Unnatural Creatures

“Vile,” said the woman who had come to the ball as Captain Compson’s freely acknowledged mistress. “Tasteless. But one should know better than to expect taste from Death, I suppose.” Lady Torrance looked as if she were going to cry.

“They are jealous of Death,” Lady Neville said to herself. “How strange. I am not jealous of her, not in the least. And I do not fear her at all.” She was very proud of herself.

Then, as unbidden as they had begun to play, the musicians stopped. They began to put away their instruments. In the sudden shrill silence, Death pulled away from Captain Compson and ran to look out of one of the tall windows, pushing the curtains apart with both hands. “Look!” she said, with her back turned to them. “Come and look. The night is almost gone.”

The summer sky was still dark, and the eastern horizon was only a shade lighter than the rest of the sky, but the stars had vanished and the trees near the house were gradually becoming distinct. Death pressed her face against the window and said, so softly that the other guests could barely hear her, “I must go now.”

“No,” Lady Neville said, and was not immediately aware that she had spoken. “You must stay a while longer. The ball was in your honor. Please stay.”

Death held out both hands to her, and Lady Neville came and took them in her own. “I’ve had a wonderful time,” she said gently. “You cannot possibly imagine how it feels to be actually invited to such a ball as this, because you have given them and gone to them all your life. One is like another to you, but for me it is different. Do you understand me?” Lady Neville nodded silently. “I will remember this night forever,” Death said.

“Stay,” Captain Compson said. “Stay just a little longer.” He put his hand on Death’s shoulder, and she smiled and leaned her cheek against it. “Dear Captain Compson,” she said. “My first real gallant. Aren’t you tired of me yet?”

“Never,” he said. “Please stay.”

“Stay,” said Lorimond, and he too seemed about to touch her. “Stay. I want to talk to you. I want to look at you. I will dance with you if you stay.”

“How many followers I have,” Death said in wonder. She stretched one hand toward Lorimond, but he drew back from her and then flushed in shame. “A soldier and a poet. How wonderful it is to be a woman. But why did you not speak to me earlier, both of you? Now it is too late. I must go.”

“Please, stay,” Lady Torrance whispered. She held on to her husband’s hand for courage. “We think you are so beautiful, both of us do.”

“Gracious Lady Torrance,” the girl said kindly. She turned back to the window, touched it lightly, and it flew open. The cold raw air rushed into the ballroom, fresh with rain but already smelling faintly of the London streets over which it had passed. They heard birdsong and the strange, harsh nickering of Death’s horses.

“Do you want me to stay?” she asked. The question was put, not to Lady Neville, nor to Captain Compson, nor to any of her admirers, but to the Contessa della Candini, who stood well back from them all, hugging her flowers to herself and humming a little song of irritation. She did not in the least want Death to stay, but she was afraid that all the other women would think her envious of Death’s beauty, and so she said, “Yes. Of course I do.”

“Ah,” said Death. She was almost whispering. “And you,” she said to another woman, “do you want me to stay? Do you want me to be one of your friends?”

“Yes,” said the woman, “because you are beautiful and a true lady.”

“And you,” said Death to a man, “and you,” to a woman, “and you,” to another man, “do you want me to stay?” And they all answered, “Yes, Lady Death, we do.”

“Do you want me, then?” she cried at last to all of them. “Do you want me to live among you and to be one of you, and not to be Death anymore? Do you want me to visit your houses and come to all your parties? Do you want me to ride horses like yours instead of mine, do you want me to wear the kind of dresses you wear, and say the things you would say? Would one of you marry me, and would the rest of you dance at my wedding and bring gifts to my children? Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” said Lady Neville. “Stay here, stay with me, stay with us.”

Death’s voice, without becoming louder, had become clearer and older; too old a voice, thought Lady Neville, for such a young girl. “Be sure,” said Death. “Be sure of what you want, be very sure. Do all of you want me to stay? For if one of you says to me, no, go away, then I must leave at once and never return. Be sure. Do you all want me?”

And everyone there cried with one voice, “Yes! Yes, you must stay with us. You are so beautiful that we cannot let you go.”

“We are tired,” said Captain Compson.

“We are blind,” said Lorimond, adding, “especially to poetry.”

“We are afraid,” said Lord Torrance quietly, and his wife took his arm and said, “Both of us.”

“We are dull and stupid,” said Lady Neville, “and growing old uselessly. Stay with us, Lady Death.”

And then Death smiled sweetly and radiantly and took a step forward, and it was as though she had come down among them from a great height. “Very well,” she said. “I will stay with you. I will be Death no more. I will be a woman.”

The room was full of a deep sigh, although no one was seen to open his mouth. No one moved, for the golden-haired girl was Death still, and her horses still whinnied for her outside. No one could look at her for long, although she was the most beautiful girl anyone there had ever seen.

“There is a price to pay,” she said. “There is always a price. Some one of you must become Death in my place, for there must forever be Death in the world. Will anyone choose? Will anyone here become Death of his own free will? For only thus can I become a human girl.”

No one spoke, no one spoke at all. But they backed slowly away from her, like waves slipping back down a beach to the sea when you try to catch them. The Contessa della Candini and her friends would have crept quietly out of the door, but Death smiled at them and they stood where they were. Captain Compson opened his mouth as though he were going to declare himself, but he said nothing. Lady Neville did not move.

“No one,” said Death. She touched a flower with her finger, and it seemed to crouch and flex itself like a pleased cat. “No one at all,” she said. “Then I must choose, and that is just, for that is the way that I became Death. I never wanted to be Death, and it makes me so happy that you want me to become one of yourselves. I have searched a long time for people who would want me. Now I have only to choose someone to replace me and it is done. I will choose very carefully.”