Full in the midst of this infernal road,
An elm displays her dusky arms abroad:
The God of Sleep there hides his heavy head,
And empty dreams on ev’ry leaf are spread.
—Vergil, Æneidos (trans. Dryden)
A place may long be haunted by its past. Though time turn all our suffering to remembrance, & remembrance long-maintained to history, still at evening shadows seem to lengthen over certain nights of the year. The past is seen to walk about in the shape of certain numbers, repeating with alarming frequency in places ill-accounted. Such is the case in Oldenbarnevelt, where one may obtain a single-toppinged pizza for the low low price of $17.93. This figure—as I once remarked to the unimpressed woman counting my change—is equal to the division by one hundred of the village’s founding year…
The events which now concern us have their roots in days still deeper. In 1776 a tree was born where one day Oldenbarnevelt would stand, & though none were there to hear them, the birth pangs of the earth rang out the prologue of our play. The child took root & showed itself an elm; its trunk was soon as wide as the water it drank of—the bourn that bears the name of von Steuben. Near the eastern bank the sapling vaunted skyward many springs before our scæna prima.
Most its life is hid as by a curtain, its muffled words heard only as the sound of four winds whispering through its broad-leafed arms. But on its dying day the curtain raised & found our hallowed tree still clothed in red. Ill stars & baleful storms bedarked the night, but parted on the bright & thirteenth morn of May, anno 1978. Ducks were floating Steuben’s placid waters; the spirits of the willow groves were singing, wooing dawn to rouse the bridegroom summer. Yet the path beside the creek drank other humors, colors sore discordant to the scene. Before the sun reached high enough to touch it, a couple jaunting westward on the trail had found the headless body of a man. They fled the sight, but we must stare it down; long enough, at least, to note the body lay some distance from our elm, & that its superpectoral parts were nowhere found. Little was left to mark the man from Adam, & so our Spartan parlance named him nameless: we henceforth call the fated one John Doe.
Decapitations have been happily infrequent in the annals of our village (one has seemed enough for all its days), but that day placed their rarity in doubt. An inquiry was launched with all due speed, & soon had named a suspect in the case: it appears the impish violence of the storm & nearness to the body of the victim conspired to cast suspicion on our elm. Despite its life, whose chronicle exceeds the history of Oldenbarnevelt, it stood by noon accused of John Doe’s murder. The record of its trial is preserved by a student of the stenographic arts, fortunately among the lookers-on. The words of this unnamed observer form the first & final act of our brief play. And though they taste at times of something tragic, they hide no sour unrealities. They tell the elm’s demise—an asymptotic scar raised on the memory of the village, dividing time from time unreconciled. Few & typographical are my amendments to this strange & true account. I leave you with the tale of doubled Johns & the elm beloved of Oldenbarnevelt.
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Historiæ Personæ
- Elm TreeAn Elm Tree
- John de la VigneOwner of a Tree Service
- John DoeA Corpse
- John of OldenbarneveltDoppelgänger to John Doe
- John of ParisDoppelgänger to John de la Vigne
- MayorMayor of Oldenbarnevelt
- VillagersResidents of Oldenbarnevelt
Scæna Prima
Mayor & Villagers gathered before Elm Tree. Enter John of Oldenbarnevelt.
Mayor
I’d say good morning, John.
Olden
Doubt not it’s good, though blood so ill becomes it.
Mayor
Beheaded, John; there’s some here seem to think
the elm tree is our killer.
Olden
Detectives?
Mayor
Not sure their rank or who they’re working for—
they mean to cut it down before they leave.
Olden
There’s wicked men about;
heaven & earth did all last night portend it.
Never the sky was split so many times
but some unsouling horror slipt within.
Mayor
They had me down to see if I knew the man;
strangest thing—had you not called this morning
& given me to think your head still on,
I might have sworn it for the one gone missing—
Enter John of Paris with John de la Vigne, a chainsaw on his belt.
Paris
Stand back, gentlemen.
Mayor
Excuse me; who are you?
Paris
John of Paris. Pleasure; now stand back.
Mayor
Hold on a minute. Who’s your brother here?
Paris
He’s John de la Vigne, but we’re no kin.
Mayor
You’re countrymen, at least—two Johns of France.
Paris
No, sir. Monsieur de la Vigne may be
of French extraction, but I’ve not myself
a drop of blood for seven generations
whose seventh part falls short of all-American.
Mayor
And yet you’re called of Paris.
Paris
I’m called the ax of clear & present danger;
that tree beside you’s pruned a life today.
It comes down now; unless you’d have me be
a trimmer o’ more than treetrunks, stand you back.
Olden
What facts approve this swift & capital sentence?
Paris
Why, as capital offense; the truth does lie
a little down this path—or most of it.
There’s yet some more remains to be discovered
when our investigation comes to a head.
Now, for the last time, sir, stand back!
John de la Vigne draws chainsaw & approaches Elm Tree. John of Oldenbarnevelt steps before.
Olden
This tree has given our village greater days
of noontime shaded dreams than you’ve had seconds
in all your life to swear such falsehoods on it;
the smallest beetle hushed beneath its bark
won’t hear that saw again till I’ve seen proof!
Paris
Very well, sir—stand down, de la Vigne.
The beetle sleeps a while; you’ll have proof.
Your tree will have its trial & its sentence,
& you’ll stand by to watch its execution.
Olden
No execution but exoneration.
Paris
[aside] Or both, so God intend it.
Mayor
Let’s all clear out; we’ve had enough excitement.
It’s near eleven now; we’ll break for lunch
& reconvene the hour at Unity Hall.
We’ll hear the charges brought against our elm,
do justice in the name of Barnevelt.
Exeunt.
Scæna Secunda
Unity Hall. Villagers in assembly before Mayor, John of Oldenbarnevelt among them. John of Paris stands at front.
Paris
Your love of the old elm is well attested;
but though its roots be ancient & revered,
its branches are put forth of rotting time.
They have been known in unaccustomed places
& undue times a certain procuration
of withered twigs to rain upon the heads
of those who walk beside von Steuben’s creek.
Its sticks grow thickly toward the mortal measure;
like Damoclean blades they threat your heads.
It was the fell misfortune of John Doe
to stray upon his scaffold unawares—
Chance, the eyeless headsman, struck him down;
soon his mystery meets with further practice,
for time does hone & multiply his arms.
Wherefore in respect of his great age,
in service of this village & its people,
the tired ox must now give o’er the yoke:
I move to vest in Monsieur de la Vigne
the power to fell your friend & late-grown foe,
that wolf-like stalked the throat of dear John Doe.
Olden
The Parisian-American bellows accusations
against our elm, but yet his proofs are dumb.
Show one leaf with blood in its veins & you
may whittle a stake of the trunk & burn the branches
in effigy of century-knotted witches;
but else admit them sages’ wizened fingers.
Paris
Not one leaf or thousand will I show you,
but pulp enough to people the yellow pages!
Enter two files of three men each, bearing a tarp-covered object. John de la Vigne follows procession with chainsaw sheathed.
Mayor
What’s this you bring before us, Mister Paris?
Paris
Behold, your killer!
Tarp removed with flourish, revealing bloodied treelimb underneath.
This limb you see before you’s of an elm,
the blood upon it doubtless of John Doe.
The child’s bark confesses how he’s got;
the foul fondue he drips of cries his rot!
Olden
Friends & neighbors, peace! This is no proof.
We neither know this elm’s an arm of ours,
nor, if a hand, by whose it is besmeared.
Paris
Not of hand but head it shaved this hair;
think yours be safer, Oldenbarnevelt?
First Villager
The elm drops sticks in Boon Street every spring!
Second Villager
That’s right; its leaves are always on my lawn!
Third Villager
Before too long the whole thing’s bound to fall!
Mayor
A man is dead; before we lay this tree
to rest beside him, we had best rule out
a killer with a quicker means of fleeing.
Paris
O, let us not forget the man is dead!
He cannot stand or speak against his murder;
his blood cries out—but cries come out of mouths,
& his is shut somewhere it won’t be heard.
If man did this, he’s some low slinking beast;
yet if a man, let justice be his snare;
but while you lime the elm branch for your bird,
eye closely how its hundred tridents stare.
Again storms stir in heaven’s clouded womb,
the heirs sprung of our late-departed woes—
should Æolus once more the drawstrings loose,
dark Death at elmshaft’s end will dart his throes.
The saw stands ready; but one thing is needful:
say the word & fell this festering evil!
Villagers
His head be stricken off!
The elm tree falls this thirteenth morn of May!
Mayor
You’d pursue a tree before a killer?
A man by now could chalk the county line.
Meanwhile the elm’s not grown or stooped an inch;
but one escapes—which would you see released?
Villagers
The elm tree falls this thirteenth morn of May!
Olden
This discourse is bred of ill intention;
a blank & sanded desert run to nothing…
Mayor
I wash my hands of all this sap—see to it.
Exeunt Johns of Paris & la Vigne, leading the procession of the limb. Villagers follow behind.
Scæna Tertia
Before Elm Tree. Enter Johns of Paris & la Vigne in procession with Villagers.
Paris
The time approaches, Monsieur de la Vigne.
Stitch this bloody arm upon its body,
that it may share in judgment of the whole.
Limb hoisted up & nailed to Elm Tree.
The crimes against you, Oldenbarnevelt,
be expiated on this ancient tree,
whose trunk is stricken through to give you peace.
John de la Vigne starts chainsaw. Enter John of Oldenbarnevelt.
Olden
If all the nails that pin these calumnies
upon the bark & flesh of our old elm
bring not a touch of crimson to your cheeks,
God banish us this second Eden’s bower!
That tree stood tall before the day when Holland’s
Boon arrived to build our village, seeking
profit by the maple’s vernal nectar.
In all its seasons, blow what winds may blow,
it never bent before the tempest fury,
never dropped the handle of an axe—
yet now we’re to believe it whet the blade
that cleaved the crown & life of our poor stranger?
Are we resigned that Fate roused John Doe sleeping,
led him by the hand through night-thick maze
unseeing but for bolts that cracked the ær?
that she, together with our reverend elm,
played hark & herald masked unverily,
& sent his soul to God without a prayer?
Then pray the tree make all its arms an army—
its three & thirty wounds be well avenged!
Exit John of Oldenbarnevelt. John de la Vigne cuts Elm Tree; a cloud of sawdust plumes. After, only Villagers remain.
Elm Tree
O, O, O, O! [Dies.]
Villagers
Pardon! O, pardon too late! Forgive us!
Enter Mayor.
Mayor
Come now, let these bones be taken up
& laid out on the field to rest in honor;
but let that limb inter some nameless place,
that bathed in John Doe’s blood & now its own.
Mayor kneels beside the limb.
It wears the outward semblance of the rest,
but to our elm it is no honest heir;
peel back its bark & see—O, see deceit!
John, where are your beetles, that so deeply
lined the ancient brow of our old friend?
that dug their winding channels ’neath his raiment
& scurry in their labyrinths even now?
The sinews of this limb bear not a line!
Mayor rises.
Fell monster, by what lure’s perfumed twitch
were your feet drawn to tread our watered path?—
A fear does shake me that those twin-like Johns
did spill with gnashing chains more sap than this—
Oldenbarnevelt, what fruits are these
that stain your lips, & where the snakes that tempted?
We’ll search their pit, though it be Hell’s tenth gyre.
But first, we mourn our elm with self-grown pyre.
Exeunt with a dead march.