Architectural metaphors of fear: From Hades to the labyrinthine headquarters

“ The veneer of civilization is thin, I found, for after what he had done to Margaret I could contemplate killing him in cold blood quite calmly.
And it was Ivanovitch who came!
The first hint I had of the presence of any one besides myself was the sudden glare of electric lights in the room beyond the cell in which I stood. I went softly to the barred door and looked through it. Two men had just entered through a door at the other side of the larger room. As they came from behind the glass cylinder I saw that one of them was Ivanovitch. ”

“ A form of taboo in legend and tradition is prohibition either as to act or question.
The Biblical instance of Lot’s wife has its parallel in Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, who, killed on her{325} wedding night, was redeemed on condition that Orpheus should not look back till she had reached the upper world. Forgetting the prohibition, he turned to see if she were following, and Eurydice was instantly caught back into Hades.
The story is a poetical rendering of the capture of Eurydice by Aëdonius, King of Thresprotia, called Pluto, on account of his cruelty. ”

“ One man found a staircase leading up from a small door in the main hall, and started up into the darkness to explore the floor above. But the Chief and I made for the corridor that led to the room of the voices, kicking or jemmying open the doors we passed, and making as sure as we could that we left no enemies behind us to take us in the rear.
Evidently the place was a regular labyrinth. But the most curious feature of it was the fact that we found no windows anywhere. The inhabitants must have lived eternally in an artificial light or in darkness. ”

“ Some of the heads took our bullets back with them, but our men were falling too. With the uproar of the firing, the smoke of it and the groans and cries of the wounded, it was hard to get a clear idea in the confusion of how things were going. But presently I saw that our men were fighting their way slowly forward, flinging open the doors off the hall as they came to them and rushing through. And being far better marksmen than our enemies, they caught and killed the Chinamen and Russians in the different rooms like rats in a trap.
Through an open door I caught a glimpse of one such duel. ”

“ We imagine that some one is trying to build up an immense and hidden power in this country. It may be that we are dealing with a new form of Bolshevism. And we know that they must have acquired an immense amount of money from the sale of drugs to wealthy addicts of their own making. ”

“ He had no intention of acting as an agent of the Bolsheviks. He was a man who believed implicitly in the inherent wickedness of mankind—that every man and woman has his or her price—and he set himself, on that assumption, to obtain a power which should eventually rival that of Napoleon. ”

“ Life—we can make it a free, glorious thing, or a gray, trapped affair, just as we choose. It is all a matter of courage. There is still much room in the world. It is not crowded except in spots. If we choose to remain in one of those crowded spots, or rather, if we are afraid to leave them, we must, of necessity, become one of the gray, trapped crowd, existing through a certain span of years without ever knowing what it is to be truly alive. But in the great open spaces people live—they are alive. ”

“ As God sent the rain and the flowers and grass sprang up they grappled with each other like murderers, twining root about root for the water, fighting upward for the light––and when it was over the strongest had won. Every tree and plant on that broad range was barbed and fanged against assault; every creature that could not flee was armed for its own defence; it was a land of war, where the strongest always won. What need was there for words? Juan Alvarez was dead, shot from some distant peak while rounding up his sheep––and his sheep, too, were dead. ”

“ The shivering horse-wrangler stamped on his boots and struck out down the cañon after the remuda, two or three cooks got busy about the fire which roared higher and higher as they piled on the ironwood to make coals, and before the sun had more than mounted the southern shoulder of the Four Peaks the long line of horsemen was well on the trail to Hell’s Hip Pocket.
The frontier imagination had in no wise overleaped itself in naming this abyss. Even the tribute which Facilis Descensus Vergil paid to the local Roman hell could hardly be said of the Pocket––it is not even easy to get into it. ”

“ A man has need of his fellows for a shield. Man is man's shelter from all the storm of unanswered questions. Where am I? What am I? Why am I?—No reply. No reassuring double to take away the ghost-sense of self, that unseen, intangible aura of personality in which each of us moves as in a cloud. In the souls of some there is an ever-present Man God who will forever save them from this supreme experience. Sheila's religion, vague, conventional, childish, faltered away from her soul. ”

“ After vainly beseeching high heaven and all the gods to restore his lost Eurydice, Orpheus decides to brave the realms of Pluto. He will himself wrest her from death's power. The gods help those that help themselves, and now Amor, the god of love, comes to his assistance. Amor says he shall descend in safety to the lower world, and will find his Eurydice among the peaceful shades. He must take his lute, and perchance by the power of music he can induce Pluto to release her. Was there ever a more charming story for an opera! ”

“ A second orchestra, behind the scenes, echoes, with charming effect, the distracted husband's evocations to his bride and the mournful measures of the chorus, until, in answer to the piercing cries of Orpheus-10- and the exclamatory recitative, "Gods, cruel gods," Amor appears. He tells the bereaved husband that Zeus has taken pity on him. He shall have permission to go down into Hades and endeavour to propitiate Pluto and his minions solely through the power of his music. But, should he rescue Eurydice, he must on no account look back at her until he has crossed the Styx. ”

“ The music is all fearful and threatening, with creeping chromatics shrouded in a minor key.
Orpheus is undaunted; and with enduring faith in the power of his music he takes up his harp and sings to them of his love for Eurydice. Entreating their pity, he begs them to let him pass; but Cerberus still howls and the Furies shout "No!" They threaten him with eternal torture, but the inspired youth sings on. No punishment they can devise could exceed the grief he already suffers—such is the burden of his song. Even the Demons and Furies can not long resist such tender strains. ”

“ The music assigned by Monteverde to Orpheus when he is leading Eurydice back from the Shades is undoubtedly an air, but the situation is one to which an air is appropriate, and musica parlante would be inappropriate. If the drama had been a play to be spoken and not sung, there would not have been any incongruity in allotting a song to Orpheus, to enable Eurydice to trace him through the dark abodes of Hades. But the arias of Cavalli are not confined to such special situations, and recur frequently,' Cavalli had the true Venetian love of colour. ”

“ She, still not comprehending why he does not even cast a glance upon her, protests that without his love she prefers to die.
Orpheus, no longer able to resist the appeal of his beloved bride, forgets the warning of Amor. He turns and passionately clasps Eurydice in his arms. Immediately she dies.
It is then that Orpheus intones the lament, "Che farò senza Euridice" (I have lost my Eurydice) , that air in the score which has truly become immortal and by which Gluck, when the opera as a whole shall have disappeared from the stage, will still be remembered. ”

“ Love, however, comes to the rescue, and full of compassion restores her. Thus the happy lovers are reunited; and the opera closes without the tragic denouement of the old myth. In the American performances the opera was divided into four acts, which is the order we shall follow.
The short overture is characterized by a grandeur and solemnity that well befit the pathetic story. The curtain rises upon a grotto containing the tomb of Eurydice, against which Orpheus mournfully leans, while upon its steps youths and maidens are strewing flowers as they chant the sombre song, "Ah! ”

“ Orpheus, the disconsolate husband, is leaning upon the shrine. Not even his lute can solace him in this hour of grief. A dirge of unrivaled beauty arises from the orchestra like a flower from the earth. It is taken up by the chorus and given as an offering to the departed. There is something mythical about the music as well as the scene. All nature seems to join in this lament over Eurydice. Ever and anon Orpheus proclaims her name in tones so pitiful that—
He asks the chorus to scatter flowers upon her grave and then leave him alone, for their song but adds to his grief. ”

“ I’m a bit of an electrician and the job was an easy one. As for my own instrument, I’m going to keep it in my clothes closet and keep the closet locked, you see. It will have a buzzer, but not a loud one, so that you can get me when I’m here, but mostly I imagine I’ll be calling you up. You see, I’ll have to have a fashionable studio or something somewhere, to carry out my part of the dilettante lounge lizard. This place would never do as my official residence from a social point of view. But it ought to be handy as an ‘earth’ perhaps. ”

“ What’s more, if you should stumble on to something, the chances are one million to one that you’ll just get your throat cut for your pains. On the other hand, if you work for us—that is, if we work together on the proposition—why, perhaps we can help you in your search with our organization. ”

“ As it had been a thousand years before, so it was that day at Hidden Water. The earth was dead, it gave forth nothing; the sky was clean and hard, without a cloud to soften its asperity. Another month and the cattle would die; two months and the water would fail; then in the last agonies of starvation and thirst the dissolution would come––the Four Peaks would be a desert. Old Don Pablo was right, the world was drying up. Chihuahua and Sonora were parched; all Arizona lay stricken with the drought; in California the cattle were dying on the ranges, and in Texas and New Mexico the same. ”

“ In springtime the deep-rooted mesquites and palo verdes threw out the golden halo of their flowers until the cañons were aflame; the soggy sahuaros drank a little at each sparse downpour and defied the drought; all the world of desert plants flaunted their pigmented green against the barren sky as if in grim contempt; but the little streams ran weaker and weaker, creeping along under the sand to escape the pitiless sun.
As Creede and Hardy rode out from Hidden Water, the earth lay dead beneath their horses’ feet––stark and naked, stripped to the rocks by the sheep. ”

“ Drought and the sheep, those were the twin evils of the Four Peaks country; they lowered the price of cattle and set men to riding the range restlessly. For the drought is a visitation of God, to be accepted and endured, but sheep may be turned back.
As he rode rapidly along the river trail, halting on each ridge to search the landscape for sheep, Hardy’s conscience smote him for the single day he had spent in camp, dallying within sight of Kitty or talking with Lucy Ware. One such day, if the sheepmen were prepared, and Bronco Mesa would be a desert. ”

“ There was no one now who talked of waiting for Forest Reserves, or of diplomacy and peace––every man was for war, and war from the jump––and Jefferson Creede took the lead.
“Fellers,” he said, after each man had had his say, “there’s only one way to stop them sheep, and that is to stop the first band. Never mind the man––dam’ a herder, you can buy one for twenty dollars a month––git the sheep! Now suppose we stompede the first bunch that comes on our range and scatter ’em to hell––that’s fif-teen thousand dol-lars gone! ”

“ Your friend Creede gets along with sheepmen like a house afire, don’t he? Him and a bunch of his punchers jumped on one of my herders last Fall and dam’ nigh beat him to death. Did you ever hear of a sheepman jumpin’ on a cowboy? No, by Gad, and you never will! We carry arms to protect ourselves, but we never make no trouble.”
He paused and combed the coffee grounds out of his heavy red mustache with fingers that were hooked like an eagle’s talons from clutching at sheep in the cold water. ”

“ I often come up here when I am weary with it all––but a man must do a man’s work, you know; and my work is with the sheep. When I first came to Hidden Water I knew nothing of the sheep. I thought the little lambs were pretty; the ewes were mothers, the herders human beings. I tried to be friends with 234 them, to keep the peace and abide by the law; but now that I’ve come to know them I agree with Jeff, who has been fighting them for twenty years. There is something about the smell of sheep which robs men of their humanity; they become greedy and avaricious ”

“ W’y, boy, I could beat the old judge out of a thousand dollars’ worth of cattle and he’d never know it in a lifetime. Did ye ever live all alone out on a ranch for a month or so? Well, you know how lawless and pisen-mean a man can git, then, associatin’ with himself. I’d’ve had the old man robbed forty times over if he wasn’t such a good-hearted 44 old boy, but between fightin’ sheepmen and keepin’ tab on a passel of brand experts up on the Tonto I’m gittin’ so ornery I don’t dare trust myself. ”

“ I’ve been movin’ his sheep for two days! He’s afraid of me––he’s afraid to come out and fight me like a man! But I’ll git ’im––I’ll git ’im yet!”
“All right,” said Hardy soothingly, “you can do it, for all of me. But don’t go to shooting Mexicans off of rocks as if they were turkey buzzards––that’s what gets people into the pen. Now, you just take my advice for once and wash some of that dirt off your face. You’re locoed, man––you’re not a human being––and you won’t be until you wash up and get your belly full.” ”

“ Long after the clatter of hoofs had ceased Lucy stood in the shade of the ramada, gazing pensively at the fire-blasted buttes and the tender blue mountains beyond. How could such rugged hillsides produce men who were always gentle, men whose first thought was always of those who loved them and never of fighting and blood? It was a land of hardships and strife and it left its mark on them all. The Rufus that she had known before had seemed different from all other men, and she had loved him for it, even when all his thought was for Kitty ”

“ Ah, those sheep! How many times in the fever of heat and work and weariness had Hardy cursed them, his tongue seeking unbidden the wickedest words of the range; how many times had he cursed Jim Swope, and Jasper Swope, the Mexicans, and all who had rushed in to help accomplish their ruin. And as the sun beat down and no clouds came into the sky he cursed himself, blindly, for all that had come to pass. One man––only one––at the mouth of Hell’s Hip Pocket, and the sheep might have been turned back; 392 but he himself had seen the dust-cloud and let it pass––and for that the cattle died. ”

“ Then when they all six stood close together as they could stand, with hands held up touching above their heads, all of a sudden the black villain sprung the bolt, the trap fell and the six men went down—down, the Lord knows where!"
"Oh! that is horrible! horrible!" cried Capitola; "but where do you think they fell to?"
"I tell you the Lord only knows! They say that it is a bottomless abyss, with no outlet but one crooked one, miles long, that reaches to the Demon's Punch Bowl. But if there is a bottom to that abyss, that bottom is strewn with human bones!" ”

“ As the Summer rose to its climax a hot wind breathed in from the desert, clean and pure, but withering in its intensity; the great bowlders, superheated in the glare of day, irradiated the stored-up energy of the sun by night until even the rattlesnakes, their tough hides scorched through by the burning sands, sought out their winter dens to wait for a touch of frost. There 166 was only one creature in all that heat-smitten land that defied the sway of the Sun-God and went his way unheeding––man, the indomitable, the conqueror of mountains and desert and sea. ”

“ There it lay, a wilderness of little hills and valleys, flat-topped benches and sandy gulches threaded minutely with winding trails and cow paths, green with the illusion of drought-proof giant cactus and vivid desert bushes, one vast preserve of browse and grass from the Peaks to the gorge of the Salagua. Here was the last battle-ground, the last stand of the cowmen against the sheep, and then unless that formless myth, “The Government,” which no man had ever seen or known, stepped in, there would be no more of the struggle ”