The Magic (October 1961–October 1967). Roger Zelazny
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walked slowly from the room and slumped beside my baggage.
Ontro was gone. Good that I had not killed him . . . .
After a thousand years M’Cwyie entered.
She said, “Your job is finished.”
I did not move.
“The prophecy is fulfilled,” she said. “My people are rejoicing. You have won, holy man. Now leave us quickly.”
My mind was a deflated balloon. I pumped a little air back into it.
“I’m not a holy man,” I said, “just a second-rate poet with a bad case of hubris.”
I lit my last cigarette.
Finally, “All right, what prophecy?”
“The Promise of Locar,” she replied, as though the explaining were unnecessary, “that a holy man would come from the Heavens to save us in our last hours, if all the dances of Locar were completed. He would defeat the Fist of Malann and bring us life.”
“How?”
“As with Braxa, and as the example in the Temple.”
“Example?”
“You read us his words, as great as Locar’s. You read to us how there is ‘nothing new under the sun.’ And you mocked his words as you read them—showing us a new thing.
“There has never been a flower on Mars,” she said, “but we will learn to grow them.
“You are the Sacred Scoffer,” she finished. “He-Who-Must-Mock-in-the-Temple—you go shod on holy ground.”
“But you voted ‘no,’” I said.
“I voted not to carry out our original plan, and to let Braxa’s child live instead.”
“Oh.” The cigarette fell from my fingers. How close it had been! How little I had known!
“And Braxa?”
“She was chosen half a Process ago to do the dances—to wait for you.”
“But she said that Ontro would stop me.”
M’Cwyie stood there for a long time.
“She had never believed the prophecy herself. Things are not well with her now. She ran away, fearing it was true. When you completed it, and we voted, she knew.”
“Then she does not love me? Never did?”
“I am sorry, Gallinger. It was the one part of her duty she never managed.”
“Duty,” I said flatly . . . . Dutydutyduty! Tra-la!
“She has said good-bye, she does not wish to see you again.
“ . . . and we will never forget your teachings,” she added.
“Don’t,” I said automatically, suddenly knowing the great paradox which lies at the heart of all miracles. I did not believe a word of my own gospel, never had.
I stood, like a drunken man, and muttered “M’narra.”
I went outside, into my last day on Mars.
I have conquered thee, Malann—and the victory is thine! Rest easy on thy starry bed. God damned!
I left the jeepster there and walked back to the Aspic, leaving the burden of life so many footsteps behind me. I went to my cabin, locked the door, and took forty-four sleeping pills.
*
But when I awakened I was in the dispensary, and alive.
I felt the throb of engines as I slowly stood up and somehow made it to the port.
Blurred Mars hung like a swollen belly above me, until it dissolved, brimmed over, and streamed down my face.
A Word from Zelazny
“I had a strong sentimental attachment to what is now called ‘space opera.’ . . . I had long wanted to do something of that sort. When I began selling fiction in the sixties it was too late—almost. The space program had already invalidated the Mars and Venus of Edgar Rice Burroughs—almost . . . If I wanted to do homage . . . I would have to act quickly and do my best. I knew that I would only be allowed one shot at each world, and then I would have to leave the solar system. ‘A Rose For Ecclesiastes’ was my only word on Mars. ‘The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth’ all that I would have to say on Venus. So I did it. I wrote them both and got in under the wire.”1
Zelazny usually gave noncommittal answers when asked if the poet Gallinger had any resemblance to Zelazny himself, but he did give a very personal response to letter writer Clara on this very subject: “You ask me why I hated Gallinger so in ‘A Rose For Ecclesiastes.’ The answer is that I hated him because he was me. Once in my life I let a beautiful thing die, and now it can never be. Details are not important, in that they would add nothing. The story says what it must and stands or falls on its own merits. But you’re right in your observation that it’s a sad story, despite the fact that you felt crushed and even cheated. Life is full of these things, and one of them motivated this tale. I didn’t want it to end that way, but it had to, because he was me. I felt pain along with him. He was a better linguist than I, and a better poet. He was a very good, misunderstood man. There is a sequel to the story which I will never write, where he goes back to Mars some years later. It is much sadder, believe me, and he doesn’t deserve to be put through those paces. He’s suffered enough. But sometimes things happen this way, and all that you can say is, ‘Look. This is the way things are.’ That’s all.”2 Zelazny was alluding to events that caused the breakup of his six month engagement to Hedy West; he wrote this story shortly after.
This story was actually written in October 1961, five months prior to “Passion Play,” but Zelazny had declined to submit it then because he knew that the Mars depicted within the story had lost all credibility by 1962. Critics and other authors greeted the story enthusiastically, assuming it reflected rapid maturation in his writing. In fact, he wrote it before his earlier published works.3 It is unclear whether he’d revised it at all before submitting it.
Consistent with his intention to follow Hemingway’s dictum to leave certain things unsaid, Zelazny did not reveal Gallinger’s first name, Michael, in the story. “It wasn’t important; I had no reason for using his first name . . . If the writer sees more of the story than he actually tells, it adds strength to the story. It makes the character seem more real.”4
Notes
Theodore Sturgeon enthused that “‘A Rose for Ecclesiastes’ is one of the most important stories I have ever read—perhaps I should say it is one of the most memorable experiences I have ever had . . . as objective as I can be, which isn’t very, I still feel safe in stating that it is one of the most beautifully written, skillfully composed and passionately expressed works of art to appear anywhere, ever.”5
Fittingly, this story was included as one of the classic stories of “Martian literature” in the Visions of Mars: First Library on Mars silica glass mini- DVD that traveled to the Martian surface on May 25, 2008, aboard the lander Phoenix.
“A Rose for Ecclesiastes” appeared in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, ranked sixth among the 26 best stories from 1929–1964 (prior to the institution of the Nebula Awards), elected by the writers themselves.
The cover painting for this story was one of the very last works of Hannes Bok, and Zelazny later purchased the original painting.
*
The many references and allusions that enrich the text may benefit from identification or explanation. A madrigal is a musical form of secular text composed for two