The Magus - John Fowles [218]
There he turned, as if to the altar in a church, and made a slight bow; after which he went round the table and out through the door at the end. I was left sitting with the silent pair behind me and the faint crackle of the burning torches. I looked round the room; forced myself to observe it dispassionately. There were other cabbalistic emblems. On the wall to my right a black cross--not the Christian cross, because the top of the upright was swollen, an inverted pear shape; to the left, facing the cross, was a deep red rose, the only patch of colour in the black and white room. At the far end, over the one large door, was painted in black a huge left hand cut off at the wrist, with the forefinger and little finger pointing up and the two middle fingers holding down the thumb. The room stank of ritual; and I have always loathed rituals of any kind. I kept repeating the same phrase to myself: keep dignity, keep dignity, keep dignity. I knew I must _look_ ridiculous with the black cyclops eye on my forehead and the white ribbons and the rosettes. But I somehow had to contrive not to be ridiculous. Then my heart jolted. A terrifying figure. Suddenly and silently in the doorway at the far end, Herne the Hunter. A neolithic god; a spirit of darkness, of northern forest, of a time before kings, as black and chilling as the touch of iron. A man with the head of a stag that filled the arched door, who stood silhouetted, giant, unforgettable image, against the dimly lit whitewashed wall of the corridor behind. The antlers were enormous, as black as almond branches, many-tined. And the man was in black from head to foot, with only the eyes and the nostril ends marked in white. He imposed his presence on me, then came slowly down the room to the table; stood centrally and regally behind it for another long moment, then moved to the extreme left end. By that time I had noted the black gloves, the black shoes beneath the narrow _soutane_-like smock he wore; that he had to move slowly because the mask was slightly precarious, being so large. The fear I felt was the same old fear; not of the appearance, but of the reason behind the appearance. It was not the mask I was afraid of, because in our century we are too inured by science fiction and too sure of science reality ever to be terrified of the supernatural again; but of what lay behind the mask. The eternal source of all fear, all horror, all real evil, man himself. Another figure appeared, and paused, as they were all to do, in the archway. This time it was a woman. She was dressed in traditional English witch costume; a brimmed black-peaked hat, long white hair, red apron, black cloak, and a malevolent mask; a beaked nose. She hobbled, bentbacked, to the right end of the table and set the cat she was carrying on it. It was dead, stuffed in a sitting position. The cat's glass eyes were on me. Her black and white eyes. And the stagman's. Another startling figure: a man in a crocodile head--a bizarre maned mask that projected forwards, more Negroid than anything else, with ferocious white teeth and bulging eyes. He hardly paused, but came swiftly to his place beside the stag, as if the wearer was uncomfortable in costume; unused to such scenes. A shorter male figure came next: an abnormally large head in which white cube teeth reached in a savage grin from ear to ear. His eyes seemed buried in deep black sockets. Round the top of his head there rose a great iguana frill. This man was dressed in a black poncho, and looked Mexican; Aztec. He moved to his place beside the witch. Another woman figure appeared. I felt sure ft was Lily. She was the winged vampire, an eared bat head in black fur, two long white fangs; below her waist she wore a black skirt, black stockings, black shoes. Slim legs. She went quickly to her place beside the crocodile, the clawed wings held rigidly out, bellying a little in the air, uncanny in the torchlight; a great flickering shadow that darkened the cross and the rose. The next figure was African, a folk horror, a corn-doll bundle of black strips of rag that