The Equinox (Volume I, Number II)

THE MAN-COVER When the cage, made of the strongest steel, was closed upon me, I found myself a prisoner in the most degrading state. I began to look around and to shake the bars of my grating, but in vain. The man-without-a-cover had gone. My next step was to inspect the prison. And in so doing I discovered in the left corner a box, resembling a coffin in shape, though it was certainly not a coffin such as I delight in seeing daily in the windows of the undertakers. It was divided into compartments! “Is this the box of lofty thoughts, I wonder?” said I to myself. In that case the man must have had a certain degree of reason about him after all, for the box was far from being empty. In the first compartment was a red flower, blushing deeply with all the purest carmine of Nature. The flower was certainly not freshly cut, but had preserved all its beauties and delect- able perfume. In the second compartment was a doll. Oh, not an extra- ordinary doll! A plain, common hand-made wooden doll, which you could open by the middle, to discover inside it a second doll presenting exactly the same appearance. Just like those figureless old women of white wood made by the Russian peasants during the long evenings of their winter season. From the first to the last there were twenty-one dolls, one inside the other. The last was scarcely bigger than a poppy- seed, but presented exactly all the particularities of the largest one. In the third compartment were two books. You may judge of my surprise when I opened them and found that no 361