trumpeter was asleep and could not sound the alarm. In his trumpet, abandoned on the grass, the fresh woodland breeze whispered gently, sending forth delicate little notes, a subtle sound, and certainly not enough to wake the animals.

  With Leander there was only a small band of bear fusiliers: they were the sentinels, armed with the firearms taken from the Grand Duke. There was no one else.

  The boars lowered their heads and charged.

  “And now?” stammered Professor Ambrose.

  “Can’t you see?” said King Leander with a certain bitterness. “We are alone. And now we must die. Let us at least try to die decently!” – and he drew his sword from his scabbard. “Let us die like gallant soldiers!”

  “And what about me?” begged the astrologer. “What about me?”

  Must he, Ambrose, die too? And for such a stupid reason? He really did not wish to do so at all. But the wild boars were only a few hundred yards away – and they came on like a river in spate.

  And then the wizard plunged his hand into his pocket, drew out the magic wand, pronounced a few strange words under his breath a
nd traced some signs in the air. Oh, how easy it was to cast a spell when one was as frightened as that!

  And behold, one of the wild boars, the foremost and biggest of them all, suddenly left the ground and swelled and swelled, gradually turning into a real balloon – a beautiful air balloon which floated up into the sky. Then a second followed, and then a third and then a fourth.

  As fast as they arrived the fatal boars were mysteriously bewitched, and they swelled up like footballs.

  Gracious! How they floated away, away with the breezes and the little birds, up among the clouds, gently rocked by the winds!

  Fate had willed it thus. The first of the spells had had to be spent, and only one remained to Ambrose. One more stroke of the magic wand and he would become a man just like other men – old and ugly into the bargain. What good had all his parsimony done him?

  Meanwhile, however, his spell had saved the bears. The last wild boar vanished till nothing remained but a tiny black speck high in the face of the heavens.

  Hence the legends, which caused such uproars,

  Of Count Molfetta’s flying boars.

  Chapter 3

  In the neighbourhood there was an old castle – in fact at that time there were many old castles, but the one we mean is Demon Castle, which was all in ruins and hideous, and full of wild beasts, but which was the most famous because it was inhabited by ghosts. As you very well know, all old castles are generally haunted by a ghost or, at most, by two or three. But in Demon Castle there were so many that you could not count them. There were hundreds of them, if not thousands, lying hidden by day: there were even ghosts in the keyholes.

  There are some mothers who say: “I cannot imagine what pleasure people get out of telling children ghost stories: it terrifies them, and afterwards at night they start screaming if they hear a mouse.” Perhaps the mothers are right. Still, there are three things to remember. First of all, ghosts, always supposing they exist, have never done children any harm – in fact they have never done anyone any harm: it is simply that people insist on getting frightened. Ghosts and spirits, if they exist (and today they have almost vanished off the face of the earth), are natural and innocent things like the wind or the rain, or shadows of trees, or the voice of the cuckoo in the evening – and they are probably sad at having to live all by themselves in dreary, old, uninhabited houses – and they are probably afraid of people as they hardly ever see them, and perhaps if we showed a little more confidence they would become friendly and would enjoy playing with us at, say, hide-and-seek.

  Secondly, Demon Castle does not exist any more, the Grand Duke’s city does not exist any more, there are no more bears in Sicily, and the whole story is now so remote that there is no cause for alarm.

  Thirdly, that is how the story was, and we cannot alter it.

  Silent, gloomy, dark and bleak

  The Castle jutted from its peak,

  And superstition and misinformation

  Gave it a sinister reputation.

  If you slept there, they said, all night,

  When morning came you were dead of fright.

  Apparitions, spirits, spectres, phantoms and ghosts

  Came by night in hosts!

  Even Sparrow, the famous brigand, who used to boast that he was not afraid even of God, was found there as dead as a doornail. The fact is that he was bold and powerful when he was surrounded by his cut-throats or when he was drunk. But in a ruined and deserted mansion, without an innkeeper bringing him flagons of wine all the time, and companions with whom he could crack jokes and keep his courage up, finding himself all alone for the first time, Sparrow began to think about his past. He suddenly remembered all the dirty tricks he had played, and he was already feeling more uncomfortable than he had ever felt, when the ghosts of two old boatmen whom he had formerly assassinated passed casually by him. The two ghosts did not even look at him – did not even deign to notice his presence – but the brigand’s terror was such as to deprive him of breath once and for all. And from that day onwards, people could walk the streets at night again without fear of assault.

  Now Professor Ambrose, in a great rage with King Leander and the bears for obliging him to waste one of his two available spells, determined to get his revenge. He thought it would be a magnificent idea to lure the animals to Demon Castle. There, simple creatures that they were, the bears would certainly fall dead on the spot at the sight of ghosts.

  No sooner said than done. Ambrose advised King Leander to lead his animals to the castle that very night, for they would find a place to sleep, eat and amuse themselves. “Meanwhile I shall go on ahead and make the necessary preparations.”

  And he ran on ahead to the castle to warn the ghosts. As a wizard, he was quite at home with spirits, knew perfectly well that they were not dangerous and did not stand on ceremony with them.

  “Come on, come on, my friends!” shouted the Professor, running through the deserted rooms, on which dusk was already descending. “Wake up, you have got guests!”

  And out of dusty hangings, out of rusty armour, out of sooty fireplaces, out of old books, out of bottles, even out of the pipes of the organ in the chapel, hurried the ghosts – and to tell the truth they were ugly creatures, and anything but prepossessing to people who were not used to them. But Ambrose himself thought nothing of it: he was quite at home there.

  The next thing he did was to pick up some bellows,

  And with huffings and puffings and “ho, there!”s and “hello!”s

  And stirrings and proddings in nooks and crannies,

  He woke the old spirits of granddads and grannies.

  “Make haste now, please, Countess,” he whispered, “for now

  You must waken from slumber to hiss and miaow.

  You too, in the corner, my most noble lords,

  Come forth when I ask you without further words.

  Our programme tonight must be extra frightening

  Chains clanking, teeth gnashing and thunder and lightning.

  You do your worst and I’ll be bystander,

  And the fright of it all will kill King Leander.”

  It was the witching hour of midnight! From the topmost tower, the ghost of the grandfather clock long ago in pieces sent forth twelve quavering ding-dongs and clouds of bats detached themselves from the crumbling rafters and swooped about the castle. At that very moment King Leander, at the head of his people, was advancing through the deserted corridors, astonished to find neither lit lamps nor laden tables, nor an orchestra (as Ambrose had promised).

  No, you wouldn’t say it was an orchestra! From a huge spider’s web hanging in the corner there appeared a dozen ghosts, who advanced on King Leander roaring and making faces.

  Ambrose had thought that the bears, who were simple beasts, would be frightened to death. But he had made a mistake. Just because they were simple and candid, the bears regarded these strange apparitions with curiosity and nothing more. What was there to be afraid of? They had neither teeth nor fangs nor claws. And they had voices like screech-owls.

  “Oh, look at the white sheets dancing by themselves!” exclaimed a little bear.

  “And you, you pretty handkerchief, why are you spinning round like that?” said another beast to a pale little ghost who was twirling round just in front of his muzzle.

  But suddenly the spirits came to a halt and ceased roaring and grimacing.

  “What do I see?” cried one of them in a hollow but anxious voice, changing his tone completely. “It is our worthy King Leander! Don’t you recognize me?”

  “Well, I really… I don’t know…” stammered Leander. “I am Theophilus,” said the spirit, “and there” – pointing to his companions – “are Gideon, Boris, Smallpaws and Bignose, your faithful bears. Do you not know them?”

  And at last the King recognized them: they were his bears who had fallen in battle and already had been changed into ghosts. The
y had taken refuge in the castle and had at once become friends with the ghosts of humans, with whom they were living happily together. But how they had changed! Where, now, were their charming muzzles, their powerful paws, their sumptuous fur coats? They had become transparent, soft, pale, evanescent wisps of veiling!

  “My brave bears!” said Leander, much moved. And he clasped their paws.

  They embraced, or at least they tried to embrace, for it is no easy thing to do for a beast made of flesh and blood and a ghost made of impalpable stuff. Meanwhile, more bears had arrived from one direction, more ghosts from another. New encounters took place amid bursts of laughter and joyous exclamations. The ghosts of humans, too, once the first shyness had worn off, received them royally. The ghosts could hardly believe that the time had come at last for them to have a little fun. They lit bonfires and without more ado began dancing to the sound of an improvised band: there was a cello, a violin and a flute, to say nothing of singers and ballet dancers.

  And what about Ambrose? Why was he not to be seen? He was hiding in a dark corner and watching the scene from there, cursing the bears and the stupidity of the spirits who had not succeeded in frightening them. But for tonight there was nothing to be done about it.

  Bears and ghosts danced, sang and made friends. To crown their joy, a very old ghost succeeded in discovering, in the castle cellars, among piles of skeletons and enormous rats and mice, an ancient bottle of wine such as not even the Grand Duke could boast. Having, as King, taken part in the first round of drinking, Leander preferred to retire with the ghost of Theophilus, who had been a wise and prudent bear. With him he discussed the situation at length and the possibilities of finding his kidnapped son once more.

  “Ah yes, little Tony,” said Theophilus at this point. “I forgot to tell you! Do you know I had news of him? You know he is at the E—”

  He was unable to finish the sentence. Ding, dong, ding went the ghost of the grandfather clock. Three in the morning! The hour when spells are broken! In a moment the ghosts had melted away like smoke from a chimney and had turned into a light mist which lingered in the rooms a little with a faint rustling and then disappeared in its turn.