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diff --git a/old/67744-0.txt b/old/67744-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5adba80..0000000 --- a/old/67744-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9092 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Silver Stallion, by James Branch -Cabell - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Silver Stallion - A Comedy of Redemption - -Author: James Branch Cabell - -Release Date: March 31, 2022 [eBook #67744] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online - Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This - file was produced from images generously made available by - The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SILVER STALLION *** - - - - - - - - THE SILVER STALLION - - - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - - - BOOKS _by_ MR. CABELL - -_Biography_: - - BEYOND LIFE - FIGURES OF EARTH - THE SILVER STALLION - DOMNEI - CHIVALRY - JURGEN - THE LINE OF LOVE - THE HIGH PLACE - GALLANTRY - THE CERTAIN HOUR - THE CORDS OF VANITY - FROM THE HIDDEN WAY - THE RIVET IN GRANDFATHER’S NECK - THE EAGLE’S SHADOW - THE CREAM OF THE JEST - STRAWS AND PRAYER-BOOKS - -_Scholia_: - - THE LINEAGE OF LICHFIELD - TABOO - THE JEWEL MERCHANTS - - --------------------- - - JURGEN AND THE LAW - (_Edited by Guy Holt_) - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - The Silver Stallion - - - _A Comedy of Redemption_ - - - by - - - JAMES BRANCH CABELL - -[Illustration] - - - “_Now, the redemption which we as yet - await (continued Imlac), will be that of - Kalki, who will come as a Silver Stallion: - all evils and every sort of folly will perish at - the coming of this Kalki: true righteousness - will be restored, and the minds of men will - be made clear as crystal._” - - - - - _Robert M. McBride & Company_ - NEW YORK MCMXXVI - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL - - FIRST PUBLISHED, 1926 - - _First Printing, April, 1926_ - _Second Printing, April, 1926_ - _Third Printing, May, 1926_ - _Fourth Printing, May, 1926_ - - - - - - - PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. BY - QUINN & BODEN COMPANY, INC. - RAHWAY, N.J. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TO - - CARL VAN DOREN - - - Could but one luring dream rest dead forever - As dreamers rest at last, with all dreams done, - Redeemers need not be, and faith need never - Lease, for the faithful, homes beyond the sun. - - Victoriously that dream—above the sorrow - And subterfuge of living,—still lets fail - No heart to heed its soothing lure.... _To-morrow - Dreams will be true, and faith and right prevail._ - - _Out of the bright—and, no, not vacant!—heavens - Redeemers will be coming by and by, - En route to make our sixes and our sevens - Neat as a trivet or an apple-pie._ - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - - In this volume the text of Bülg has not - been followed over-scrupulously: but it - is hoped that, in a book intended for - general circulation, none will deplore - such excisions and euphemisms, nor even - such slight additions, as seemed to make - for coherence and clarity and decorum. - - The curious are referred to the pages of - _Poictesme en Chanson et Légende_ for a - discussion of the sources of _The Silver - Stallion_; and may decide for themselves - whether or not Bülg has, in Codman’s - phrase, “shown” these legends to be - “spurious compositions of 17th century - origin.” For myself, I here confess to - finding the evidence educed, alike, a bit - inadequate and, as far as goes my purpose, - wholly immaterial. These chronicles, such - as they are, present the only known record - of the latter days of champions whose - youthful exploits have long since been - made familiar to English readers of - Lewistam’s _Popular Tales of Poictesme_: - authentic or not, and irrespective of - whether such legends cannot be quite - definitely proved to have existed earlier - than 1652, here is the sole account we - have anywhere, or are now likely ever to - receive, of the changes that followed in - Poictesme after the passing of Manuel the - Redeemer. - - It is as such an account—which for my - purpose was a desideratum,—that I have put - _The Silver Stallion_ into English. - - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - -THE LORDS THAT POICTESME HAD IN DOM MANUEL’S TIME - - -_These ten were of the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion_: - -_¶ Dom Manuel_, Count of Poictesme, held Storisende and Bellegarde, the -town of Beauvillage and the strong fort at Lisuarte, with all Amneran -and Morven. - -_¶ Messire Gonfal of Naimes_, Margrave of Aradol, held Upper Naimousin. - -_¶ Messire Donander of Évre_, the Thane of Aigremont, held Lower -Naimousin. - -_¶ Messire Kerin of Nointel_, Syndic and Castellan of Basardra, held -West Val-Ardray. - -_¶ Messire Ninzian of Yair_, the High Bailiff of Upper Ardra, held -Val-Ardray in the East. - -_¶ Messire Holden of Nérac_, Earl Marshal of St. Tara, held Belpaysage. - -_¶ Messire Anavalt of Fomor_, the Portreeve and Warden of Manneville, -held Belpaysage Le Bas. - -_¶ Messire Coth of the Rocks_, Alderman of St. Didol, held Haut -Belpaysage. - -_¶ Messire Guivric of Perdigon_, Heitman of Asch, held Piemontais. - -_¶ Messire Miramon of Ranec_, Lord Seneschal of Gontaron, held -Duardenois. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - -Likewise there were the fiefs of Dom Meunier, Count of Montors, Dom -Manuel’s brother-in-law. Meunier was not of this fellowship: he held -also Giens. Here his wife ruled over Lower Duardenois. - -_¶ Othmar Black-Tooth_, whom some called Othmar the Lawless, long held -Valnères and Ogde, until Manuel routed him: thereafter these villages, -with the most of Bovion, stayed masterless. - -_¶ Helmas the Deep-Minded_, after a magic was put upon him in the year -of grace 1255, held, in his fashion, the high place at Brunbelois: but -the rest of Acaire, once Lorcha had been taken and Sclaug burned, was no -man’s land. Also upon Upper Morven lived disaffected persons in defiance -of all law and piety. - - —_Poictesme en Chanson et Légende._ G. J. - Bülg. Strasburg, 1785. [Pp. 87-88.] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CONTENTS - - - BOOK ONE: LAST SIEGE OF THE FELLOWSHIP - - PAGE - I Child’s Talk 3 - II Economics of Horvendile 7 - III How Anavalt Lamented the Redeemer 17 - IV Fog Rises 21 - - - BOOK TWO: THE MATHEMATICS OF GONFAL - - V Champion at Misadventure 27 - VI The Loans of Power 31 - VII Fatality the Second 39 - VIII How the Princes Bragged 42 - IX The Loans of Wisdom 46 - X Relative to Gonfal’s Head 49 - XI Economics of Morvyth 56 - - - BOOK THREE: TOUPAN’S BRIGHT BEES - - XII The Mage Emeritus 61 - XIII Economics of Gisèle 67 - XIV The Changing That Followed 73 - XV Disastrous Rage of Miramon 76 - XVI Concerns the Pleiades and a Razor 78 - XVII Epitome of Marriage 81 - XVIII Koshchei is Vexed 87 - XIX Settlement: in Full 90 - - - BOOK FOUR: COTH AT PORUTSA - - XX Idolatry of an Alderman 97 - XXI The Profits of Pepper Selling 104 - XXII Toveyo Dances 110 - XXIII Regrettable Conduct of a Corpse 113 - XXIV Economics of Yaotl 119 - XXV Last Obligation upon Manuel 122 - XXVI The Realist in Defeat 128 - - - BOOK FIVE: “MUNDUS VULT DECIPI” - - XXVII Poictesme Reformed 133 - XXVIII Fond Motto of a Patriot 138 - XXIX The Grumbler’s Progress 141 - XXX Havoc of Bad Habits 145 - XXXI Other Paternal Apothegms 149 - XXXII Time Gnaws at All 153 - XXXIII Economics of Coth 158 - - - BOOK SIX: IN THE SYLAN’S HOUSE - - XXXIV Something Goes Wrong: and Why 171 - XXXV Guivric’s Journey 175 - XXXVI The Appointed Enemy 178 - XXXVII Too Many Mouths 182 - XXXVIII The Appointed Lover 186 - XXXIX One Warden Left Uncircumvented 190 - XL Economics of Glaum-Without-Bones 194 - XLI The Gratifying Sequel 203 - - - BOOK SEVEN: WHAT SARAÏDE WANTED - - XLII Generalities at Ogde 207 - XLIII Prayer and the Lizard Maids 213 - XLIV Fine Cordiality of Sclaug 219 - XLV The Gander Also Generalizes 222 - XLVI Kerin Rises in the World 229 - XLVII Economics of Saraïde 232 - XLVIII The Golden Shining 237 - XLIX They of Nointel 239 - - - BOOK EIGHT: THE CANDID FOOTPRINT - - L Indiscretion of a Bailiff 247 - LI The Queer Bird 250 - LII Remorse of a Poor Devil 260 - LIII Continuation of Appalling Pieties 263 - LIV Magic That was Rusty 267 - LV The Prince of Darkness 270 - LVI Economics of Ninzian 277 - - - BOOK NINE: ABOVE PARADISE - - LVII Maugis Makes Trouble 283 - LVIII Showing that Even Angels May Err 287 - LIX The Conversion of Palnatoki 290 - LX In the Hall of the Chosen 293 - LXI Vanadis, Dear Lady of Reginlief 297 - LXII The Demiurgy of Donander Veratyr 300 - LXIII Economics of Sidvrar 305 - LXIV Through the Oval Window 308 - LXV The Reward of Faith 314 - - - BOOK TEN: AT MANUEL’S TOMB - - LXVI Old Age of Niafer 317 - LXVII The Women Differ 324 - LXVIII Radegonde is Practical 332 - LXIX Economics of Jurgen 335 - LXX All Ends Perplexedly 349 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - HEREWITH BEGINS THE HISTORY OF - THE BIRTH AND OF THE TRIUMPHING OF - THE GREAT LEGEND ABOUT MANUEL THE - REDEEMER, WHOM GONFAL REPUDIATED - AS BLOWN DUST, AND MIRAMON, AS AN - IMPOSTOR, AND WHOM COTH REPUDIATED - OUT OF HONEST LOVE: BUT WHOM GUIVRIC - ACCEPTED, THROUGH TWO SORTS OF - POLICY; WHOM KERIN ACCEPTED AS AN - HONORABLE OLD HUMAN FOIBLE, AND - NINZIAN, AS A PATHETIC AND SERVICEABLE - JOKE; WHOM DONANDER ACCEPTED - WHOLE-HEARTEDLY (TO THE ETERNAL JOY - OF DONANDER), AND WHO WAS ACCEPTED - ALSO BY NIAFER, AND BY JURGEN THE - PAWNBROKER, AFTER SOME LITTLE PRIVATE - RESERVATIONS: AND HEREINAFTER - IS RECORDED THE MANNER OF THE - GREAT LEGEND’S ENGULFMENT - OF THESE PERSONS. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK ONE - - LAST SIEGE OF THE FELLOWSHIP - - _“They shall be, in the siege, both against Judah and against - Jerusalem.”_ - —ZECHARIAH, xii, 2. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - —Et la route, fait elle aussi un - grand tour? - - —Oh, bien certainement, étant - donné qu’elle circonvient à la - fois la destinée et le bon sens. - - —Puisqu’il le faut, alors! dit - Jurgen; d’ailleurs je suis - toujours disposé à goûter - n’importe quel breuvage au moins - une fois. - - —LA HAULTE HISTOIRE DE JURGEN. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _1._ - _Child’s Talk_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THEY relate how Dom Manuel that was the high Count of Poictesme, and was -everywhere esteemed the most lucky and the least scrupulous rogue of his -times, had disappeared out of his castle at Storisende, without any -reason or forewarning, upon the feast day of St. Michael and All the -Angels. They tell of the confusion and dismay which arose in Dom -Manuel’s lands when it was known that Manuel the Redeemer—thus named -because he had redeemed Poictesme from the Northmen, through the aid of -Miramon Lluagor, with a great and sanguinary magic,—was now gone, quite -inexplicably, out of these lands. - -For whither Manuel had gone, no man nor any woman could say with -certainty. At Storisende he had last been seen by his small daughter -Melicent, who stated that Father, mounted on a black horse, had ridden -westward with Grandfather Death, on a white one, to a far place beyond -the sunset. This was quite generally felt to be improbable. - -Yet further inquiry had but made more deep the mystery as to the manner -of Dom Manuel’s passing. Further inquiry had disclosed that the only -human eyes anywhere which had, or could pretend to have, rested upon Dom -Manuel after Manuel had left Storisende were those of a little boy -called Jurgen, the son of Coth of the Rocks. Young Jurgen, after having -received from his father an in no way unusual whipping, had run away -from home, and had not been recaptured until the following morning. The -lad reported that during his wanderings he had witnessed, toward dusk, -upon Upper Morven, a fearful eucharist in which the Redeemer of -Poictesme had very horribly shared. Thereafter—so the child’s tale -ran,—had ensued a transfiguration, and a prediction as to the future of -Poictesme, and Dom Manuel’s elevation into the glowing clouds of -sunset.... - -Now, these latter details had been, at their first rendering, blubbered -almost inarticulately. For, after just the initiatory passages of this -supposed romance, the parents of Jurgen, in their first rapturous relief -at having recovered their lost treasure, had, of course, in the manner -of parents everywhere, resorted to such moral altitudes and to such -corporal corrections as had disastrously affected the putative small -liar’s tale. Then, as the days passed, and they of Poictesme still -vainly looked for the return of their great Dom Manuel, the child was of -necessity questioned again: and little Jurgen, after sulking for a -while, had retold his story without any detected deviation. - -It certainly all sounded quite improbable. Nevertheless, here was the -only explanation of the land’s loss tendered anywhere by anybody: and -people began half seriously to consider it. Say what you might, this -immature and spanked evangelist had told a story opulent in details -which no boy of his age could well, it seemed, have invented. Many -persons therefore began sagely to refer to the mouths of babes and -sucklings, and to nod ominously. Moreover, the child, when yet further -questioned, had enlarged upon Manuel’s last prediction as to the future -glories of Poictesme, to an extent which made incredulity seem rather -unpatriotic; and Jurgen had amplified his horrific story of the manner -in which Manuel had redeemed his people from the incurred penalties of -their various sins up to and including that evening. - -The suggested inference that there was to be no accounting anywhere for -one’s unavoidable misdemeanors up to date,—among which Dom Manuel had -been at pains to specify such indiscretions as staying out all night -without your parents’ permission,—was an arrangement which everybody, -upon consideration, found to be more and more desirable. Good-hearted -persons everywhere began, with virtually a free choice thus offered -between belief and disbelief, to prefer to invest a little, it well -might be, remunerative faith in the story told with such conviction by -this sweet and unsullied child, rather than in the carping comments of -materialists,—who, after all, could only say, well out of earshot of -Coth of the Rocks, that this young Jurgen was very likely to distinguish -himself thereafter, either in the pulpit or upon some gallows. - -Meanwhile one woeful fact was, in any case, undeniable: the saga of that -quiet, prospering grand thief of a Manuel had ended with the -inconsequent, if the not actually incredible, tales of these two little -children; and squinting tall gray Manuel of the high head had gone out -of Poictesme, nobody could say whither. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _2._ - _Economics of Horvendile_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -AND meanwhile too the Redeemer’s wife, Dame Niafer, had sent a summoning -to each of the nine lords that, with Manuel, were of the Fellowship of -the Silver Stallion: and all these met at Storisende, as Niafer -commanded them, for a session or, as they more formally called it, a -siege of this order. - -Now this fellowship took its name from the banner it had fought under so -destroyingly. Upon that sable banner was displayed a silver stallion, -which was rampant in every member and was bridled with gold. Dom Manuel -was the captain of this fellowship; and it was made up of the nine -barons who, under Manuel, had ruled Poictesme. Each had his two stout -castles and his fine woodlands and meadows, which he held in fealty to -Dom Manuel: and each had a high name for valor. - -Four of these genial murderers had served, under the Conde de Tohil -Vaca, in Manuel’s first and utterly disastrous campaign against the -Northmen: but all the nine had been with Manuel since the time of the -great fighting about Lacre Kai, and throughout Manuel’s various troubles -with Oribert and Thragnar and Earl Ladinas and Sclaug and Oriander, that -blind and coldly evil Swimmer who was the father of Manuel; and in all -the other warrings of Manuel these nine had been with him up to the end. - -And the deeds of the lords of the Silver Stallion had fallen very little -short of Manuel’s own deeds. Thus, it was Manuel, to be sure, who killed -Oriander: that was a family affair. But Miramon Lluagor, the Seneschal -of Gontaron, was the champion who subdued Thragnar and put upon him a -detection and a hindrance: and it was Kerin of Nointel—the Syndic and, -after that, the Castellan of Basardra,—who captured and carefully burned -Sclaug. Then, in the quelling of Othmar Black-Tooth’s rebellion, Ninzian -of Yair, the High Bailiff of Upper Ardra, had killed eleven more of the -outlaws than got their deaths by Manuel’s sword. It was Guivric of -Perdigon, and not Manuel, who put the great Arabian Al-Motawakkil out of -life. And in the famous battle with the Easterlings, by which the city -of Megaris was rescued, it was Manuel who got the main glory and, people -said, a three nights’ loan of the body of King Theodoret’s young sister; -but capable judges declared the best fighting on that day was done by -Donander of Évre, then but a boy, whom Manuel thereafter made Thane of -Aigremont. - -Yet Holden of Nérac, the Marshal of St. Tara, was the boldest of them -all, and was very well able to hold his own in single combat with any of -those that have been spoken of: Coth of the Rocks had not ever quitted -any battle-field except as a conqueror: and courteous Anavalt of Fomor -and light-hearted Gonfal of Naimes—who had the worst names among this -company for being the most cunning friends and coaxers of women,—these -two had put down their masculine opposers also in gratifyingly large -numbers. - -In fine, no matter where the lords of the Silver Stallion had raised -their banner against an adversary, it was in that place they made an end -of that adversary: for there was never, in any time, a hardier gang of -bullies than was this Fellowship of the Silver Stallion in the season -that they kept earth noisy with the clashing of their swords and -darkened heaven with the smoke of the towns they were sacking, and when -throughout the known world men had talked about the wonders which these -champions were performing with Dom Manuel to lead them. Now they were -leaderless. - -These heroes came to Storisende; and with Dame Niafer they of course -found Holy Holmendis. This saint was then very lately come out of -Philistia, to console the Countess in her bereavement. But they found -with her also that youthful red-haired Horvendile under whom Dom Manuel, -in turn, had held Poictesme, by the terms of a contract which was not -ever made public. Some said this Horvendile to be Satan’s friend and -emissary, while others declared his origin to lurk in a more pagan -mythology: all knew the boy to be a master of discomfortable strange -magics such as were unknown to Miramon Lluagor and Guivric the Sage. - -This Horvendile said to the nine heroes, “Now begins the last siege of -the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion.” - -Donander of Évre was the youngest of them. Yet he spoke now, piously and -boldly enough. “But it is our custom, Messire Horvendile, to begin each -siege with prayer.” - -“This siege,” replied Horvendile, “must nevertheless begin without any -such religious side-taking. For this is the siege in which, as it was -prophesied, you shall be both against Judah and against Jerusalem, and -against Thebes and Hermopolis and Avalon and Breidablik and all other -places which produce Redeemers.” - -“Upon my word, but who is master here!” cried Coth of the Rocks, -twirling at his long mustachios. This gesture was a sure sign that -trouble brewed. - -Horvendile answered: “The master who held Poictesme, under my whims, has -passed. A woman sits in his place, his little son inherits after him. So -begins a new romance; and a new order is set afoot.” - -“Yet Coth, in his restless pursuit of variety, has asked a wholly -sensible question,” said Gonfal, the tall Margrave of Aradol. “Who will -command us, who now will give us our directions? Can Madame Niafer lead -us to war?” - -“These things are separate. Dame Niafer commands: but it is I—since you -ask,—who will give to all of you your directions, and your dooms too -against the time of their falling, and after that to your names I will -give life. Now, your direction, Gonfal, is South.” - -Gonfal looked full at Horvendile, in frank surprise. “I was already -planning for the South, though certainly I had told nobody about it. You -are displaying, Messire Horvendile, an uncomfortable sort of wisdom -which troubles me.” - -Horvendile replied, “It is but a little knack of foresight, such as I -share with Balaam’s ass.” - -But Gonfal stayed more grave than was his custom. He asked, “What shall -I find in the South?” - -“What all men find, at last, in one place or another, whether it be with -the aid of a knife or of a rope or of old age. Yet, I assure you, the -finding of it will not be unwelcome.” - -“Well,”—Gonfal shrugged,—“I am a realist. I take what comes, in the true -form it comes in.” - -Now Coth of the Rocks was blustering again. “I also am a realist. Yet I -permit no upstart, whether he have or have not hair like a carrot, to -give me any directions.” - -Horvendile answered, “I say to you—” - -But Coth replied, shaking his great bald head: “No, I will not be -bulldozed in this way. I am a mild-mannered man, but I will not tamely -submit to be thus browbeaten. I believe, too, that Gonfal was -insinuating I do not usually ask sensible questions!” - -“Nobody has attempted—” - -“Are you not contradicting me to my face! What is that but to call me a -liar! I will not, I repeat, submit to these continued rudenesses.” - -“I was only saying—” - -But Coth was implacable. “I will take directions from nobody who storms -at me and who preserves no dignity whatever in our hour of grief. For -the rest, the children agree in reporting that, whether he ascended in a -gold cloud or traveled more sensibly on a black horse, Dom Manuel went -westward. I shall go west, and I shall fetch Dom Manuel back into -Poictesme. I shall, also, candidly advise him, when he returns to ruling -over us, to discourage the tomfooleries and the ridiculous rages of all -persons whose brains are overheated by their hair.” - -“Let the West, then,” said Horvendile, very quietly, “be your direction. -And if the people there do not find you so big a man as you think -yourself, do not you be blaming me.” - -These were his precise words. Coth himself conceded the coincidence, -long afterward.... - -“I, Messire Horvendile, with your permission, am for the North,” said -Miramon Lluagor. This sorcerer alone of them was upon any terms of -intimacy with this Horvendile. “I have yet upon gray Vraidex my Doubtful -Castle, in which an undoubtable and a known doom awaits me.” - -“That is true,” replied Horvendile. “Let the keen North and the cold -edge of Flamberge be yours. But you, Guivric, shall have the warm wise -East for your direction.” - -That allotment was uncordially received. “I am comfortable enough in my -home at Asch,” said Guivric the Sage. “At some other time, perhaps— But, -really now, Messire Horvendile, I have in hand a number of quite -important thaumaturgies just at the present! Your suggestion is most -upsetting. I know of no need for me to travel east.” - -“With time you will know of that need,” said Horvendile, “and you will -obey it willingly, and you will go willingly to face the most pitiable -and terrible of all things.” - -Guivric the Sage did not reply. He was too sage to argue with people -when they talked foolishly. He was immeasurably too sage to argue with, -of all persons, Horvendile. - -“Yet that,” observed Holden of Nérac, “exhausts the directions: and it -leaves no direction for the rest of us.” - -Horvendile looked at this Holden, who was with every reason named the -Bold; and Horvendile smiled. “You, Holden, already take your directions, -in a picturesque and secret manner, from a queen—” - -“Let us not speak of that!” said Holden, between a smirk and some alarm. - -“—And you will be guided by her, in any event, rather than by me. To you -also, Anavalt of Fomor, yet another queen will call resistlessly by and -by, and you, who are rightly named the Courteous, will deny her nothing. -So to Holden and to Anavalt I shall give no directions, because it is -uncivil to come between any woman and her prey.” - -“But I,” said Kerin of Nointel, “I have at Ogde a brand-new wife whom I -prize above all the women I ever married, and far above any mere crowned -queen. Not even wise Solomon,” now Kerin told them, blinking, in a sort -of quiet scholastic ecstasy, “when that Judean took his pick of the -women of this world, accompanied with any queen like my Saraïde: for she -is in all ways superior to what the Cabalists record about Queen Naäma, -that pious child of the bloodthirsty King of Ammon, and about Queen -Djarada, the daughter of idolatrous Nubara the Egyptian, and about Queen -Balkis, who was begotten by a Sheban duke upon the person of a female -Djinn in the appearance of a gazelle. And only at the command of my dear -Saraïde would I leave home to go in any direction.” - -“You will, nevertheless, leave home, very shortly,” declared Horvendile. -“And it will be at the command and at the personal urging of your -Saraïde.” - -Kerin leaned his head to one side, and he blinked again. He had just Dom -Manuel’s trick of thus opening and shutting his eyes when he was -thinking, but Kerin’s mild dark gaze in very little resembled Manuel’s -piercing, vivid and rather wary consideration of affairs. - -Kerin then observed, “Yet it is just as Holden said, and every direction -is preëmpted.” - -“Oh, no,” said Horvendile. “For you, Kerin, will go downward, whither -nobody will dare to follow you, and where you will learn more wisdom -than to argue with me, and to pester people with uncalled-for -erudition.” - -“It follows logically that I,” laughed young Donander of Évre, “must be -going upward, toward paradise itself, since no other direction whatever -remains.” - -“That,” Horvendile replied, “happens to be true. But you will go up far -higher than you think for; and your doom shall be the most strange of -all.” - -“Then must I rest content with some second-rate and commonplace -destruction?” asked Ninzian of Yair, Who alone of the fellowship had not -yet spoken. - -Horvendile looked at sleek Ninzian, and Horvendile looked long and long. -“Donander is a tolerably pious person. But without Ninzian, the Church -would lack the stoutest and the one really god-fearing pillar it -possesses anywhere in these parts. That would be the devil of a -misfortune. Your direction, therefore, is to remain in Poictesme, and to -uphold the edifying fine motto of Poictesme, for the world’s benefit.” - -“But the motto of Poictesme,” said Ninzian, doubtfully, “is _Mundus vult -decipi_, and signifies that the world wishes to be deceived.” - -“That is a highly moral sentiment, which I may safely rely upon you -alike to concede and prove. Therefore, for you who are so pious, I shall -slightly paraphrase the Scripture: and I declare to all of you that -neither will I any more remove the foot of Ninzian from out of the land -which I have appointed for your children; so that they will take heed to -do all which I have commanded them.” - -“That,” Ninzian said, looking markedly uncomfortable, “is very -delightful.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _3._ - _How Anavalt Lamented the Redeemer_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THEN Madame Niafer arose, black-robed and hollow-eyed, and she made a -lament for Dom Manuel, whose like for gentleness and purity and loving -kindliness toward his fellows she declared to remain nowhere in this -world. It was an encomium under which the attendant warriors stayed very -grave and rather fidgety, because they recognized and shared her grief, -but did not wholly recognize the Manuel whom she described to them. - -And the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion was decreed to be disbanded, -because of the law of Poictesme that all things should go by tens -forever. There was no fighting-man able to fill Manuel’s place: and a -fellowship of nine members was, as Dame Niafer pointed out, illegal. - -It well might be, however, she suggested, with a side glance toward -Holmendis, that some other peculiarly holy person, even though not a -warrior— At the same instant Coth said, with a startling and astringent -decisiveness, “Bosh!” - -His confrères felt the gross incivility of this interruption, but felt, -too, that they agreed with Coth. And so the fellowship was proclaimed to -be disbanded. - -Then Anavalt of Fomor made a lament for the passing of that noble order -whose ranks were broken at last, and for Dom Manuel also Anavalt raised -a lament, praising Manuel for his hardihood and his cunning and his -terribleness in battle. The heroes nodded their assent to this more -intelligible sort of talking. - -“Manuel,” said Anavalt, “was hardy. It was not wise for any enemy to -provoke him. When that indiscretion was committed, Manuel made himself -as a serpent about the city of that enemy, girdling his prey all round: -he seized the purlieus of that city, and its cattle, and its boats upon -the rivers. He beleaguered that city everywhere, he put fire to the -orchards, he silenced the mill-races, he prevented the plowers from -plowing the land; and the people of that city starved, and they ate up -one another, until the survivors chose to surrender to Dom Manuel. Then -Manuel raised his gallows, he whistled in his headsmen, and there were -no more survivors of that people.” - -And Anavalt said also: “Manuel was cunning. With a feather he put a -deception upon three kings, but the queens that he played his tricks on -were more than three, nor was it any feather that he diddled them with. -Nobody could outwit Manuel. What he wanted he took, if he could get it -that way, with his strong hand: but, if not, he used his artful head and -his lazy, wheedling tongue, and his other members too, so that the -person whom he was deluding would give Manuel whatever he required. It -was like eating honey, to be deluded by Manuel. I think it is no credit -for a private man to be a great rogue; but the leader of a people must -know how to deceive all peoples.” - -Then Anavalt said: “Manuel was terrible. There was no softness in him, -no hesitancy, and no pity. That, too, is not a virtue in a private -person, but in the leader of a people it may well be a blessing for that -people. Manuel so ordered matters that no adversary ever troubled -Poictesme the second time. He lived as a tyrant over us; but it is -better to have one master that you know the ways of than to be always -changing masters in a world where none but madmen run about at their own -will. I do not weep for Manuel, because he would never have wept for me -nor for anybody else; but I regret that man of iron and the protection -he was to us who are not ruthless iron but flesh.” - -There was a silence afterward. Yet still the heroes nodded gravely. This -was, in the main, a Manuel whom they all recognized. - -Dame Niafer, however, had risen up a little way from her seat, when the -pious gaunt man Holy Holmendis, who sat next to her, put out his hand to -her hand. After this she said nothing: yet it was perfectly clear the -Countess thought that Anavalt had been praising Manuel for the wrong -sort of virtues. - -A fire was kindled with that ceremony which was requisite. The banner of -the great fellowship was burned, and the lords of the Silver Stallion -now broke their swords, and they cast these fragments also into this -fire, so that these swords might never defend any other standard. It was -the youth of these nine men and the first vigor and faith of their youth -which perished with the extinction of that fire: and they knew it. - -Thereafter the heroes left Storisende. Each rode for his own home, and -they made ready, each in his own fashion, for that new order of -governance which with the passing of Dom Manuel had come upon Poictesme. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _4._ - _Fog Rises_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW Guivric and Donander and Gonfal rode westward with their attendants, -all in one company, as far as Guivric’s home at Asch. And as these three -lords rode among the wreckage and the gathering fogs of November, the -three talked together. - -“It is a pity,” said Gonfal of Naimes, “that, while our little Count -Emmerick is growing up, this land must now be ruled by a lame and sallow -person, who had never much wit and who tends already to stringiness. -Otherwise, in a land ruled over by a widow, who is used to certain -recreations, one might be finding amusement, and profit too.” - -“Come now,” said loyal Donander of Évre, “but Madame Niafer is a chaste -and good woman who means well!” - -“She has yet another quality which is even more disastrous in the ruler -of any country,” returned Guivric the Sage. - -“And what hook have you found now to hang a cynicism on?” - -“I fear more from her inordinate piety than from her indifferent looks -and her stupid well-meaningness. That woman will be reforming things -everywhere into one gray ruin.” - -“Indeed,” said Gonfal, smiling, “these rising fogs have to me very much -the appearance of church incense.” - -Guivric nodded. “Yes. Had it been possible, I believe that Madame Niafer -would have preserved and desecrated the fellowship by setting in Dom -Manuel’s place that Holy Holmendis who is nowadays her guide in all -spiritual matters; and who will presently, do you mark my prophesying, -be making a sanctimonious hash of her statecraft.” - -“He composed for her, it is well known,” said Gonfal, “the plaint which -she made for Dom Manuel.” - -“That was a cataloguing of ecclesiastic virtues,” Guivric said, dryly, -“which to my mind did not very immediately suggest the tall adulterer -and parricide whom we remember. This Holmendis has, thus, already -brought hypocrisy into fashion.” - -“He will be Niafer’s main counselor,” Gonfal speculated. “He is a -pushing, vigorous fellow. I wonder now—?” - -Guivric nodded again. “Women prefer to take counsel in a bedchamber,” he -stated. - -“Come, Guivric,” put in pious young Donander of Évre. “Come now, -whatever his over-charitable opinion of our dead master, this Holmendis -is a saint: and we true believers should speak no ill of the saints.” - -“I have nothing against belief, nor hypocrisy either, within reason, nor -have I anything against saints, in their proper place. It is only that -should a saint—and more particularly, a saint conceived and nurtured and -made holy in Philistia,—ever come to rule over Poictesme, and over the -bedchamber of Dom Manuel,” said Guivric, moodily, “that saint would not -be in his proper place. And our day, my friends, would be ended.” - -“It is already ended,” Gonfal said, “so far as Poictesme is concerned: -these fogs smell over-strongly of church incense. But these fogs which -rise about Poictesme do not envelop the earth. For one, I shall fare -south, as that Horvendile directed me, and as I had already planned to -do. In the South I shall find nobody so amusing as that fine great -squinting quiet scoundrel of a Manuel. Yet in the South there is a quest -cried for the hand of Morvyth, the dark Queen of Inis Dahut; and, now -that my wife is dead, it may be that I would find it amusing to sleep -with this young queen.” - -The others laughed, and thought no more of the light boastfulness of -this Gonfal who was the world’s playfellow. But within the month it was -known that Gonfal of Naimes, the Margrave of Aradol, had in truth -quitted his demesnes, and had traveled southward. And he was the first -of this famous fellowship, after Dom Manuel, to go out of Poictesme, not -ever to return. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK TWO - - THE MATHEMATICS OF GONFAL - - “_He multiplieth words without knowledge._” - —JOB, xxxv, 16. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _5._ - _Champion at Misadventure_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the tale is of how Gonfal fared in the South, where the people were -Fundamentalists. It is told how the quest was cried; and how, in the -day’s fashion, the hand of Morvyth, the dark Queen of Inis Dahut and of -the four other Isles of Wonder, was promised to the champion who should -fetch back the treasure that was worthiest to be her bridal gift. Eight -swords, they say, were borne to the altar of Pygé-Upsízugos, to be -suitably consecrated, after a brief and earnest address, by the Imaun of -Bulotu. Eight appropriately ardent lovers raised high these swords, to -swear fealty to Queen Morvyth and to the quest of which her loveliness -was the reward. Thus all was as it should be, until they went to sheathe -these swords. Then, one champion among the company, striking his elbow -against his neighbor, had, rather unaccountably, the ill luck to drop -his sword so that it pierced his own left foot. - -The horns sounded afterward, through the narrow streets and over the -bronze and lacquer roofs, and seven of Queen Morvyth’s suitors armed and -rode forth to ransack the world of its chief riches for a year and a -day. - -He who did not ride with the others was Gonfal of Naimes. It was three -months, indeed, before his wound was so healed that Gonfal could put -foot to stirrup. And by that time, he calculated regretfully, the riches -of the world must have been picked over with such thoroughness that it -would hardly be worth while for a cripple to be hobbling out to make -himself ridiculous among unsympathetic strangers. His agony, as he -admitted, under this inclement turn of chance, was well-nigh -intolerable; yet nothing was to be gained by blinking the facts: and -Gonfal was, as he also admitted, a realist. - -Gonfal, thus, remained at court through the length of a year, and lived -uneventfully in the pagan Isles of Wonder. Gonfal sat unsplendidly snug -while all his rivals rode at adventure in the meadows that are most -fertile in magic and ascended the mountains that rise beyond -plausibility in the climates most favorable to the unimaginable. But -Gonfal’s sufficing consolation appeared to be that he sat, more and more -often, with the Queen. - -However, the Margrave of Aradol, alone of Morvyth’s suitors, had -overpassed his first youth; the aging seem to acquire a sort of -proficiency in being disappointed, and to despatch the transaction with -more ease: and so, Queen Morvyth speculated, the Margrave of Aradol -could perhaps endure this cross of unheroic tranquillity—even over and -above his natural despair, now he had lost all hope of winning her,—with -an ampler fortitude than would have been attainable by any of the -others. - -Besides, their famousness was yet to be won, their exploits stayed, as -yet, resplendent and misty magnets which drew them toward the future. -But this Gonfal, who had come into Inis Dahut after so much notable -service under Manuel of Poictesme and the unconquerable banner of the -Silver Stallion, had in his day, the young Queen knew, been through -eight formal wars, with any amount of light guerrilla work. He had slain -his satisfactory quota of dragons and usurpers and ogres, and, also some -years ago, had married the golden-haired and starry-eyed and -swan-throated princess who is the customary reward of every champion’s -faithful attendance to derring-do. - -Now, in the afternoon of Gonfal’s day, with his princess dead, and with -the realms that he had shared with her all lost,—and with his overlord -Count Manuel too departed from this world, and with the banner of the -Silver Stallion no longer followed by any one,—now this tall Gonfal went -among his fellows in Inis Dahut a little aloofly. Yet the fair-bearded -man went smilingly, too, as one who amuses himself at a game which he -knows to be not very important: for he was, as he said, a realist, even -in the pagan Isles of Wonder. - -And Morvyth, the dark Queen of the five Isles of Wonder, was annoyed -by the bantering ways of her slow-spoken lover; she did not like these -ways: she would put out of mind the question whether this man was -being bitterly amused by his own hopeless infatuation or by -something—incredible as that seemed,—about her. But that question -would come back into her mind: and Morvyth, with an habitual light -lovely gesture, would tidy the hair about her ears, and would go again -to talk with Gonfal, so that she might, privately and just for her own -satisfaction, decide upon this problem. Besides, the man had rather -nice eyes. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _6._ - _The Loans of Power_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW, when the year was over, and when the bland persistent winds of -April had won up again out of the South, the heroes returned, each with -his treasure. Each brought to Morvyth a bridal gift as miraculous as the -adventures through which it had been come by: and all these adventures -had been marvelous beyond any easy believing. - -Indeed, as the Queen remarked, in private, their tales were hardly -credible. - -“And yet, I think, these buoyant epics are based upon fact,” replied -Gonfal. “Each of these men is the shrewd, small and ill-favored third -son of a king. It is the law that such unprepossessing midgets should -prosper, and override every sort of evil, in the Isles of Wonder and all -other extra-mundane lands.” - -“But is it fair, my friend, is it even respectful, to the august and -venerable powers of iniquity, that these whippersnappers—?” - -Gonfal replied: “Nobody contends, I assure you, that such easy conquests -are quite sportsmanlike. Nevertheless, they are the prerogatives of the -third son of a king. So, as a realist, madame, I perforce concede that -fortune, hereabouts, regards these third sons with a fixed grin of -approval. Even foxes and ants and ovens and broomsticks put aside their -customary taciturnity, to favor these royal imps with invaluable advice: -all giants and three-headed serpents must, I daresay, confront them with -a half-guilty sense of committing felo-de-se: and at every turn of the -road waits an enamored golden-haired princess.” - -Now not every one of these truisms appeared, to the dark eyes of -Morvyth, wholly satisfactory. - -“Blondes do not last,” said Morvyth, “and I am a queen.” - -“That is true,” Gonfal admitted. “I am not certain every third prince -prospers with a queen. I can recall no authority upon the point.” - -“My friend, there is not any doubt that these dauntless champions have -prospered everywhere. And it is another trouble for me now to decide -which one has fetched back the treasure that is worthiest to be my -bridal gift.” - -Gonfal pursed up his remarkably red and soft-looking lips. He regarded -the young Queen for a brief while, and throughout that while he wore his -odd air of considering an amusing matter which was of no great -importance. - -“Madame,” Gonfal then said, “I would distinguish. To be worthiest, a -thing must first be worthy.” - -At this the slender brows of Morvyth went up. “But upon that ebony -table, my friend, are potent magics which control all the wealth of the -world.” - -“I do not dispute that. I merely marvel—as a perhaps unpractical -realist,—how such wealth can be termed a gift, when it at utmost is but -a loan.” - -“Now do you tell me,” commanded Morvyth, “just what that means!” - -But Gonfal before replying considered for a while the trophies which -were the increment of his younger, smaller and more energetic rivals’ -heroism. These trophies were, indeed, sufficiently remarkable. - -Here, for one thing,—fetched from the fiery heart of the very dreadful -seven-walled city of Lankha, by bustling little Prince Chedric of Lorn, -after an infinity of high exploits,—was that agate which had in the -years that are long past preserved the might of the old emperors of -Macedon. Upon this strange jewel were to be seen a naked man and nine -women, portrayed in the agate’s veinings: and this agate assured its -wearer of victory in every battle. The armies of the pagan Isles of -Wonder would be ready, at the first convenient qualm of patriotism or -religious faith, to lay waste and rob all the wealthiest kingdoms in -that part of the world, should Morvyth choose that agate as her bridal -gift. - -And yet Gonfal, as he now put it aside, spoke rather sadly, and said -only, “Bunkhum!” in one or another of the foreign tongues which he had -acquired during his mundivagant career of knight-errantry. - -Gonfal then looked at an onyx. It was the onyx of Thossakan. Its wearer -had the power to draw out the soul of any person, even of himself, and -to imprison that soul as a captive inside this hollowed onyx; and its -wearer might thus trample anywhither resistlessly. Beyond the somber -gleaming of this onyx showed the green lusters of an emerald, which was -engraved with a lyre and three bees, with a dolphin and the head of a -bull. Misfortune and failure of no sort could enter into the house -wherein was this Samian gem. But the brightest of all the ensorcelled -stones arrayed upon the ebony table was the diamond of Luned, whose -wearer might at will go invisible: and to this Cymric wonder Gonfal -accorded the tribute of a shrug. - -“This diamond,” said Gonfal then, “is a gift which a well-balanced -person might loyally tender to his queen, but hardly to his prospective -wife. I speak as a widower, madame: and I assure you that Prince Duneval -of Orc we may dismiss from our accounting, as a too ardent lover of -danger.” - -Morvyth thought this very clever and naughty and cynical of him, but -smilingly said nothing. And Gonfal touched the offering of pompous -little Thorgny of Vigeois. This was the gray sideritis, which, when -bathed in running waters and properly propitiated, told with the weak -voice of an infant whatever you desired to learn. The secrets of war and -statecraft, of all that had ever happened anywhere, and of all arts and -trades, were familiar to the wearer of the gray sideritis. And Gonfal -touched, more gingerly, the moonstone of Naggar Tura, whose cutting edge -no material substance could resist, so that the strong doors of an -adversary’s treasure house, or the walls of his fortified city, could be -severed with this gem just as a knife slices an apple. - -Yet equally marvelous, in another fashion, was this moonstone’s -neighbor, a jewel of scarlet radiancy streaked with purple. All that was -needed to ensure a prosperous outcome of whatsoever matter one had in -hand could be found engraved upon this stone, in the lost color called -tingaribinus. For the wearer of this stone—a fragment, as the most -reputable cantraps attested, of the pillar which Jacob raised at -Beth-El,—it was not possible to fail in any sort of worldly endeavor. - -Yet Gonfal put this too aside, speaking again in a foreign language -unfamiliar to Morvyth, and saying, “Hohkum!” - -And then, but not until then, Gonfal answered Queen Morvyth. - -“I mean,” he said, “that with my own eyes I have seen that sturdy knave -Dom Manuel attain to the summit of human estate, and thence pass, -bewilderingly, into nothingness. I mean that, through the virtues of -these amulets and periapts and other very dreadful manifestations of -lithomancy, a monarch may retain, for a longer season than did Manuel, -much money and acreage and all manner of power, and may keep all these -fine things for a score or for two-score or even for three-score of -years. But not for four-score years, madame: for by that time the riches -and the honors of this world must fall away from every mortal man; and -all that can remain of the greatest emperor or of the most dreadful -conqueror will be, when four-score years are over, picked bones in a -black box.” - -And Gonfal said also: “Such is now the estate of Alexander, for all that -he once owned this agate. Achilles, who wore the sideritis and was so -notable at Troy, is master of no larger realm. And to Augustus and -Artaxerxes and Attila—here to proceed no further in the alphabet,—quite -similar observations apply. These men went very ardently about this -earth, the vigor of their misconduct was truly heroic, and the sound of -their names is become as deathless as is the sound of the wind. But once -that four-score years were over, their worldly power had passed as the -dust passes upon the bland and persistent wind which now is come up out -of the South to bring new life into Inis Dahut, but to revive nothing -that is dead. Just so must always pass all worldly honors, as just such -dust.” - -Then Gonfal said: “Just so—with my own eyes,—I have seen Dom Manuel -tumbled from the high estate which that all-overtrampling rogue had -purchased and held so unscrupulously; and I have seen his powerfulness -made dust. These occasional triumphs of justice, madame, turn one to -serious thinking.... Therefore it seems to me that these questing -gentlemen are offering you no gift, but only a loan. I perforce -consider—as a realist, and with howsoever appropriate regret,—that the -conditions of the quest have not been fulfilled.” - -The Queen deliberated his orotundities. And she regarded Gonfal with a -smile which now was like his smiling, and which appeared not very -immediately connected with the trituration they were speaking of. - -Morvyth said then: “That is true. Your mathematics are admirable, in -that they combine resistlessly the pious and the platitudinous. There is -no well-thought-of Fundamentalist in Inis Dahut, nor in any of the Isles -of Wonder, who will dare dispute that the riches of this world are but a -loan, because that is the doctrine of Pygé-Upsízugos and of all endowed -religions everywhere. These over-busy, pushing ugly little pests that -ride impertinently about the world, and get their own way in every -place, have insulted me. By rights,”—the Queen said, rather -hopefully,—“by rights, I ought to have their heads chopped off?” - -“But these heroic imps are princes, madame. Thus, to pursue your very -natural indignation, would entail a war with their fathers: and to be -bothered with seven wars, according to my mathematics, would be a -nuisance.” - -Morvyth saw the justice of this; and said, with ever so faint a sighing: -“Very well, then! I approve of your mathematics. I shall pardon their -impudence, with the magnanimity becoming to a queen; and I shall have -the quest cried for another year and another day.” - -“That,” Gonfal estimated, still with his odd smiling, “will do nicely.” - -“And, besides,” she added, “now you will have a chance with the others!” - -“That,” Gonfal assented, without any trace of a smile or any other token -of enthusiasm, “will be splendid.” - -But Morvyth smiled as, with that habitual gesture, she tidied her hair: -and she sent for her seven heroic lovers, and spoke to them, as she -phrased it, frankly. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _7._ - _Fatality the Second_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THUS all was to do again. The champions pulled rather long faces, and -the lower orders were disappointed in missing the gratis entertainments -attendant on a royal marriage. But the clergy and the well-thought-of -laity and the leading tax-payers applauded the decision of Queen Morvyth -as a most glorious example in such feverish and pleasure-loving days of -soulless materialism. - -So again the eight lovers of Morvyth met in the cathedral, to have their -swords appropriately consecrated by the Imaun of Bulotu. And that -beneficent and justly popular old prelate, after he had cut the throats -of the three selected children, began the real ceremony with a prayer to -Pygé-Upsízugos, as to Him whose transformations are hidden in all -temples patronized by the best-thought-of people, and saying, as was -customary and polite: - -“The height of the firmament is subservient unto thee, O Pygé-Upsízugos! -thy throne is very high! the ornaments upon the seat of thy blue -trousers are the bright stars which never diminish! Every man makes -offering unto that portion of thee which is revealed, and thou art the -Sedentary Master commemorated in heaven and upon earth. Thou art a -shining noble seated above all nobles, permanent in thy high station, -established in thy stern sovereignty, and the callipygous Prince of the -Company of Gods.” - -Nobody quite believed this, of course, but in Inis Dahut, as in all -other places, the Fundamentalists took a proper pride in their tribal -deity, and, whenever they could spare time for religious matters, made -as much of him as possible. So they now tendered to Pygé-Upsízugos a -fine offering of quails and cinnamon and bullocks’ hearts, and they -raised the Hymn of the Star Spangled Buttock in the while that the two -ewers containing the blood of the children were placed upon his altar. - -Thus everything at first went nicely enough. But when the company of -Morvyth’s lovers, with all their swords drawn, had approached the altar, -for the consecrating, and in the while that they ascended the smooth -porphyry steps, then limping Gonfal stumbled or else he slipped. He thus -dropped his sword. The tall champion, clutching hastily at this sword as -it fell, caught up the weapon by the newly sharpened blade; and he -grasped it with such rather unaccountable vigor that he cut open his -right hand to the bone, and cut also the muscles of his fingers. - -“Decidedly,” said Gonfal, with a wried smile, “there is some fatality in -this; and the quest of Morvyth is not for me.” - -He spoke the truth, for his sword-bearing days were over. Gonfal must -seek for a physician and bandages, while his rivals’ swords were being -consecrated. The Queen noted his going, and, from a point midway between -complacence and religious scruples, said under her breath, “One must -perforce somewhat admire this realist.” - -She heard, from afar, a dwindling resonance of horns and knew that once -more the seven heroic lovers of Queen Morvyth had ridden forth to -ransack the world of its chief riches. But fair-bearded Gonfal stayed in -the pagan Isles of Wonder, and beneath the same roof that covered -Morvyth, and cared for no riches except the loveliness of Morvyth, whom -he saw daily. And with time the hurt in his hand was cured, but the -fingers on that hand he could not ever move again. And for the rest, if -people whispered here and there, the susurrus was a phenomenon familiar -enough to the economy of court life. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _8._ - _How the Princes Bragged_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW, when the year was over, and the south wind was come again into Inis -Dahut, the seven lovers returned, bringing with them yet other prodigies -acquired by heroic exploits. - -Here, for example, was the effigy of a bird carved in jade and -carnelian. - -“With the aid of this inestimable bird,” explained Prince Chedric of -Lorn,—who, upon a very dreadfully inhabited peninsula, if one elected to -believe him, had wrested this talisman from Morskoï of the Depths,—“you -may enter the Sea Market, and may go freely among a folk that dwell in -homes builded of coral and tortoise-shell, and tiled with fishes’ -scales. Their wisdom is beyond the dry and arid wisdom of earth: their -knowledge derides the fictions which we call time and space: and their -children prattle of mysteries unknown to any of our major prophets and -most expert geomancers.” - -“Ah, but,” cried Prince Balein of Targamon, “but I have here a -smoke-colored veil embroidered with tiny gold stars and ink-horns; and -it enables one to pass through the ardent gateway of Audela, the country -that lies behind the fire. This is the realm of Sesphra: there is no -grieving in this land, and happiness and infallibility are common to -everybody there, because Sesphra is the master of an art which corrodes -and sears away all error, whether it be human or divine.” - -Prince Duneval of Orc said nothing. His mutely tendered offering was a -small mirror about three inches square. Morvyth looked into this mirror: -and what she saw in it was very little like a sumptuous dark young girl. -She hastily put aside that gleaming and over-wise counselor: and the -Queen’s face was troubled, because there was no need to ask what mirror -Duneval had fetched to her from out of Antan. - -But Thorgny of Vigeois did not love silence. And he was the next suitor. - -“Such knickknacks as I notice at your feet, my princess,” stated Thorgny -of Vigeois, “have their merits. Nobody denies their merits. But I, who -may now address you with the frankness which ought to exist between two -persons already virtually betrothed, I bring that sigil which gave -wisdom and all power to Apollonius, and later to Merlin Ambrosius. It -displays, as you observe, an eye encircled with scorpions and stags -and”—he coughed,—“with winged objects which do not ordinarily have -wings: and it controls the nine million spirits of the air. I need say -no more.” - -“I need to,” said Prince Gurguint. “I say that I have here the shining -triangle of Thorston. And to say that, is to say a great deal more than -Thorgny has said. For this triangle is master of the wisdom of the -Duergar and of all peoples that dwell underground. Moreover, madame, -when this triangle is inverted—thus,—it enables you to bless and curse -at will, to converse with dead priests, and to control the power and the -seven mysteries of the moon.” - -“To such hole and corner wisdom, to such cave-men devices, and more -especially to your lunar vaporings, I cry out like a bird upon the -house-tops, and I cry, Cheap, cheap!” observed Prince Clofurd. “For I -have here, in this shagreen case, the famous and puissant and -unspeakably sacrosanct ring of Solomon, to whose wearer are subject the -Djinns and the ass-footed Nazi-keen and fourteen of Jahveh’s most -discreet and trustworthy seraphim.” - -Prince Grimauc said: “Solomon had, in his archaic way, his wisdom, a -good enough sort of workaday wisdom, but yet a limited wisdom, as it was -meted out to him by the god of Judea: but I have here an altar carved -from a block of selenite. Within this altar you may hear the moving and -the dry rustlings of an immortal. Let us not speak of this immortal: -neither the sun’s nor the moon’s light has ever shone upon him, and his -name is not lovable. But here is the Altar of the Adversary; and the -owner of this little altar may, at a paid price, have access to the -wisdom that defies restraint and goes beyond the bounds permitted by any -god.” - -Such were the gifts they brought to Morvyth. And, for reasons of at -least two kinds, the Queen found difficulty in saying which of these -offerings was the worthiest to be her bridal gift. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _9._ - _The Loans of Wisdom_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -BUT Gonfal, when the Queen consulted him in private, as she was now apt -to do about most matters, tall handsome Gonfal shrugged. He said that, -to his finding,—as a, no doubt, unpractical realist,—her lovers had, -once more, fetched back no gifts, but only loans of very dubious value. - -“For I have seen Dom Manuel purchase a deal of just such wisdom from -unwholesome sources: and I have seen too what came of it when the -appointed season was at hand for that gray knave to be stripped of his -wisdom. Just so, madame, must every sort of wisdom be reft away from -everybody. These wise men that had all this knowledge in the old time, -do they retain it now? The question is absurd, since the dirt that once -was Solomon keeps no more sentiency than does the mud which formerly was -Solomon’s third under-scullion. Indomitable persons have, before to-day, -won to the wisdom of Audela or of the Sea Market; and that Freydis with -whom Dom Manuel lived for a while in necromantic iniquity, and that -unscriptural Herodias who was Tana’s daughter, these women, once, -attained to the wisdom of Antan: but might they carry any of this wisdom -into the grave?” - -“I see,” said Morvyth, reflectively; and she smiled. - -“Equally,” Gonfal continued, “where now is your Thorston or your Merlin? -All which to-day remains of any one of these thaumaturgists may well, at -this very instant, be passing us as dust in that bland and persistent -wind which now courses over Inis Dahut: but the mage goes undiscerned, -unhonored, impotent, and goes as the wind wills, not as he elects. Ah, -no, madame! These quaint, archaic toys may for a little while lend -wisdom and understanding: but, none the less, within four-score of -years—” - -“Oh, have done with your arithmetic!” she begged of him. “It serves -handily, and I approve of your mathematics. I really do consider it is -perfectly wonderful, sweetheart, how quickly you realists can think of -suitable truisms. But, just the same, I begin to dislike that wind: and -I would much rather talk about something else.” - -“Let us talk about, then,” Gonfal said, “the different way I feel -concerning you, as compared with all other women.” - -“That is not a new topic. But it is invariably interesting.” - -So they discussed this matter at some length. Then they went on to other -matters. And Morvyth asked Gonfal if he was sure that he respected her -just as much as ever, and Morvyth tidied her hair, and she summoned the -Imaun of Bulotu, and sent also for Masu the prime minister. - -“The wisdom of this world is as a dust that passes,” said Morvyth. “The -wise men that had wisdom in the old time, do they retain it now?” - -She then repeated the rest of Gonfal’s observations with applaudable -accuracy. - -And her hearers did applaud, in unfeigned emotion. “For this prying into -matters which Pygé-Upsízugos has not seen fit to reveal has always -seemed to me unwholesome,” remarked the prime minister. - -“In fact, the claims of science, so-called—” began the Imaun; and spoke -for the usual twenty minutes. - -All was thus settled edifyingly. The offerings of the kings’ sons were -decreed to be no true gifts; the quest was cried again; and once more -the seven champions rode forth. There was no thought of tall Gonfal -going with the little heroes, for a cripple who could not bear a sword -was not fitted to ransack the treasures of the world. Instead, -fair-bearded Gonfal stayed in Inis Dahut, and lived uneventfully in the -pagan Isles of Wonder. And if people now talked outright, a queen can -never hope to go wholly free of criticism. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _10._ - _Relative to Gonfal’s Head_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -IT followed through the two mischances already recorded that, when -spring came again, and when once more the south wind was coursing over -Inis Dahut, Gonfal of Naimes sat, as it happened, with his handsome head -in Morvyth’s lap, and waited for her less ill-starred lovers to return. - -“What gifts, I wonder, will they be bringing me,” Queen Morvyth said, -“at about this time to-morrow?” - -And Gonfal, without moving, sighed stupendously, and answered: “To me, -madame, they will be bringing bitter gifts. For, whosoever wins in this -quest, I lose: and whatsoever he may bring to you, to me he brings -disseverance from content, and to me he brings a poignant if brief -period of loneliness before you decide to have my head off.” - -Now she caressed that head maternally. “Why, but what a notion!” said -Morvyth, now that the man himself spoke of the nearing social duty whose -imminence had for some while been fretting her. “As if, sweetheart, I -would ever think of such a thing!” - -“Undoubtedly, that will happen, madame. Marriage entails many -obligations, not all of them pleasant. Queens in particular have to -preserve appearances, they have to ensure the discretion of those whom -they have trusted.” - -“That,” she said, sorrowfully, “is what the dear old Imaun has been -telling me,—lately, you know. And Masu talks about what a married woman -owes to religion and setting a fine moral example.” - -Then Gonfal, still smiling up at her, went on: “And yet it seems an odd -thing, delight of my delights, that I shall leave you—for the -headsman,—without any real regret. For I am content. While my shrewd -fellows rode about the world to seek and to attain to power and wisdom, -I have elected, as an unpractical realist, to follow after beauty. I -have followed, to be sure, in the phrase of that absurd young Grimauc, -at a paid price, yet, at that price, I have won, maimed and foredoomed, -to beauty. And I am content.” - -The Queen put on the proper air of diffidence. “But what, my friend, -what, after all, is mere beauty?” - -And he replied with the neatness which she always rather distrusted. -“Beauty, madame, is Morvyth. It is not easy to describe either of these -most dear and blinding synonyms, as how many reams of ruined paper -attest!” - -She waited, still stroking him: and in her mind was the old question, -whether it was possible that, even now, this man was laughing at her? - -She said: “But would it not grieve you unendurably, sweetheart, to see -me the wife of another man? And so, would it not be really a kindness—?” - -But the obtuse fellow did not chivalrously aid in smoothing her way to -that nearing social duty. Instead, he replied, oddly enough: - -“The Morvyth that I see, and in my manner worship, can be no man’s wife. -All poets learn this truth in their vexed progress to becoming -realists.” - -For yet another while the young Queen was silent. And then she said: - -“I do not quite understand you, my dear, and probably I never shall. But -I know that through your love of me you have twice maimed yourself, and -have, as though it were a trifle, put aside your chance of winning honor -and great wealth and all that gentle persons most prize—” - -“I am,” he replied, “a realist. To get three utterly pleasant years one -pays, of course. But realists pay without grumbling.” - -“My dearest,” the Queen continued,—now breathing quicklier, and with the -sort of very happy sobbing which she felt the occasion demanded,—“you -alone of all the men who have talked and postured so much, you alone -have given me whole-hearted and undivided love, not weighing even your -own knightly honor and worldly fame against the utterness of that love. -And while of course, just as the Imaun says, if I were ever to marry -anybody else, as I suppose I did promise to do,—in a way, that -is,—still, it is not as if I cared one snap of my fingers about -appearances, and I simply will not have it cut off! For such utterly -unselfish love as yours, dear Gonfal, is the gift which is worthiest to -be my bridal gift: and, no matter what anybody says, it is you who shall -be my husband!” - -“Ah, but the cried quest, madame!” he answered, “and your promise to -those seven other idiots!” - -“I shall proclaim to those detestable third sons, and to the Imaun, and -to Masu, and to everybody,” the Queen said, “a very weighty and indeed a -sacred truth. I shall tell them that there is no gift more great than -love.” - -But the tall man who now stood before her shared in nothing in the -exaltedness of her sentiments; and his dismay was apparent. “Alas, -madame, you propose an enormity! for we are all so utterly the slaves of -our catchwords that everybody would agree with you. There is no hope in -‘what anybody may say.’ Imbeciles everywhere will be saying that you -have chosen wisely.” - -Morvyth now sat peculiarly erect upon the ivory couch. “I am sure, I am -really quite sure, Gonfal, that I do not understand you.” - -“I mean, madame, that—while of course your offer is all that is most -kind and generous,—that I must, here again, in mere honesty, I must -distinguish. I mean that I think you know, as well as I do, love is not -a gift which any man can give nor any person hope long to retain. Ah, -no, madame! we shrug, we smilingly allow romanticists their catchwords: -meanwhile it remains the veriest axiom, among realists like you and me, -that love too is but a loan.” - -“So you have come back,” the Queen remarked, with an approach to -crossness, “to your eternal loans!” - -He slightly flung out both hands, palms upward. “Love is that loan, my -dear, which we accept most thankfully. But at the same time let us -concede, as rational persons, the impermanence of all those materials -which customarily provoke the erotic emotions.” - -“Gonfal,” the young Queen said, “now you talk stupidly. You talk with a -dangerous lack of something more important than discretion.” - -“My love, I talk, again, as a widower.” Then for a while he said -nothing: and it appeared to Morvyth that this incomprehensible ingrate -had shivered. He said: “And still, still, I talk of mathematical -certainties! For how can you hope to remain in anything a lovable -object? In a score of years, or within at most two-score, you will have -become either fat or wrinkled, your teeth will rot and tumble out, your -eyes will blear; your thighs will be most unenticingly mottled, your -breath will be unpleasant, and your breasts will have become flabby -bags. All these impairments, I repeat, my dear, are mathematical -certainties.” - -To such horrid and irrelevant nonsense the Queen replied, with dignity, -“I am not your dear; and I simply wonder at your impudence in ever for -one moment thinking I was.” - -“Then, too,” the ill-mannered wretch had gone on, meditatively, “you -have not much intelligence. That is very well for the present, because -intelligence in youth, for some reason or another, is bad for the hair -and muddies the complexion. Yet an aging woman who is stupid, such as -Madame Niafer or such as another woman whom I remember, is also quite -unendurable.” - -“But what,” she asked him, rationally, “have I to do with stupid old -women? I am Morvyth, I am Queen of the Isles of Wonder. I have the -secrets which control all wealth and—if I should ever take a fancy to -such things,—all wisdom too. There is no beauty like my beauty, nor any -power like my power—” - -“I know, I know!” he returned,—“and for the present I of course adore -you. But nevertheless, did I fall in with your very dreadful suggestion, -and permit you to place me, quite publicly, at your dear side, upon the -terraced throne of Inis Dahut,—why, then, within a terribly brief while, -I would not mind your being stupid, I would not actually notice your -dilapidated looks, I would accept all your shortcomings complacently. -And I would be contented enough with you, who, once, were the despair -and joy of my living. No, Morvyth, no, my child! I, who was once a poet -of sorts, could not again endure to live in contentment with a stupid -and querulous woman who was unattractive to look at. And, very -certainly, within two-score of years—” - -But a queenly gesture had put a check to such wild talk, and Morvyth too -had arisen, saying: - -“Your arithmetic becomes tiresome. One can afford to honor truisms in -their proper place, and about suitable persons: but there is, and always -must be, a limit to the scope of such trite philosophy. Your audience is -over, Messire Gonfal. And it is your last audience, because I consider -you quite unutterably a beast.” - -He kissed the imperious little hand which dismissed him. “You at all -events, my dear,” he stated, “are quite unutterably human.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _11._ - _Economics of Morvyth_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THIS it came about, to the Imaun’s vast relief,—and, as it seemed to the -pious kindly old man, perhaps in direct answer to his prayers that this -matter might be settled agreeably all around and without any -unpleasantness,—that the next day at noon, just as the seven champions -were returning with their gifts, an attendant brought to Queen Morvyth -the severed head of Gonfal. - -This was in the vaulted hall of Tothmes, whose building was a famous -tale, and of whose splendors travelers, come homeward, spoke without -real hope to be believed. There Morvyth waited, crowned, upon the -terraced throne: and without, on that bright April morning, the trumpets -sounded through the narrow streets and over the bronze and lacquer -roofs, proclaiming that the mightiest and most shrewd of champions were -riding toward Inis Dahut from all kingdoms of the earth, through their -desire of the young Queen of the Isles of Wonder whose beauty was the -marvel of the world, and a legend in far lands not known to her even by -their names. - -Thus Morvyth sat: and at her feet one placed the severed head of Gonfal. -There was blood on the fair beard: but still the lips were smiling, -pallidly, over something of no great importance. And in her mind was the -old question, whether it was possible that—even now,—this man was -laughing at her? Or, was it possible, she wondered (as she of a sudden -recollected that first talk of theirs), that blondes did sometimes last -very damnably? and that some little washed-out fly-by-night princess of -nowhere in particular might thus get, in one way or another, even from -her grave, the better of a great queen? - -Well, but there was no need for a great queen to think as yet about -graves, and their most unpleasant contents. For Morvyth sat high, as -yet, superb and young and all powerful, in this fine palace of hers, -about which so many lovers sighed, and the bland winds of April went -caressingly.... Nobody denied that this very tiresome wind would every -year be coming up from the South,—the lovely girl reflected, as she fell -meditatively to prodding with her toe at what remained of Gonfal,—nor -that, just so, this most persistent wind would be coursing over Inis -Dahut, when there was no Morvyth and no palace in this place any -longer.... Nobody denied, and nobody except insane and very rude persons -thought at all seriously about, such truisms. - -It was enough, for really pious people, that in youth one had the loan -of a bright sheltering against the ruthless and persistent wind which -bore everything away as dust: if one felt a bit low-spirited now and -then, it was not for any especial cause: and Morvyth—that, as yet, for -her permitted season, was Queen of the five Isles of Wonder,—could hear -the trumpets and the heralds proclaiming the entry of Prince Chedric of -Lorn.... - -He, then, was the first to return of those perfectly detestable little -meddlers who out of love for her had, now for a third time, ransacked -the riches of the world: and he had rather nice eyes. Morvyth tidied her -hair. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK THREE - - TOUPAN’S BRIGHT BEES - - “_The bee that is in the land of Assyria shall rest upon all bushes._” - —ISAIAH, vii, 18. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _12._ - _The Mage Emeritus_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the tale is no more of Gonfal, who was the first to perish of the -lords of the Silver Stallion. The tale instead tells that, in the while -of Gonfal’s adventuring in Inis Dahut, yet three other champions of the -fellowship had left the Poictesme which under Dame Niafer’s rule was -altering day by day. Coth of the Rocks, indeed, had ridden westward -within the same month that Gonfal departed for the South. There was -never any profitable arguing with Coth: and so, when he declared his -intention of fetching back Dom Manuel into the Poictesme which women and -holy persons and lying poets—as Coth asserted,—were making quite -uninhabitable, nobody did argue. Coth blustered westward, unmolested and -unreasoned with: and for that while no more was heard of him. - -And it was in the May of this year that Kerin of Nointel, the Syndic and -Castellan of Basardra, disappeared even more unaccountably than Dom -Manuel had done, for about Kerin’s passing there were not even any -rumors. Kerin, so far as anybody could learn, had vanished in the -darkness of the night season just as unaidedly as that darkness itself -had vanished in turn, and with just as slight vestigial traces of his -passing. The desolation of Kerin’s young wife, Dame Saraïde, was such -that dozens upon dozens of lovers might not content her for her -widowhood, as was immediately shown: and of Kerin also, for that while, -no more was heard. - -And Miramon Lluagor, too, that under Manuel had been the Lord Seneschal -of Gontaron, had now gone out of Poictesme,—sedately and unmysteriously -departing, with his wife and child seated beside him upon the back of an -elderly and quite tame dragon, for his former home in the North. It was -there that Miramon had first encountered Dom Manuel in the days when -Manuel was only a swineherd. And it was there that Miramon Lluagor hoped -to pass the remainder of as long a life as his doom permitted him, in -such limited comfort as might anywhere be possible for a married man. - -Otherwise, he could foresee, upon the brighter side of his appointed and -appalling doom, nothing which was likely to worry him. For Miramon -Lluagor had very wonderfully prospered at magic, he was, as they say, -now blessed with more than any reasonable person would ask for: and the -most clamant of these superfluities appeared to him to be his wife. - -They tell how Miramon was one of the Léshy, born of a people that was -neither human nor immortal, telling how his ancestral home was builded -upon the summit of the mountain called Vraidex. To Vraidex Miramon -Lluagor returned, after the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion had been -disbanded, and Miramon had ceased to amuse himself with the greatness of -Manuel and with the other notions of Poictesme. - -They narrate that this magician dabbled no more in knight-errantry, for -which the Seneschal of Gontaron—who through his art was also lord of the -nine kinds of sleep and prince of the seven madnesses,—had never shown -any real forte. He righted no more wrongs, in weather as often as not -unsuited to a champion subject to rheumatism, and he in no way taxed his -comfort to check the prospering of injustice. Instead, he now -maintained, upon the exalted scarps of Vraidex, the sedate seclusion -appropriate to a veteran sorcerer, in his ivory tower carved out of one -of the tusks of Behemoth; and maintained also a handsome retinue of -every sort of horrific illusion to guard the approaches to his Doubtful -Palace; wherein, as the tale likewise tells, this mage resumed his -former vocation, and once more designed the dreams for sleep. - -Thus it was that, upon the back of the elderly and quite tame dragon, -Miramon returned to his earlier pursuits and to the practice of what -he—in his striking way of putting things,—described as art for art’s -sake. The episode of Manuel had been, in the lower field of merely -utilitarian art, amusing enough. That stupid, tall, quiet posturer, when -he set out to redeem Poictesme, had needed just the mere bit of -elementary magic which Miramon had performed for him, to establish -Manuel among the great ones of earth. Miramon had, in consequence, sent -a few obsolete gods to drive the Northmen out of Poictesme, while Manuel -waited upon the sands north of Manneville and diverted his leisure by -contemplatively spitting into the sea. Thereafter Manuel had held the -land to the admiration of everybody but more particularly of -Miramon,—who did not at all agree with Anavalt of Fomor in his -estimation of Dom Manuel’s mental gifts. - -Yes, it had been quite amusing to serve under Manuel, to play at being -lord of Gontaron and Ranec, and to regard at close quarters this tall -grave gray cockeyed impostor, who had learned only not to talk.... For -that, thought Miramon, was Manuel’s secret: Manuel did not expostulate, -he did not explain, he did not argue; he, instead, in any time of -trouble or of uncertainty, kept quiet; and that quiet struck terror to -his ever-babbling race, and had earned for the dull-witted but shrewd -fellow—who was concealing only his lack of any thought or of any plan,—a -dreadful name for impenetrable wisdom and for boundless resource. - -“Keep mum with Manuel!” said Miramon, “and all things shall be added to -you. It is a great pity that my wife has not the knack for these little -character analyses.” - -Yes, the four years had been an amusing episode. But dreams and the -designing of dreams were the really serious matters to which Miramon -returned after this holiday outing in carnage and statecraft. - -And here, too,—as everywhere,—his wife confronted him. Miramon’s -personal taste in art was for the richly romantic sweetened with -nonsense and spiced with the tabooed. But his wife Gisèle had quite -other notions, a whole set of notions, and her philosophy was that of -belligerent individualism. And the sorcerer to keep peace, at least in -the intervals between his wife’s more mordantly loquacious moments, must -of necessity design such dreams as Gisèle preferred. But he knew that -these dreams did not express the small thoughts and fancies which -harbored in the heart of Miramon Lluagor, and which would perish with -the falling of his doom unless he wrought these fancies into dreams -that, being fleshless, might evade carnivorous time. - -He was preëminent among the dream-makers of this world, he was the -dreaded lord (because of his retinue of illusions) over all the country -about Vraidex: but, in his own home he was not dreaded, he, very -certainly, was not preëminent. And Miramon hungered for the lost freedom -of his bachelorhood. - -His wife also was discontent, because the ways of the Léshy appeared to -this mortal woman indecorous. The dooms that were upon the Léshy seemed -not entirely in good taste, to her who had been born of a race about -whom destiny appeared not to bother. In fact, it was a continual -irritation to Gisèle that her little boy Demetrios was predestinate to -kill his father with the charmed sword Flamberge. This was a doom Gisèle -found not the sort of thing you cared to have imminent in your own -family: and she felt that the sooner the gray Norns, who weave the fate -of all that live, were spoken to quite candidly, the better it would be -for everybody concerned. - -She was irritated by the mere sight of Flamberge. So her thinking was -not of silk and honey when, after polishing the sword as was her usage -upon Thursday morning, she came into Miramon’s ivory tower to hang the -fatal weapon in its right place. - -With Miramon under the green tasseled canopy sat one whom Gisèle was not -unsurprised to see there. For closeted with Miramon to-day was Ninzian, -the High Bailiff of Yair and Upper Ardra, who was the most famous for -his piety of all the lords of the Silver Stallion. The dreadful need and -the peculiar reason which Ninzian had for being pious and philanthropic -were matters not known to everybody: but Miramon Lluagor knew about -these things, and therefore he made appropriate use of Ninzian. Indeed, -upon this very afternoon, the two were looking at that which Ninzian had -fetched out of the land of Assyria, and had procured for the sorcerer, -at a price. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _13._ - _Economics of Gisèle_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW Madame Gisèle also was looking at that which Ninzian had procured -for her husband at a price. She looked at it—upon the whole—with -slightly less disfavor than she afterward looked at the two men. - -“A good day and a grand blessing to you, Messire Ninzian!” said Madame -Gisèle: and she extended her hand, along with her scouring-rag, for him -to kiss, and she inquired about his wife Dame Balthis, pleasantly -enough. She spoke then, in a different tone, to Miramon Lluagor. “And -with what are you cluttering up the house now?” - -“Ah, wife,” replied Miramon, “here, very secretly fetched out of the -land of Assyria, are those bees about whom it is prophesied that they -shall rest upon all bushes. Here are the bright bees of Toupan, a -treasure beyond word or thinking. They are not as other bees, for theirs -is the appearance of shining ice: and they crawl fretfully, as they have -crawled since Toupan’s downfall, about this cross of black stone—” - -“That is a very likely story for you to be telling me, who can see that -the disgusting creatures have wings to fly away with whenever they want -to! And, besides, who in the world is this Toupan?” - -“He is nobody in this world, wife, and it is wiser not to speak of him. -Let it suffice that in the time of the Old Ones he made all things as -they were. Then Koshchei came out of Ydalir, and took the power from -Toupan, and made all things as they are. Yet three of Toupan’s servitors -endure upon earth, where they who were once lords of the Vendish have -now no privilege remaining save to creep humbly as insects: the use of -their wings is denied them here among the things which were made by -Koshchei, and the charmed stone holds them immutably. Oho, but, wife, -there is a cantrap which would free them, a cantrap which nobody has as -yet discovered, and to their releaser will be granted whatever his will -may desire—” - -“This is some more of your stuff and nonsense, out of old fairy tales, -where everybody gets three wishes, and no good from any of them!” - -“No, my love, because I shall put them to quite practical uses. For you -must know that when I have found out the cantrap which will release the -bees of Toupan—” - -Gisèle showed plainly that his foolishness did not concern her. She -sighed, and she hung the sword in its accustomed place. “Oh, but I am -aweary of this endless sorcery and piddling with vain dreams!” - -“Then, wife,” said Miramon, “then why are you perpetually meddling with -what you do not understand?” - -“I think,” Ninzian observed at once, for Ninzian too was married, “I -think that I had best be going.” - -But Gisèle’s attention was reserved for her husband. “I meddle, as you -so very politely call it, because you have no sense of what is right and -proper, and no sense of morals, and no sense of expediency, and, in -fact, no sense at all.” - -Miramon said, “Now, dearest—!” - -Ninzian was hastily picking up his hat. - -And Gisèle continued, with that resistless and devastating onflow which -is peculiar to tidal waves and the tongue of her who speaks for her -husband’s own good. - -“Women everywhere,” Gisèle generalized, “have a hard time of it: but in -particular do I pity the woman that is married to one of you moonstruck -artists. She has not half a husband, she has but the tending of a baby -with long legs—” - -“It is so much later than I thought, that really now—” observed Ninzian, -ineffectively. - -“—And I might have had a dozen husbands—” - -Miramon said, “But, surely, no woman of your well-known morality, my -darling—” - -“—I might, as you very well remember, have married Count Manuel -himself—” - -“I know. I can recall how near you came to marrying him. He was a dull, -a cold-blooded and a rather dishonest clod-hopper: but the luck of -Manuel Pig-Tender did not ever desert him,” said Miramon, sighing, “not -even then!” - -“I say, I might have had my pick of a dozen really prominent and -looked-up-to warriors, who would have had the decency to remember our -anniversary and my birthday, and in any event would never have been in -the house twenty-four hours a day! Instead, here I am tied to a -muddle-head who fritters away his time contriving dreams that nobody -cares about one way or the other! And yet, even so—” - -“And yet, even so—as you were no doubt going on to observe, my -dearest,—even so, since your soliloquy pertains to matters in which our -guest could not conceivably be interested—” - -“And yet,” said Gisèle, with a heavier and a deadlier emphasis, “even -so, if only you would be sensible about your silly business I could put -up with the inconvenience of having you underfoot every moment. People -need dreams to help them through the night, and nobody enjoys a really -good dream more than I do when I have time for it, with the million and -one things that are put upon me. But dreams ought to be wholesome—” - -“My darling, now, as a matter of esthetics, as a mere point of fact—” - -“—But dreams ought to be wholesome, they ought to be worth while, they -ought to teach an uplifting moral, and certainly they ought not to be -about incomprehensible thin nonsense that nobody can half way -understand. They ought, in a word, to make you feel that the world is a -pretty good sort of place, after all—” - -“But, wife, I am not sure that it is,” said Miramon, mildly. - -“Then, the more shame to you! and the very least you can do is to keep -such morbid notions to yourself, and not be upsetting other people’s -repose with them!” - -“I employ my natural gift, I express myself and none other. The -rose-bush does not put forth wheat, nor flax either,” returned the -sorcerer, with a tired shrug. “In fine, what would you have?” - -“A great deal it means to you,—you rose-bush!—what I prefer! But if I -had my wish your silly dream-making would be taken away from you so that -we might live in some sort of reputable and common-sense way.” - -All the while that she reasoned sensibly and calmly with her husband for -his own good, Gisèle had feverishly been dusting things everywhere, just -to show what a slave she was to him, and because it irritated Miramon to -have his personal possessions thus dabbed at and poked about: and now, -as she spoke, Gisèle slapped viciously with her scouring-rag at the -black cross. And a thing happened to behold which would have astonished -the innumerous mages and the enchanters who had given over centuries to -searching for the cantrap which would release the bees of Toupan. For -now without any exercise of magic the scouring-rag swept from the stone -one of the insects. Koshchei, who made all things as they are, had -decreed, they report, that these bright perils could be freed only in -the most obvious way, because he knew this would be the last method -attempted by any learned person. - -Then for an instant the walls of the ivory tower were aquiver like blown -veils. And the bee passed glitteringly to the window and through the -clear glass of the closed window, leaving a small round hole there, as -the creature went to join its seven fellows in the Pleiades. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _14._ - _The Changing That Followed_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW, when this eighth bright bee had joined its seven fellows in the -Pleiades, then Toupan, afloat in the void, unclosed his ancient -unappeasable eyes. Jacy returned to his aforetime estate in the moon: -all plants and trees everywhere were withered, and the sea also lost its -greenness, and there were no more emeralds. And the Star Warriors and -the Wardens of the Worlds were troubled, and They cried out to Koshchei -who had devised Them and who had placed Them in Their stations to remain -in eternal watchfulness over all things as they are. - -Koshchei, for reasons of his own, did not reply. - -Then Jacy whispered to Toupan: “Now is the hour of thy release, O -Toupan! now is the hour that Koshchei falls. For among the things that -are there stays no verdancy anywhere, and without green things nobody -can keep health and strength.” - -Toupan answered: “I am diminished. My bones have become like silver, and -my members have turned into gold, and my hair is like lapis-lazuli.” - -“Thine eyes remain unchanged,” said the slow whispering of Jacy. “Send -forth thine eyes, O Toupan, against the work of Koshchei, who has -blasphemed against the Old Ones, and who has created things as they -are.” - -“Though he acknowledge both of these misdoings, why need my eyes be -troubled—as yet?” - -Then Jacy said, “Send forth thine eyes, O Toupan, so that we Old Ones -may rejoice in the dreadfulness of thy overlooking!” - -Toupan answered: “I was before the Old Ones. My soul was before thought -and time. It is the soul of Shu, it is the soul of Khnemu, it is the -soul of Heh: it is the soul of Night and of Desolation, and there is a -thinking about my soul which looks out of the eyes of every serpent. My -soul alone keeps any knowledge of that dark malignity which everywhere -encompasses the handiwork of Koshchei who made things as they are. Why -need my soul be troubled, therefore,—as yet?” - -But Jacy said again: “Give aid now to the Old Ones! Already thy bees go -forth, that shall rest upon all bushes, and already no verdancy remains. -Send forth thine eyes now, also, in which there is the knowledge denied -to Koshchei!” - -And Toupan answered: “The time of my release is not yet at hand. -Nevertheless, between now and a while, when yet another bee is loosed, I -shall bestir my soul, I will send forth my eyes, so that all may -perceive the dreadfulness of my overlooking.” - -At that the Star Warriors and the Wardens of the Worlds cried out again -to Koshchei. - -Then Koshchei answered Them: “Have patience! When Toupan is released I -perish with You. Meanwhile I have made all things as they are.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _15._ - _Disastrous Rage of Miramon_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW also, when this eighth bright bee had joined its fellows in the -Pleiades, in that same instant Miramon Lluagor, as he stood appalled in -his ivory tower, was aware of a touch upon his forehead, as if a damp -sponge were passing over it. Then he perceived that, with the petulant -voicing of his damnable wife’s desire, he had forthwith forgotten the -secret of his preëminence. - -Something he could yet recall, they say, of the magic of the Purin and -the cast stones, of the Horse and the Bull of the Water, and most of the -lore of the Apsarasas and the Faidhin remained to him. He could still -make shift, he knew, to control the roving Lamboyo, to build the fearful -bridge of the White Ladies, or to contrive the dance of the Korred. He -retained his communion with Necksa and Paralda, those sovereign -Elementaries. He kept his mastery of the Shedeem who devastate, of the -Shehireem who terrify, and of the Mazikeen who destroy. Nor had he lost -touch with the Stewards of Heaven,—of whom at this period Och had the -highest power and was customarily summoned by Miramon Lluagor, for a -brief professional consultation, every Sunday morning at sunrise. - -But such accomplishments, as Miramon despairingly knew, were the stock -in trade of mere hedge wizards, they were the rudiments of any fairly -competent sorcerer anywhere: and that supreme secret which had made -Miramon Lluagor the master of all dreams was gone away from him -completely. - -He was very angry. He was the angrier for that he saw, just for an -instant, a sort of frightened and bewildered remorse in his wife’s -foolish face, and he desperately foreknew himself to be upon the brink -of comforting her. - -“Accursed woman!” Miramon cried out, “now indeed has your common-sense -completed what your nagging began! This is the doom of all artists that -have to do with well-conducted women. Truly has it been said that the -marriage-bed is the grave of art. Well, I have put up with much from -you, but this settles it, and I will not put up with your infatuation -for a reputable and common-sense way of living, and I wish you were in -the middle of next week!” - -With that he caught the soiled scouring-rag from the hand of Gisèle, and -he slapped at one of the remaining bees, and he brushed it from the -black cross. And this bee departed as the other had done. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _16._ - _Concerns the Pleiades and a Razor_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -WHEN this bright bee had departed as the other had done before him, then -Toupan moved his wings, and he made ready to overlook the work of -Koshchei: and in the instant that Toupan moved, the worlds in that part -of the universe were dislodged and ran melting down the sky. It was -Gauracy who swept all the fragments together and formed a sun -immeasurably larger than that which he had lost, and an obstreperous mad -conflagration which did not in anything conform with the handiwork of -Koshchei. - -And Gauracy then shouted friendlily to Toupan, “Now is the hour of thy -release, O Toupan! now is the hour of the return of the Old Ones, now is -the hour that Koshchei falls!” - -Toupan answered: “The hour of my release is not yet come. But this is -the hour of my overlooking.” - -Then Gauracy bellowed, as he swept yet other worlds into the insatiable -flaming of his dreadful sun, “I kindle for you a fine light to see by!” - -And now the gods who were worshiped in those worlds which remained, -these also cried out to Koshchei. For now, in the intolerable glare of -Gauracy’s malefic sun, they showed as flimsy and incredible inventions. -And the gods knew, moreover, that, if ever the last remaining bee were -freed from the cross, the dizain of the Pleiades would be completed, and -Toupan would be released, and the power of the Old Ones would return; -and that a day foretold by many prophets, the day upon which every god -must shave with a razor that is hired, would be at hand; and that, with -the falling about of this very dreadful and ignominious necessity, the -day of the divine contentment of all gods in any place would be over, -forever. - -Meanwhile the eyes of Toupan went forth, among the Star Warriors and the -Wardens of the Worlds. It was They who, under Koshchei, had shaped the -earths and the waters, and who had knit together the mountains, and who -had fashioned all other things as they are. It was They who had woven -the heavens, and who had placed the soul of every god within him. They -were the makers of the hours and the creators of the days and the -kindlers of the fires of life, and They were powers whose secret and -sustaining names were not known to any of the gods of men. Yet now the -eyes of Toupan went among the Star Warriors and the Wardens of the -Worlds, and Toupan regarded them one by one; and wheresoever the old -eyes of Toupan had rested there remained no world nor any Warden -watching over it, but only, for that instant, a very little spiral of -thin sluggish vapor. - -And those of Them who were not yet destroyed cried piteously to -Koshchei, who had devised Them and who had placed Them in Their stations -to keep eternal watchfulness over all things as they are. - -Now there is no denying that, in the manner of artists, Koshchei had -cleared his throat, and had fidgeted a little, in the while that Toupan -was overlooking Koshchei’s handiwork. But when the Wardens and the Star -Warriors cried out to him for aid, then Koshchei, lifting never a -finger, said only: - -“Eh, sirs, have patience! For I made all things as they are; and I know -now it is my safeguard that I made them in two ways.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _17._ - _Epitome of Marriage_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -BUT Miramon, in his ivory tower upon Vraidex, knew only that his wish -had been granted, for Gisèle had gone just as a bubble breaks, and she -was now somewhere in the middle of next week. - -“And a good riddance, too!” said Miramon. He turned to Ninzian, that -smiling large philanthropist. “For did you ever see the like of such -outrageousness as her outrageousness!” - -“Oh, very often,” replied this Ninzian, who too was married. Then -Ninzian asked, “But what will you do next?” - -Said Miramon, “I shall wish to have back the secret and the solace of my -art.” - -But to Ninzian this seemed less obvious. “You can do that, readily -enough, by releasing the third bee which my devices have procured for -you out of the land of Assyria. Yes, Miramon, you can in this manner get -back your art, but thus also you will be left defenseless against the -doom which is appointed. So, friend, by my advice you will, instead, -employ the cantrap as you at first intended, and you will secure for -yourself eternal life by wishing that Flamberge may vanish from this -world of men.” - -And Ninzian waved toward the sword with which according to the -foreordainment of the Norns great Miramon Lluagor was to be killed by -his own son. - -The fallen sorcerer answered, “Of what worth is life if it breed no more -dreams?” And Miramon said also, “I wonder, Ninzian, just where is the -middle of next week?” - -Sleek Ninzian spoke, secure in his peculiar erudition. “It will fall -upon a Wednesday, but nobody knows whence. Olybrius states it is now in -Aratu, where all that enter are clothed like a bird with wings, and have -only dust and clay to eat in the unchanging twilight—” - -“She would not like that. She had always a delicate digestion.” - -“Whereas Asinius Pollio suggests, not unplausibly, that it waits beyond -Slid and Gjold, in the blue house of Nostrand, where Sereda bleaches the -unborn Wednesdays, under a roof of plaited serpents—” - -“Dear me!” said Miramon, disconsolately rubbing at his nose, “now that -would never suit a woman with an almost morbid aversion to reptiles!” - -“—But Sosicles declares it is in Xibalba, where Zipacna and Cabrakan -play at handball, and the earthquakes are at nurse.” - -“She would be none the happier there. She does not care for babies, she -would not for one moment put up with a fractious young earthquake, and -she would make things most uncomfortable for everybody. Ninzian,”—and -Miramon cleared his throat,—“Ninzian, I begin to fear I have been a -little hasty.” - -“It is the frailty of all you artists,” the man of affairs replied. “So -my advice, about Flamberge, is not to the purpose?” - -“Well, but, you see,” said Miramon, very miserably, “or perhaps I ought -to say that, while of course, still, when you come to look at it more -carefully, Ninzian, what I really mean is that the fact is, as it seems -to me—” - -“The fact is,” Ninzian returned, with a depressed but comprehending -smile, “you are a married man. So am I. Well, then, you have one wish -remaining, and no more. You can at will desire to have back again the -control of your lost magics or you can have back your wife to control -you—” - -“Yes,” Miramon agreed, forlornly. - -“And indeed,” sleek Ninzian went on, with that glib optimism reserved -for the dilemmas of one’s friends, “indeed it is in many ways a splendid -thing for you to have the choice clear cut. Nobody can succeed alike at -being an artist and a husband. I hold no brief for either career, -because I think that art is an unreasonable mistress, and I think also -that a wife is amenable to the same description. But I am certain no man -can serve both.” - -Miramon sighed. “That is true. There is no marriage for the maker of -dreams, because he is perpetually creating finer women than earth -provides. The touch of flesh cannot content him who has arranged the -shining hair of angels and modeled the breasts of the sphinx. The woman -that shares his bed is there of course, much as the blanket or the -pillow is there, and each is an aid to comfort. But what has the maker -of dreams, what has that troubled being who lives inside the creature -which a mirror reveals to him, to do with women? At best, these animals -provide him with models to be idealized beyond the insignificant truth, -somewhat as I have made a superb delirium with only a lizard to start -on. And at worst, these animals can live through no half-hour without -meddling where they do not understand.” - -Now Miramon kept silence. He was fingering the magic colors with which -he blazoned the first sketches of his dreams. Here was his white, which -was the foam of the ocean made solid, and the black he had wrung from -the burned bones of nine emperors. Here was the yellow slime of Scyros, -and crimson cinnabaris composed of the mingled blood of mastodons and -dragons, and here was the poisonous blue sand of Puteoli. And Miramon, -who was no longer a potent sorcerer, considered that loveliness and -horror which a moment ago he had known how to evoke with these pigments, -he who had now no power to lend life to his designs, and who kept just -skill enough it might be to place the stripings on a barber’s pole. - -And Miramon Lluagor said: “It would be a sad happening if I were never -again to sway the sleeping of men, and grant them yet more dreams of -distinction and clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and truth -and urbanity. For whether they like it or not, I know what is good for -them, and it affords to their starved living that which they lack and -ought to have.” - -And Miramon said also: “Yet it would be another sad happening were my -poor wife permitted eternally to scold the shivering earthquakes in the -middle of next week. What does it matter that I do not especially like -her? There is a great deal about myself that I do not like, such as my -body’s flabbiness and the snub nose which makes ludicrous the face I -wear: but do I hanker to be transformed into a sturdy man-at-arms? do I -view the snout of an elephant with covetousness? Why, but, Ninzian, I am -astonished at your foolish talking! What need have I of perfection? what -would I have in common with anybody who was patient with me and thought -highly of my doings?” - -Miramon shook his head, with some sternness. “No, Ninzian, it is in vain -that you pester me with your continuous talking, for I am as used to her -shortcomings as I am to my own shortcomings. I regard her tantrums with -the resignation I extend to inclement weather. It is unpleasant. All -tempests are unpleasant. Ah, yes, but if life should become an endless -clear May afternoon we could not endure it, we who have once been lashed -by storms would cross land and sea to look for snow and pelting hail. -Just so, to have Gisèle about keeps me perpetually fretted; but now that -she is gone I am miserable. No, Ninzian, you may spare your talking, you -need say no more, for I simply could not put up with being left to live -in comfort.” - -Ninzian had heard him through without impatience, because they were both -married men. Now Ninzian, shrugging, said, “Then do you choose, Miramon, -for your wife and no more dreams, or for your art and loneliness?” - -“Such wishing would be over-wasteful,” Miramon replied, as he dusted -away the third bee. “Since I can bear to give up neither my wife nor my -art, no matter how destroyingly they work against each other, I wish for -everything to be put back just where it was an hour ago.” - -The third bee flew in a wide circle, and returned to the cross. The -knowledge which Miramon had lost was put back into his mind. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _18._ - _Koshchei is Vexed_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -EVEN as the knowledge which Miramon had lost was put back into his mind, -just so did life reawaken in all else which had perished in that hour. -Gauracy’s baleful sun was gone, and the dislodged and incinerated -worlds, with all their satellites, were revolving trimly in their proper -places, undamaged. And the gods who were worshiped in these worlds now -made a celestial rejoicing, because once more there were only seven -Pleiades. The Old Ones had sunk back into their sleeping; things, for -the while, stayed as they are; and even Toupan now seemed harmless -enough.... - -For the eyes were closed wherein lurked tireless and unappeasable -malignity, and a remembrance of all that which was before Koshchei’s -time, and an undivulged foreknowledge which withered Toupan shared with -brisk little Koshchei alone. Nobody could speak certainly about this: -yet it was whispered that both of these well knew that, in the end, the -Old Ones would return, and that only Toupan knew in what manner and at -what hour.... - -But above the gods who in the multitudinous heavens and paradises were -now rejoicing over their regained omnipotence, far higher than these -junketing gods stood the Star Warriors and the Wardens of the Worlds, -each in the appointed place, and each once more set in eternal -watchfulness over all things as they are. And the Star Warriors and the -Wardens of the Worlds said, soberly, to Koshchei: - -“Sir, your protection is established. You are protected as the guide of -the things which exist and of the things which are not yet created. You -are protected as a dweller in the realm which goes round about Those who -are over Hidden Things. For now the Old Ones sleep again, and not any -new thing anywhere shall ever gain the mastery over you, who are our -only master: and all things as they are stay yours forever.” - -Koshchei replied, rather absent-mindedly: “What need was there to worry? -Did I not make my creatures male and female? and did I not make the tie -which is between them, that cord which I wove equally of love and of -disliking? Eh, sirs, but that is a strong cord, and though all things -that are depend upon it, my weaving holds.” - -They answered him, “Your weaving holds, sir, assuredly: yet you do not -rejoice, as we rejoice.” - -“Why, but,” said Koshchei, “but I do so hate flat incivility! And after -overlooking my handiwork, the fellow might very well have said something -intelligent. Nobody minds an honest criticism. Just to say nothing—and -in that rather marked way, you know,—is stupid!” - -For Koshchei also, they relate, was, in his fashion, an artist. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _19._ - _Settlement: in Full_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -BUT that lesser artist, Miramon Lluagor—once more a potent sorcerer, in -his ivory tower, and once more preëminent among the dream-makers of this -world,—knew nothing of how he had played havoc with the handiwork of -Koshchei who made things as they are. Miramon only knew that upon the -black stone cross were buzzing fretfully three bees, who had now no -luster and no power to grant wishes to anybody; and that his wife Gisèle -also was making noises, not fretfully but in a tearing rage. - -“A pretty trick that was to play on me!” she said. “Oh, but I pity the -woman that is married to an artist!” - -“But why do you perpetually meddle without understanding?” he replied, -as fretful as the accursed bees, as angry as the intolerable woman.... - -And they went on very much as before.... - -They went on very much as before, because, as Miramon put it, the Norns, -for all their strength, had not been able to contrive for him any doom -more inflexible than he, like every other married man who holds his -station unmurderously, had contrived out of his weakness. The way of -Miramon Lluagor’s death, said he, was set and inescapable, because he -was one of the Léshy: but the way of his life he blushed to find quite -equally set and inescapable, because he was also a husband. In brief, he -detested this woman; she pestered his living, she hampered his art, and -with her foolish notions about his art she had, now, frittered away his -immortality: but he was rather fond of her, too, and he was used to her. - -Miramon, in any event, fell back upon his famous saying that the secret -of a contented marriage is to pay particular attention to the wives of -everybody else; and from this axiom he derived what comfort he could. He -might, he reflected, have been married to that sallow, crippled, -flat-faced Niafer, who in the South was upsetting all the familiar -customs of Poictesme with her unrelenting piety, and who was actually -imposing upon her associates that sort of reputable and common-sense way -of living which Gisèle at worst only talked about. Niafer, indeed, -seemed to be becoming wholly insane; for very curious tales reached -Miramon as to the nonsense which this woman, too, was talking, about—of -all mad fancies!—how that cockeyed husband of hers was to return by and -by, in another incarnation.... Or Miramon, instead of his lost comrade -Kerin of Nointel, might have been married to that chit of a Saraïde who -had managed so artfully to dispose of her husband, in some undetected -manner or another, and who was now providing poor Kerin with such a host -of extra-legal successors.... Yes, Miramon would reflect (in Gisèle’s -absence), he might—conceivably at least,—have been worse off. Yet, a bit -later, with her return, this possibility would seem more and more -dubious. - -And—in fine,—they went on very much as before. And Miramon Lluagor was -preëminent among the dream-makers of this world, and he was a dreaded -lord: but in his own home he was not dreaded, and he, very certainly, -was not preëminent. - -Then, when the time was due, fell the appointed doom of Miramon, and he -was slain by his son Demetrios with the charmed sword Flamberge. For -this thing, people say, had long ago been agreed upon by the Norns, who -weave the fate of all that live: to them it could not matter that -Miramon Lluagor was preeminent among the dream-makers of this world, -because the Norns do not ever sleep: and no sorcerer, through whatsoever -havoc and upsetment of Koshchei’s chosen economy, has, in the end, power -to withstand the Norns. - -Then Demetrios went far oversea into Anatolia; and he married Callistion -there, and in yet other ways he won a fine name for his hardihood and -shrewdness. And in the years that followed, he prospered (for a while) -without any check, and, because of a joke about Priapos, he pulled down -one emperor of heathenry, to raise up in his stead another emperor with -superior taste in humor. Demetrios held wide power and much land, and -was a ruthless master over all the country between Quesiton and -Nacumera. He was supreme there, as upon Vraidex Miramon Lluagor had been -supreme. It was the boast of Demetrios that he feared nobody in any of -the worlds beneath or above him, and that boast was truthful. - -Yet none of these preëminencies could avail Demetrios, when the time was -due, and when the doom of Demetrios fell in that manner and that instant -which the Norns had agreed upon, and when he who had put his father out -of life with the great sword was, in his turn, put out of life with a -small wire. For this thing also, people say, had been appointed by Urdhr -and Verdandi and Skuld as they sat weaving under Yggdrasill beside the -carved door of the Sylan’s House: and to this saying the didactic like -to add that no warrior, through whatsoever havoc and upsetment of human -economy, has, in the end, power to withstand the Norns. - -Now it was this Demetrios who married, among many other women, Dom -Manuel’s oldest daughter Melicent, as is narrated in her saga. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK FOUR - - COTH AT PORUTSA - - “_Their land also is full of idols: they worship the work of their own - hands._” - —ISAIAH, ii, 8. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _20._ - _Idolatry of an Alderman_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the tale is again of Coth, and of how Coth went blustering westward -to fetch back Dom Manuel into his Poictesme, which, as Coth asserted, -skinny women and holy persons and lying poets were making quite -uninhabitable. It is probable that Coth thus more or less obliquely -referred to the Countess Niafer herself, as well as to Holy Holmendis -and to pious Ninzian and to the most virtuous but not plump Madame -Balthis, the wife of Ninzian, since these three nowadays were the -advisers of Dame Niafer in everything. It is certain that, even in these -early days, Dom Manuel had already become a legend; and the poets -everywhere were rehearsing his valor and his wisdom and his noble -excellencies in all the affairs of this life. - -But Coth of the Rocks twirled his mustachios, and he disapprovingly -shook his great bald head, and he went very quickly away from all these -reformings of Poictesme and of the master whom his heart remembered and -desired. Coth of the Rocks traveled westward, without any companion, -faring alone by land and sea. Coth broke his journeying, first, at -Sorcha, and he companioned there with Credhê of the Red Brown Hair: he -went thence to the Island of Hunchback Women, and it was in that island -(really a peninsula) he had so much pleasure, and deadly trouble too, -with a harlot named Bar, the wife of Ögir. But in neither of these -realms did Coth get any sure news of Dom Manuel, although there was a -rumor of such a passing. Then, at Kushavati, in a twilit place of -rustling leaves and very softly chiming little bells, Coth found, with -the aid of Dame Abonde, the book of maps by which he was thereafter to -be guided. - -Coth journeyed, in fine, ever westward, with such occasional stays to -rest or copulate or fight as were the natural concomitants of travel. In -some lands he found only ill-confirmed reports that such a person as Dom -Manuel had passed that way before him: in other lands there was no -report. But Coth had reason, after what Abonde had showed him in that -secluded place under the rustling leaves, to put firm faith in his maps. - -So he went on, always westward, with varied and pleasant enough -adventures befalling him, at Leyma, and Skeaf, and Adrisim. He had great -sorrow at Murnith, in the Land of Marked Bodies, on account of a -religious custom there prevalent and of the girl Felfel Rhasif Yedua; -and—at Ran Reigan,—the one-legged Queen Zélélé held him imprisoned for a -while, in her harem of half a hundred fine men. Yet, in the main, Coth -got on handily, in part by honoring the religious customs everywhere, -but chiefly by virtue of his maps and his natural endowments. These last -enabled him amply to deal with all men who wanted a quarrel and with all -women whom he found it expedient to placate and to surprise: and as far -as to Lower Yarold, and even to Khaikar the Red, his maps served -faithfully to guide him, until Coth perforce went over the edge of the -last one, into a country which was not upon any map; and in this way -approached, though he did not know it, to the city of Porutsa. - -Thus, it was near Porutsa that Coth found a stone image standing in a -lonely field which was overgrown with pepper plants. Among these plants, -charred thighbones and ribs and other put-by appurtenances of mankind -lay scattered everywhither rather dispiritingly: and before the image -were the remnants of yet other burnt offerings, upon a large altar -carved everywhere with skulls. - -This image represented a seated and somewhat scantily clothed giant -carved of black stone: from its ears hung rings of gold and silver; its -face was painted with five horizontal yellow stripes; and a great -gleaming jewel, which might or might not be an emerald, was set in its -navel. Such was the limited apparel of this giant’s person. But in the -right hand of the image were four arrows, and the left hand held a -curious fan made of a mirror surrounded by green and yellow and blue -feathers. Coth had never before seen such an idol as this. - -“However, in this unknown region,” Coth reflected, “there are, -doubtless, a large number of unknown gods. They may not amount to much, -but Dame Abonde has taught me that in religious matters a traveler loses -nothing by civility.” - -Coth knelt. He tendered fealty, and he prayed to this image for -protection in his search for his lost liege-lord. Coth heard a voice -saying: - -“Your homage is accepted. Your prayers are granted.” - -Coth looked upward, still kneeling. Coth saw that the huge black image -regarded him with living eyes, and that the mouth of this image was now -of moving purple flesh. - -“Your prayers are granted, full measure,” the image continued, “because -you are the first person of your pallid color and peculiar clothing to -come over the edge of the map and worship me. Such enterprise in piety -ought to be rewarded: and I shall reward it, prodigally. Bald-headed man -with long mustaches, I promise you, upon the oath of the Star Warriors, -even by the Word of the Tzitzi-Mimé, that you shall rule over all the -country of Tollan. So that is settled: and now do you tell me who you -are.” - -“I am Coth of the Rocks, the Alderman of St. Didol. I followed Dom -Manuel of Poictesme, about whom the poets nowadays are telling so many -outrageous lies. I followed him, that is, until he rode westward to a -far place beyond the sunset. Now I still follow him, since to do that -was my oath: and I have come into the West, not to rule over this -outlandish place, but to get news of my master, and to fetch him back -into Poictesme.” - -“You will get no such news from me, for I never heard of this Manuel.” - -“Why, then, whatever sort of deity can you be!” - -“I am Yaotl, the Capricious Lord, the Enemy upon Both Sides. This is my -Place of the Dead: but I have everywhere power in this land, and I shall -have all power in this land when once I have driven out the Feathered -Serpent.” - -“Then let me tell you, Messire Yaotl, you might very profitably add to -this power at least such knowledge as is common to the run of civilized -persons. It is not becoming in any deity never to have heard of my -liege-lord Dom Manuel, who was the greatest of all captains, and who -founded the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion, of which I had the honor -to be a member. Such ignorance appears strange in anybody. In a deity it -is perfectly preposterous.” - -“I was only saying—” - -“Stop interrupting me! What sort of god are you, who break in upon the -devotional exercises of people when they are actually upon their knees! -It is my custom, sir, whenever I go into a foreign country, to be civil -to the gods of that country; and I am thus quite familiar with the -behavior appropriate to a deity in such circumstances. When people pray -to you, you ought to exhibit more repose of manner and a certain -well-bred reticence.” - -“Oh, go away!” said the image of Yaotl, “and stop lecturing me! Go up -into Porutsa yonder, where the Taoltecs live, and where it may be they -have heard of your Dom Manuel, since the Taoltecs also are fools and -worship the Feathered Serpent. And when you are emperor over the country -of Tollan, do you come back and pray to me more civilly!” - -Coth rose up from his kneeling, in strong indignation. “I tendered -fealty in the liberal sense appropriate to religious matters. It was but -a bit of politeness recommended by Dame Abonde, and I did not mean a -word of it—” - -The image replied: “Nobody cares what you meant, it matters only what -you have sworn. I have accepted your sworn homage; and the affair is -concluded.” - -“—And upon no terms,” Coth continued, “would I consent to be emperor of -this outlandish place. For the rest, do you instantly tell me what you -meant by saying ‘the Taoltecs also are fools,’ because I do not -understand that ‘also.’” - -“But,” said the image, wearily, “but you will have to be emperor, now -that I have sworn it upon the oath of the Star Warriors. I do not deny -that I spoke hastily: even so, I did say it, with an unbreakable oath; -and, here likewise, the affair is concluded.” - -Coth replied, “Stuff and nonsense!” - -“You are now,” continued the image of Yaotl, “under my protection: and -as a seal of this, I must put upon you three refrainments. We will make -them very light ones, since this is but a matter of form. I will order -you to refrain from such things as no sane person would ever dream of -doing in any event; and thus nobody will be discommoded.” - -Coth cried out, “Bosh!” - -“So you must not infringe upon divine privileges by going naked in -public; you must avoid any dealings with green peppers such as you see -over yonder, for the reason that they are sacred to my worthless -stepson, the Flower Prince; and the third refrainment which I now put -upon you I shall not bother to reveal, because you are certain to find -this abstinence even more easy to observe than the others. I have -spoken.” - -“I know well enough that you have spoken! But you have spoken -balderdash. For if you for one moment think I am going to be bullied by -you and your idiotic refrainments—!” - -But Coth saw that the image had closed its eyes, and had tranquilly -turned back in all to stone, and was not heeding him any longer. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _21._ - _The Profits of Pepper Selling_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -COTH was goaded, by such incivility, from indignation into a fine rage. -He addressed the idol at some length, in terms which no person, whether -human or divine, could have construed as worshipful. He gathered from -the plants about him an armful of green peppers, he took off all his -clothes, and he left them there in a heap upon the altar that was carved -with skulls. He went up into the city of Porutsa stark naked and sat -down in the market-place, crying, “Who will buy my green peppers!” - -None of the Taoltecs hindered him, because the hill people, from Uro and -Hipal and Thiapas, were used to come into Porutsa almost thus lightly -clad; and it was evident enough that this fair-skinned stranger, with -the bare, great, round, pink head, came unarmed with anything except the -equipments of nature. - -Coth sold his peppers, and went striding about the market-place -inquiring for news of Dom Manuel, but none of these charcoal- and -copper-colored persons seemed ever to have heard of the gray champion. -When the market for that day was over, Coth went up into the hills about -Tzatzitepec, in company with a full-bosomed, brown-eyed, delicious girl -who had been selling water-cresses in the market-place: she proved -brisk; and Coth spent four days with her to their mutual contentment. - -On the fifth day he returned, still naked as his mother bore him, to the -market-place in Porutsa; and there he again sold green peppers, so that -this brow-beating Yaotl might have no least doubt as to the value which -Coth set on this god’s patronage. - -And all went well enough for a while. But by and by seven soldiers came -into the market-place, and so to where Coth had just disposed of the -last bunch of peppers; and the leader of these soldiers said, “Our -Emperor desires speech with you.” - -“Well,” Coth returned, “I am through with my day’s work, and I can -conveniently spare him a moment or two.” - -He went affably with these soldiers, and they led him to the Emperor -Vemac. “Who are you?” said the Emperor, first of all, “and what is your -business in Porutsa?” - -“I am an outlander called Coth of the Rocks, a dealer in green peppers, -and I came hither to sell my green peppers.” - -“But why do you come into my city wearing no blanket and no loin-cloth -and, in fact, nothing whatever except a scowl?” - -“That is because of a refrainment which was put upon me by an impudent -black rascal who carried arrows and a fan with a mirror in it, and who -called himself Yaotl.” - -“Blessed be the name of that god!” said the pious Emperor Vemac, -“although we worship the Feathered Serpent, and not the Capricious -Lord.” - -Then Vemac went on to explain that he had an only daughter, who five -days earlier had observed Coth, first from the windows of the palace, -and later had gone down veiled into the market-place in order to regard -at closer quarters this virtually pink person. She had returned, -astounded and in some excitement, to demand of her father that he give -her this queerly colored and greatly gifted seller of peppers to be her -husband. Vemac granted her request, because he never denied his daughter -anything, and ardently desired a grandson: but when they sent to look -for the pink-colored pepper vendor with the great and hairless, -pink-colored head, he was nowhere to be found. - -The Princess Utsume had taken this disappointment, with its attendant -delay of her nuptials, rather hard. In fine, said Vemac, the girl had -fallen sick with love, six physicians had been able to do nothing for -her, and nobody could heal her, she declared, except that beautifully -tinted and in all ways magnificent pepper vendor. - -“Well, you must tell the poor girl that I already have a wife,” said -Coth, “even over and above an understanding with a seller of -water-cresses.” - -“I do not,” Vemac submitted, “see what that has to do with it. In Tollan -a man is permitted as many wives as he cares to have, within, of course, -reason.” - -“Marrying does not come under the head of reason,” said Coth. - -“Then, as the husband of my only child,” said Vemac, “you will rule over -Tollan along with me.” - -“Oh! oh!” said Coth. For, since he had punctiliously disobeyed Yaotl in -everything, he knew this must be a coincidence, and it seemed a very -strange coincidence. - -“And, finally,” said Vemac, “if you are hard-headed about this really -excellent opening in life for a green pepper vendor, we shall have to -persuade you.” - -“But how,” asked Coth, reservedly, “how would you persuade me?” - -Vemac raised his brown hand. His persuaders came, masked, and bringing -with them their implements and a stalwart male slave. They demonstrated -their methods of persuasion; and after what remained of the slave was -quiet at last, Coth also for a while remained quiet. - -“Of two evils,” Coth said then, “one should choose the more familiar. I -will marry.” - -He let them take him and bathe him and trim his long mustachios and dye -his body black and perfume him and set upon his great bald head a -coronal of white hens’ feathers. A red cloth was wrapped about his -loins, upon his feet a priest put painted sandals with little golden -bells fastened to them, and about Coth’s scented body was placed a -mantle of yellow netting very beautifully fringed. - -“Now,” said Vemac, “when you have had supper, do you go in there and -comfort my daughter in her sickness!” - -Coth obeyed, and found the princess—who proved to be in an unmitigatedly -brunette fashion a most charming girl,—recumbent and weeping in a -solidly built double-bed. Coth hung upon a peg in the wall his coronal -of white hens’ feathers, he coughed, and he looked again at the weeping -princess. - -Coth said: “By such an attachment to me, my dear, I am touched. An -attachment to me, in this land of half-men, is indicative of sound -sense.” He coughed again, perhaps to hide his emotion, and he added: “An -attachment to me is moving. So do you move over!” - -She, still weeping, made room for him. He sat down upon the bed and -began to comfort her. She in turn began to express her appreciation of -this comforting. He hung upon a peg in the wall a mantle of yellow -netting, and a red loin-cloth. - -In the morning no trace whatever remained of the Princess Utsume’s -illness except a great and agreeable fatigue. And in the forenoon Coth -was married to the Princess Utsumé and escorted to the temple of the -Feathered Serpent, and there given the imperial name Toveyo, and he was -crowned as the co-ruler along with Vemac over all Tollan. - -Yet afterward a rather curious ceremony—called, as his brown loving -bride informed Toveyo, the Feast of Brooms,—was enacted by the clergy -and the entire populace of Porutsa, in order to ensure for the marriage -of their princess fertility. - -“I feel that this ceremony is superfluous,” Utsumé said, still yawning. -“But this ceremony was divinely ordained by the Goddess of Dirt; and I -feel, too, my wonderful pink darling, that it is becoming for persons of -our exalted rank to encourage all true religious sentiment, and -generally to consent that the will of the gods be done.” - -Meanwhile these rites had opened with the beheading of a quite handsome -young woman, from whose body the skin was then removed, in two sections, -like a horrid corselet and trousers. As such they were worn each by a -priest during the rest of the ceremony: and about this Feast of Brooms -the less said, the better, but to the newly christened Toveyo a great -deal of it seemed morbid and even a bit immodest. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _22._ - _Toveyo Dances_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -TOVEYO’S first official act was to send ambassadors to the kings in that -neighborhood—to Cocox and Napaltzin and Acolhua, the second of that -name,—but none of these could give him any news of Dom Manuel. Meanwhile -Coth cherished his wife and dealt with other persons also according to -his nature. - -Of his somewhat remarkable behavior in the war with Cacat and Coät, of -how in one of his rages he destroyed a bridge with all the people on it, -and of how he killed ten of his subjects with a gardener’s hoe, there is -in this place no need to speak. But it came about unavoidably that, -before Coth’s honeymoon was over, a deputation from the Taoltecs was -beseeching Vemac to have this son-in-law of his unostentatiously -assassinated. - -“For there is really,” they said, “no standing him and his tantrums.” - -“Such,” Vemac replied, “has been my own experience. I am afraid, though, -that if we kill him my daughter will be put out, for she seems to have -discovered about him some feature or another feature of great and -unfailing attractiveness.” - -“It is better, majesty, that she should weep than that we all be driven -mad. The man’s pride and self-conceit are unbearable.” - -“Nobody knows that better than I do. He hectors me in my own palace, -where I am not accustomed to be overrun by anybody except my daughter. -In such a position we must be politic. We must first see that this -Toveyo is belittled in my daughter’s eyes. Afterward, if I know her as -well as I think I do, she will consent to let us get rid of him.” - -One of the darker Taoltecs, who called himself Tal-Cavêpan, said then: -“This all-overbearing Toveyo is now in the market-place. Follow me, and -you shall see him belittled in his wife’s eyes and in the eyes of -everybody!” - -They followed, inquiring among themselves who might be this huge -Tal-Cavêpan, that he spoke so boldly. Nobody remembered having seen him -before. Meanwhile Tal-Cavêpan went up to where Coth and his royal wife -Utsumé were chaffering with a Yopi huckster over some melons. -Tal-Cavêpan clapped his hand to Coth’s shoulder and bore down with this -hand. Coth became smaller and smaller, so that presently Tal-Cavêpan -stooped and picked up the nuisance whom they called Toveyo, and thus -displayed to the Taoltecs their blustering oppressor as a pink midget -not more than four inches high, standing there in the palm of -Tal-Cavêpan’s black hand. - -“Dance, majesty! dance, dreadful potentate!” said Tal-Cavêpan. And Coth -danced for them. All the while that he danced, he swore very horribly, -and his little voice was like the cheeping of a young bird. - -The people crowded about him, because no such wonder-working had ever -before been seen in Porutsa. Tal-Cavêpan cried merrily to Vemac the -Emperor, “Is not this capering son-in-law of yours belittled in his -wife’s eyes and in the eyes of everybody?” - -Vemac called out to his guards, “Kill this sorcerer!” - -His soldiers obeyed the Emperor. But the Princess Utsumé caught up her -tiny husband and thrust him into the bosom of her purple gown, out of -harm’s way, the while that Tal-Cavêpan was being enthusiastically -despatched. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _23._ - _Regrettable Conduct of a Corpse_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the huge body of Tal-Cavêpan lay where it had fallen, and it -instantly began to corrupt, and from it arose a most astounding stench. -“Take that devil carrion out of my city!” Vemac commanded his guards, -“lest it breed a pestilence in Porutsa.” - -But when they attempted again to obey the Emperor, they found the body -was so heavy that no force could raise it from the ground. So the -Taoltecs of necessity left this corpse in their market-place. And a -pestilence, in the form of a small yellow whirlwind, went stealthily -about the city; and many hundreds died. - -Those who yet remained in life, now that they were not able to help -themselves, prayed for help from the Feathered Serpent, and, at each of -the seven holy stations, sacrificed to him suckling children decked with -bands and streamers of properly colored paper. But the pestilence -continued. - -The Taoltecs then made a yet handsomer oblation, of plump and really -valuable slaves and of captive warriors, each one of whom had been duly -painted with blue-and-gilt stripes; and they offered the hearts of all -these to their older and somewhat outmoded gods, to the Slayer with the -Left Hand and to the Maker of Sprouts. Then, as the pestilence grew -worse, they became desperate, and they experimentally decapitated and -flayed eight of the lesser nobility in honor of the new god called -Yaotl, the Capricious Lord, the Enemy upon Both Sides. - -Forthwith the dead Tal-Cavêpan raised up what was left of his -countenance, and he said: “Fasten to me ropes woven of black and of red -cords, you worshipers of the Feathered Serpent! And when fifty of you -have done so-and-so,”—he stipulated very exactly what they were to do, -each to the other,—“then do you drag my body to the Place of the Dead, -which is Yaotl’s place; and there let my body be burned upon his altar. -So shall this pestilence be ended.” - -The Taoltecs obeyed. Fifty of them, forming a circle, shamefacedly did -the abomination which was required, and fifty of them tugged at the -parti-colored ropes: but still the corpse could not be moved. -Tal-Cavêpan spoke again, saying, “Fetch Vemac, that Emperor who decreed -my death!” - -Vemac came, and along with him, came his daughter. - -“Hail, Vemac, son of Imos, of the line of Chan, and of the race of -Chivim!” said the corpse. “It appears that these puny sons of nobodies, -enfeebled by their long worship of the Feathered Serpent, are not -able—after one little act of homage to the Capricious Lord,—to remove me -from this city. It is therefore necessary that their broad-shouldered -and heavenly descended Emperor draw my body to the Place of the Dead, -and there burn my body upon the altar of Yaotl.” - -“What will become of me in the Place of the Dead?” Vemac asked. - -The corpse smiled. “From that holy place the Emperor will depart on a -long journey. His son-in-law will thereafter reign, as was foretold, -over all Tollan. For the Emperor Vemac will be traveling afar, he will -be journeying between two mountains and beyond the lair of the snake and -the crocodile, even to the Nine Waters, which he will cross upon the -back of a red dog. Nor will the Emperor Vemac ever return from that -journeying.” - -Vemac shivered a little. But he said: - -“It is right that an emperor should die rather than his people perish. I -will not degrade my body, but your body I will draw to the Place of the -Dead; and I will abide what follows.” - -Now Coth cried out, like the cheeping of a bird, from where he sat in -the bosom of his wife’s gown. “This sort of talk is very well, but what -assurance have we that this dung-pile is speaking the truth?” - -The corpse answered: “To you, Toveyo, I swear that when the Emperor of -Tollan has drawn my body to the Place of the Dead, the pestilence will -cease: and I swear too that the Emperor will never return. Thus shall -his son-in-law reign in his stead, precisely as was foretold.” - -“Oho!” said Coth, “so it is as I thought, and nobody guarantees the -affair but you! Well, now, upon my word, do you take us for buzzards or -for scavengers, that we should in any way be bothering about what -emanates from you! By what oath can garbage swear, that anybody should -heed it!” - -The great corpse stirred restively under the midget’s piping taunts. But -the voice of Tal-Cavêpan said only, “I swear by the oath of the Star -Warriors, even by the Word of the Tzitzi-Mimé.” - -“Ah, ah!” said Coth. “Put me down, dear little wife!” Then Coth, the -very tiny pink mannikin, strutted toward the evil-smelling black corpse, -and brown Utsumé followed fondly after him. Coth posed in a majestic -attitude, resting one elbow upon his wife’s instep, and twirling at his -mustachios. Coth said: - -“You have sworn to these things, Yaotl, by that unbreakable oath of -yours which first started all this trouble. Very well! I am co-emperor -of Tollan. I am as much emperor as Vemac is: and it is I who will draw -you to the burning you have richly earned; and it is I whom your oath -will prevent from ever returning into this infernal Porutsa, where such -uncalled-for liberties are taken with a person’s size, and the people -are very much too fond of dancing.” - -“But,” said the corpse, “I meant the other emperor!” - -Coth answered: “Bosh! Nobody cares what you meant, it matters only what -you have sworn.” - -“But,” said the corpse, “but, you pernicious pink shrimp—!” - -Coth replied, “I do not deny that you spoke lightly: even so, you did -swear it, by an unbreakable oath; and the affair is concluded.” - -Coth caught at the parti-colored ropes with tiny fingers. But as he -tugged, Coth began to grow. The harder he pulled, the greater became his -stature, in order that the honor of the Capricious Lord might stay -undisgraced, and Yaotl not be evicted from Porutsa by a midget. And now -the corpse moved. Now the Taoltecs saw hauling doggedly at those black -and red ropes a full-grown if somewhat short-legged champion, with a -remarkably large and glistening pink head: before him went a little -yellow whirlwind, and behind him dragged a dreadful black corruption. -Thus Coth passed through the east gate of their city. - -“The will of the gods be done!” said Vemac,—“especially when it is in -every way a very good riddance.” Nobody dissented with his pious -utterance. “Let the city gates be closed!” said Vemac then. “Put new -bolts on them, lest that son-in-law of mine be coming back to us against -the will of the gods. And you, my dear Utsumé, since you alone are -losing anything, howsoever happily, by this business, you shall have -another husband, of less desultory dimensions, and, in fact, you may -have as many husbands as you like, my darling, to raise up an heir for -us in Porutsa and an emperor to come after me and rule over all Tollan.” - -Utsumé replied: “I have reason to believe, my revered father, that the -matter of an heir has been attended to. I shall regret my pink Toveyo -and his great natural gifts, which were to me as a tireless fountain of -delights. And I shall honor his memory by always marrying somebody as -near like him as it may be possible to find in this degenerate country. -Meanwhile I quite agree with you that it is becoming for persons of our -exalted rank to encourage all true religious sentiment, and generally to -consent that the will of the gods be done.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _24._ - _Economics of Yaotl_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -IN the Place of the Dead, Yaotl sat up and scratched his nose -reflectively. The Capricious Lord had put off the putrid appearance of -Tal-Cavêpan. He now had the seeming which is his in the heaven called -Tamo-Anchan: and as he sat opposite the black stone idol there was no -difference between Yaotl and the image of Yaotl. At the god’s navel also -shone a green jewel, his face was striped with yellow, and from his ears -hung rings of gold and silver. Otherwise he wore nothing at all, but in -one hand he carried arrows, and in his other hand was the scrying-stone -with long feathers of three differing colors set about it. - -“I will now,” said Yaotl, “reveal to you the third refrainment which was -put upon you. It was that you must never obey my commands in anything.” - -“That,” Coth replied, hotly, “is not a fair refrainment. It gives me no -chance to treat you as you deserve. It is a refrainment which strikes -directly at the doctrine of free will. It is a treacherous and vile -refrainment! For if you will consider just for a moment,—you black and -very dull-witted dancing-master!—even you will see that, by commanding -any self-respecting person to do the exact contrary of your most absurd -and tyrannical wishes—” - -“I had considered that,” said Yaotl, dryly. “It was quite necessary I -should retain some little protection for my real wishes in the lands -over which I exercise divine power.” Now the Capricious Lord fell into a -silence, out of which by and by bubbled a chuckle. “Well, you tricked me -neatly enough, just now, when I was in train to make you the sole ruler -over this country. And I was going to have a rather pleasant forenoon, -too, with that Vemac! Still, I did make you an emperor: and I have kept -in everything the oath of the Star Warriors. So the affair is concluded: -I am released from my oath; and you may now return to that home of -yours, where people have, in some unimaginable fashion, learned how to -put up with you.” - -“I shall not give over my searching of the West,” Coth answered, -stubbornly, “until I have found my liege-lord, whom I intend to fetch -back into Poictesme.” - -“But that will never do, because we really must preserve hereabouts some -sort of order and rule! And no man nor any deity can hope for actual -ease in Tollan as long as you are blustering about like a bald-headed -pink hornet.... So do you let me think the thought of the Most High -Place of the Gods, and take counsel with the will of Teotex-Calli. About -this Dom Manuel of yours, for instance—” - -Yaotl sat quite still for a moment, thinking and looking into the -scrying-stone. And his thought, which was the thought of the Most High -Place of the Gods of Tollan, took form there very slowly as a gray -smoke; and a little by a little this pallid smoke assumed the appearance -of a tall gray man, clad all in silvery gray armor, and displaying upon -his shield the silver emblem of Poictesme: and Coth knelt before his -master, in Yaotl’s Place of the Dead. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _25._ - _Last Obligation upon Manuel_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -“COTH” said the voice of Manuel, “most stubborn and perverse of all that -served me! Coth, that must always serve me grudgingly, with so much of -grumbling and of ill grace and of more valor! So, is it you, Coth, is it -you, bald-headed, gruff growler!” - -Coth answered: “It is I, master, who am come to fetch you back into -Poictesme. And I take it very ill, let me tell you quite frankly, sir, -that you should be expressing any surprise to see me in my place and -about my proper duty! I follow, as my oath was, after the captain of the -Fellowship of the Silver Stallion. They tell me that the fellowship is -dissolved by your wife’s orders. Well, we both know what wives are. We -know, moreover, that my oath was to follow you and to serve you. So I -take it that such surprise in the matter comes from you most -unbecomingly: and that much, master or not, I wish you distinctly to -understand.” - -And Manuel said: “You follow me across the world and over the world’s -rim because of that oath, you pester these gods into summoning me from -my last home, and then you begin forthwith to bluster at me! Yes, this -is Coth, who serves me just as he did of old. What of the others who -swore with you, Coth?” - -“They thrive, master. They thrive, and they listen to small poets -caterwauling about you, in those fine fiefs and castles which you gave -them.” - -“But you only, the least honored and the most rebellious of my barons, -have followed me even to this far Place of the Dead! Coth, yet you also -had your lands and your two castles.” - -“Well, they will keep! What do you mean by hinting that anybody will -dare in my absence to meddle with my property! Did I not pick up an -empire here with no trouble at all! You are casting reflections, sir, -upon my valor and ability, which, I must tell you quite frankly, and for -your own good—!” - -But Manuel was speaking, rather sadly. “Coth, that which you have done -because of your given word was very nobly done, and with heroic -unreason. Coth, you are heroic, but the others are wise.” - -“Master, there was an oath.” Coth’s voice now broke a little. “Master, -it was not only the oath. There was a great love, also, in a worsening -land, where lesser persons ruled, and there remained nobody like -Manuel.” - -But Manuel said: “The others are wise. You follow still the Manuel who -went about Poictesme. Now in Poictesme all are forgetting that Manuel, -and our poets are busied with quite another Manuel, and my own wife has -builded a great tomb for that other Manuel.... Coth, that is always so. -It is love, not carelessness, which bids us forget our dead, so that we -may love them the more whole-heartedly. Unwelcome memories must be -recolored and reshaped, the faults and blunders and the vexing ways -which are common to all men must be put out of mind, and strange -excellencies must be added, until the compound in nothing resembles the -man that is dead. Such is love’s way, Coth, to keep love immortal.... -Coth, oh, most bungling Coth!” said Manuel, very tenderly, “you lack the -grace even to honor your loved dead in a decorous and wise fashion!” - -“I follow the true Manuel,” Coth replied, “because to do that was my -oath. There was involved, I cannot deny it, sir, some affection.” Coth -gulped. “I, for the rest, am not interested in these new-fangled, fine -lies they are telling about you nowadays.” - -Then there was silence. A small wind went about the pepper plants; and -it seemed to whisper of perished things. - -Now Manuel said: “Coth, I repeat to you, the others are wise. I have -gone, forever. But another Manuel abides in Poictesme, and he is -nourished by these fictions. Yearly he grows in stature, this Manuel who -redeemed Poictesme from the harsh Northmen’s oppression and lewd -savagery. Already this Manuel the Redeemer has become a most notable -hero, without fear or guile or any other blemish: and with each -generation he will increase in virtue. It is this dear Redeemer whom -Poictesme will love and emulate: men will be braver because this Manuel -was so very brave; and men, in one or another moment of temptation, will -refrain from folly because his wisdom was so well rewarded; -and—sometimes, at least,—a few men will refrain from baseness, too, -because all his living was stainless.” - -“I,” Coth said, heavily, “do not recall this Manuel.” - -“Nor do I recall him either, old grumbler. I can remember only one who -dealt with each obligation as he best might, and that was always rather -inefficiently. I remember many doings which I would prefer not to -remember. And I remember a soiled struggler who reeled blunderingly from -one half-solved riddle to another, thwarted and vexed, and hiding very -jealously his hurt.... Well, it is better that such a person should be -forgotten! And so I come from my last home to release you from your oath -of service. I release you now, forever, dear Coth, and I now bid you do -as all the others have done, and I now lay upon you my last orders. I -order that you too forget me, Coth, as those have forgotten who might -have known me better than you did.” - -Coth said, with a queer noise which was embarrassingly like a sob: “I -cannot forget the most dear and admirable of earthly lords. You are -requiring, sir, the impossible.” - -“Nevertheless, it is necessary that you too—bald realist!—should serve -this other Manuel; and should forget, as your fellows have forgotten, -that muddied and not ever quite efficient bull-necked straggler who has -gone out of life and vigor and out of all persons’ memory. For now is -come upon me my last obligation: it is that the figure which I made in -the world shall not endure anywhere in any particle; and I accept this -obligation also, and I submit to the common lot of all men, without -struggling any longer.” - -Coth said, “Return to us, dear master! return, and with the brave truth -do you make an end of your people’s bragging and vain lies!” - -But Manuel said: “No. For Poictesme has now, as every land must have, -its faith and its legend, to lead men more nobly and more valorously -than ever any living man may do. I, who was strong, had not the strength -to beget this legend: but it has been created, Coth, it has been created -by the folly of a woman and the wild babble of a frightened child; and -it will endure.” - -Coth replied, brokenly: “But, master, we are men of this world, a world -made of dirt. Oh, my dear master, we pick our way about that dirt as we -best can! The results need surprise nobody. The results are rather -often, in a pathetic fashion, very admirable. Should this truth be -disregarded for a vainglorious dream!” - -And Manuel answered: “The dream is better. For man alone of animals -plays the ape to his dreams.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _26._ - _The Realist in Defeat_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -HERE Yaotl ended thinking, and put aside the scrying-stone. And his -thought was no longer of Manuel, and nothing was apparent in the Place -of the Dead save Yaotl and the image of Yaotl and Coth standing there, -in the apparel of an emperor, alone and small and remarkably subdued -looking, between the vast black naked twins. - -“It would appear,” said Yaotl, “that some men are no more tractable than -are the gods when the affair concerns a keeping of oaths. And so Toveyo -will be remembered in this land for a long while.” - -And Coth answered, rather drearily: “Yes; it is such fools as you and I, -Messire Yaotl, who create unnecessary trouble everywhere. Well, I also -am now released from my oath! And my master has spoken bitter good -sense. The famousness of Manuel is but a dream and a loud jingling of -words which happen to sound well together; it is a vanity and a great -talking by his old wife and my gray peers: and yet, this nonsense, it -may be, will hearten people, and will serve all people always, better -than would the truth. And my faith is a foolishness, in that, because of -a mere oath,—like your Star Warriors’ Word of the Thingumajigs, sir,—I -have followed after the truth, across this windy planet upon which every -person is nourished by one or another lie.” - -“Each to his creed,” said Yaotl. “So do men choose between hope and -despair.” - -“Yet creeds mean very little,” Coth answered the dark god, still -speaking almost gently. “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best -of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. So I elect -for neither label. I merely know that, at the end of all my journeying, -there remains for me only to settle down, in my comfortable castles -yonder in Poictesme, and to live contentedly with my fine-looking wife -Azra and with my son Jurgen,—that innocent dear lad, whom his old -hypocrite of a father will by and by, beyond any doubt, be exhorting to -imitate a Manuel who never lived! And I know, too, that this is not the -ending which I would have chosen for my saga. For I also, I suppose, -must now decline into fat ease and high thinking, and I would have -preferred the truth.” Coth meditated for a while: he shrugged: and he -laughed without hilarity. “Capricious Lord, I pray you, what sort of -creatures do men seem to the gods?” - -“Let us think of more pleasant matters,” Yaotl replied. “For one, I am -already thinking of the way in which I can most speedily get you, O -insatiable grumbler, again to your far home, and out of my too long -afflicted country.” - -He turned his naked huge back toward Coth, as Coth supposed, to indulge -in meditation. Coth, was, however, almost instantly disabused, by a -miracle. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK FIVE - - “MUNDUS VULT DECIPI” - - “_Not only in this world, but also in that which is to come._” - —EPHESIANS, i, 21. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _27._ - _Poictesme Reformed_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the tale, for one reason and another, does not record the miracle -which Yaotl performed. The Gods of Tollan were always apt to be misled -by their queer notions of humor. Instead, the tale is of that Poictesme -to which—borne by that favorable if malodorous wind which Yaotl provided -and aimed,—Coth now perforce returned alone. - -During the years of Coth’s absence there had been many changes. -Nominally it was the Countess Niafer who ruled over this land, but she -in everything seemed to be controlled by St. Holmendis of Philistia. -About the intimacy between the Countess and her lean but sturdy adviser -there was now no longer any gossip nor shrugging: people had grown used -to this alliance, just as they were becoming reconciled to the reforms -and the prohibitions which were its fruitage. - -For now that Manuel was gone, Coth found, the times were changing for -the better at a most uncomfortable rate. To Coth of the Rocks these days -seemed to breed littler men, who, to be sure, if you cared about such -kickshaws, lived more decorously than had lived their fathers, now that -this overbearing St. Holmendis had come out of Philistia with his -miracles: for this sacrosanct person would put up with no irregularity -anywhere, and would hardly so much as tolerate the mildest form of -wonder-working by anybody else. Even Guivric the Sage, who in the elder -and more candid times had attended to all of Dom Manuel’s conjuring, now -found it expedient to restrict his thaumaturgies to a wholly -confidential practice. - -For the rest, you could go for days now without encountering a warlock -or a fairy; the people of Audela but rarely came out of the fire to make -sport for and with mankind; and, while many persons furtively brewed -spells at home, all traffic with spirits had to be conducted secretly. -In fine, Poictesme was everywhere upon its most sedate behavior, because -there was no telling when Holy Holmendis might be dealing with you for -your own good; and the cowed province, just as Guivric had prophesied, -stayed subject nowadays to a robustious saint conceived and nurtured and -made holy in Philistia. - -But yet another unsettling influence was abroad, nefariously laboring to -keep everybody sanctimonious and genteel,—Coth said,—for over the entire -land Coth found, and fretted under, the all-enveloping legend of Manuel -the Redeemer. Coth found the land’s most holy place, now, to be that -magnificent tomb which, in Coth’s absence, the Countess Niafer had -reared at Storisende to the memory of her husband. And that this -architectural perjury was handsome enough, even Coth admitted. - -The intricately carved lower half of the sepulchre displayed eight -alcoves in each of which was sealed the relic of one or another saint. -The upper portion was the pedestal of a very fine equestrian statue of -Dom Manuel with his lance raised, and in full armor, but wearing no -helmet, so that the hero’s face was visible as he sat there, waiting, it -seemed, and watching the North. Thus Manuel appeared to keep eternal -guard against whatever enemy might dare molest the country which he had -once redeemed from the Northmen. And there was never a more splendid -looking champion than was this mimic Manuel, for the armor of this -effigy was everywhere inset with jewels of every kind and color. - -How Madame Niafer, who was, moreover, by ordinary a notably parsimonious -person, had ever managed to pay for all these gems nobody could declare -with certainty, but it was believed that Holy Holmendis had provided -them through one or another pious miracle. Coth of the Rocks voiced an -exasperated aspersion that they were paste; and declared paste gems to -be wholly appropriate to the mortuary imposture. In any event, the -Redeemer of Poictesme had been accorded the most magnificent sepulchre -these parts had ever known. - -And Coth found all this jewelry and tortured stone-work, as a work of -art, to be wholly admirable, if you cared for such kickshaws. But as a -tomb he considered it to lack at least one essential feature, in that it -was empty. - -Yet to most persons the emptiness of the great tomb was its peculiar -sanctity. This spacious and proud glittering void was, to most persons, -a perpetual reminder that Dom Manuel had ascended into heaven while yet -alive, uncorrupted by the ignominy of death, and taking with him every -heroic bone and bit of flesh, and every tiniest sinew, unmarred. That -miracle—no more, to be sure, than the great Redeemer’s just due—most -satisfactorily and most awfully accounted for the lack of any corpse, as -surely as the lack of a corpse was the firm proof of the miracle; -sublime verities here interlocked: and that miracle had been set above -cavil when it was first revealed, by Heaven’s wisdom, through the -unsullied innocence of a little child, lest in this world, men and women -being what they are, by any scoffer the testimony of an adult evangelist -might be suspected. - -Coth, after hearing these axioms,—so unshakably established as axioms -during the seven years of Coth’s absence,—would look meditatively at his -young Jurgen, to whose extreme youth and comparative innocence this -revelation had been accorded. The boy was now nearing manhood, he fell -short in many respects of the virtues appropriate to an evangelist, and -he confessed to remembering very faintly now that tremendous experience -of his infancy. That hardly mattered, though, Coth would reflect, when -Poictesme at large was so industriously preserving and embroidering the -tale which the dear brat had brought down from Upper Morven to explain -away an over-night truancy from home. - -“There is but one Manuel,” Coth would remark, to himself, “and—of all -persons!—my Jurgen is his prophet. That kickshaw creed seems to content -everybody, now that the rogue no longer bothers to provide an excuse for -staying out all night.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _28._ - _Fond Motto of a Patriot_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -EVERYWHERE, indeed, during the while of Coth’s vain adventuring after -the real Manuel, the legend had grown steadily. Coth found it wholly -maddening to hear of the infallible and perfect Redeemer with whom he -had formerly lived in daily converse of a painstakingly quarrelsome and -uncivil nature: and he found too that, of his confrères of the Silver -Stallion who yet remained in Poictesme, Ninzian and Donander at least -were beginning to lie about Manuel with as pious a lack of restraint as -anybody. Guivric the Sage, of course, would chillily assent to -whatsoever the best-thought-of people affirmed, because the -self-centered old knave did not ever really bother about what other -persons thought: whereas Holden and Anavalt sought, rather markedly, to -turn the conversation to other topics. These aging champions had, in -fine, encountered, in this legend as to their former glories and -privileges, an unconquerable adversary with which they, each according -to his nature, were of necessity compromising. - -For Manuel the great Redeemer, who had first carnally redeemed Poictesme -in battle with the Northmen, and later had redeemed Poictesme in more -exalted fields, when at his passing he had taken all his people’s sins -upon his proud gray head,—this Manuel was to return and was to bring -again with him the golden age which, everybody now asserted, had existed -under Manuel’s ruling of Poictesme. That was the sweet and -reason-drugging allure of the legend, that was the prediction -transmitted by Coth’s young scapegrace, who nowadays had averted so -whole-heartedly from prophecy to petticoats. There was no sense in -arguing against such vaticinatory fanfaronade, since it promised to all -inefficient persons that which they preferred to believe in. Everywhere -in the world people were expecting the latter coming of one or another -kickshaw messiah who would remove the discomforts which they themselves -were either too lazy or too incompetent to deal with; and nobody had -anything whatever to gain by electing for peculiarity among one’s fellow -creatures and a gloomier outlook. - -Even Coth saw that. So the bald realist looked over his cellar and the -later produce among his vassals in the way of likely girls; he gave such -orders as seemed best in the light of both inspections; and he settled -down as comfortably as might be to the task of making old bones in this -land of madmen. He might at least look forward to the requisite creature -comforts to be derived from these bins and amiable spry bedfellows. His -Azra was no more trying than most wives; and his young Jurgen, after -all, might turn out better than seemed probable. - -So Coth in the end let maudlin imbeciles proclaim whatsoever they -elected about the glorious stay upon earth and the second coming of -Manuel the Redeemer, and Coth answered them at worst with inarticulate -growlings. But that the old bear’s love for Poictesme remained unchanged -was evinced by the zeal with which he now caused his two homes -superabundantly to be adorned with the arms of Poictesme, so that at -every turn your eye fell upon the rampant silver stallion and the land’s -famous motto, _Mundus vult decipi_. Such patriotism showed, said -everybody, that, for all his fault-finding, Coth’s heart was in the -right place. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _29._ - _The Grumbler’s Progress_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -AND the tale is still of Coth, telling how he avoided Niafer’s court, -and the decorums and the pieties which were in fashion there, and how he -debauched reasonably in his own citadels. - -He fought no more, but he did not lack for other pleasures. He hunted in -the Forest of Acaire; and, in his rich coat of fox fur, he rode -frequently with hounds and falcons about the plains of the Roigne. He -maintained an excellent pit in which wild boars and bears contended and -killed one another for his diversion. When the weather was warm he -drank, and he amused himself at dice and backgammon in his well-ordered -orchard: in winter he sat snug under the carved hood of his huge -fireplace; and it was thus that for his health’s sake he was cozily -cupped and bled, while the Alderman of St. Didol drank quietly and -insatiably. - -Then, too, it amused Coth now and then to execute a vassal or so upon -his handsome gallows,—that notorious gallows supported with four posts, -although his rank as Alderman entitled him to only two posts,—because -this bit of arrogance, in the matter of those two extra posts, was a -continuous great source of anger to his nominal sovereign, Madame -Niafer. But his main recreation, after all, Coth found in emulating -those very ancient and most famous monarchs Jupiter and David in a -constant change of women; and the fine girls of Poictesme remained as -always a lively joy to him. - -And daily, too, the Alderman of St. Didol squabbled with his wife and -son; and, since he could discover profuse grounds everywhere for -fault-finding, was comfortable enough. - -To his sardonic bent it was at this period amusing to note how staidly -Poictesme thrived by virtue of the land’s faith in Poictesme’s Redeemer, -who had removed all troubles and obligations in the past, and who by and -by would be coming again, no doubt to wipe similarly clean the moral -slate; so that there was no real need to worry about the future, nor -about any little personal misdemeanor (which had not become -embarrassingly public), since this would of course be included in the -general amnesty when Manuel returned to take charge of his people’s -affairs. - -And yet there was another and more troubling side. The younger, here and -there, were beginning, within moderation, to emulate that Manuel who had -never lived. For Coth saw that too. He saw young persons—here and -there,—displaying traits and customs strange if not virtually unknown to -the old reprobate’s varied experience. Civility, for one thing, was -rather sickeningly pandemic: you saw fine strapping lads, differing in -opinion about this, that or the other, who, instead of resorting -sensibly to a duel, stopped—who positively sat down side by side—to -examine each the other’s point of view, and after that, as often as not, -talked themselves out of fighting at all. That was because of the fame -of Manuel’s uniform civility, which, indeed, the rogue had displayed, -and had made excellent profit of. - -But you saw, too, people pardoning and even befriending persons who had -affronted or injured them, and doing this because of the fame of -Manuel’s loving kindliness toward his fellows: everywhere you saw that -wholly groundless notion flowering also into a squeamishness about -taking any other person’s property away from him, even when you really -wanted it. You saw bodily sound young men avoiding, or at any rate -stinting, the normal pleasures of youth, alike among their peers and in -bed, because of the famousness of Dom Manuel’s sobriety and chastity: -and you saw milksops, in fine, giving up all the really intelligent -vices because of that slanderous rumor about Manuel’s addiction to the -virtues. - -It was not, either—not altogether,—that the young fools thought they had -much to gain by these eccentricities. They had, somehow, been tempted -into emulation by this nonsense about Manuel’s virtues. And then they -had—still somehow, still quite unexplainably,—found pleasure in it. Coth -granted this rather forlornly: these young people were getting a calm -and temperate, but a positive, gratification out of being virtuous. -There must, then, lurk somewhere deep hidden in humanity a certain trend -to perverse delight in thus denying and curbing its own human appetites. -And since the comparatively intelligent and unregenerate persons were -all profiting by their fellows’ increased forbearance, altogether -everybody was reaping benefit. - -This damnable new generation was, because of its insane aspiring, -happier than its fathers had been under the reign of candor and -common-sense. This moonstruck legend of Manuel was bringing, not to be -sure any omnipresent and unendurable perfection, but an undeniable -increase of tranquillity and contentment to all Poictesme. Coth saw that -too. - -He remembered what his true liege-lord had said to him in the Place of -the Dead: and Coth admitted that, say what you might as to the Manuel -who had really lived, the squinting rascal did as a rule know what he -was talking about. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _30._ - _Havoc of Bad Habits_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NEWS as to court affairs and the rest of the province came now to Coth, -in his two lairs at Haut Belpaysage, belatedly and rarely. Yet at this -time he heard that Anavalt the Courteous had gone out of Poictesme with -as little warning as the other lords of the Silver Stallion had accorded -their intimates when Gonfal and Kerin and Miramon, and Coth himself, had -each gone out of the land after Manuel’s passing. - -These overnight evasions appeared to be becoming a habit, Coth said to -his wife Azra, so you had best cherish me in the night season while you -may, instead of shrieking out nonsense about my hands being so cold. She -replied with an uxorial generality as to sore-headed bears and -snapping-turtles and porcupines, which really was not misplaced. And it -was not for a long while that any tidings were had of Anavalt the -Courteous, and the riddle of his evasion was unraveled,[1] but at the -last the news came as to the end which Anavalt had found near a windmill -in the Wood of Elfhame, in his courtship of the mistress of that -sinister and superficial forest. - -Footnote 1: - - Among other places, in a volume called _Straws and Prayer-Books_. - -“At his age, too! and with a woman too thin to keep him warm!” said -Coth. “It simply shows you, my dear son, what comes of lecherous habits, -and I trust you may profit by it, for the world is very full of such -deceits.” - -And Coth, for his Jurgen’s benefit, piously indicated the motto which -you encountered at well-nigh every turn in Coth’s two homes, along with -the stallion rampant in every member. - -Nevertheless, Coth was unhappier than he showed. He had loved Anavalt in -the days when these two had served together under the banner of the -Silver Stallion. It seemed to Coth that in dark Elfhame a handsome and -fine-spoken and kindly rascal had been trapped and devoured rather -wastefully. Nor was it cheering to consider that, now, but five of the -great fellowship remained alive.... Meanwhile, in rearing a son -judiciously, one must preserve the proper moral tone. - -And Coth heard also, at about this time, of the magic which had been put -upon King Helmas the Deep-Minded, that monarch whom, as people said, Dom -Manuel in the old days had bamboozled into giving Manuel a fine start in -life. Coth heard of how this magic had been put upon Helmas by his own -daughter Mélusine, and of the notable transfer of the king’s castle and -person and entire entourage from out of Albania to the high place at -Brunbelois, in the impenetrable Forest of Acaire, where the ill-fated -court of Helmas now all stayed enchanted, people said. - -And Coth drew the moral. “It shows you what parents may expect of their -children,” he remarked, with a malevolent glance toward his adored -Jurgen. “It shows you what comes of this habit of indulging children.” - -“Now, Father—” said the boy. - -“Stop storming at me! How dare you attempt to bulldoze me, sir! Do you -take me for another Helmas!” - -“But, Father—” - -“Get out of my sight, you quarrelsome puppy! I will not be thus -deafened. Get back to that Dorothy of yours! You care for nobody else,” -said jealous old Coth. - -“Now, Father—” - -“And must you still be arguing with me! Do you think there is no end to -my patience? What is there to argue about? The puppy follows the bitch. -That is natural.” - -“But, Father, how can you—!” - -“Get out of my sight before I break every bone in your body! Get back to -that cold sanctimonious court and to your hot wench!” said Coth. - -Yet all the while that he spoke with such fluency Coth’s heart was -troubled. Of course, in rearing a son judiciously, one must preserve the -proper moral tone. Nevertheless, Coth felt, at heart, that he might be -taking the wrong way with the boy, and was being almost brusque. - -But Coth was Coth. That was his doom. He had only one way. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _31._ - _Other Paternal Apothegms_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW Jurgen went very often to court, since the boy at twenty-one was -fathoms deep in love with Count Manuel’s second daughter, whom they -called Dorothy la Désirée. Coth saw her but once: and, even over and -above his rage at the thought of sharing Jurgen with anybody, Coth was -honestly moved, in the light of his considerable boudoir experience, to -uncivil prophecy. He was upon this occasion, in the main hall at -Bellegarde, with dozens of persons within earshot, most embarrassingly -explicit with Jurgen, alike as to the quality of Jurgen’s intelligence -and the profession which Coth desired no daughter-in-law of his to -practice. - -The two quarreled. That nowadays was no novelty. The difference was that -into this quarrel Jurgen put all his heart. So the insolent, -overbearing, bulldozing young scoundrel was packed off to serve under -the Vidame de Soyecourt: and before the year was out Coth heard that -this Dorothy la Désirée was married to Guivric’s son Michael. - -“This Michael is but the first served at an entertainment preparing for -the general public,” was Coth’s epithalamium. - -And many rumors came back to Haut Belpaysage as to Jurgen’s doings in -Gâtinais, and, while they all seemed harmless enough, not all were -precisely what a father would have elected to hear. Coth considered, for -example, that Jurgen had acted with imprudence in thus hastily making -Coth a grandfather with the assistance of the third wife of the Vidame -de Soyecourt. Husbands had a sad way of being provoked by such -offspring, upon the wholly illogical ground that the provocation was not -mutual. Still, young people needed their diversions, and husbands, to -Coth’s experience, were not a dangerous tribe. What really fretted a -somewhat aging Alderman, however, was that such stories reached him -casually, and that from Jurgen himself he heard nothing. - -Yet other gossip came too from the court at Bellegarde and Storisende, -as to how Manuel’s oldest daughter, Madame Melicent, was now betrothed -to King Theodoret, and how upon the eve of her marriage she had -disappeared out of Poictesme: and she was next heard of as living in -unchristian splendor far oversea, as—if you elected to put it more -gracefully than Coth did,—the wife of Miramon Lluagor’s son and -murderer, Demetrios. - -“Why not?” said Coth. “Why should not snub-nosed Miramon’s swarthy lad -be having his wenches when convenient? Parricide is no bar to -fornication. They are sins committed with quite different weapons. And, -for the rest, all sons are intent to do what this one has succeeded in -doing. How, for that matter, did Dom Manuel, that famous Redeemer of -yours, deal with his own father Oriander the Swimmer?” - -That, it was hastily explained to him by his wife Azra, was but a part -of the great Redeemer’s abnegation and self-denial. That was the -atonement, and the immolation of his only beloved father, in order to -expiate the gross sins of Poictesme— - -“To expiate the sins of one person by killing another person,” replied -Coth, “is not an atonement. It is nonsense.” - -Well, but, it was furthermore explained, this atonement was a great and -holy mystery; and, as such, it should be approached with reverence -rather than mere rationality. Yet this high mystery of the atonement -must undoubtedly symbolize the fact that, in order to attain perfection, -Manuel had put off the ties of his flesh— - -To which Coth answered, staring moodily at his wife Azra: “I saw that -fight. He put off those ties of his flesh, and Oriander’s head from his -body, with such pleasure as Manuel showed in no other combat. And all -sons are like him. Have we not a son? Why do you keep pestering me?” - -“I only meant—” - -“Stop contradicting me!” But very swiftly Coth added, with a sort of -gulp, “—my dear.” - -For Coth was changing. He hunted no more, he had closed up his bear-pit. -He seemed to prefer to be alone. Azra would very often find him huddled -in his chair, not doing anything, but merely thinking: and then he would -glare at her ferociously, without speaking; and she would go away from -him, without speaking, because she also thought too frequently about -their son for her own comfort. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _32._ - _Time Gnaws at All_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THEN Emmerick came of age, and Madame Niafer’s rule was over, men said, -because the Count would be swayed in all things by his cousin, the -Bishop Ayrart of Montors, the same that afterward was Pope. - -“The young church rat drives out the old one,” said Coth. “Now limping -Niafer must learn to do without a night-light and to sleep without a -halo on her pillow.” - -But Ayrart’s supremacy was not for long, and Holy Holmendis remained -about the court, after all, because, at just this time, lean Holden the -Brave appeared at Storisende with a beautiful young gray-eyed stranger -whom he introduced as the widow of Elphànor, King of Kings. People felt -that for this Radegonde thus to be surviving her husband by more than -thirteen centuries was a matter meritorious of explanation, but neither -she nor Holden offered any. - -The history of the love which had been between Radegonde and Holden is -related elsewhere[2]: at this time it remained untold. But now, at this -love’s ending, Radegonde found favor in the small greedy eyes of Count -Emmerick, and she married him, nor was there ever at any season -thereafter during the lifetime of Radegonde a question as to what -person, howsoever flightily, ruled over Poictesme and Emmerick. And -Radegonde—after a very prettily worded but frank proviso as to the -divine right of princes, which rendered them and their wives responsible -to Heaven directly, and to nobody else, as she felt sure dear Messire -Holmendis quite understood,—Radegonde thereafter favored Holmendis and -his wonder-working reforms, among the appropriate class of people, -because she considered that his halo was distinctly decorative, and that -a practicing saint about the court lent it, as she phrased the matter, -an air. - -Footnote 2: - - See note upon page 145. - -Coth heard of these things; and he nodded his great dome-shaped head -complacently enough. “A tree may be judged by its fruit. Now in England -Dom Manuel’s long-legged bastard by Queen Alianora has returned his -young wife to the nursery. He is to-day, they tell me,—in the approved -fashion of all sons,—junketing about foreign courts with the Lord of -Bulmer’s daughter. He, in brief, while the Barons steal England from -him, is intent upon begetting his own bastards—” - -“But you also, my husband—” - -“Do you stop deafening me with your talk about irrelevant matters! In -Philistia, Dom Manuel’s most precious bantling by Queen Freydis is -working every manner of pagan iniquity, and has brought about the -imprisonment, in infamous Antan, of his own mother, after having lived -with her for some while in incest—” - -“Nevertheless—” - -“Azra, you have, as I tell you for your own good, a sad habit, and a -very ill-bred habit also, of interrupting people, and that habit is -quite insufferable. A tree, I repeat to you, may be judged by its fruit! -Everybody knows that. Now, in our Poictesme, the increase of Dom -Manuel’s body has, thus far, produced two strumpets and a guzzling -cuckold—” - -“But, even so—” - -“You are talking nonsense. A tree, I say to you, may be judged by its -fruit! I consider this exhibit very eloquently convincing as to the true -nature of our Redeemer.” - -Azra now answered nothing. And Coth fell to looking at his motto, rather -gloomily. - -“It was not that I meant,” he said, heroically, by and by, “to be rude, -my dear. But I do hate a fool, and, in particular, an obstinate fool.” - -Here too it must be recorded that upon the night of Radegonde’s marriage -old Holden had the ill taste to die. That it was by his own hand, nobody -questioned, but the affair was hushed up: and Count Emmerick’s married -life thus started with gratifyingly less scandal than it culminated in. - -Coth heard of this thing also. He looked at his motto, he recalled the -love which he had borne for Holden in the times when Coth had not yet -given over loving anybody: and he mildly wondered that Holden, at his -age, should still be clinging to the fallacy that one wench was much -more desirable than another. By and large, thought Coth, they had but -one use, for which any one of them would serve, if you still cared for -such kickshaws. For himself, he was growing abstemious; and as often as -not, found it rather a nuisance when any of his vassals married, and the -Alderman of St. Didol was expected to do his seignorial duty by the new -made wife. Things everywhere were dwindling and deteriorating. - -Even the great Fellowship of the Silver Stallion was wearing away, thus -steadily, under the malice and greed of time. Donander of Évre was -to-day the only one of Manuel’s barons who yet rode about the world, now -and then, in search of good fighting and fine women. All the best of the -fellowship were gone from life: the hypocrites and the fools alone -remained, Coth estimated modestly. For he and that boy Donander were, at -least, not hypocrites.... - -And very often, too, Coth would look at his wife Azra, and would -remember the girl that she had been in the times when Coth had not yet -given over loving anybody. He rather liked her now. It was a felt loss -that she no longer had the spirit to quarrel with anything like the -fervor of their happier days: not for two years or more had Azra flung a -really rousing taunt or even a dinner plate in his direction: and Coth -pitied the poor woman’s folly in for an instant bothering about that -young scoundrel of a Jurgen, who had set up as a poet, they said, and—in -the company, one heard, of a grand duchess,—was rampaging everywhither -about Italy, with never a word for his parents. Coth, now, did not worry -over such ingratitude at all: not less than twenty times a day he -pointed out to his wife that he, for one, never wasted a thought upon -the lecherous runagate. - -His wife would smile at him, sadly: and after old Coth had been -particularly abusive of Jurgen, she would, without speaking, stroke her -husband’s knotted, stubby, splotched hand, or his tense and just not -withdrawing cheek, or she would tender one or another utterly -uncalled-for caress, quite as though this illogical and broken-spirited -creature thought Coth to be in some sort of trouble. The woman, though, -had never understood him.... - -Then Azra died. Coth was thus left alone. It seemed to him a strange -thing that the Coth who had once been a fearless champion and a crowned -emperor and a contender upon equal terms with the High Gods, should be -locked up in this quiet room, weeping like a small, punished, frightened -child. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _33._ - _Economics of Coth_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -IN the months that followed, Coth wore a puzzled and baffled look. His -servants reported that he talked to himself almost incessantly. But it -was incoherent, uncharacteristic stuff, without any quarreling in it, -they said.... Coth at the last had well-nigh given over fault-finding. -He was merely puzzled. - -For life, somehow, in some as yet undetected fashion, seemed to have -cheated him. It was not possible that, with fair play everywhere, life -would be affording you, as the sum and harvest of all, no more than -this. No sort of pleasure remained: girls left, and for that matter -found, you wholly frigid; wine set you to vomiting. You wanted, as if in -a cold cemetery of desires, one thing alone, nowadays. - -Yet the son Jurgen whom Coth’s tough heart remembered and desired was -still frolicking about the pleasant and famous places of the world, with -no time to waste in sedate Poictesme: and Coth rather suspected that, -even now, in this sick unimaginable loneliness, were Jurgen to return, a -feebly raging Coth would storm at the lad and turn him out of doors. For -that was Coth’s way. He had only one way.... He reflected, now, Jurgen -was no longer a lad: it well might be, indeed, that pock-marked, -greasy-headed roisterer had ended living, with some husband’s dagger in -his ribs. The last news heard of Jurgen, though, was that he was making -songs in Byzantium with the aid of a runaway abbess, who at least had no -husband. And in any event, Jurgen would not ever return, because Coth -had come between the boy that had been and the leering, high-nosed -strumpet at Asch, who was reported to be rivaling even that poor Kerin’s -widow, Saraïde, in the great number of her co-partners in lectual -exercise. - -“A pert pirate in all men’s affairs, a mere cockboat sailing under the -Jolly Roger!” was Coth’s verdict, as repeated by an eavesdropping page. -“This Madame Dorothy has had in her more”—he mumbled so that something -was lost—“than there are trees in Acaire. All the trees in Acaire are -judged by their fruits. This Dorothy is a very betraying fruit from the -rank tree of the Redeemer. This Dorothy has inherited from Dom Manuel -such lewdness as is advantageously suited to a warrior, but misbecomes a -young woman. It seems rather a pity that this light wagtail should ever -have come between me and Jurgen.” - -Coth said this without any raging. He was merely puzzled. - -For all, everywhere, appeared to have failed and deserted him. This Coth -had been in his day a hero: and none of that far-off adventuring seemed -much to matter now, nor could he quite believe that these things had -happened to the tired old fellow who went muttering about the lonely -Château des Roches, and was kept alive with slops of gruel and -barley-water. This tremulous frail wreckage was not, assuredly, the Coth -who had killed single-handed the three Turks at Lacre Kai, and who had -kidnapped the fat King of Cyprus and in the sight of two armies had hung -the crown of yet another king on the thorn-bush at Piaja, and who had -been himself an emperor, and who had held the White Tower at Skeaf -against the Comprachos, and who had put that remarkable deception upon -the enamored one-legged tyrant of Ran Reigan, and who had shared in so -many other splendid rough-and-tumble happenings. - -There had been a host of women in these happenings, fine women, not to -be had at anybody’s whistle like the tow-headed Dorothys whom these -sanctimonious times were spawning everywhere to come between a father -and a boy with no real harm in him. And none of these dear women -mattered now.... Besides, it was not true to say that Jurgen had no real -harm in him. Jurgen had been violent and headstrong from the very first: -that was another pity, but Jurgen had taken after his mother in this, -old Coth reflected, and his mother had always been injudicious alike in -pampering and in rebuking Jurgen, with the result that Jurgen was -nowadays a compendium of all iniquity. - -And the Manuel too whom Coth had loved was gone now, and was utterly -ousted from every person’s memory by that glittering tomb at Storisende, -where a Manuel who had never lived was adored as a god is worshiped. Yet -that, also, seemed not to matter. It was preposterous. But all the world -was preposterous: and nothing whatever could be done about it, by a -tired muttering old man. - -People, no doubt, were living more quietly and more decorously because -of this fictitious Manuel whom they loved and this gaunt ranting -Holmendis whom they feared. But that too, to Coth, seemed not to matter. -People nowadays were such fools that their doings and the upshot of -these doings were equally unimportant, Coth estimated. If they succeeded -in worming their way into heaven by existing here as spiritlessly as -worms, Coth had not any objection, since he himself was bound for hell -and for the company of his peers in a more high-hearted style of living. - -Coth fell a little complacently to thinking about hell, and about the -fine great sinners who would make room for him there, on account of the -Coth that had been, and about the genial flames in which nobody was -pestered by milksops prattling about their damned Redeemer. And -Manuel—the real Manuel, that squinting swaggering gray rogue whose -thefts and bastards and killings had been innumerous,—that Manuel would -be there too, of course; and he and Coth would make very excellent mirth -over those reforms which had ensnared all the milksops into heaven, even -at the high price of spoiling the Poictesme of Coth’s youth. - -For those elder heroic days were quite over. Of the great fellowship -there remained, beside the hulk that was Coth, only Guivric and Donander -and Ninzian. Donader of Évre was now, they said, in the far kingdom of -Marabon, combining the pleasures of knight-errantry with a pious -pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Thomas. And while Coth had always admired -Donander as a fighting-machine, in all other respects Coth considered -him a deplorable young fool, nor, after holding this opinion steadfastly -for twenty-five years, was Coth prepared to change it. Ninzian was a -sleek hypocrite, a half-hearted fellow who had stinted himself to one -poor pale adultery with a pawnbroker’s wife; and who flourished in the -sanctimonious atmosphere of these abominable times because he truckled -to Holmendis nowadays just as formerly he had toadied to Manuel. That -prim and wary Guivric, whom people called the Sage, Coth had always most -cordially detested: and when Coth heard—from somebody, as he cloudily -remembered, but it was too much trouble to recall from whom,—that old -Guivric too was now departed from Poictesme, it seemed not to matter. - -Perhaps, Coth speculated, one of those troubled-looking servants had -told him Guivric was dead. Almost everybody was dead. And in any event, -it did not matter about Guivric. Nothing really mattered any longer.... - -All that Coth had ever loved was gone out of life. Gray Manuel, the most -superb and admirable of earthly lords (howsoever often the man had -needed a little candid talking to, for his own good), and peevish -tender-hearted wise Miramon, and courteous Anavalt, and pedantic -innocent Kerin (who had been used to blink at you once or twice, like -the most amiable of owls, before he gave his opinion upon any subject), -and Holden, the most brave where all were fearless, and indolent gay -Gonfal, whom you might even permit, within limits, to rally you, because -Gonfal was the world’s playmate,—all these were gone, the dearest of -comrades that any warrior had ever known, in that lost, far-off season -when the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion had kept earth noisy with the -clashing of their swords, and had darkened heaven with the smoke of the -towns they were sacking, and when throughout the known world men had -talked about the wonders which these champions were performing with Dom -Manuel to lead them. - -And so many splendid women too were gone: these days produced only your -flibbertigibbet Melicents and Dorothys and such trash. There were no -women nowadays like Azra, nor like Gunnhilda, nor like Muirnê of the -Marshes,—or like plump, ardent, brown Utsumé, or like Orgeleuse, that -proud lady of Cyprus, who had yet yielded in the end, or like Azra.... -And Coth, chewing meditatively at nothingness, with sunken and toothless -lips, thought also about great-hearted Dame Abonde, and about little -Fleurette, and about Azra, and about Credhê, that jolly if remarkably -exigent Irish girl, and about tall Asgerda, and about Azra, and about -Bar, that treacherous but very lovely sea-wife, and about Oriande, and -about poor Felfel Rhasif Yedua, who had given all the hair of her body -and afterward her life, to preserve his life, and about Azra. - -He remembered the girl that Azra had been, and he thought without any -joy about the scores of other delectable persons which Coth had known, -amorously and intricately, so very long ago. All these women were gone -out of living: one or two of them might perhaps as yet pretend to -survive in the repulsive skins of shriveled old lean ugly hags, and in -some remote chimney-corner or another might as yet be mumbling—with -sunken and toothless lips, like his own lips,—over nothingness; for -nothingness was now their portion too; and those close-kissing, -splendid, satiated, half-swooning girls whom Coth remembered, with -indelicate precision, now no longer existed anywhere. - -And Jurgen, the unparalleled of babies, and that cuddling little lad -prattling his childish lies about Dom Manuel and ascents into heaven and -other nonsense to ward off a spanking, and that fine upstanding boy just -graduating into pimples in whom Coth had so exulted when Coth returned -from Tollan and the throne of Tollan,—his Jurgen in dozens upon dozens -of stages of growth,—now every one of these dear sons was gone. There -remained only a dissolute and heartless wastrel bellowing rhymed -nonsense and rampaging about the world wherever the grand duchesses and -the abbesses made most of him. Coth looked at his motto. - -Life then, at utmost, after all the prizes of life had been gained, and -you were a looked-up-to and prosperous alderman, amounted to just this. -It profited nothing that you had been a tender and considerate father, -or a dutiful and long-suffering son who had boxed your father’s jaws, -when you last parted from him, only after considerable provocation,—or a -loving and faithful husband to the full extent of human frailty, or a -fearless champion killing off brawny adversaries like flies, or even an -emperor crowned with that queer soft gold of Tollan and dragging black -corrupted gods about the public highways. In the end you were, none the -less, a withered hulk, with no more of pride nor any hope of pleasure -nor any real desire alive in you; and you felt cold always, even while -you nodded here beside the fire; and there was not anybody to talk to, -except those perturbed-looking servants who never came very near you.... - -If you had only had a son, now, matters might be different.... Then Coth -recollected that he did, in point of fact, have a son, somewhere. It had -slipped his mind for the instant. But old people forget things, and he -was very old. Yes, a fine lad, that: and he would be coming in for -supper presently—extremely late for supper, with his hat shoved a great -way back on his black head, and with his boots all muddy,—and Azra would -scold him.... Only, it seemed to Coth that Azra, or somebody, was dead. -That was a pity, but it was too much trouble to remember all the pity -and the dying that was in the world; it was a great deal too much -trouble for an old man to keep these wearying matters quite straight in -his mind. And, besides, everybody died; there was for all an end of all -adventuring: and nothing whatever could be done about it. - -Well, but at least one more adventure was yet to come, for the Coth who -could make no wheedling compromise with the fictions by which fools live -and preserve alike their foolish hopes and their smirking amenities. He -had, he felt, been sometimes rather brusque with these fools. But all -that was over, too. They went their way; and he was going his. And, once -that last adventure had been achieved, you might hope to settle down -comfortably with the swaggering and great-hearted sinners, and to be -stationed not too far from that gray squinting sinner who had been the -most dear and admirable of earthly lords; and to foregather with all -such fine rogues eternally among the genial and robustious flames, in -which there was no more loneliness and no more cold and no more -pettifogging talk about some Redeemer or another paying your scot, and -where no more frightened servants would be spying on you always.... - -The adventure came unheralded, for Coth died in his sleep, having -outlived the wife of his youth by just four months. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK SIX - - IN THE SYLAN’S HOUSE - - “_Is it time for you to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie - waste?_” - —HAGGAI, i, 4. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _34._ - _Something Goes Wrong: and Why_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the tale is of Guivric of Perdigon, more generally called the Sage, -who in the days after Anavalt went into Elfhame was chief of the lords -of the Silver Stallion who yet remained in Poictesme. And the tale tells -how it appeared to Guivric of Perdigon that something was going wrong. - -He had not anything tangible to complain of. There was, indeed, no baron -in Poictesme more powerful and honored than was Guivric the Sage. He had -no need to bother over any notions about Manuel which in no way affected -the welfare of Guivric of Perdigon, and he had no quarrel with the more -staid and religious ordering of matters which now prevailed in -Poictesme. Guivric had, howsoever frostily, adapted himself to these -times, and in them a reasonably staid and religious Guivric had, thus, -thrived. - -As Heitman of Asch, he still held as rigorously as he had held in -Manuel’s heyday, the fertile Piemontais between the Duardenez river and -Perdigon. He had money and two castles, he lived in comeliness and -splendor, he had wisdom and a high name and the finest vineyards -anywhere in those regions. He had every reason to be proud of his tall -prospering son Michael, a depressingly worthy young warrior, whose -superabundant virtues, modeled with so much earnestness after the Manuel -of the legend, caused Guivric to regard the amours of Michael’s wife -(and Manuel’s daughter) with quiet and unregenerate amusement. And -Guivric got on with his own wife as well, he flattered himself, as any -person could hope to do upon the more animated side of deafness. - -Yet something, this prim and wary Guivric knew, was somewhere going -wrong. Things, even such prosaic common things as the chair he was -seated in, or his own hands moving before him, were becoming dubious and -remote. People spoke with thinner voices: and their bodies flickered now -and then, as if these bodies were only appearances of colored vapor. The -trees of Guivric’s flourishing woodlands would sometimes stretch and -flatten in the wind like trails of smoke. The walls of Guivric’s fine -home at Asch, and of his great fort at Perdigon also, were acquiring, as -their conservative owner somewhat frettedly observed, a habit of moving, -just by a thread’s width, when you were not quite looking at them; and -of shifting in outline and in station as secretively as a cloud alters. - -Instability and change lurked everywhere. Without any warning well-known -faces disappeared from Guivric’s stately household: the men-at-arms and -the lackeys who remained seemed not to miss them, nor indeed ever to -have known of those vanished associates. - -And Guivric found that the saga which the best-thought-of local bards -had compiled and adorned, under his supervision, so as to preserve for -posterity’s benefit the glorious exploits and the edifying rewards of -Guivric the Sage, was dwindling alike in length and in impressiveness. -Overnight a line here and there, or a whole paragraph, would drop out -unaccountably, an adventure would lose color, or an achievement would -become less clear-cut: and the high and outrageous doings in which -Guivric had shared as a lord of the Silver Stallion, these began, in -particular, to become almost unrecognizable. At this rate, people would -soon have no assurance whatever that Guivric the Sage had lived in -unexampled heroism and respectability and had most marvelously prospered -in everything. - -And it was all quite annoying. It was as though Guivric, or else each -one of his possessions and human ties, were wasting away into a phantom: -and neither alternative seemed pleasant to consider. - -Guivric locked fast the doors of the brown room in which now for so many -years he had conducted his studies and his thaumaturgies. He set out a -table, the top of which was inscribed with three alphabets. He put on a -robe of white: about his withered neck he arranged a garland of purple -vervain such as is called herb-of-the-cross. From seven rings he -selected—because this day was a Sunday,—the gold ring inset with a -chrysolite upon which was engraved the figure of a lion-headed serpent. - -When this ring had been hung above the table, with a looped red hair -plucked long ago from the tail of a virgin nightmare, and when the wan -Lady of Crossroads had been duly invoked, then Guivric lighted a taper -molded from the fat of Saracen women and of unweaned dogs, and with the -evil flaming of this taper he set fire to the looped hair. The red hair -burned with a small spiteful sizzling: the gold ring fell. The ring -rolled about upon the table, it uncoiled, it writhed, it moved -glitteringly among the characters of three alphabets, passing like a -tortured worm from one ideograph to another, and it revealed to Guivric -the dreadful truth. - -The Sylan whom people called Glaum-Without-Bones was at odds with -Guivric. This was not a matter which anybody blessed with intelligent -self-interest could afford to neglect. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _35._ - _Guivric’s Journey_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -CERTAINLY Guivric the Sage, who cared only for himself, did not neglect -this matter. The prim and wary man armed, and rode eastward, beyond -Megaris; and fared steadily ever further into the East, traveling beyond -the Country of Widows and the fearful Isle of the Ten Carpenters. Then, -at Oskander’s Well, Guivric put off material armor. He put off even his -helmet, and in its stead he assumed a cap of owl feathers. He passed -through arid high pastures, beyond the wall of the Sassanid, he rubbed -lemon juice upon his horse’s legs and rode unmolested through the broad -and shallow lake, and thus came to the Sylan’s House. And all went well -enough at first. - -Guivric had feared, for one thing, that the Norns would forbid his -entering into the mischancy place: but when he had tethered safely the -fine horse which Guivric was never again to ride upon, he found that the -gray weavers did not hinder him. They had not ever, they said, planned -any future for Guivric: and it was all one to them whether he fared -forward to face his own destruction or intrepidly went back to living -with his wife. - -“But do you not weave the sagas and the dooms of all men?” he asked of -them. - -“Not yours,” lean Skuld replied, looking up at him with pallid little -cold bright eyes. - -Guivric thus passed the haggard daughters of Dvalinn; and the proud man -went onward, disquieted but unhindered. And in the gray anteroom beyond, -were the progenitors of Guivric disporting themselves, each in the -quaint manner of his bygone day, and talking with uneager and faded -voices about the old times. - -Since none of these ancestors had ever heard or thought of Guivric, they -gave scant attention to him now. And to see them was upsetting, somehow. -One of these strangers had Guivric’s high thin nose, and another just -his long thin hands, and another his prim mouth, and another his -excellent broad shoulders. Guivric could recognise all these fragments -of himself moving at random about the gray room. He knew that, less -visibly but quite as really, his tastes and his innate aversions—his -little talents and failings and out-of-date loyalties, his quickness at -figures, his aptitude for drawing, his tendency to catch cold easily, -and his liking for sweets and highly seasoned foods,—were all passing -about this gray room. - -A compost of odds and ends had been patched together from these -unheeding persons; that almost accidental patchwork was Guivric: the -thought was humiliating. There was, he reflected, in this gray room -another complete Guivric, only this other Guivric was not entire, but -moved about in scattered fragments. That thought, appeared to a -peculiarly self-centered person like Guivric, rather uncomfortable. - -So Guivric went beyond his ancestors. Without delay the proud man passed -stiffly by the inconsiderate people whose casual amours had created him, -and had given him life and all his qualities, without consulting his -preference or his convenience, or even thinking about him. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _36._ - _The Appointed Enemy_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -HE came to a door beside which a saturnine castrato sat drowsing over a -scythe. Guivric caught him intrepidly by the forelock; and tugging at -it, thus forced the gaunt warden in his pain to cry out, “Enough!” - -“For time enough is little enough,” said Guivric, “and when you are -little enough, I can go safely by without killing time here. And that I -shall certainly do, because to spare time is to lengthen life.” - -“Come, come now,” grumbled the ancient warden, “but these tonsorial -freedoms and this foolish talking seem very odd—” - -“Time,” Guivric answered him, “at last sets all things even.” - -Then Guivric walked widdershins in a complete circle about the old -eunuch; and so went on into a room hung with black and silver: and in -this place was a young and beautifully fashioned boy, with the bright -unchanging gaze of a serpent. - -The boy arose; and, putting aside a rod upon which grew black poppies, -each with a silver-colored heart, he said to Guivric, “It is needful -that you should hate.” - -Now, at the sight of this stranger, Guivric was filled with an -inexplicable wild rapture; and after shaping the sign of the River Horse -and of the Writing of Lo, he demanded of this young man his name. - -But the other only answered: “I am your appointed enemy. There is -between us an eternal hatred; and should our bodies encounter we would -contend as heroes. But something has gone wrong, our sagas have been -perverted, and our spirits have been ensnared into the Sylan’s House, -and all our living wears thin.” - -“Come, come, my enemy!” cried Guivric, “hatred—since, as you tell me, -this is hatred,—is throbbing in me now as a drum beats: and I would that -we two might encounter!” - -“That may not be,” replied the young man. “I am only a phantom in the -Sylan’s House. I live as a newborn child in Denmark, I drowse as yet in -swaddling cloths, dreaming at this instant about my appointed enemy. Yet -in the life which you now have you will not ever go to Denmark: and by -the time that I am grown, and am able to wield a sword and to contrive -mischief against you, and to beset you everywhere with my lewd -perversities, the body which you now have will have been taken away from -you.” - -“I am sorry,” Guivric said, “for in all my life, even in the rough old -times of that blundering Manuel— I mean, of course, that, although I was -privileged to share in the earthly labors of the Redeemer, in all my -life I have never hated before to-day. I have merely disliked some -persons, somewhat as I dislike cold veal or house-flies, without real -ardor. And very often these persons could be useful to me, so that, -through many little flatteries and small falsehoods, I must keep on -their good side. But I perceive now that, throughout the living which my -neighbors applaud and envy, I have needed some tonic adversary to exalt -my living with a great and heroic loathing.” - -“I know, dear adversary! And I know too that all the life which I now -have must run slack because of an unfed lusting for my appointed enemy. -But affairs will go more grandly by and by, if ever we get out of the -Sylan’s House.” - -“Heyday,” said Guivric, masterfully, “I am not going out! Instead, I am -going in, even to the heart of this mischancy place; and you must go -with me.” - -But the lad shook his lovely evil head. “No: for, now that the Sylan is -about to become human, they tell me, at the heart of the Sylan’s House -is to be found pity and terror; and both of these must remain forever -unknown to me.” - -“Well, but why?” said Guivric, “why need those two cathartics which -Aristotle most highly recommends remain forever unknown to you in -particular?” - -“Ah,” replied the boy, “that is a mystery. I only know it is decreed—and -is decreed, for that matter, in the name of Eloim, Muthraton, Adonay, -and Semiphoras,—that my rod here as it was first raised up in Gomorrah -should possess quite other virtues than the rods of Moses and of Jacob.” - -“Oh, in Gomorrah! So it was in that wicked city of the plain of Jordan, -my spoiled child, that they first spared the rod! I see. For is not that -rod to be used—thus?” - -And Guivric showed with a discreet but obvious gesture what he meant. - -The lad fearlessly answered him. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _37._ - _Too Many Mouths_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -SO Guivric quitted his appointed enemy. And at the next door sat a -discomfortable looking dyspeptic, crowned and wearing an old shroud, and -huddled up, as if by spasms of pain, upon a tombstone, very neatly -engraved with the arms and the name and the parentage and the titles of -Guivric of Perdigon. Only the date and the manner of Guivric’s decease -remained as yet vacant. And the crowned toiler put aside his chisel, and -he grinned at Guivric rather pitiably. - -“I really must be more careful,” observed this second warden, groaning -and fidgeting and shaking his fleshless head, but of necessity grinning -all the while, because he had no lips. “I am decreed, you see, to keep -no measure in my diet; I must eat sheep as well as lambs; and afterward -I find out only too plainly that there is not any medicine for death.” - -Guivric, without a word of condolence, took out of his pocket a handful -of coins, and he selected from among the thalers and pistoles a newly -minted mark. This coin he tendered to the second warden, and the -tomb-maker accepted lovingly this shining mark. Then Guivric walked -widdershins in a circle about this warden also: and when the king of -terrors had been thus circumvented, Guivric went forward into the next -room. A sweet and piercing and heavy odor now went with Guivric, and -clung to him, and it was like the odor of embalming spices. - -This room was hung with white and gold; and in this room a plump and -naked man, wearing only a miter, was praying to nine gods. He arose and, -after brushing off his reddened knees, he said to Guivric, “It is -needful that you should believe.” - -“I wish to believe,” replied Guivric. “Yet when I ask— Well, but you -know what always happens.” - -“Such, my dear errant son, is the accustomed punishment of unhallowed -curiosity. It should, equally, be looked for and overlooked. The -important thing is to believe.” - -Guivric smiled rather bleakly now, beneath his cap of owl feathers. He -said, like one who repeats a familiar ritual, “What should I believe?” - -Upon the arms and upon the chest and upon the belly, and everywhere upon -the naked body of the mitered man, opened red and precise-looking -mouths, and each mouth answered Guivric’s question differently, and in -the while that they all spoke together no one of these answers was -clear. The utmost which Guivric could distinguish in the confusion was -some piping babblement about Manuel the Redeemer. Then the mouths ended -their speaking, and closed, and became invisible. The mitered man now -seemed like any other benevolent gentleman in the middle years of a -well-fed existence, and he was no longer horrible. - -“You see,” said Guivric, with a shrug. “You see what always happens. I -ask, and I am answered. Afterward I am impressed by the unusual -phenomena, and I am slightly nauseated: but I, none the less, do not -know which one of your countless mouths I should put faith in, and so -bribe it to smile at me and prophesy good things.” - -“That does not matter at all, my son. You have but to believe in -whatsoever divine revealment you prefer as to what especial Redeemer -will come to-morrow, and then you will live strongly and happily, you -will go no longer as a phantom in the Sylan’s House.” - -“Heyday!” said Guivric, “but it is you who are the phantom, and not I!” - -The other for a moment was silent. Then he too shrugged. “With secular -opinions as to such unimportant and wholly personal matters no belief is -concerned.” - -“I,” Guivric pointed out, “do not think this an unimportant matter. At -all events, each one of your mouths speaks to me with the same authority -and resonance: and in consequence, I can hear none of them.” - -“Well, well!” said the plump mitered man, resignedly, “that sometimes -happens, they tell me, when the Sylan is at odds with anybody. But, for -one, I keep away from the Sylan, now that the Sylan is about to become -human, because I suspect that at the heart of the Sylan’s House abides -that which is too pitiable and too terrible for any of my mouths to -aid.” - -“I do not know about your aiding such things or any other things,” -replied Guivric. “But I do know that, even though you dare not accompany -me, I intend to match my thaumaturgies against the Sylan’s magic; and -that we shall very shortly see what comes of it.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _38._ - _The Appointed Lover_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW at the next door sat a fierce and jealous destroyer, with a waned -glory about his venerable Semitic head. The upper half of him was like -amber, his lower parts shone as if with a fading fire. He seemed forlorn -and unspeakably outworn. He looked without love at Guivric, saying, -“AHIH ASHR AHIH.” - -“No deity could put it fairer than that, sir,” replied Guivric. “I -respect the circumstance. Nevertheless, I have made a note of your -number, and it is five hundred and forty-three.” - -Then about this warden also Guivric walked widdershins, in a complete -circle. - -“Issachar is a large-limbed ass,” said Guivric, soberly. “He has become -a servant under taskwork. Yet his is the circumambulation.” - -Whereafter Guivric still went onward, into the next room: and Guivric’s -feet now glittered each with a pallid halo, for in that instant he had -trodden very near to God, and glory clung to them. - -And in this room, which was hung with green and rose-color, white -pigeons were walking about and eating barley. In the midst of the room a -woman was burning violets and white rose-petals and olive wood in a new -earthen dish. She arose from this employment, smiling. And her -loveliness was not a matter of mere color and shaping, such as may be -found elsewhere in material things: rather, was this loveliness a light -which lived and was kindly. - -Now this dear woman too began, “It is needful—” - -“I think it is not at all needful, madame, to explain what human faculty -you would exhort me to exercise.” - -Guivric said this with a gallant frivolity: and yet he was trembling. - -And after a while of looking at him somewhat sadly, the woman asked, “Do -you not, then, remember me?” - -“It is a strange thing, madame,” he answered, “it is a very strange -thing that I should so poignantly remember you whom I have not ever seen -before to-day. For I am shaken by old and terrible memories, I am -troubled by the greatness of ancient losses not ever to be atoned for, -in the exact moment that I cannot, for the life of me, say what these -memories and these losses are.” - -“You have loved me,—not once, but many times, my appointed lover.” - -“I have loved a number of women, madame,—although I have of course -avoided giving rise to any regrettable scandal. And it has been very -pleasant to love women without annoying the prejudices of their -recognized and legitimate proprietors. It enables one to combine -physical with mental exercise. But this is not pleasant. To the -contrary, I am frightened. I am become as a straw in a wide and rapid -river: I am indulging in no pastime: that which is stronger than I can -imagine is hurrying me toward that of which I am ignorant.” - -“I know,” she answered. “Time upon time it has been so with us. But -something has gone wrong—” - -“What has happened, madame, is that the Sylan is at odds with me; and -covets, so my dactyliomancy informed me, some one thing or it may be two -things which I possess.” - -“The Sylan is about to become human. That is why your saga has been -perverted, and that is the reason of your having been ensnared as a -phantom into the Sylan’s House—” - -“Eh, then, and do you also, madame, dismiss me as a phantom!” - -“Why, but of course no person’s body may enter into this mischancy -place! The body which I have to-day, my appointed lover, is that of a -very old woman in Cataia, nodding among my body’s many children and -grandchildren, and dreaming of the love this life has denied to me. It -is a blotched and shriveled body, colored like a rotting apple: and the -bodies which we now have may not ever encounter. So all our living wears -thin, and the lives that we now have must both be wasted tepidly, as a -lukewarm water is poured out: and there is now no help for it, now that -the Sylan is at odds with you.” - -“I go to match my thaumaturgies against his magic,” said Guivric -stoutly. - -“You go, my dearest, to face that thing which is most pitiable and -terrible of all things that be! You go to face your own destruction!” - -“Nevertheless,” said Guivric, “I go.” - -Yet still he looked at this woman. And Guivric’s thin hard lips moved -restively. He sighed. He turned away and went on silently. His face -could not be seen under his cap of owl feathers, but his broad shoulders -sagged a little. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _39._ - _One Warden Left Uncircumvented_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -BESIDE the next door lay a huge white stallion. And as Guivric -approached this door, it opened. Through the brown curtains came that -ambiguous young man called Horvendile, with whom Guivric, off and on, -had held considerable traffic during a forty years’ practice of -thaumaturgies. - -The stallion now arose, before Guivric could walk widdershins about him, -and the stallion went statelily away. And Horvendile gazed after the -superb beast, rather wistfully. - -“He, too,” said Horvendile, “goes as a phantom here. Is it not a pity, -Guivric, that this Kalki will not come in our day, and that we shall not -ever behold his complete glory? I cry a lament for that Kalki who will -some day bring back to their appointed places high faith and very ardent -loves and hatreds; and who will see to it that human passions are never -in a poor way to find expression with adequate speech and action. Ohé, I -cry a loud lament for Kalki! The little silver effigies which his -postulants fashion and adore are well enough: but Kalki is a horse of -another color.” - -“I did not come into this accursed place to talk about horses and -nightmares,” replied Guivric, “but to attend to the righting of the -wrongs contrived by one Glaum-Without-Bones, who is at odds with me, and -who has perverted my saga.” - -Now Horvendile reflected for an instant. He said, “You have then, after -so many years, come of your own will into the East, just as I -prophesied, to face the most pitiable and terrible of all things?” - -Guivric answered, guardedly, “I cannot permit my saga to be perverted.” - -Horvendile said then: “Nevertheless, I consider the saga of no lord of -the Silver Stallion to be worth squabbling over. Your sagas in the end -must all be perverted and engulfed by the great legend about Manuel. No -matter how you may strive against that legend, it will conquer: no -matter what you may do and suffer, my doomed Guivric, your saga will be -recast until it conforms in everything to the legend begotten by the -terrified imaginings of a lost child. For men dare not face the universe -with no better backing than their own resources; all men that live, and -that go perforce about this world like blundering lost children whose -rescuer is not yet in sight, have a vital need to believe in this -sustaining legend about the Redeemer: and the wickedness and the -foolishness of no man can avail against the foolishness and the fond -optimism of mankind.” - -“These aphorisms,” Guivric conceded, “may be judicious, they may be -valuable, they may even have some kernel somewhere of rational meaning. -But, in any case, they do not justify my living’s having been upset and -generally meddled with by a lecherous and immodest Sylan who goes about -wearing not even a skeleton.” - -Horvendile replied: “I can see no flaw in your way of living. You are -the chief of Emmerick’s barons now that Anavalt is gnawed bones in -Elfhame: you have wealth and rather more than as much power as Emmerick -himself, now that your son is Emmerick’s brother-in-law, and poor -Emmerick is married to a widow. You are a well-thought-of thaumaturgist, -and you are, indeed, excelled in your art by nobody since Miramon -Lluagor’s death. And you have also, they tell me, a high name for wisdom -and for learning now that Kerin has gone down under the earth. What more -can anybody ask?” - -“I ask for much more than for this sort of cautious and secondary -excellence.” Guivric seemed strangely desperate. He spoke now, with a -voice which was not in anything prim and wary, saying, “I ask for the -man whom I can hate, for the priest whom I can believe, and for the -woman whom I can love!” - -But Horvendile shook his red curls, and he smiled a little cruelly. -“Successful persons, my poor careful Guivric, cannot afford to have any -of these luxuries. And one misses them. I know. The Sylan too is, in his -crude and naïve way, a successful person. He is now almost human. He -cherishes phantoms, therefore, and I suspect these phantoms have been -troubling you with their nonsense, since it is well known that all -illusions haunt the corridors of this mischancy place into which -phantoms alone may enter.” - -“Yet I have entered it,” Guivric pointed out. - -“Yes,” Horvendile said, non-committally. - -“And I now enter,” Guivric stated, “to the heart of it, to match my -thaumaturgies against the Sylan’s magic.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _40._ - _Economics of Glaum-Without-Bones_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THEN Guivric passed through this door likewise; and so, with glowing -feet and with an odor of funereal spices, Guivric came into the room in -which was the Sylan. Glaum-Without-Bones looked up from his writing, -tranquilly. Glaum said nothing: he merely smiled. All was quiet. - -Guivric noticed a strange thing, and it was that this room was hung with -brown and was furnished with books and pictures which had a familiar -seeming. And then he saw that this room was in everything like the brown -room at Asch in which now for so many years he had conducted his studies -and his thaumaturgies; and that in this mischancy place, for all his -arduous traveling beyond the Country of Widows and the fearful Isle of -the Ten Carpenters and the high Wall of the Sassanid, here you still -saw, through well-known windows, the familiar country about Asch and the -gleaming of the Duardenez river, and beyond this the long plain of -Amneran and the tall Forest of Acaire. And Guivric saw that this -Glaum-Without-Bones, who sat there smiling up at Guivric, from under a -cap of owl feathers, had in everything the appearance of the aging man -who had so long sat in this room; and that Glaum-Without-Bones did not -differ in anything from Guivric the Sage. - -Guivric spoke first. He said: - -“This is a strong magic. This is a sententious magic. They had warned me -that I would here face my own destruction, that I would here face the -most pitiable and terrible of all things: and I face here that which I -have made of life, and life of me. I shudder; I am conscious of every -appropriate sentiment. Nevertheless, sir, I must venture the suggestion -that mere, explicit allegory as a form of art is somewhat obsolete.” - -Glaum-Without-Bones replied: “What have I to do with forms of art? My -need was of a form of flesh and blood. I had need of a human body and of -human ties and of a human saga of the Norn’s most ruthless weaving. We -Sylans have our powers and our privileges, but we are not the children -of any god; and so, when we have lived out our permitted centuries, we -must perish utterly unless we can contrive to become human. Therefore I -had sore need of all human discomforts, so that a soul might sprout in -me under oppression and chastening, and might, upon fair behavior, be -preserved in eternal bliss, and not ever perish as we Sylans perish.” - -“Everybody has heard of these familiar facts about you Sylans,” returned -Guivric, impatiently, “and it is your stealing, in this shabby fashion, -of my own particular human ties that I consider unheard-of—” - -“Yes, yes,” said Glaum, with some complacence, “that was done through a -rare magic, and through a strong magic, and through a magic against -which there is no remedy.” - -“That we shall see about! For what has happened to me is not fair—” - -“Of course it is not,” Glaum assented. “The doom which is now upon you -is no fairer than the doom which was upon me yesterday, to perish -utterly like a weed or an old tom-cat.” - -“—And so I have come hither to match my resistless thaumaturgies against -your piddling magic, and to compel you to restore to me your -pilferings—” - -“I shall restore to you,” Glaum stated, “nothing. And I have taken all. -Your saga is now my saga, your castles are my castles, your son is my -son, and your body is my body. Inside that body I intend to live -self-mortifyingly and virtuously, for some ten years or so; and then -that body will die: but by that time a soul will have sprouted in me, an -immortal soul which, you may be certain, I shall keep stainless, because -I at least know how to appreciate such a remunerative bit of property. -Thus, when your tomb becomes my tomb, that soul will of course ascend to -eternal bliss.” - -“But what,” said Guivric, scornfully, “what if I do not consent to be -robbed of the salvation assured to me by sixty years of careful and -respectable living? and what if I compel you—?” - -“I think that, in your sorry case, you should not speak of compelling -anybody to do anything. Nor is it altogether my doing that your house is -now the Sylan’s House. Self-centered and self-righteous man, you had no -longer any strength nor real desires, but only many little habits. -Nothing at all solid remained really yours, not even when I first set -about my magicking. Oho, and then you were an easy prey! and the human -ties you held so lightly slipped very lightly away from you who had so -long been living without any love or hatred or belief. For throughout -that over-comfortable while the strength and the desire had been oozing -out of you, and all your living wore thin. I had only to complete the -emaciation. And in consequence”—Glaum gestured, rather gracefully, with -Guivric’s long thin hands,—“in consequence, you go as a phantom.” - -Guivric saw this was regrettably true. He saw it was as a slight grayish -mist, through which he was looking down unhindered at the familiar rug -behind him, that he now wavered and undulated in the midst of this room -in which he had for so many years pursued his studies without a hint of -such levity. Yet nothing was changed. Guivric of Perdigon still sat -there, behind the oak table with copper corners. Guivric of Perdigon -kept his accustomed place, palpable and prim and wary, as vigorous as -could be hoped for at his age, and honored and well-to-do, and, in fine, -with nothing left to ask for, as men estimate prosperity. - -And the living of this Guivric was reasonably assured of going on like -that, for year after year, quite comfortably, and with people everywhere -applauding, and with nothing anywhere alluring you toward any rash -excesses in the way of emotion. It was from this established and -looked-up-to sort of living that a nefarious Sylan was planning to oust -Guivric the Sage; and to leave Guivric a mere phantom, a thing as -transitory and as disreputable—and of course, in a manner of speaking, -as free too, and as lusty and as ageless,—as the Sylan’s self had been -only yesterday.... For those abominable thieves and ravishers of maidens -did not grow old and vigorless and tired: instead, when the appointed -hour had struck, they vanished.... - -“Well, well!” said Guivric, and he now flickered into a sitting posture, -more companionably. “This sort of eviction from every human tie is -unexpected and high-handed and deplorable and so on. But we ought, even -when all else is being lost, to retain composure.” - -The Sylan let him talk.... - -And Guivric went on: “So, you are indissuadably resolved, at the cost of -any possible conflict between my thaumaturgies and your magic, to leave -me just a disembodied intelligence! Do you know, Messire Glaum, I cannot -quite regard it as a compliment, that you refuse to take over my -intelligence! Yet you, no doubt, prefer your own intelligence—” - -The Sylan let him talk.... - -But Guivric had paused. For the Sylan’s intelligence had, after all, -enabled Glaum to acquire—through howsoever irregular methods,—the utmost -that a reasonable mind could look for in the way of success and comfort -and of future famousness long after Glaum-Without-Bones had ascended to -the eternal bliss assured by a careful and respectable past. The Sylan’s -intelligence had gained for him the very best that any man could hope -for. There was thus no firm ground, after all, upon which any human -being could disrespect the Sylan’s intelligence.... It was only that -these Sylans, always so regrettably lewd and spry, did not ever grow old -and tired and vigorless: they did not ever, except of their own -volition, become disgustingly smug-looking old prigs: instead when the -appointed hour had struck, they vanished.... - -“—For your intelligence appears to me a very terrible sort of -intelligence,” Guivric continued, “and I have no doubt that your magic -is upon a plane with it. My little thaumaturgies could have no chance -whatever against such magic and such intelligence. Oh, dear me, no! So I -concede my helplessness, Messire Glaum, without mounting the high and -skittish horse of virtuous indignation. I avoid the spectacle of an -unseemly wrangle between fellow artists: and, in asking you to restore -to me the customary rewards of a thrifty and virtuous and in every way -prosperous existence, I can but appeal to your mercy.” - -“I,” said the Sylan, “have none.” - -“So I had hoped”—here Guivric coughed. “Anguish, sheer anguish, sir, -deprives me of proper control of my tongue. For I had of course meant to -say,” Guivric continued, upon a more tragic note,—“so I had hoped in -vain! Now every hope is gone. Henceforward you are human, and I am only -an unhonored vague Sylan! Well, it is all very terrible; but nothing can -be done about it, I suppose.” - -“Nothing whatever can be done about it,—unless you prefer to court -something worse with those thaumaturgies of yours?” - -Guivric was pained. “But, between fellow artists!” he stated. “Oh, no, -dear Glaum, that sort of open ostentatious rivalry, for merely material -gains, seems always rather regrettably vulgar.” - -“Why, then, if you will pardon me,” the Sylan submitted, in Guivric’s -most civil manner when dealing with unimportant persons, “I shall ask to -be excused from prolonging our highly enjoyable chat. Some other time, -perhaps— But I really am quite busy this morning: and, besides, our wife -will be coming in here any minute, to call me to dinner.” - -“I shall not intrude.” Vaporously arising, Guivric now smiled, with a -new flavor of sympathy. “A rather terrible woman, that, you will find! -And, Lord, how a young Guivric did adore her once! Nowadays she is one -of the innumerous reasons which lead me to question if you have been -quite happily inspired, even with the delights of heaven impendent. You -see, she is certainly going to heaven. And Michael too,—do you know, I -think you will find Michael, also, something of a bore? He expects so -much of his father, and when those expectations seem imperiled he does -look at you so exactly like a hurt, high-minded cow! Now it is you who -will have to live up to his notions, and to the notions of that fond, -fretful, foolish woman, and it is you who will be bothered with an -ever-present sense of something lost and betrayed—! But you will live up -to their idiotic notions, none the less! And I do not doubt that, just -as you say, the oppression and the chastening will be good for you.” - -The Sylan answered, sternly, “Poor shallow learned selfish fool! it is -that love and pride, it is their faith and their jealousy to hide away -your shortcomings, it is the things you feebly jeer at, which will -create in me a soul!” - -“No doubt—” Then Guivric went on hastily, and in a tone of cordial -encouragement. “Oh, yes, my dear fellow, there is not a doubt of it! and -I am sure you will find the birth-pangs well rewarded. Heaven, everybody -tells me, is a most charming place. Meanwhile, if you do not mind, just -for a minute, pray do not contort my face so unbecomingly until after I -am quite gone! To see what right-thinking and a respectably inflated -impatience with frivolity can make of my face, and has so often made of -my face,” reflected Guivric, as he luxuriously drifted out of the -familiar window like a smoke, “is even now a little humiliating. But, -then, the most salutary lessons are invariably the most shocking.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _41._ - _The Gratifying Sequel_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THUS the true Guivric passed beyond the knowledge of men: and the false -Guivric gathered up his papers and took off his cap of owl feathers and -prepared for dinner. - -The wife and the son of Guivric from that time forth delighted in his -affection and geniality: and it was observed, for another wonder, that -Guivric of Perdigon had, with increasing age, graduated from a cool -reserve about religious matters into very active beneficence and piety. -The legend of Manuel had nowhere, now, a more fervent adherent and -expounder, because Glaum nourished his sprouting soul with every sort of -religious fertilizer. Nor was his loving-kindness confined to talking -about itself, for the good works of Glaum were untiring and remarkably -free-handed, since he had everything to gain by being liberal with -Guivric’s property. - -The old gentleman thus became a marked favorite with Holy Holmendis: and -indeed it was Glaum who at this time, when Guivric’s ancient comrade -Kerin of Nointel came back into Poictesme, chiefly assisted Holmendis in -converting Kerin to the great legend of Manuel. - -In fine, Glaum lived, without detection, in Guivric’s body; and -preserved it in unquestioned virtue, since a well-to-do nobleman is, -after sixty, subject to very few temptations which cannot be gratified -quietly without scandal. He died in the assurance of a blessed -resurrection, which he no doubt attained. - -As for the true Guivric, nothing more was ever quite definitely known of -him. It was remarked, however, that for many years thereafter an amorous -devil went invisibly about the hill country behind Perdigon. The girls -of Valnères and Ogde reported that by three traits alone could the -presence of this demon be detected: for one thing, he diffused a sweet -and poignant odor, not unlike that of an embalmer’s spiceries; and, for -another, the soles of his feet had been observed, after dusk, to be -luminous. A third infallible sign of his being anywhere near you they, -with blushes and some giggling, declined to reveal. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK SEVEN - - WHAT SARAÏDE WANTED - - “_None shall want her mate._” - —ISAIAH, xxxiv, 16. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _42._ - _Generalities at Ogde_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the tale tells that it was in the winter after Guivric’s encounter -with the Sylan that Kerin of Nointel returned into Poictesme to become -yet another convert to the great legend of Manuel; and tells also of how -for the first time men learned why and in what fashion Kerin had gone -out of Poictesme. - -Therefore the tale harks back to very ancient days, in the May month -which followed the passing of Manuel, and the tale speaks of a season -wherein it appeared to Kerin of Nointel that he could understand his -third wife no better than he had done the others. But for that perhaps -unavoidable drawback to matrimony, he was then living comfortably enough -with this Saraïde, whom many called a witch, in her ill-spoken-of, -eight-sided home beside the notorious dry Well of Ogde. This home was -gray, with a thatched roof upon which grew abundant mosses and many -small wild plants; a pair of storks nested on the gable; and elder-trees -shaded all. - -It was a very quiet and peaceful place, in which, so Kerin estimated, -two persons might well have lived in untroubled serenity, now that the -Fellowship of the Silver Stallion was disbanded, and a younger Kerin’s -glorious warfaring under Dom Manuel was done with forever. - -Mild-mannered, blinking Kerin, for one, did not regret Dom Manuel’s -passing. The man had kept you fighting always, whether it was with the -Easterlings or the Northmen, or with Othmar Black-Tooth or with old -yellow Sclaug or with Manuel’s father, blind Oriander. It was a life -which left you no time whatever for the pursuit of any culture. Kerin -liked fighting, within moderation, with persons of admitted repute. But -Kerin, after four years of riding into all quarters of the earth at the -behest of this never-resting Manuel, was heartily tired of killing -strangers in whom Kerin was in no way interested. - -So, upon the whole, it was a relief to be rid of Manuel and to be able -once more to marry, and to settle down at Ogde in the eight-sided house -under the elder-trees. Yet, even in this lovely quietude, the tale -repeats, the third wife of Kerin seemed every night to bother herself, -and in consequence her husband, about a great many incomprehensible -matters. - -Now of the origin of Saraïde nothing can here be told with profit and -decorum: here it is enough to say that an ambiguous parentage had -provided this Saraïde with a talisman by which you might know the truth -when truth was found. And one of the many things about Kerin’s wife -which Kerin could not quite understand, was her constant complaining -that she had not found out assuredly the truth about anything, and, in -particular, the truth as to Saraïde. - -“I exist,” she would observe to her husband, “and I am in the main as -other women. Therefore, this Saraïde is very certainly a natural -phenomenon. And in nature everything appears to be intended for this, -that or the other purpose. Indeed, after howsoever hasty consideration -of the young woman known as Saraïde, one inevitably deduces that so much -of loveliness and wit and aspiration, of color and perfume and -tenderness, was not put together haphazardly; and that the compound was -painstakingly designed to serve some purpose or another purpose. It is -about that purpose I want knowledge.” - -And Kerin would reply, “As you like, my dear.” - -So this young Saraïde, whom many called a witch, had sought, night after -night, for the desired knowledge, in widely various surroundings, from -the clergy, from men of business, from poets, and from fiends; and had -wakened in her talisman every color save only that golden shining which -would proclaim her capture of the truth. This clear soft yellow ray, as -she explained to Kerin, would have to be evoked, if ever, in the night -season, because by day its radiance might pass unnoticed and her -perception of the truth be lost. - -Kerin could understand the common-sense of this, at any rate. And so -young Saraïde was unfailingly heartened in all such nocturnal -experiments by the encouragement of her fond husband. - -“And do not be discouraged, wife,” he would exhort her, as he was now -exhorting upon this fine spring evening, “for women and their belongings -are, beyond doubt, of some use or another, which by and by will be -discovered. Meanwhile, my darling, what were you saying there is for -supper? For that at least is a matter of real importance—” - -But Saraïde said only, in that quick, inconsequential childish way of -hers, “O Kerin of my heart, I do so want to know the truth about this, -and about all other matters!” - -“Come, come, Saraïde! let us not despair about the truth, either; for -they tell me that truth lies somewhere at the bottom of a well, and at -virtually the door of our home is a most notable if long dried well. Our -location is thus quite favorable, if we but keep patience. And sooner or -later the truth comes to light, they tell me, also,—out of, it may be, -the darkness of this same abandoned Well of Ogde,—because truth is -mighty and will prevail.” - -“No doubt,” said Saraïde: “but throughout all the long while between now -and then, my Kerin, you will be voicing just such sentiments!” - -“—For truth is stranger than fiction. Yes, and as Lactantius tells us, -truth will sometimes come even out of the devil’s mouth.” - -Saraïde fidgeted. And what now came out of her own angelic mouth was a -yawn. - -“Truth is not easily found,” her Kerin continued. “The truth is hard to -come to: roses and truth have thorns about them.” - -“Perhaps,” said Saraïde. “But against banalities a married woman has no -protection whatever!” - -“Yet truth,” now Kerin went on with his kindly encouragement, “may -languish, but can never perish. Isidore of Seville records the fine -saying that, though malice may darken truth, it cannot put it out.” - -“Husband of mine,” said Saraïde, “sometimes I find your wisdom such that -I wonder how I ever came to marry you!” - -But Kerin waved aside her tribute modestly. “It is merely that I, too, -admire the truth. For truth is the best buckler. Truth never grows old. -Truth, in the words of Tertullian, seeks no corners. Truth makes the -devil blush.” - -“Good Lord!” said Saraïde. And for no reason at all she stamped her -foot. - -“—So everybody, in whatsoever surroundings, ought to be as truthful as I -am now, my pet, in observing that this hour is considerably past our -usual hour for supper, and that I have had rather a hard day of it—” - -But Saraïde had gone from him, as if in meditation, toward the curbing -about the great and bottomless Well of Ogde. “Among these general -observations, about devils and bucklers and supper time, I find only one -which may perhaps be helpful. Truth lies, you tell me, at the bottom of -a well just such as this well.” - -“That is the contention alike of Cleanthes and of Democritos the -derider.” - -“May the truth not lie indeed, then, just as you suggested, at the -bottom of this identical well? For the Zhar-Ptitza alone knows the truth -about all things, and I recall an old legend that the bird who has the -true wisdom used to nest in this part of Poictesme.” - -Kerin looked over the stone ledge about the great and bottomless Well of -Ogde, peering downward as far as might be. “I consider it improbable, -dear wife, that the Zhar-Ptitza, who is everywhere known to be the most -wise and most ancient of birds and of all living creatures, would select -such a cheerless looking hole to live in. Still, you never can tell: the -wise affect profundity; and this well is known to be deep beyond the -knowledge of man. Now nature, as Cicero informs us, _in profundo -veritatem penitus abstruserit_—” - -“Good Lord!” said Saraïde again, but with more emphasis. “Do you slip -down there, then, like a dear fellow, and find the truth for me.” - -Saying this, she clapped both hands to his backside, and she pushed her -husband into the great and bottomless Well of Ogde. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _43._ - _Prayer and the Lizard Maids_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THE unexpectedness of it all, alike of Saraïde’s assault and of the -astonishing discovery that you could fall for hundreds after hundreds of -feet, full upon your head, without getting even a bruise, a little -bewildered Kerin when he first sat up at the bottom of the dry well. He -shouted cheerily, “Wife, wife, I am not hurt a bit!” because the fact -seemed so remarkably fortunate and so unaccountable. - -But at once large stones began to fall everywhere about him, as though -Saraïde upon hearing his voice had begun desperately to heave these -stones into the well. Kerin thought this an inordinate manner of -spurring him onward in the quest of knowledge and truth, because the -habitual impetuosity of Saraïde, when thus expressed with cobblestones, -would infallibly have been his death had he not sought shelter in the -opening he very luckily found to the southwest side. There was really no -understanding these women who married you, Kerin reflected, as after -crawling for a while upon hands and feet, he came to a yet larger -opening, in which he could stand erect. - -But this passage led Kerin presently to an underground lake, which -filled all that part of the cavern, so that he could venture no farther. -Instead, he sat down upon the borders of these gloomy and endless -looking waters. He could see these waters because of the many ignes -fatui, such as are called corpse candles, which flickered and danced -above the dark lake’s surface everywhere. - -Kerin in such dismal circumstances began to pray. He loyally gave -precedence to his own faith, and said, first, all the prayers of his -church that he could remember. He addressed such saints as seemed -appropriate, and when, after the liveliest representation of Kerin’s -plight, sixteen of them had failed, in any visible way to intervene, -then Kerin tried the Angels, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, -Virtues, Powers, Principalities, and Archangels. - -Yet later, when no response whatever was vouchsafed by any member of -this celestial hierarchy, Kerin inferred that he had, no doubt, in -falling so far, descended into heretical regions and into the nefarious -control of unchristian deities. So he now prayed to all the accursed -gods of the heathen that he could remember as being most potent in dark -places. He prayed to Aïdoneus the Laughterless, the Much-Receiving, the -People-Collecting, the Invincible and the Hateful; to the implacable -Kerês, those most dreadful cave-dwellers who are nourished by the blood -of slain warriors; to the gloom-roaming Erinnyes, to the Gray-Maids, to -the Snatchers, and, most fervently, to Korê, that hidden and very lovely -sable-vested Virgin to whom belonged, men said, all the dim underworld. - -But nothing happened. - -Then Kerin tried new targets for his praying. He addressed himself to -Susanoö, that emperor of darkness who was used to beget children by -chewing up a sword and spitting out the pieces; to Ekchuah, the Old -Black One, who at least chewed nothing with his one tooth; to the red -Maruts, patched together from the bits of a shattered divine embryo; to -Onniont, the great, horned, brown and yellow serpent, whose lair might -well be hereabouts; to Tethra, yet another master of underground places; -to Apep also, and to Set, and to Uhat, the Chief of Scorpions; to -Camazotz, the Ruler of Bats; to Fenris, the wolf who waited somewhere in -a cave very like this cave, against the oncoming time when Fenris will -overthrow and devour God the All-Mighty Father; and to Sraosha, who has -charge of all worlds during the night season. - -And still nothing happened: and Kerin could see only endless looking -waters and, above them, those monotonously dancing corpse candles. - -Kerin nevertheless well knew, as a loyal son of the Church, the efficacy -of prayer; and he now began, in consequence, to pray to the corpse -candles, because these might, he reflected, rank as deities in this -peculiarly depressing place. And his comfort was considerable when, -after an ave or two, some of these drifting lights came flitting toward -him; but his surprise was greater when he saw that each of the ignes -fatui was a living creature like a tiny phosphorescent maiden in -everything except that each had the head of a lizard. - -“What is your nature?” Kerin asked, “and what are you doing in this cold -dark place?” - -“Should we answer either of those questions,” one of the small monsters -said, in a shrill little voice, as though a cricket were talking, “it -would be the worse for you.” - -“Then, by all means, do not answer! Instead, do you tell me if knowledge -and truth are to be found hereabouts, for it is of them that I go in -search.” - -“How should we know? It was not in pursuit of these luxuries that we -came hither, very unwillingly.” - -“Then, how does one get out of this place?” - -Now they all twittered together, and they flitted around Kerin with -small squeakings. “One does not get out of this place.” - -Kerin did not cry pettishly, as Saraïde would have done, “Good Lord!” -Instead, he said, “Dear me!” - -“Nor have we any wish to leave this place,” said the small lizard-women. -“These waters hold us here with the dark loveliness of doom; we have -fallen into an abiding hatred of these waters; we may not leave them -because of our fear. It is not possible for any man to imagine the -cruelty of these waters. Therefore we dance above them; and all the -while that we dance we think about warmth and food instead of about -these waters.” - -“And have you no food here nor any warmth, not even brimstone? For I -remember that, up yonder in Poictesme, our priests were used to -threaten—” - -“We do not bother about priests any longer. But a sort of god provides -our appointed food.” - -“Come, come now, that is much better. For, as I was just saying to my -wife, supper is a matter of vital importance, after a rather hard day of -it— But who is this sort of god?” - -“We do not know. We only know that he has nineteen names.” - -“My very dear little ladies,” said Kerin, “your information appears so -limited, and your brightness so entirely physical, that I now hesitate -to ask if you know for what reason somebody is sounding that far-off -gong which I can hear?” - -“That gong means, sir, that our appointed food is ready.” - -“Alas, my friends, but it is quite unbearable,” declared Kerin, “that -food should be upon that side of the dark water, and I, who have had -rather a hard day of it, should be upon this side!” - -“No, no!” they reassured him, “it is not unbearable, for we do not mind -it in the least.” - -Then the squeaking little creatures all went away from Kerin, flitting -and skimming and twinkling over broad waters which seemed repellently -cold and very dreadfully deep. Nevertheless, Kerin, in his -desperation,—now that no god answered his prayer, and even the ignes -fatui had deserted him, and only a great hungering remained with Kerin -in the darkness,—Kerin now arose and went as a diver speeds into those -most unfriendly looking waters. - -The result was surprising and rather painful: for, as Kerin thus -discovered, these waters were not more than two feet in depth. He stood -up, a bit sheepishly, dripping wet, and rubbing his head. Then Kerin -waded onward in a broad shallow puddle about which there was no -conceivable need to bother any god. - -Kerin thus came without any hindrance to dry land, and to a place where -the shining concourse of lizard-women had already begun to nibble and -tug and gulp. But Kerin, after having perceived the nature of their -appointed food, and after having shivered, walked on beyond this place, -toward the light he detected a little above him. - -“For supper,” he observed, “is a matter of vital importance; and it -really is necessary to draw the line somewhere.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _44._ - _Fine Cordiality of Sclaug_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW Kerin seemed in the dark to be mounting a flight of nineteen stairs. -He came thus into a vast gray corridor, inset upon the left side with -nineteen alcoves: each alcove was full of books, and beside each alcove -stood a lighted, rather large candle as thick about as a stallion’s -body. And Kerin’s surprise was great to find, near the first alcove, -that very Sclaug with whom Kerin pleasurably remembered having had so -much chivalrous trouble and such fine combats before, some years ago, -this Sclaug had been killed and painstakingly burned. - -Nevertheless, here was the old yellow gentleman intact and prowling -about restively on all fours, in just the wolflike fashion he had -formerly affected. But after one brief snarl of surprise he stood erect; -and, rubbing together the long thin hands which were webbed between the -fingers like the feet of a frog, Sclaug asked whatever could have -brought Kerin so far down in the world. - -For Kerin this instant was a bit awkward, since he knew not quite what -etiquette ought to govern re-encounters with persons whom you have -killed. Yet Kerin was always as ready as anybody to let bygones be cast -off. So Kerin frankly told his tale. - -Then Sclaug embraced Kerin, and bade him welcome, and Sclaug laughed -with the thin, easy, neighing laughter of the aged. - -“As for what occurred at Lorcha, dear Kerin, do not think of it any more -than I do. It was in some features unpleasant at the time: but, after -all, you burned my body without first driving a stake through my -rebellious and inventive heart, and so since then I have not lacked -amusements. And as for this knowledge and truth of which you go in -search, here is all knowledge, in the books that I keep watch over in -this Naraka,—during the intervals between my little amusements,—for a -sort of god.” - -Kerin scratched among the wiry looking black curls of Kerin’s hair, and -he again glanced up and down the corridor. “There are certainly a great -many of them. But Saraïde desired, I think, all knowledge, so near as I -could understand her.” - -“Let us take things in the order of their difficulty,” replied Sclaug. -“Do you acquire all knowledge first, and hope for understanding later.” - -The courteous old gentleman then provided Kerin with white wine and with -food very gratefully unlike that of the ignes fatui, and Sclaug placed -before Kerin one of the books. - -“Let us eat first,” said Kerin, “for supper, in any event, is a matter -of vital importance, where knowledge and truth may turn out to be only a -womanish whim.” - -He ate. Then Kerin began comfortably to read, after, as he informed -Sclaug, rather a hard day of it. - -Now the book which Kerin had was the book written by the patriarch -Abraham in the seventy-first year of his age: and by and by Kerin looked -up from it, and said, “Already I have learned from this book one thing -which is wholly true.” - -“You progress speedily!” answered Sclaug. “That is very nice.” - -“Well,” Kerin admitted, “such is one way of describing the matter. But -no doubt other things are equally true: and optimism, anyhow, costs -nothing.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _45._ - _The Gander Also Generalizes_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -SO began a snug life for Kerin. The nineteen candles remained always as -he had first seen them, tranquilly lighting the vast windless corridor, -burning, but not ever burning down, nor guttering, nor even needing to -be snuffed: and Kerin worked his way from one candle to another, as -Kerin read each book in every alcove. When Kerin was tired he slept: all -the while that he waked he gave to acquiring knowledge: he had no method -nor any necessity of distinguishing between his daily and his nocturnal -studies. - -Sclaug went out and came back intermittently, bringing food for Kerin. -Sclaug returned as a rule with blood upon his lips and chin. When Sclaug -was away, Kerin had to make the best—a poor best,—of the company of the -garrulous large gander which lived in the brown cage. - -Then, also, unusual creatures, many of them not unlike men and women, -would come sometimes, during these absences of Sclaug,—whom, for some -reason or another, they seemed to dislike,—and they invoked the gander, -and paid his price, and ceremonies would ensue. Ever-busy Kerin could -not, of course, spare from his reading much time to notice these -ornithomantic and probably pagan rites. Yet he endured such -interruptions philosophically; because, at least, he reflected, they put -an end for that while to the gander’s perilously sweet and most -distracting singing. - -And several years thus passed; and Kerin had no worries in any manner to -interrupt him except the gander. That inconsiderate bird insisted upon -singing, with a foolish, damnable sort of charm: and so, was continually -checking Kerin’s pursuit of knowledge, with anserine rhapsodies about -beauty and mystery and holiness and heroism and immortality, and about a -variety of other unscientific matters. - -“For life is very marvelous,” this gander was prone to remark, “and to -the wonders of earth there is no end appointed.” - -“Well, I would not say that, precisely,” Kerin would reply, -good-temperedly looking up for the while from his book, “because geology -has made great progress of late. And so, Messire Gander, I would not say -quite that. Rather, I would say that Earth is a planet infested with the -fauna best suited to survive in this particular stage of the planet’s -existence. In any case, I finished long ago with earth, and with all -ordinary terrestrial phenomena, such as earthquakes, and the formation -of continents, and elevation of islands, and with stars and meteorics -and with cosmography in general.” - -“—And of all creatures man is the most miraculous—” - -“The study of anthropology is of course important. So I have learned too -about man, his birth and organization, his invention and practice of the -arts, his polities at large, and about the sidereal influences which -control the horoscope and actions of each person as an individual.” - -“—A child of god, a brother to the beasts—!” - -“Well, now, I question too the scientific value of zoömorphism: yet the -facts about beasts, I admit, are interesting. For example, there are two -kinds of camels; the age of the stag can be told by inspection of his -horns; the period of gestation among sheep is one hundred and fifty -days; and in the tail of the wolf is a small lock of hair which is a -supreme love charm.” - -“You catalogue, poor Kerin,” said the gander; “you collect your bits of -knowledge as a magpie gathers shining pebbles; you toil through one book -to another book as methodically as a worm gnaws out the same advance: -but you learn nothing, in the wasted while that your youth goes.” - -“To the contrary, I am at this very moment learning,” replied Kerin. “I -am learning about the different kinds of stone and marble, including -lime and sand and gypsum. I am learning that the artists who excelled in -sculpture were Phidias, Scopas and Praxiteles. The last-named, I have -just learned also, left a son called Cephisodotos, who inherited much of -his father’s talent, and made a notably fine Group of Wrestlers.” - -“You and your wrestlers,” said the gander, “are profoundly absurd! But -time is the king of wrestlers; and he already prepares to try a fall -with you.” - -“Now, indeed, those Wrestlers were not absurd,” replied Kerin. “And the -proof of it is that they were for a long while the particular glory of -Pergamos.” - -At that the gander seemed to give him up, saying, after a little -hissing: “Very well, then, do you catalogue your facts about Pergamos -and stag-horns and planets! But I shall sing.” - -Kerin now for a while regarded his fellow prisoner with a trace of mild -disapproval. And Kerin said: - -“Yet I catalogue verities which are well proven and assured. But you, -who live in a brown cage that is buried deep in this gray and lonely -corridor, you can have no first-hand information as to beauty and -mystery and holiness and heroism and immortality, you encourage people -in a business of which you are ignorant, and you sing about ardors and -raptures and, above all, about a future of which you can know nothing. - -“That may very well be just why I sing of these things so movingly. And -in any event, I do not seek to copy nature. I, on the contrary, create -to divert me such faith and dreams as living among men would tend to -destroy. But as it is, my worshipers depart from me drunk with my very -potent music; they tread high-heartedly, in this gray corridor, and they -are devoid of fear and parvanimity; for the effect of my singing, like -that of all great singing, is to fill my hearers with a sentiment of -their importance as moral beings and of the greatness of their -destinies.” - -“Oh, but,” said Kerin, “but I finished long ago with the various schools -of morals, and I am now, as I told you, well forward in petrology. Nor -shall I desist from learning until I have come by all knowledge and all -truth which can content my Saraïde. And she, Messire Gander, is a -remarkably clear-sighted young woman, to whom the romantic illusions -which you provide could be of no least importance.” - -“Nothing,” returned the gander, “nothing in the universe, is of -importance, or is authentic to any serious sense, except the illusions -of romance. For man alone of animals plays the ape to his dreams. These -axioms—poor, deaf and blinded spendthrift!—are none the less valuable -for being quoted.” - -“Nor are they, I suspect,” replied Kerin, “any the less generally quoted -for being bosh.” - -With that he returned to his books; and the gander resumed its singing. - -And many more years thus passed: overhead, the legend of Manuel had come -into being and was flourishing, and before its increase the brawling -bleak rough joyous times which Kerin had known, were, howsoever slowly, -passing away from Poictesme, not ever to return. Overhead, Count -Emmerick was ruling—inefficiently enough, but at least with a marked -bent toward the justice and mercy and kindliness imposed upon him by the -legend,—where Dom Manuel had ruled according to his own will alone. -Overhead, Dame Niafer and Holmendis were building everywhere their -shrines and convents and hospitals; and were now beginning, a little by -a little, to persecute, with the saint’s rather ruthless -miracle-working, the fairies and the demons and all other unorthodox -spirits aboriginal to this land; and were beginning, too, to extirpate -the human heretics who here and there had showed such a lack of -patriotism and of religious faith as to question the legend of Manuel -and the transcending future of Poictesme. - -The need of doing this was a grief to Niafer and Holmendis, as well as a -troubling tax upon their hours of leisure: but, nevertheless, as -clear-headed philanthropists, they here faced honestly the requirements -of honest faith in any as yet revealed religion,—by which all -unbelievers must be regarded as lost in any event, and cannot be -permitted to continue in life except as a source of yet other immortal -souls’ pollution and ruin. - -Meanwhile the gander also exalted the illusions of romance: and Kerin -read. His eyes journeyed over millions upon millions of pages in the -while that Kerin sat snug: and except for the gander’s perilously sweet -and most distracting singing, Kerin had no worries in any manner to -interrupt him, and no bothers whatever, save only the increasing -infirmities of his age. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _46._ - _Kerin Rises in the World_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THEN old Sclaug said to Kerin, who now seemed so much older than Sclaug -seemed: “It is time for you and me to cry quits with studying: for you -have worked your way as a worm goes through every alcove in this place, -you have read every book that was ever written; and I have seen that -vigor which destroyed me destroyed. I go into another Naraka: and you -must now return, omniscient Kerin, into the world of men.” - -“That is well,” said Kerin, “because, after all, I have been away from -home a long while. Yes, that is well enough, although I shall regret to -leave the books of that god of whom you told me,—and whom, by the way, I -have not yet seen.” - -“I said, of a sort of god. He is not worshiped, I must tell you, by the -very learned nor by the dull. However!” Sclaug said, after a tiny -silence, “however, I was wondering if you have found in these books the -knowledge you were looking for?” - -“I suppose so,” Kerin answered, “because I have acquired all knowledge.” - -“And have you found out also the truth?” - -“Oh, yes!” said Kerin, speaking now without hesitancy. - -Kerin took down from its place the very first book which Sclaug had -given him to read, when Kerin was yet young, the book which had been -written—upon leaves of tree bark, with the assistance of a divine -collaborator,—by the patriarch Abraham when an horror of great darkness -fell upon him in the plain of Mamrê. This book explained the wisdom of -the temple, the various master-words of chance, the seven ways of -thwarting destiny, and one thing which is wholly true. And Kerin half -opened this book, at the picture of an old naked eunuch who with a -scythe was hacking off the feet of a naked youth gashed everywhere with -many small wounds; then turned to a picture of a serpent crucified; and, -shrugging, put by the book. - -“—For it appears,” said Kerin, “that, after all, only one thing is -wholly true. I have found nowhere any other truth: and this one truth, -revealed to us here, is a truth which nobody will blame the patriarch -for omitting from his more widely circulated works. Nevertheless, I have -copied out every word of it, upon this bit of paper, to show to and make -glad the dear bright eyes of my young wife.” - -But Sclaug replied, without looking at the proffered paper, “The truth -does not matter to the dead, who have done with all endeavor, and who -can change nothing.” - -Then he told Kerin good-by; and Kerin opened the door out of which -Sclaug was used to go in search of Sclaug’s little amusements. When -Kerin had passed through this door he drew it to behind him: and in that -instant the door vanished, and Kerin stood alone in a dim winter-wasted -field, fingering no longer a copper door-knob but only the chill air. - -Leafless elder-trees rose about him, not twenty paces before Kerin was -the Well of Ogde: and beyond its dilapidated curbing, a good half of -which somebody had heaved down into the well, he saw, through wintry -twilight, the gray eight-sided house in which he had been used to live -with the young Saraïde whom many called a witch. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _47._ - _Economics of Saraïde_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -KERIN went forward, beneath naked elder boughs, toward his dear home; -and he saw coming out of the door of the gray house the appearance of a -man who vaguely passed to the right hand of Kerin in the twilight. But a -woman’s figure waited at the door; and Kerin, still going onward, came -thus, in the November twilight, again to Saraïde. - -“Who is that man?” said Kerin, first of all. “And what is he doing -here?” - -“Does that matter?” Saraïde answered him, without any outcry or other -sign of surprise. - -“Yes, I think it matters that a naked man with a red shining about his -body should be seen leaving here at this hour, in the dead of winter, -for it is a thing to provoke great scandal.” - -“But nobody has seen him, Kerin, except my husband. And certainly my own -husband would not stir up any scandal about me.” - -Kerin scratched his white head. “Yes, that,” said Kerin, “that seems -reasonable, according to the best of my knowledge. And the word -‘knowledge’ reminds me, Saraïde, that you sent me in search of knowledge -as to why life is given to human beings, so that you might in the light -of this knowledge appropriately dispose of your youth. Well, I have -solved your problem, and the answer is, Nobody knows. For I have -acquired all knowledge. All that any man has ever known, I am now -familiar with, from the medicinal properties of the bark aabec to the -habits of the dragonfly called zyxomma: but no man, I find, has ever -known for what purpose life was given him, nor what ends he may either -help or hinder in any of his flounderings about earth and water.” - -“I remember,” Saraïde said now, as if in a faint wonder. “I wanted, -once, when I was young and when the eye of no man went over me without -lingering, then I wanted to know the truth about everything. Yet the -truth does not really matter to the young, who are happy; and who in any -case have not the shrewdness nor the power to change anything: and it -all seems strange and unimportant now. For you have been a long time -gone, my Kerin, and I have lived through many years, with many and many -a companion, in the great while that you have been down yonder getting -so much knowledge from the bird who has the true wisdom.” - -“Of whatever bird can you be talking?” said Kerin, puzzled. “Oh, yes, -now I also remember! But, no, there is nothing in that old story, my -darling, and there is no Zhar-Ptitza in the Well of Ogde. Instead, there -is a particularly fine historical and scientific library: and from it I -have acquired all knowledge, and have thus happily solved your problem. -Nor is that the end of the tale: for you wanted not merely knowledge but -truth also, and in consequence I have found out for you the one thing -which—according to Abraham’s divine collaborator, in a moment of -remarkable and, I suppose, praiseworthy candor,—is wholly true. And that -truth I have neatly copied out for you upon this bit of paper—” - -But there was really no understanding these women who despatched you -upon hazardous and quite lengthy quests. For Saraïde had interrupted him -without the least sign of such delight and satisfaction, or even of -pride in her husband’s exploits, as would have seemed only natural. And -Saraïde said: - -“The truth does not matter to the aged. Of what good is the truth to you -or to me either, now that all the years of our youth are gone, and -nothing in our living can be changed?” - -“Well, well!” observed Kerin, comfortably, and passing over her defects -in appreciation, “so the most of our lifetime has slipped by since I -slipped over that well-curbing! But how time flies, to be sure! Did you -say anything, my dear?” - -“I groaned,” replied Saraïde, “to have you back again with your frayed -tags of speech and the desolation of your platitudes: but that does not -matter either.” - -“No, of course not: for all is well, as they say, that ends well. So out -with your talisman, and let us quicken the golden shining which will -attest the truth I have fetched back to you!” - -She answered rather moodily: “I have not that talisman any longer. A man -wanted it. And I gave it to him.” - -“Since generosity is a virtue, I have no doubt that you did well. But to -what man, Saraïde, did you give the jewel that in youth you thought was -priceless?” - -“Does that matter, now? and, indeed, how should I remember? There have -been so many men, my Kerin, in the tumultuous and merry years that are -gone by forever. And all of them—” Here Saraïde breathed deeply. “Oh, -but I loved them, my Kerin!” - -“It is our Christian duty to love our neighbors. So I do not doubt that, -here again, you have done well. Still, one discriminates, one is guided, -even in philanthropy, by instinctive preferences. And therefore I am -wondering for what especial reason, Saraïde, did you love these -particular persons?” - -“They were so beautiful,” she said, “so young, so confident in what was -to be, and so pitiable! And now some of them are gone away into the -far-off parts of earth, and some of them are gone down under the earth -in their black narrow coffins, and the husks of those that remain -hereabouts are strange and staid and withered and do not matter any -longer. Life is a pageant that passes very quickly, going hastily from -one darkness to another darkness with only ignes fatui to guide; and -there is no sense in it. I learned that, Kerin, without moiling over -books. But life is a fine ardent spectacle; and I have loved the actors -in it: and I have loved their youth and their high-heartedness, and -their ungrounded faiths, and their queer dreams, my Kerin, about their -own importance and about the greatness of the destiny that awaited -them,—while you were piddling after, of all things, the truth!” - -“Still, if you will remember, my darling, it was you yourself who said, -as you no doubt recall, just as you shoved me—” - -“Well! I say now that I have loved too utterly these irrational fine -things to have the heart, even now, to disbelieve in them, entirely: and -I am content.” - -“Yes, yes, my dear, we two may both well be content. For we at last can -settle down and live serenely in this place, without undue indulgence in -philanthropy; and we two alone will know the one truth which is wholly -true.” - -“Good Lord!” said Saraïde; and added, incoherently, “But you were always -like that!” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _48._ - _The Golden Shining_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THEY went then, silently, from the twilight into the darkness of the -house which had been their shared home in youth, and in which now there -was no youth and no sound and no assured light anywhere. Yet a glow of -pallidly veiled embers, not quite extinct where all else seemed dead, -showed where the hearth would be. And Saraïde said: - -“It is droll that we have not yet seen each other’s faces! Give me your -foolish paper, Kerin of my heart, that I may put it to some use and -light this lamp.” - -Kerin, a bit disconsolately, obeyed: and Saraïde touched the low red -embers with the paper which told about the one thing which is wholly -true. The paper blazed. Kerin saw thus speedily wasted the fruit of -Kerin’s long endeavor. Saraïde had lighted her lamp. The lamp cast -everywhither now a golden shining: and in its clear soft yellow -radiancy, Saraïde was putting fresh wood upon the fire, and making tidy -her hearth. - -After that necessary bit of housework she turned to her husband, and -they looked at each other for the first time since both were young. -Kerin saw a bent, dapper, not unkindly witch-woman peering up at him, -with shrewd eyes, over the handle of her broom. But through the burning -of that paper, as Kerin saw also, their small eight-sided home had -become snug and warm and cozy looking, it even had an air of durability: -and Kerin laughed, with the thin, easy, neighing laughter of the aged. - -For, after all, he reflected, it could benefit nobody ever to -recognize—either in youth or in gray age or after death—that time, like -an old envious eunuch, must endlessly deface and maim, and make an end -of, whatever anywhere was young and strong and beautiful, or even cozy; -and that such was the one truth which had ever been revealed to any man, -assuredly. Saraïde, for that matter, seemed to have found out for -herself, somewhere in philanthropic fields, the one thing which was -wholly true; and she seemed, also, to prefer to ignore it, in favor of -life’s unimportant, superficial, familiar tasks.... Well, and Saraïde, -as usual, was in the right! It was the summit of actual wisdom to treat -the one thing which was wholly true as if it were not true at all. For -the truth was discomposing, and without remedy, and was too chillingly -strange ever to be really faced: meanwhile, in the familiar and the -superficial, and in temperate bodily pleasures, one found a certain -cheerfulness.... - -He temperately kissed his wife, and he temperately inquired, “My -darling, what is there for supper?” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _49._ - _They of Nointel_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THUS, then, it was that, in the November following Guivric’s encounter -with the Sylan, Kerin of Nointel came back into Poictesme, to become yet -another convert to the great legend of Manuel. - -Kerin was converted almost instantaneously. For when the news of Kerin’s -return was public, Holmendis soon came that way, performing very -devastating miracles en route among the various evil and ambiguous -spirits which yet lurked in the rural districts of Poictesme. The saint -was now without any mercy imprisoning all such detected immortals right -and left, in tree-trunks and dry wells and consecrated bottles, and -condemning them in such exiguous sad quarters to await the holy Morrow -of Judgment. With Holmendis, as his coadjutor in these praiseworthy -labors, traveled the appearance of Guivric the Sage. - -And when St. Holmendis and Glaum-Without-Bones (in Guivric’s stolen -body) had talked to Kerin of Nointel about the great cult of Manuel the -Redeemer which had sprung up during Kerin’s pursuit of knowledge -underground, and had showed him the holy sepulchre at Storisende and -Manuel’s bright jewel-encrusted effigy, and had told about Manuel’s -ascent into heaven, then old Kerin only blinked, with mild, considerate, -tired eyes. - -“It is very likely,” Kerin said, “since it was Manuel who gave to us of -Poictesme our law that all things must go by tens forever.” - -“Now, what,” said Glaum, in open but wholly amiable surprise, “has that -to do with it?” - -“I have learned that a number of other persons have entered alive into -heaven. I allude of course to Enoch, whose smell the cherubim found so -objectionable that they recoiled from him a distance of five thousand, -three hundred and eighty miles. I allude also to Elijah; to Eliezer, the -servant of Abraham; to Hiram, King of Tyre; to Ebed Melek the Ethiop; to -Jabez, the son of Prince Jehuda; to Bathia, the daughter of a Pharaoh; -to Sarah, the daughter of Asher; and to Yoshua, the son of Levi, who did -not go in by the gateway, but climbed over the wall. And I consider it -quite likely that Dom Manuel would elect to make of this company, as he -did of everything else, a tenth.” - -Thereafter Holmendis said, rather dubiously, “Well—!” And Holmendis -talked again of Manuel.... - -“That too seems likely enough,” Kerin agreed. “I have learned that these -messengers from the gods to our race upon earth are sent with -commendable regularity every six hundred years. The Enoch of whom I was -speaking but a moment since was the first of them, in the six-hundredth -year after Adam. Then, as the happy upshot of a love affair between a -Mongolian empress and a rainbow, came into this world Fo-hi, six hundred -years after Enoch’s living; and six hundred years after the days of -Fo-hi was Brighou sent to the Hindoos. At the same interval of time or -thereabouts have since come Zoroaster to the Persians, and Thoth the -Thrice Powerful to the Egyptians, and Moses to the Jews, and Lao Tseu to -the men of China, and Paul of Tarsus to the Gentiles, and Mohammed to -the men of Islam. Mohammed flourished just six hundred years before our -Manuel. Yes, Messire Holmendis, it seems likely enough that, here too, -Manuel would elect to make a tenth.” - -Then pious gentle old Glaum-Without-Bones began to speak with joy and -loving reverence about the glories of Manuel’s second coming.... - -“No doubt, dear Guivric: for I have learned that all the great captains -are coming again,” said Kerin, almost wearily. “There is Arthur, there -is Ogier, there is Charlemagne, there is Barbarossa, there is Finn, the -son of Cumhal,—there is in every land, in fine, a foreknowledge of that -hero who will return at his appointed time and bring with him all glory -and prosperity. Prince Siddartha also is to return, and Saoshyant, and -Alexander of Macedon, and Satan too, for that matter, is expected to -return, for his last fling, a little before the holy Morrow of Judgment. -Here again, therefore, I consider it quite likely that Dom Manuel may -elect to make a tenth.” - -In short, the old fellow took Poictesme’s epiphany almost too calmly.... -Glaum was satisfied, on the ground that a conversion was a conversion, -and an outing for all the angels in heaven. But it was apparent that -Holy Holmendis did not quite like the posture of affairs.... You could -not, of course, detect in this incurious receptiveness any skepticism; -nor could a person who went ten times too far in the way of faith be, -very rationally, termed an unbeliever. It was, rather, as if Kerin -viewed the truth without joy: it was as if Kerin had, somehow, become -over-familiar with the sublime truths about Manuel the Redeemer some -while before he heard them; and so, was hearing them, now at long last, -without the appropriate upliftedness and flow of spirits. Kerin merely -accepted these tremendous truths; and seemed upon the whole to be more -interested in life’s unimportant, superficial, familiar tasks, and in -his food. - -Holmendis must have felt that the desiderata here were intangible. In -any event, he shook his aureoled head; and, speaking in the tongue of -his native Philistia, he said something to Glaum-Without-Bones—which -Glaum could not at all understand,—about “the intelligentsia, -so-called.” But Holmendis did not resort to any dreadful miracle by -which old Kerin might have been appalled into a more proper excitement -and joyousness.... - -Yet it was a very unbounded joy, and a joy indeed at which all beholders -wondered, to Kerin of Nointel, when he saw and embraced the fine son, -named Fauxpas, who had been born to Saraïde during the fifth year of -Kerin’s studies underground. For Kerin’s studies had informed him that -such remarkably prolonged gestations are the infallible heralds of one -or another form of greatness,—a fact evinced by the birth of Osiris and -of several other gods and of all elephants,—and he deduced that his son -would in some way or another rise to worldly preëminence. - -And that inference proved to be reasonably true, since it was this -Fauxpas de Nointel who led Count Emmerick’s troops for him in the evil -days of Maugis d’Aigremont’s rebellion, and held Poictesme for Manuel’s -son until aid came from the Comte de la Fôret. For twelve years at least -this son of Kerin was thus preëminent among most of his associates, and -twelve years is a reasonable slice out of any man’s life. And the eldest -son of Fauxpas de Nointel was that Ralph who married Madame Adelaide, -the daughter of the Comte de la Fôret, and the granddaughter of Dom -Manuel, and who builded at Nointel the great castle with seven towers -which still endures. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK EIGHT - - THE CANDID FOOTPRINT - - “_They have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed._” - —PSALMS, lxxxix, 51. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _50._ - _Indiscretion of a Bailiff_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the tale tells that upon the day of the birth of the first son -begotten by Count Emmerick, in lawful marriage and with the aid of his -own wife Radegonde, there was such a drinking of healths and toasts as -never before was known at Storisende. The tale speaks of a most notable -banquet, at which twelve dishes were served to every two persons, with a -great plenty of the best wine and beer. In the minstrels’ gallery were -fiddlers, trumpeters and drummers, those who tossed tambourines, and -those who played upon the flute. Ten poets discoursed meanwhile of the -feats of Dom Manuel, and presented in even livelier colors the impendent -achievements of the Redeemer’s second coming into Poictesme with a -ferocious heavenly cortège. And meanwhile also the company drank, and -the intoxication of verse was abetted with red wine and white. - -Since the poems were rather long, all this resulted in an entertainment -from which the High Bailiff of Upper Ardra went homeward hiccoughing and -even more than usually benevolent, and without any consciousness of that -misstep which had imperiled his continued stay on earth. - -For Ninzian of Yair and Upper Ardra had not wholly broken with the -heroic cenatory ways of the years wherein Dom Manuel ruled over -Poictesme. This seemed the more regrettable because Ninzian, always a -pious and philanthropic person, had otherwise become with age -appropriately staid. He in theory approved of every one of the reforms -enacted everywhere by the Countess Niafer, and confirmed by the Countess -Radegonde; and, in practice, Ninzian was of course a staunch supporter -of his revered and intimate associate, St. Holmendis, in all the -salutary crusades against elves and satyrs and trolls and other -uncanonical survivals from unorthodox mythologies, and against the -free-thinking of persons who questioned the legend of Manuel, and in the -holy man’s hunting down of such demons and stringing up of such -heretics, and in all other devout labors. But there, nevertheless, was -no disputing that the benevolent and florid bailiff of Upper Ardra had -kept a taint of the robustious social customs of Dom Manuel’s worldly -heyday. - -It followed that Ninzian evaded none of the toasts at Count Emmerick’s -banquet and left no friend unpledged. Instead, sleek Ninzian drank the -wines of Orléans, of Anjou and of Burgundy; of Auxerre and Beaune, and -of St. Jean and St. Porçain. He drank Malvoisin, and Montrose, and -Vernage, and Runey. He drank the wines of Greece, both Patras and -Farnese; he drank spiced beers; he drank muscatel; and he drank -hypocras. He did not ignore the cider nor the pear cider; to the sweet -white sparkling wine of Volnay he confessed, and he exhibited, an -especial predilection; and he drank copiously, also, of the Alsatian -sherry and of the Hungarian tokay. - -Thereafter Ninzian went homeward with a pleasurable at-randomness, for -which—in a so liberal contributor to every pious cause and -persecution,—appropriate allowances were made by St. Holmendis and -everybody else except one person only. Ninzian was married. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _51._ - _The Queer Bird_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THE next evening Ninzian and his wife were walking in the garden. They -were a handsome couple, and the high-hearted love that had been between -them in their youth was a tale which many poets had embroidered. It was -an affection, too, which had survived its consummation with so slight -impairment that Ninzian during the long while since he had promised -eternal fidelity was not known to have begotten but one by-blow. Even -that, as he was careful to explain, was by way of charity: for -well-thought-of rich old Pettipas, the pawnbroker at Beauvillage, had -lived childlessly with his buxom young second wife for nearly three -years before Ninzian, in odd moments, provided this deserving couple -with a young heiress. - -But in the main Ninzian preferred his own lean and pietistic wife above -all other women, even so long after he had won her in the heyday of -their adventurous youth. Now they who were in the evening of life were -lighted by a golden sunset as they went upon a flagged walkway, made of -white and blue stones; and to either side were the small glossy leaves -and the crimson flowering of well-tended rose-bushes. They waited thus -for Holy Holmendis, their fellow laborer in multifarious forms of church -work and social betterment, for the saint had promised to have supper -with them. And Balthis (for that was the name of Ninzian’s wife) said, -“Look, my dear, and tell me what is that?” - -Ninzian inspected the flower-bed by the side of the walkway, and he -replied, “My darling, it appears to be the track of a bird.” - -“But surely there is in Poictesme no fowl with a foot so huge!” - -“No. But many migratory monsters pass by in the night, on their way -north, at this time of year: and, clearly, one of some rare species has -paused here to rest. However, as I was telling you, my pet, we have now -in hand—” - -“Why, but think of it, Ninzian! The print is as big as a man’s foot!” - -“Come, precious, you exaggerate! It is the track of a largish bird,—an -eagle, or perhaps a roc, or, it may be, the Zhar-Ptitza paused here,—but -it is nothing remarkable. Besides, as I was telling you, we have already -in hand, for the edifying of the faithful, a bit of Mary Magdalene’s -haircloth, the left ring-finger of John the Baptist, a suit of Dom -Manuel’s underclothes, and one of the smaller stones with which St. -Stephen was martyred—” - -But Balthis, he saw now, was determined not to go on in talk about the -church which Ninzian had builded in honor of Manuel the Redeemer, and -which Ninzian was stocking with very holy relics. Instead, she asserted -with deliberation, “Ninzian, I think it is fully as big as a man’s -foot.” - -“Well, be it as you like, my pet!” - -“But I will not be put off in that way! Do you tread beside it in the -flower-bed there, and, by comparing the print of your foot with the bird -track, we shall easily see which is the larger.” - -Ninzian was not so ruddy as he had been. Yet he said with dignity, and -lightly enough, he hoped: - -“Balthis, you are unreasonable. I do not intend to get my sandals all -over mud to settle any such foolish point. The track is just the size of -a man’s foot, or it is much larger than a man’s foot, or it is smaller -than a man’s foot,—it is, in fine, of any size which you prefer. And we -will let that be the end of it.” - -“So, Ninzian, you will not tread in that new-digged earth?” said -Balthis, queerly. - -“Of course I will not ruin my second-best sandals for any such foolish -reason!” - -“You trod there yesterday in your very best sandals, Ninzian, for the -reason that you were tipsy. I saw the print you made there, in broad -daylight, Ninzian, when you had just come from drinking with a blessed -saint himself, and were reeling all over the neat ways of my garden. -Ninzian, it is a fearful thing to know that when your husband walks in -mud he leaves tracks like a bird.” - -Now Ninzian was truly penitent for yesterday’s over-indulgence. And -Ninzian said: - -“So, you have discovered this foible of mine, after all my carefulness! -That is a great pity.” - -Balthis replied, with the cold non-committalness of wives, “Pity or no, -you will now have to tell me the truth about it.” - -That task did, in point of fact, seem so appallingly unavoidable that -Ninzian settled down to it, with such airiness as would have warned any -wife in the world exactly how far to trust him. - -“Well, my darling, you must know that when I first came into Poictesme, -I came rather unwillingly. Our friend St. Holmendis, I need not tell -you, was, even in the time of Dom Manuel’s incarnation in frail human -flesh, setting such a very high moral tone hereabouts, and the holy man -is so impetuous with his miracles when anybody differs with him on -religious matters, that the prospect was not alluring. But it was -necessary that my prince should have some representative here, as in all -other places. So I came, from—well, from down yonder—” - -“I know you came from the South, Ninzian! Everybody knows that. But that -appears to me no excuse whatever for walking like a bird.” - -“As if, my dearest, it could give me any pleasure to walk like a bird, -or like a whole covey of birds! To the contrary, I have always found -this small accomplishment in doubtful taste, it exposes one to continual -comment. But very long ago those who had served my prince with especial -distinction were all put upon this footing, in order that true demerit -might be encouraged, and that fine sportsmanship might be preserved, and -so that, also, our adversaries in the great game might be detecting us.” - -Now Balthis fixed on him wide, scornful, terrible eyes. After a -breathless while she said: - -“Ninzian, I understand. You are an evil spirit, and you came out of hell -in the appearance of a man to work wickedness in Poictesme!” - -And his Balthis, as he saw with a pang of wild regret, was horribly -upset and grieved to know the thing which her husband had so long hid -away from her; and Ninzian began to feel rather ashamed of not having -trusted her with this secret, now it was discovered. At all events, he -would try what being reasonable might do. - -“Darling,” said he, with patient rationality, “no sensible wife will -ever pry into what her husband may have been or done before she married -him. Her concern is merely with his misdemeanors after that ceremony; -and, I think, you have had no heavy reason to complain. Nobody can for -one moment assert that in Poictesme I have not led an appallingly -upright and immaculate existence.” - -She said, indignantly: “You had fear of Holmendis! You came all this -long way to do your devil work, and then had not the pluck to face him!” - -Ninzian found this just near enough the truth to be irritating. So he -spoke now with airy condescension. - -“Precious, it is true the lean man can work miracles, but then, without -desiring to appear boastful, I must tell you that I have mastery of a -more venerable and blacker magic. Oh, I assure you, he could not have -exorcised or excommunicated or tried any other of his sacerdotal -trick-work upon me without sweating for it! Still, it seemed better to -avoid such painful scenes: for when one has trouble with these saints -the supporters of both sides are apt to intervene; the skies are -blackened and the earth shakes, and whirlwinds and meteors and -thunderbolts and seraphim upset things generally: and it all seems -rather boisterous and old-fashioned. So it really did appear more -sensible, and in better taste, to respect, at all events during his -lifetime, the well-meaning creature’s religious convictions—in which you -share, I know, my pet,—and, well!” said Ninzian, with a shrug, “to -temporize! to keep matters comfortable all around, you understand, my -darling, by evincing a suitable interest in church work and in whatever -else appeared expected of the reputable in my surroundings.” - -But Balthis was not to be soothed. “Ninzian, this is a terrible thing -for me to be learning! There was never a husband who better knew his -place, and the only baby you ever upset me with is at the pawnbroker’s, -and Holy Church has not ever had a more loyal servitor—” - -“No,” Ninzian said, quietly. - -“—But you have been a hideous demon in deep hell, and the man that I -have loved is a false seeming, and the moment St. Holmendis ascends to -bliss you mean to go on with your foul iniquities. That is foolish of -you, because of course I would never permit it. But, even so—! Oh, -Ninzian, my faith and my happiness are buried now in the one grave, now -that all ends between us!” - -Ninzian asked, still very quietly: “And do you think I will leave you, -my Balthis, because of some disarranged fresh earth? Could any handful -of dirt have parted us when because of my great love for you I fought -the seven knights at Évre—” - -“What chance had the poor fellows against a devil!” - -“It is the principle of the thing, my darling,—as well as the -mathematics. Also, as I was going on to observe, you would never have -been flinging mud in my face when for your sake I overthrew Duke Oribert -and his deplorable custom of the cat and the serpent, and cast the -Spotted Dun of Lorcha down from a high hill.” - -She answered without pity: “You will be lucky to get out of this mud -with a whole skin. For it is on this evening of the month that St. -Holmendis hears my confession, and I must confess everything, and you -know as well as I do of his devastating miracles.” - -Ninzian, having thus failed in his appeal to the better qualities of his -wife, forthwith returned to soliciting her powers of reason. - -“Balthis, my sweet, now, after all, what complaint have you against me? -You cannot help feeling that the no doubt ill-advised rebellion in which -I was concerned in youth, unarithmeticable æons before this Earth was -thought of, took place quite long enough ago to be forgotten. Besides, -you know by experience that I am only too easily guided by others, that -I have never learned, as you so eloquently phrase it, to have any -backbone. And I do not really see, either, how you can want to punish me -to-day for iniquities which, you grant, I have not ever committed, -but—so you assume, without any warrant known to me—have just vaguely -thought of committing by and by, and it may be, not for years to come—my -adorable pouting darling—because this stringy Holmendis seems tough as -whit-leather—” - -Ninzian’s stammered talking died away. He saw there was no moving her. - -“No, Ninzian, I simply cannot stand having a husband who walks like a -bird, and is liable to be detected the next time it rains. It would be -on my mind day and night, and people would say all sorts of things. No, -Ninzian, it is quite out of the question. I will get your things -together at once, and you can go to hell or over to that giggling -ill-bred friend of yours at the pawnbroker’s nasty shop, just as you -elect: and I leave it to your conscience if, after the way I have worked -and slaved for you, you had the right to play this wrong and treachery -upon me.” - -And Balthis said also: “For it is a great wrong and treachery which you -have played upon me, Ninzian of Yair, getting from me such love as men -will not find the equal of in any of the noble places of this world -until the end of life and time. This is a deep wound that you have given -me. Upon your lips were wisdom and pleasant talking, there was -kindliness in the gray eyes of Ninzian of Yair, your hands were strong -at sword-play, and you were the most generous of companions all through -the daytime and in the nighttime too. These things I delighted in, these -things I regarded: I did not think of the low mire, I could not see what -horrible markings your passing by had left to this side and to that -side.” - -Then Balthis said: “Let every woman weep with me, for I now know that to -every woman’s loving is this end appointed. There is no woman that gives -all to any man, but that woman is wasting her substance at bed and board -with a greedy stranger, and there is no wife who escapes the bitter hour -in which that knowledge smites her. So now let us touch hands, and now -let our lips too part friendlily, because our bodies have so long been -friends, the while that we knew nothing of each other, Ninzian of Yair, -on account of the great wrong and treachery which you have played upon -me.” - -Thus speaking, Balthis kissed him. Then she went into the house that was -no longer Ninzian’s home. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _52._ - _Remorse of a Poor Devil_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NINZIAN sat on a stone bench which was carved at each end with a -crouching sphinx, and he waited there while the sunlight died away -behind the poplars. The moment could not but seem to anybody pregnant -with all danger. Holmendis was coming, and Holmendis would very soon be -hearing the confession of Balthis, and these saints were over-often the -prey of an excitability which damaged their cause. - -That impetuous Holmendis was quite as apt as not to resort out of hand -to unbridled miracle-working, and with the fires of Heaven to annihilate -his leading fellow laborer in every exercise of altruistic -intermeddling,—without pausing, rationally, to reflect what an -annihilation the resultant scandal would be to Holmendis’ own party of -reform and uplift. Holmendis would no doubt be sorry afterward: but he -would get no sympathy from Ninzian. - -And, meanwhile, Ninzian loved his wife so greatly that prolonged -existence without her did not tempt him. His wife, whoever she might be, -had always seemed peculiarly dear to Ninzian. And now, as he looked back -upon the exceeding love which he had borne his wife, in Nineveh and -Thebes and Tyre and Babylon and Rome and Byzantium, and in all other -cities that bred fine women, and as he weighed the evanescence of this -love which was evading him after these few thousand years, it seemed to -Ninzian a pitiable thing that his season of earthly contentment should -thus be cut off in its flower and withered untimelily. - -And his conscience troubled him, too. For the fiend had not been -entirely candid with his Balthis, and Poictesme was not by any means the -stage of the complaisant easy-going fellow’s primal failure. So he now -forlornly thought of how utterly he had failed in his mission upon -Earth, ever since he first came to Mount Kaf to work evil among men, in -the time of King Tchagi, a great while before the Deluge; and he -considered with dismay the appalling catalogue of virtuous actions into -which these women had betrayed him. - -For always the cause of Ninzian’s downfall had been the same: he would -get to talking indiscretion to some lovely girl or another, just through -his desire to be agreeable to everybody, and his devilish eloquence -would so get the better of her that the girl would invariably marry him -and ruthlessly set about making her husband a well-thought-of citizen. -Nor did it avail him to argue. Women nowhere appeared to have any -sympathy with Ninzian’s appointed labor upon Earth: they seemed to have -an instinctive bent toward Heaven and the public profession of every -virtue. Just as in the case of that poor Miramon Lluagor, Ninzian -reflected, Ninzian’s wife also did not care two straws about her -husband’s career and the proper development of his talents. - -Then Ninzian on a sudden recollected the cause of the disturbance which -had been put upon his living. He drew his dagger, and, squatting on the -paved walkway, he scratched out that incriminating footprint. - -He was none too soon. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _53._ - _Continuation of Appalling Pieties_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -HE was none too soon, because Ninzian rose from this erasement just in -time to bump into no other than the energetic tough flesh of Holy -Holmendis, who in the cool of the evening was coming up the walkway; and -indeed, in rising, Ninzian jostled against the saint rather roughly. So -Ninzian apologized for his clumsiness, and explained that he was going -fishing the next day, and was digging for worms: and Ninzian was in a -bad taking, for he could not know how much this peppery and -over-excitable saint from out of Philistia had seen or suspected, or -might be up to the very next moment with one or another bull-headed -miracle. - -But Holy Holmendis said friendlily that no bones were broken, and he -went on, with the soul-chilling joviality of the clergy, to make some -depressing joke about fishers of men. “And that is why I am here,” said -the saint, “for this evening Dame Balthis is to confess to me whatever -matters may be on her conscience.” - -“Yes, yes,” said Ninzian, fondly, “but we both know, my dear and honored -friend, that Balthis has a particularly tender conscience, a conscience -which is as sensitive to the missteps of others as a sore toe.” - -“That is how everybody’s conscience ought to be,” returned the saint: -and he went on to speak of the virtuous woman who is a crown to her -husband. And he made a contrast between the fine high worth of Balthis -and the shamelessness of that bad beggar-woman upon whom, just outside -the gate, the saint had put apoplexy and divine fire for speaking -over-lightly of the second coming of Manuel. - -Ninzian fidgeted. He of course said sympathizingly that he would send -some servants to remove the blasted carcass, and that it ought to be a -lesson, and that there was no telling what the world was coming to -unless right-thinking persons took strong steps through the proper -channels. Nevertheless, he did not like the hard, pinched little mouth -and glittering, very pale blue eyes of this gaunt saint; and the nimbus -about the thick white hair of Holy Holmendis was beginning to shine -brighter and brighter as the dusk of evening thickened. Ninzian found it -uncomfortable to be alone with this worker of miracles; piety is in all -things so unpredictable: and Ninzian was unfeignedly glad when Balthis -came out of the loved house that was no longer Ninzian’s home, and when -Balthis held open the door for Holmendis to enter where Ninzian might -not come any more. - -Yet, so tenacious is the charitableness of women, that even now, as -Holmendis went in, Dame Balthis tried to speak, for the last time, -sensibly and kindly with her husband. - -“Pig with the head of a mule,” she said, in a lowered tone, “do you stop -looking at me like a sick calf, and go away! For I must confess in what -a state of sin I have been living, as a devil’s wife, and I have little -faith in your black magic, and you know as well as I do that there is no -telling what blasted tree-trunk or consecrated bottle or something of -that sort he may seal you up in until the holy Morrow of Judgment, -precisely as he has done all those other evil spirits.” - -Ninzian replied, “I shall not ever leave you of my free will.” - -“But, Ninzian, it is as if I were putting you into the bottle, myself! -For if I do not tell that spiteful old bag of bones”—she crossed -herself,—“I mean, that beloved and blessed saint, why, he would never -have the sense, or rather, I intended to say that his faith in his -fellow creatures is too great and admirable for him ever to suspect you, -and so you just see how it is!” - -“Yes, my most cruel love,” said Ninzian, “it is quite as if you yourself -were thrusting me into a brazen bottle, for all that you know how -dependent I am on open-air exercise, and as if you were setting to it -the unbreakable seal of Sulieman-ben-Daoud with your own dear hands. -But, nevertheless—!” - -He took her hand, and gallantly he kissed her finger-tips. - -At that she boxed his jaws. “You need not think to make a fool of me! -no, not again, not after all these years! Oh, but I will show you!” - -Then Balthis also went into the house where the gaunt saint was making -ready to hear her mensual confession. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _54._ - _Magic That was Rusty_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -POOR-SPIRITED, over-easy-going Ninzian sat upon the stone bench, an -outcast now in his own garden: and he thought for a while about the -pitiless miracles with which this Holmendis had harried the fairies and -the elves and the salamanders and the trolls and the calcars and the -succubæ and all the other amiable iniquities of Poictesme; and about the -saint’s devastating crusades against moral laxity and free-thinking and -the curt conclusions which he had made with his ropes and his fires to -the existence of mere heresy. It seemed uncomfortably likely that in -dealing with a devil this violent and untactful Holmendis would go to -even greater lengths, and would cast off all compunction, if somehow -Ninzian could not get the better of him. - -So Ninzian decided to stay upon the safe side of accident, by destroying -the fellow out of hand. Ninzian took from his pocket the stone ematille, -and he broke off a branch from a rose-bush. With the flowering rose -branch Ninzian traced a largish circle about his sleek person, saying, -“I infernalize unto myself the circumference of nine feet about me.” -Here the sign of Sargatanet was repeated by him thrice. Then Ninzian -went on, “From the east, Glavrab; from the west, Garron; from the -north—” - -He paused. He scratched his head. The boreal word of power was Cabinet -or Cabochon or Capricorn or something of that kind, he knew: but what it -was exactly was exactly what Ninzian had forgotten. He would have to try -something else. - -Ninzian therefore turned to the overthrowing of Holmendis by cold and by -heat. Ninzian said: - -“I invoke thee who art in the empty wind, terrible, invisible, -all-potent contriver of destruction and bringer of desolation. I upraise -before thee that rod from which proceeds the life abhorrent to thee. I -invoke thee through thy veritable name, in virtue of which thou canst -not refuse to hear,—JOERBET-JOPAKER-BETH-JOBOLCHOSETH—” - -But there he gave it up. That dreadful, jaw-cracking obscene appellation -had, Ninzian recollected, eleven more sections: but in bewildered -Ninzian’s mind they were all jumbled and muddled and hopelessly -confused. - -After that a rather troubled High Bailiff rearranged his clothing; and -he now tried to get in touch with Nebiros, the Field-Marshal and -Inspector General of Hell. But again Ninzian was in his magic deplorably -rusty. - -“_Agla, Tagla, Malthon, Oarios_—” he rattled off, handily enough,—and -once more he bogged in an appalling stretch of unrememberably difficult -words. Black magic was not an accomplishment in which you could stay -expert without continual practice; and Ninzian had regrettably neglected -all infernal arts for the last five centuries and over. - -So in this desperate pinch he turned perforce to a simple abecedary -conjuration such as mere wizards used; and the High Bailiff of Upper -Ardra said, rather shame-facedly, “Prince Lucifer, most dreadful master -of all the Revolted Spirits, I entreat thee to favor me in the -adjuration which I address to thy mighty minister, Lucifugé Rofocalé, -being desirous to make a pact with him—” - -And Ninzian got through this invocation at least, quite nicely, though -he a trifle bungled the concluding words from the Grand Clavicle. - -This conjuration, however, worked a bit too well. For instead of the -hoped-for appearance of genial old Lucifugé Rofocalé endurably -disinfected of his usual odor, now came to Ninzian, from among the -sweet-smelling rose-bushes, the appearance of a proud gentleman in gold -and sable: and a rather perturbed Ninzian bowed very low before his -liege-lord, Lucifer, Prince over all the Fallen Angels. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _55._ - _The Prince of Darkness_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THE newcomer paused for an instant, as if he were reading what was in -the troubled mind of Ninzian, and then he said: “I see. Surkrag, whom -mortals hereabouts call Ninzian! O unfaithful servant, now must you be -punished for betraying the faith I put in you. Now is your requital -coming swiftly from this ravening saint, who will dispose of you without -mercy. For your conjuring would disgrace a baby in diapers; you have -forgotten long ago what little magic you ever knew; and when this -Holmendis gets hold of you with one hand and exorcises you with the -other, there will be hardly a cinder left.” - -So did Ninzian know himself to stand friendlessly, between the wrath of -evil and the malignity of holiness, both bent upon his ruin. He said, -“Have patience, my prince!” - -But Lucifer answered sternly: “My patience is outworn. No, Surkrag, -there is no hope for you, and you become shameless in perfidy as -steadily you go from good to better. Once you would have scorned the -least deviation from the faith you owe me: but a little by a little you -have made compromises with virtue, through your weak desire to live -comfortably with your wives, and this continual indulgence of women’s -notions is draining from you the last drop of wickedness. Not fifty -centuries ago you would have been shocked by a kindly thought. Twenty -centuries back and you at least retained a proper feeling toward the -Decalogue. Now you assist in all reforms and build churches without a -blush. For is there nowadays, my deluded, lost Surkrag! in candor, is -there any virtue howsoever exalted, is there a single revolting decency -or any form of godliness, before which your gorge rises? No, my poor -friend: you came hither to corrupt mankind, and instead they have made -you little worse than human.” - -The Angel of Darkness paused. He had spoken, as became such a famous -gentleman, very temperately, without rage, but also without any -concealing of his sorrow and disappointment. And Ninzian answered, -contritely: - -“My prince, I have not wholly kept faith, I know. But always the woman -tempted me with the droll notion that our sports ought to open with a -religious service, and so I have been now and then seduced into -marriage. And my wife, no matter what eyes and hair and tint of flesh -she might be wearing at the time, has always been bent upon having her -husband looked up to by the neighbors; and in such circumstances a poor -devil has no chance.” - -“So that these women have been your ruin, and even now the latest of -them is betraying your secret to that implacable saint! Well, it is -honest infernal justice, for since the time of Kaïumarth you have gained -me not one follower in this place, and have lived openly in all manner -of virtue when you should have been furthering my power upon Earth.” - -Thus speaking, Lucifer took his seat upon the bench. Then Ninzian too -sat down, and Ninzian leaned toward this other immortal, in the -ever-thickening dusk; and Ninzian’s plump face was sad. - -“My prince, what does it matter? From the first I have let my fond wife -have her will with me, because it pleased her, and did no real good. -What do these human notions matter, even in so dear a form? A little -while and Balthis will be dead. A little while and there will be no Yair -nor Upper Ardra, and no shining holy sepulchre at Storisende, and all -Poictesme will be forgotten. A little while and this Earth will be an -icecold cinder. But you and I shall still be about our work, still -playing for the universe, with stars and suns for counters. Does it -really matter to you that, for the time this tiny trundling Earth exists -and has women on it, I pause from playing at the great game, to -entertain myself with these happy accidents of nature?” - -Lucifer replied: “It is not only your waste of time that troubles me. It -is your shirking of every infernal duty, it is your cherubic lack of -seriousness. Why, do you but think how many thousand women have passed -through your fingers!” - -“Yes, like a string of pearls, my prince,” said Ninzian, fondly. - -“Is that not childish sport for you that used to contend so mightily in -the great game?” - -But Ninzian now was plucking up heart, as the saying is, hand over fist. -“Recall the old days, my prince,” he urged, with the appropriate -emotional quaver, “when we two were only cherubs, with no bodies as yet -sprouted from our little curly heads! Do you recall the merry romps and -the kissing games we had as tiny angel-faces, sporting together so -lovingly among the golden clouds of heaven, without any cares whatever, -and with that collar of wings tickling so drolly one’s ears! and do you -let the memory move you, even to unmerited indulgence. I have contracted -an odd fancy for this inconspicuous sphere of rock and mud, I like the -women that walk glowingly about it. Oh, I concede my taste is -disputable—” - -“I dispute nothing, Surkrag. I merely point out that lechery is nowhere -a generally received excuse for good works.” - -“Well, but now and then,” said Ninzian, broadmindedly, “the most -conscientious may slip into beneficence. And, in any case, how does it -matter what I do on Earth? Frankly, my prince, I think you take the -place too seriously. For centuries I have watched those who serve you -going about this planet in all manner of quaint guises, in curious masks -which are impenetrable to any one who does not know that your preëminent -servitors tread with the footfall of a bird wherever they pass upon your -errands—” - -“Yes, but—” said Lucifer. - -“—For ages,” Ninzian continued, without heeding him, “I have seen your -emissaries devote much time and cunning to the tempting of men to commit -wickedness: and to what end? Man rises from the dust: he struts and -postures: he falls back into the dust. That is all. How can this midge -work good or evil? His virtue passes as a thin scolding: the utmost -reach of his iniquity is to indulge in the misdemeanor of -supererogation, by destroying a man or two men, whom time would very -soon destroy in any event. Meanwhile his sympathies incline—I know,—by a -hair-breadth or so, toward Heaven. Yes, but what does it matter? is it -even a compliment to Heaven? Ah, prince, had I the say, I would leave -men to perish in their unimportant starveling virtues, without raising -all this pother over trifles.” - -Ninzian could see that he had made a perceptible impression: yet still, -dark Lucifer was shaking his head. “Surkrag, in abstract reason you may -be right: but warfare is not conducted by reason, and to surrender -anything to the Adversary, though it were no more than Earth and its -inhabitants, would be a dangerous example.” - -“Come, prince, do you think how many first class constellations there -are to strive for, made up of stars that are really desirable -possessions! Turn that fine mind of yours to considerations worthy of -it, sir! Consider Cassiopeia, and the Bull, and the dear little -Triangle! and do you think about Orion, containing such sidereal -masterpieces as Bellatrix and Betelgeuse and Rigel, and the most -magnificent nebula known anywhere! Do you think also about that very -interesting triple sun which is called Mizar, in the Great Bear, a -veritable treasure for any connoisseur! and do you let me have this -Earth to amuse me!” - -Now Lucifer did not answer at once. The bats were out by this time, -zigzagging about the garden: the air was touched with the scent of -dew-drenched roses: and somewhere in the dusk a nightingale had -tentatively raised its thrilling, long-drawn, plaintive voicing of -desire. All everywhere about the two fiends was most soothing. And the -Angel of Darkness laughed without a trace left in his manner of that -earlier reserve. - -“No, no, old wheedler! one cannot neglect the tiniest point, in the -great game. Besides, I have my pride, I confess it, and to behold Earth -given over entirely to good would vex me. Yet, after all, I can detect -no unforgivable beneficence in your continuing to live virtuously here -with your seraglio for such a while as the planet may last. These little -holidays even freshen one for work. So, if you like, I will summon -Amaimon or Baälzebub, or perhaps Succor-Benoth would enjoy the sport, -and they will dispose of this two-penny saint.” - -But Ninzian seemed hesitant. “My prince, I am afraid that some of those -officious archangels would be coming too; and one thing might lead to -another, and my wife would not at all like having any supernal battlings -in her own garden, among her favorite rose-bushes. No, as I always say, -it is much better to avoid these painful scenes.” - -“Your wife!” said Lucifer, in high astonishment, “and is it that thin -faded pious wretch you are considering! Why, but your wife has -repudiated you! She has caught just your trick of treacherousness, and -so she has betrayed you to that flint-hearted saint!” - -Ninzian in the dusk made bold to smile.... - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _56._ - _Economics of Ninzian_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NINZIAN in the dusk made bold to smile at this sort of bachelor talk. -Lucifer really would be a bit more broad-minded, a shade less notably -naïve, if only the dear fellow had not stayed always so stubbornly -prejudiced against marriage, merely because it was a sacrament. All that -was required, alike to perfect him in some real knowledge of human -nature and to secure everybody’s well-being everywhere, Ninzian -reflected, was for Lucifer just once to marry some capable woman.... - -So Ninzian smiled. But Ninzian did not need to say anything, for at this -moment Balthis came to the door, and—not being able in the twilight to -see the Prince of Darkness,—she called out that supper was getting -stone-cold on the table, and that she really wished Ninzian would try to -be a little more considerate, especially when they had company. - -And Ninzian, rising, chuckled. “My wife has been like that since Sidon -was a village. Time and again she has found me out; and never yet has -she let me off with a public exposure. Oh, if I could explain it, I -would perhaps care less for her. In part, I think, it means that she -loves me: in part, I fear—upon looking back,—it means that no really -conscientious person cares to entrust the proper punishment of her -husband to anybody else. Of course, all that is merely theory. What is -certain is that my wife’s confession has been conducted tactfully, and -that you and I are going in to talk solemn nonsense with St. Holmendis.” - -But Lucifer once more was shaking his head. He said, with firmness: - -“No, Surkrag. No, I am not squeamish, but I have no use for saints.” - -“Well, prince, I would not be over-hasty to agree with you. For -Holmendis has some invaluable points. He is perfectly sincere, for one -thing, and for another, he is energetic, and for a third, he never -pardons any one who differs with him. Of course, he is all for having -men better than they were intended to be, and with his tales about that -second coming of Manuel he does frighten people.... For they have been -altering that legend, my prince, considerably. Nowadays, it is not only -glory and prosperity which Manuel is to bring back with him. He is to -return also, it seems, with a large cargo of excruciate punishments for -all persons who differ in any way with the notions of Holmendis and -Niafer.” - -“Ah, the old story! It is really astounding,” Lucifer commented, in -frank wonder, “how one finds everywhere this legend of the Redeemer in -just this form. It seems an instinct with the creatures.” - -“Well, but,” said Ninzian, tolerantly, “it gives them something to look -forward to. It promises to gratify all their congenital desires, -including cruelty. And, above all, it prevents their going mad, to -believe that somebody somewhere is looking out for them. In any -event,—as I was saying,—this gaunt Holmendis does frighten Poictesme -into a great deal of public piety. Still, there are always corners and -bedrooms and other secluded places, in which one strikes a balance, as -it were; and abstinence and fear make wonderful appetizers: so that, in -the long run of affairs, I doubt if you have anywhere upon Earth any -more serviceable friends than are these saints who will put up with -nothing short of their own especial sort of perfection.” - -Lucifer was not convinced. “It is proper of course that you should -attempt to exculpate your friend and associate during the last twenty -years. Nevertheless, all these extenuatory sayings, about the -viciousness of virtue, are the habitual banalities of boyhood; and no -beardless cynic, even when addicted to verse, has ever yet been -permanently injured by them.” - -“But,” Ninzian returned, “but here, I am not merely theorizing. I speak -with rather high authority. For you will be remembering, prince, that, -by the rules of our game, when any mortal has gained a hundred followers -for you, Jahveh is penalized to put him upon the same footing as the -rest of us. And, well, sir! you may see here in the mud, just where I -jostled Holmendis from the walkway—” - -Lucifer made luminous his finger-tips, and held them like five candles -to the saint’s footprint. The Angel of Darkness bowed thereafter, with -real respect, toward heaven. - -“Our Adversary, to do Him justice, keeps an honest score. Come, Surkrag, -now this is affecting! This very touchingly recalls that the great game -is being played by the dear fellow with candor and fine sportsmanship. -Meanwhile I must most certainly have supper with you; and the great game -is far from over, since I yet make a fourth with the fanatic, the woman -and the hypocrite.” - -“Ah, prince,” said Ninzian, a little shocked, as they went into his -sedate snug home, “should you not say more tactfully, with us three -leaders of reform?” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK NINE - - ABOVE PARADISE - - “_He was caught up into paradise; and heard unspeakable words._” - —II CORINTHIANS, xii, 4. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _57._ - _Maugis Makes Trouble_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the tale speaks of the rebellion of Maugis, who was the son of -Donander of Évre, the Thane of Aigremont. For Count Manuel’s youngest -child, Ettarre, born after her father’s passing, was now come to the -full flowering of her strange beauty: and it was at this time—with the -result that two young gentlemen went out of their wits, four killed -themselves, and seven married,—that Ettarre was betrothed to Guiron des -Rocques, of the famous house of Gâtinais. And it was at this time also -that young Maugis d’Aigremont resorted to a more stirring solace than -might be looked for in imbecility or death or a vicarious bedfellow. He -seized and carried off Ettarre. His company of ten was pursued by Count -Emmerick and Guiron with twenty followers; and after a skirmish in -Bovion the girl was recaptured unharmed. - -But Maugis escaped. And after that he went into open rebellion against -Count Emmerick’s authority, and occupied those fastnesses in the -Taunenfels which Othmar Black-Tooth had once held for a long while -against the assaults of Count Manuel himself. - -History in fine appeared to honor banality by repeating itself, with the -plain difference that gaunt Maugis was equally a great captain and a -great lover and in every way more formidable than Othmar had been, -whereas Emmerick, elsewhere than at a banquet, was not formidable at -all. Moreover, Emmerick in these days lacked even any stronger kinsman -to lean upon, for his brother-in-law Heitman Michael was now in Muscovy, -the young Count of Montors was dead, and Ayrart de Montors had removed -to the court of King Theodoret. Emmerick had, thus, to lead his troops -only Fauxpas de Nointel and that unreasonable Guiron, who expected -Emmerick himself to lead them. - -So Emmerick wavered; he made terms; he even winked at Guiron’s capture -by the pirates of Caer Idryn, in order to be rid of this troublesome -posturer who insisted upon dragging Emmerick into so much uncomfortable -fighting: and Maugis, since these terms did not include his possession -of Ettarre, soon broke them. Thus the warring that now arose in -Poictesme, between Maugis’ lust and Count Emmerick’s supineness, dragged -on for many wearying fevered years. - -Then Madame Melicent returned from oversea with her second husband, the -Comte de la Fôret, a gentleman who remarkably lacked patience with -brigands and with shilly-shallying. This Perion de la Fôret took charge -of matters, with such resolution that out of hand Guiron was rescued -from his captivity, Maugis was overpowered and killed, the Ettarre whom -he had desired to his own hurt was married to Guiron, and Count Emmerick -gave a banquet in honor of the event. Such was this Perion’s -impetuosity. - -It is of these matters that the tale speaks in passing. For the tale now -is of Donander of Évre, who was the father of Maugis, and who would not -break faith with that Emmerick who, howsoever unworthily, sat in the -place of that great master whom Donander had been privileged to serve -even in this mortal life. For Donander was the only one of the lords of -the Silver Stallion who accepted with joy and with unbounded faith the -legend of Manuel, and who in all his living bore testimony to it. - -This Donander of Évre had been the youngest of the fellowship, he was at -this time but newly made a widower while yet in his forties, and -whatsoever he lacked in brilliance of wit he atoned for with his -hardiness in battle. Yet in this war he chose not to display his -prowess, since the fighting was between the son of Dom Manuel and the -son of Donander himself. He chose instead exile. - -First, though, he went to Storisende; and, standing beside the holy -sepulchre, he looked up for some while at the serene great effigy of -Manuel, poised there in eternal watchfulness over Donander’s native -land, and bright with all the jewels of the world. Donander knelt and -prayed in this sacred place, as he knew, for the last time. Then -Donander, without any complaining, and without any grieving now for his -wife’s death, went out of Poictesme, a landless man; and he piously took -service under Prince Balein of Targamon (the same that twenty years ago -had wooed Queen Morvyth, a little before the evil times of her long -imprisonment and the cutting off of her head), who now was harrying the -pagan Northmen. - -Thus it was that Donander also at the last went out of Poictesme, not by -his own election, to encounter the most strange of all the dooms which -befell the lords of the Silver Stallion after the passing of Dom Manuel. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _58._ - _Showing that Even Angels May Err_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THIS doom began its workings in the long field below Rathgor, when -Palnatoki rode forth and made his brag. “I am the champion of the -Ænseis. In the Northland there is nobody mightier than I; and if a -mightier person live elsewhere, it is not yet proven. Who is there in -this place will try a fall with me?” - -Behind him the pagan army waited, innumerable, and terrible, and -deplorably ill-mannered. These shouted now: - -“We cry a holmgang. Who will fight with Red Palnatoki, that is overlord -of the Swan’s bath, and that slew the giants in Noenhir?” - -Then from the opposed ranks came clanking, and shining in full armor, -Donander of Évre. And he said: - -“I, howsoever unworthy, messire, am the person who will withstand you. I -also have fought before this morning. Under Count Manuel’s banner of the -Silver Stallion I have done what I might. That much I will again do here -to-day, and upon every day between this day and the holy Morrow of -Judgment.” - -After that the Christian army shouted: “There is none mightier than -Donander! Also, he is very gratifyingly modest.” - -But Palnatoki cried out scornfully: “Your utmost will not avail this -morning! Behind me musters all the might of the Ænseis, that are the -most high of gods above Lærath, and their strength shall be shown here -through me.” - -“Behind the endeavors of every loyal son of the Church,” Donander said, -“are the blessed saints and the bright archangels.” - -“Indeed, Donander, that may very well be the truth,” replied Red -Palnatoki. “The old gods and the gods of Rome have met to-day; and we -are their swords.” - -“Your gods confess their weakness, Messire Palnatoki, by picking the -better weapon,” Donander answered him, courteously. - -With these amenities discharged, they fought. Nowhere upon earth could -have been found a pair of more stalwart warriors: each had no equal -anywhere existent between seas and mountains save in his adversary: so -neatly were they matched indeed that, after a half-hour of incredible -battling, it was natural enough they should kill each other -simultaneously. And then the unfortunate error occurred, just as each -naked soul escaped from the dying body. - -For now out of the north came Kjalar, the fair guide of pagan warriors -to eternal delights in the Hall of the Chosen; and from the zenith sped, -like a shining plummet, Ithuriel to fetch the soul of the brave champion -of Christendom to the felicities of the golden city walled about with -jasper of the Lord God of Sabaoth. Both emissaries had been attending -the combat until the arrival of their part therein; both, as seasoned -virtuosi of warfare, had been delighted by this uncommonly fine fight: -and in their pleased excitement they somehow made the error of -retrieving each the other’s appointed prey. It happened thus that the -soul of Donander of Évre fared northward, asleep in the palm of Kjalar’s -hand, while Ithuriel conveyed the soul of Red Palnatoki to the heaven of -Jahveh. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _59._ - _The Conversion of Palnatoki_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -ITHURIEL’S blunder, it is gratifying to record, did not in the outcome -really matter. For Christendom just then was at heated odds over points -of theology not very clearly understood in Jahveh’s heaven, where in -consequence no decisions were hazarded upon the merits of the -controversy; and the daily invoices of Christian champions and martyrs -of all sects were being admitted to blessedness as fast as they murdered -one another. - -Moreover, Red Palnatoki was, by the articles of his stern Nordic creed, -a fatalist. When he discovered what had happened, and the strange -salvation which had been put upon him, his religion therefore assured -him that this too had been predestined by the wayward Norns, and he -piously made no complaining. The eternal life which he had inherited, -with no fighting in it for the present, and no stronger drink than milk, -was not up to human expectation, but the tall sea-rover had long ago -found out that few things are. Meanwhile he could, at any rate, look -forward to that promised last great battle, when those praiseworthy -captains Gog and Magog (with, as Palnatoki understood it, a considerable -company of fine fighting-men), would attack the four-square city, and -when Palnatoki would have again a chance really to enjoy himself in -defending the camp of the saints. - -And meanwhile too, he was interested in those girls. It seemed at best -to any one with his religious rearing quite unaccountable to find women -in heaven, and this especial pair appeared to Palnatoki a remarkably -quaint choice for exceptional favoritism. He could only deduce they had -got in through some error similar to that which had procured his own -admission, particularly as he saw no other women anywhere about. - -And Palnatoki reflected that the enceinte lady, with eagle’s wings and -the crown of little stars, whom the presumably pet dragon followed -everywhere with touching devotion, could not for as yet some months -repay cultivating. But that very pretty brunette, with the golden cup -and all those splendid clothes and with the placard on her forehead, who -had just ridden by upon that seven-headed scarlet monster, rather took -Palnatoki’s fancy. That girl was not, you could see, a prude; she had -come very near winking at him, if she, indeed, had not actually winked -in the moment she glanced back: so that the Great Whore of Babylon -(which, as they told him, was this second lady’s name) gave him, upon -the whole, something else to look forward to. - -Without any sulking under his halo, Palnatoki bent resolutely to his -first harp-lesson; and, in place of protests, civilly voiced alleluias. - -For, with two fine to-morrows to look forward to, Palnatoki was content -enough. And in Jahveh’s heaven, therefore, all went agreeably, and as -smoothly as Red Palnatoki at just this point goes out of this story. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _60._ - _In the Hall of the Chosen_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -WHEN Donander of Évre awoke in the Northern paradise, he also was -content enough. It was a strange and not what you could call a cozy -place, this gold-roofed hall with its five hundred and forty mile-wide -doors: and the monsters, in the likeness of a stag and of a she-goat, -which straddled above the building perpetually feeding upon the lower -leaves of the great tree called Lærath, seemed to Donander preëminently -outlandish creatures, animals under whose bellies no really considerate -persons would have erected a residence. Yet, like Palnatoki, Donander of -Évre was an old campaigner, who could be tolerably comfortable anywhere. -Nor was to discover himself among pagans a novel experience, since in -his mortal life Donander had ridden at adventure in most corners of the -world, and rather more than half of his finest enemies and of his -opponents in many delightful encounters had been infidels. - -“Excepting always their unfortunate religious heresies,” he was used to -concede, “I have no fault to pick with heathen persons, whom in the -daily and nocturnal affairs of life I have found quite as friendly and -companionable as properly baptized ladies.” - -In fine, he got on well enough with the flaxen-haired spirits of these -Northern kings and skalds and jarls and vikingar. They stared, and some -guffawed, when he fitted out a little shrine, in which Donander prayed -decorously, every day at the correct hours, for the second coming of -Manuel and for the welfare of Donander’s soul upon the holy Morrow of -Judgment. Yet, after all, these boreal ghosts conceded, in paradise if -anywhere a man should be permitted utterly to follow his own tastes, -even in imaginative eschatology. And when they talked their really -pathetic nonsense about being the guests of Sidvrar the Weaver and -Constrainer, and about living forever through his bounty thus happily in -the Hall of the Chosen, it was Donander’s turn to shrug. Even had there -been no other discrepancies, everybody knew that heaven had, not five -hundred and forty golden gates, but only twelve entrances, each carved -from a single pearl and engraved with the name of a tribe of Israel. - -“Besides,” Donander asked, “who is this Weaver and Constrainer? -Certainly, I never heard of him before.” - -“He is the King and Father of the Ænseis,” they told him. “He is -overlord of that unimaginable folk who dwell in Ydalir; and who do not -kill their deformed and weakling children, as we were used to do, but -instead cast from the ivory ramparts of Ydalir all such degenerate -offspring, to be the gods of races who are not blond and Nordic.” - -Donander, as a loyal son of the Church, could only shake his head over -such nonsense, and the innumerous other errors by which these heathen -were being misled to everlasting ruin. Aloud, Donander repeated his -final verdict as to the pretensions of this Sidvrar, by saying again, “I -never heard of him.” - -Nevertheless, Donander went without real discontent among the pleasures -of paradise, and he joined in all the local sports. In common with the -other dead, he ate the flesh of the inexhaustible boar, and with them he -drank of the strong mead which sustained them in perpetual tipsiness. -And he sedately rode out with the others every morning into the meadows -where these blessed pagan lords fought joyously among themselves until -midday. At noon a peal of thunder would sound, the slain and wounded -warriors were of a sudden revivified and cured of their hurts, and were -reunited to whatsoever arms and heads and legs the contestants had lost -in their gaming: and the company would return fraternally to the -gold-roofed hall, where they ate and drank and made their brags until -they slept. - -“Yet perhaps our banquets might, messieurs,” Donander had suggested, -after a century or so of these rough-and-ready pleasures, “be not -unadvantageously seasoned with the delights of feminine companionship, -if only for dessert?” - -“But it is one of our appointed blessings to have done with women and -their silly ways,” cried out the vikingar, “now that we have entered -paradise.” - -And Donander, who had always been notable for his affectionate nature, -and who had served vigorously so many ladies par amours, seemed grieved -to hear a saying so unchivalrous. Still, he said nothing. - -Thus much time passed; and the worlds were changed: but in the eyes of -Donander of Évre, as in the eyes of all who feasted in the Hall of the -Chosen, there was no knowledge nor any fear of time, because these -blessed dead lived now in perpetual tipsiness. And, as befitted a loyal -son of the Church, Donander, without any complaining, in the -surroundings which Heaven out of Heaven’s wisdom had selected for him, -awaited the second coming of Manuel and the holy Morrow of Judgment. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _61._ - _Vanadis, Dear Lady of Reginlief_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THEN, from the highest part of this paradise, and from the unimaginable -yew-vales of Ydalir which rise above the topmost branches of the tree -called Lærath, descended blue-robed Vanadis, the lady of Reginlief, dear -to the Ænseis. She had disposed of five inefficient husbands, in -impetuous mythological manners, but still a loneliness and a desire was -upon her; and with the eternal optimism of widowhood she came to look -for a sixth husband among these great-thewed heroes who jeered at women -and their wiles. - -But Donander of Évre was the person who for two reasons found instant -favor in her eyes when she came upon Donander refreshing himself after -the pleasant fatigues of that morning’s combat, and about his daily bath -in the shining waters of the river Gipul. So did the dead call that -stream which flowed from the antlers of the monstrous stag who stood -eternally nibbling and munching above the Hall of the Chosen. - -“Here is an eminently suitable person,” Vanadis reflected. Aloud, she -said, “Hail, friend! and does a stout fine fellow of your length and of -your thickness go languidly shunning work or seeking work?” - -Stalwart Donander climbed out of the clear stream of Gipul. He came, -smilingly and with a great exaltation, toward the first woman whom he -had seen in seven hundred years. And, so constant is the nature of -woman, that divine Vanadis regarded Donander in just the reflective -wonder with which, more than seven hundred years ago, barbarian Utsumé -had looked at Coth in the market-place of Porutsa. - -Donander said, “What is your meaning, madame?” - -Vanadis replied, “I have a desire which, a fine portent has informed me, -agrees with your desire.” - -Then Vanadis, with god-like candor, made wholly plain her meaning. And -since Donander’s nature was affectionate, he assented readily enough to -the proposals of this somewhat ardent but remarkably handsome young -woman, who went abroad thus unconventionally in a car drawn by two cats, -and who, in her heathenish and figurative way, described herself as a -goddess. He stipulated only that, so soon as he was dressed, they be -respectably united according to whatever might be the marriage laws of -her country and diocese. - -The Ænseis were not used in such matters to stand upon ceremony. -Nevertheless, they conferred together,—Aduna and Ord and Hleifner and -Rönn and Giermivul, and the other radiant sons of Sidvrar. It was they -who good-humoredly devised a ceremony, with candles and promises and -music and a gold ring, and all the other features which seemed expected -by the quaint sort of husband whom their beloved Vanadis had fetched up -from the Hall of the Chosen. But her sisters took no part in this -ceremony, upon the ground that they considered such public preliminaries -to be unheard-of and brazen. - -Thus was Donander made free of Ydalir, the land that is above Lærath and -all the other heavens and paradises: and after Donander’s seven hundred -years of celibacy, he and his bride got on together in her bright palace -lovingly enough. Vanadis found that she too, comparatively speaking, had -lived with her five earlier husbands in celibacy. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _62._ - _The Demiurgy of Donander Veratyr_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the one change that Donander made an explicit point of was to fit -out in this palace of Reginlief a chapel. There he worshiped daily at -the correct hours, so near as one could calculate them in an endless -day, and there he prayed for the second coming of Manuel and for the -welfare of Donander’s soul upon the holy Morrow of Judgment. - -“But, really, my heart,” his Vanadis would say, ineffectually, “you have -been dead for so long now! And, just looking at it sensibly, it does -seem such a waste of eternity!” - -“Have done, my darling, with your heathen nonsense!” Donander would -reply. “Do I not know that in heaven there is no marrying or giving in -marriage? How then can heaven be this place in which two live so -friendlily and happily?” - -Meanwhile, to the pagan priests wherever the Ænseis were adored, had -been revealed the sixth and the wholly successful marriage of blue-robed -Vanadis: her spouse had been duly deified: and new temples had been -builded in honor of the bright lady of Reginlief and of the Man-God, -Donander Veratyr, her tireless savior from vain desire and bodily -affliction. And time went stealthily as a stream flowing about and over -the worlds, and changing them, and wearing all away. But to Donander it -was as if he yet lived in the thrice-lucky afternoon on which he married -his Vanadis. For, since whatever any of the Ænseis desires must happen -instantly, thus Ydalir knows but one endless day; and immeasurably -beneath its radiance, very much as sullen and rain-swollen waters go -under a bridge upon which young lovers have met in the sunlight of -April, so passed wholly unnoted by any in Ydalir the flowing and all the -jumbled wreckage of time. - -But it befell, too, after a great many of those æons which Ydalir -ignores and men cannot imagine, that Donander saw one of his smaller -brothers-in-law about a droll looking sport. Donander asked questions: -and he learned this dark brisk little Koshchei was about a game at which -the younger Ænseis were used to play. - -“And how does one set about it?” Donander asked then. - -“Why, thus and thus, my heart,” his wife replied. Fond Vanadis was glad -enough to find for him some outdoor diversion which would woo him from -that stuffy chapel and its depressing pictures of tortured persons and -its unwholesome fogs of stifling incense. - -Then Donander broke away a bough from the tree called Lærath, saying -meanwhile the proper word of power. Sitting beside the fifth river of -Ydalir, he cut strips of bark from this bough, with the green-handled -knife which Vanadis had given him, and he cast these strips about at -random. He found it perfectly true that those scraps of barks which -touched the water became fish, those which he flung into the air became -birds, and those which fell upon the ground became animals and men. - -He almost instantly, indeed, had enough creatures to populate a world, -but no world, of course, for them to animate and diversify. So Donander -destroyed these creatures, and placed one of the lighter weirds upon the -beetle Karu. That huge good-tempered insect fell at once to shaping a -ball of mud, and to carving it with mountains and plains and valleys. -Then Karu burrowed his way into the center of this ball of mud: and from -the hole into which Karu had entered came all kinds of living beings -needful for the animating and diversifying of a world; and these began -to breed and to kill one another and to build their appropriate lairs, -in nests and dens and cities. - -This so excited another beetle, named Khypera, that he behaved in a -fashion not at all convenient to record; but many living creatures were -at once brought forth by his remarkable conduct, and plants and creeping -things and men and women, too, came out of the tears which Khypera let -fall. - -That was the second demiurgy of Donander Veratyr. Then with a golden egg -Donander made another world: and from the entrails of a spider he drew -another; from the carrion of a dead cow he made a fifth world; and with -the aid of a raven Donander made yet one more. Thereafter he went on, in -turn attempting each method that any Ans had ever practiced. - -These sports amused Donander for a long while and yet another while. And -Vanadis, apart from her natural pleasure in the augmented vigor he got -from so much open-air exercise, bright Vanadis smiled at his playing, in -the way of any wife who finds her husband occupied upon the whole less -reprehensibly than you would expect of the creature. And the sons of -Sidvrar also were used, as yet, to smile not unfriendlily when they -passed where Donander was busy with his toys. Even the sisters of -Vanadis only said that really of all things, and that of course they had -expected it from the very first. Thus everybody was content for a long -while and yet another while. - -And throughout both these whiles Donander was pottering with his worlds, -keeping them bright with thunderbolts and volcanic eruptions, diligently -cleansing them of parasites with one or another pestilence, scouring -them with whirlwinds, and perpetually washing them with cloud-bursts and -deluges. His toys had constantly such loving care to keep them in -perfect condition. Meanwhile, his skill increased abreast with his -indulgence in demiurgy, and Donander thought of little else. He needed -now no aid from ravens and beetles. He had but, he found, to desire a -world, and at once his desire took form: its light was divided from its -darkness, the waters gathered into one place, the dry land appeared and -pullulated with living creatures, all in one dexterous complacent moment -of self-admiration. - -His earlier made stars and comets and suns and asteroids Donander -Veratyr began destroying one by one, half vexedly, half in real -amusement at the archaic, bungling methods he had outgrown. In their -places he would set spinning, and glittering, and popping, quite other -planetary systems which, for the moment in any event, appeared to him -remarkably adroit craftsmanship. And everywhere upon the worlds which he -had made, and had not yet annihilated, men worshiped Donander Veratyr: -and in his pleasant home at Reginlief, high over Lærath and every other -heaven and paradise, Donander worshiped the god of the fathers and of -all the reputable neighbors of Donander of Évre; and in such pagan -surroundings as Heaven out of Heaven’s wisdom had selected for him, -awaited the second coming of Manuel and the holy Morrow of Judgment. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _63._ - _Economics of Sidvrar_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THEN of a sudden gleaming Sidvrar Vafudir, the Weaver and Constrainer, -came with his wolves frisking about him. He came with his broad-brimmed -hat pulled down about his eyes decisively. He came thus to his daughter, -blue-robed Vanadis, and he stated that, while patience was a virtue, -there was such a thing as overdoing it, no matter how little he himself -might care for the talking of idle busybodies, because, however long she -might argue, and always had done from childhood, being in this and in -many other undesirable respects precisely like her mother, even so, no -sensible Ans could ever deny her husband’s conduct was ridiculous: and -that, said Sidvrar Vafudir, was all there was to it. - -“Do not bluster so, my heart,” replied Vanadis, “about the facts of -nature. All husbands are ridiculous. Who should be surer of this than I, -who have had six husbands, unless it be you, who as goat and titmouse -and birch tree have been the husband of six hundred?” - -“That is all very well,” said Sidvrar, “in addition to not being what we -were discussing. This Donander of yours is now one of the Ænseis, he is -an Ans of mature standing, and it is not right for him to be making -worlds. That is what we were discussing.” - -“Yet what divine hands anywhere,” asked Vanadis, “are clean of -demiurgy?” - -“That is not what we were discussing, either. When you brats of mine -were children you had your toys, and you played with and you smashed -your toys. Nobody denies that, because you all did, from Rönn to Aduna, -and even little Koshchei used to be having his fling at such nonsense. -Now do you look at the very fine and sober fellow he is, with all his -pranks behind him, and do you ask Koshchei what he thinks of that -husband of yours! But instead, you prefer to wander away from what we -were discussing, because you know as well as I do that for children to -be playing at such games is natural enough, besides keeping the young -out of grave mischief, now and then. Though, to be sure, nothing does -that very long nor very often, as I tell you plainly, my Vanadis, for do -you look, too, as a most grievous example, at the wasteful and untidy -way you destroy your husbands!” - -“Donander Veratyr I shall not ever destroy,” replied Vanadis, smiling, -“because of the loving human heart and the maddening human ways he has -brought out of his Poictesme, and for two other reasons.” - -“Then it is I who will put an end, if not to him, at least to his -nonsense. For this Donander of yours is still playing with stars and -planets, and setting off his comets, and exploding his suns, and that is -not becoming.” - -“Well, well, do you, who are the Father and Master of All, have your own -will with him, so far as you can get it,” Vanadis returned, still with -that rather reminiscent smile. She had now lived for a great while with -this sixth husband of hers, who had a human heart in him and human ways. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _64._ - _Through the Oval Window_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -SIDVRAR went then from Vanadis to Donander. But the Constrainer found -there was no instant manner of constraining Donander Veratyr into a -conviction that Donander of Évre had died long ago, and had become an -Ans. People, Donander stated, did not do such things; when people died -they went either to heaven or to hell: and further reasoning with -Donander seemed to accomplish no good whatever. For Donander, as a loyal -son of the Church, now shrugged pityingly at the heathen nonsense talked -by his father-in-law. He stroked the heads of Sidvrar’s attendant -wolves, he listened to the Weaver and Constrainer with an indulgence -more properly reserved for the feeble-minded; and he said, a little -relishingly, that Messire Sidvrar would be wiser on the holy Morrow of -Judgment. - -Then Sidvrar Vafudir became Sidvrar Yggr, the Meditating and Terrible. -Then Sidvrar fell about such magicking as he had not needed to use since -he first entered into the eternal yew-vales of Ydalir. Then, in a word, -Sidvrar unclosed the oval window in Reginlief that opened upon space and -time and upon the frozen cinders which once had been worlds and suns and -stars, and which their various creators had annihilated, as one by one -the Ænseis had put away their childhood and its playing. - -Among such wreckage sped pretentiously the yet living worlds which -Donander had made. These toys, when seen thus closely through the magic -of the oval window, were abristle with the spires of the temples and the -cathedrals in which they that lived, as yet, upon these worlds were used -to worship. In all these churches men invoked Donander Veratyr. Through -that charmed window now, for the first time, came to his ears the outcry -of his clergy and laity: nowhere was there talk of another god, not even -where from many worlds arose the lecturing of those who explained away -their ancestors’ quaint notions about Donander the Man-God, the Savior -from Vain Desire, the Preserver from Bodily Affliction, and proved there -could not be any such person. And to Donander, looking out of the window -at Reginlief, all these things showed as a swarming of ants or as a -writhing of very small maggots about the worlds which he had made to -divert him: and in the face as in the heart of Donander awoke -inquietation. - -“If this be a true showing,” Donander said, by and by, “show now that -Earth which is my home.” - -After a while of searching, Sidvrar found for him the drifting clinker -which had once been Earth. Upon its glistering nakedness was left no -living plant nor any breathing creature, for the Morrow of Judgment was -long past, and Earth’s affairs had been wound up. Upon no planet did any -one remember the god whom Donander worshiped, now that Jahveh had ended -playing, and his toys were broken or put away. Upon many planets were -the temples of Donander Veratyr, and the rising smoke of his sacrifice, -and the cries of his worshipers as they murdered one another in their -disputing over points of theology which Donander could not clearly -understand. - -Nor did he think about these things. Instead, Donander Veratyr, who was -the last of the Ænseis to play at this unprofitable sport of demiurgy, -was now remembering the days and the moon-lighted nights of his youth, -and the dear trivial persons whom he had then loved and revered. He did -not think about the two wives whom he had married upon Earth, nor about -his son Maugis, nor about any of the happenings of Donander’s manhood. -He thought of, for no reason at all, the shabby little village priest -who had confirmed him, and of the father and mother who had been -all-wise and able to defend one from every evil, and of the tall girl -whose lips had, once, and before any other lips, been sweeter than were -the joys of Ydalir. And he thought of many other futile things, all now -attested always to have been futile, which long ago had seemed so very -important to the boy that, in serving famous Manuel of Poictesme, had -postured so high-heartedly in one of the smallest provinces of an -extinct planet. - -And Donander wrung immortal hands, saying, “If this be a true showing, -what thing have I become, who can no longer love or reverence anything! -who can have no care for any Morrow of Judgment! and to whom space -reveals only the living of these indistinguishable and unclean and -demented insects!” - -The cry of his worshipers came up to him. “Thou art God, the Creator and -Preserver of all us Thy children! Thou art Donander Veratyr, in Whom is -our firm hope! Thou art the Man-God, That wilt grant unto us justice and -salvation upon the holy Morrow of Judgment!” - -“Is it,” Donander said, “of Manuel that these little creatures speak?” - -“We know not of any Manuel,” the universe replied to him. “We only know -that Thou art God, our Creator and Preserver.” - -Then, after viewing again the vermin which swarmed about his worlds, -Donander said, like one a little frightened, “Is God thus?” - -They answered him, fondly and reverently, “How can God be otherwise than -Thou art?” - -At that Donander shuddered. But in the same moment he said, “If this be -a true showing, and if I be indeed a god, and the master of all things, -the human heart which survives in me wills now to create that to-morrow -for which these weaklings and I too have so long waited.” - -Then Sidvrar pointed out, as patiently as outraged common-sense -permitted: “Still, still, you are talking nonsense! How can an Ans -create to-morrow?” - -Donander asked, in turn, “Why not, if you be omnipotent?” - -“It is because we are omnipotent. Thus in Ydalir there is but one day, -from which not even in imagination can any Ans escape. For, whatever any -of the Ænseis desires, even if it be a to-morrow, must instantly happen -and exist; and so must be to-day. That ought to be plain enough.” - -“It is not plain,” Donander answered, “although, the way you put it, I -admit, it does sound logical. Therefore, if this indeed be the way of -omnipotence, and if none may escape his day, and if I be a trapped and -meager immortal, and the master only of those things which are to-day, -then now let all things end! For my heart stays human. To-day does not -know the runes of my heart’s contentment. My heart will not be satisfied -unless it enter into that morrow of justice and salvation which the -overlords of men, as you now tell me, cannot desire nor plan. So now, if -this be a true showing, now let all things end!” - -Within the moment Donander saw that, while he was yet speaking, space -was emptied of life. Down yonder now were no more men and women -anywhere. None any longer awaited an oncoming day which was to content -one utterly with an assured bright heritage, divined in the dreams which -allured and derided all human living endlessly, and condemned the heart -of every man to be a stranger to contentment upon this side of -to-morrow. That ageless dream about to-morrow, and about the redeeming -which was to come—to-morrow—had passed, as the smoke of a little incense -passes; and with it had gone out of being, too, those whom it had -nourished and sustained. There were no more men or women anywhere. -Donander could see only many cinders adrift in a bleak loneliness: and -Donander of Évre must endure eternally as Donander Veratyr, a lonely and -uncomprehended immortal, among his many peers. - -“So do you be sensible about it, my son-in-law,” said Sidvrar Vafudir, -when he had spoken the word of power which closed forever that cheerless -window, out of which nobody was ever to look any more,—“be sensible if -there indeed stay any root of intelligence in you. And do you -henceforward live more fittingly, as a credit to your wife’s family. And -do you put out of mind those cinders and those ashes and those clinkers -that were the proper sport of your youth. Such is the end of every wise -person’s saga.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _65._ - _The Reward of Faith_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -THEREAFTER the King and Father of the Ænseis departed, well pleased with -the lesson taught that whippersnapper. And Donander also smiled, and he -looked contentedly about his pleasant quarters in the everlasting vales -of Ydalir. - -“Still, not for a great deal,” Donander reflected, “would I be treading -in that old sorcerer’s sandals; and it is a fair shame that I should -have such a person for a father-in-law.” - -For, as a loyal son of the Church, Donander did not doubt that the -wonders which Sidvrar had just shown to him could only be an illusion -planned with some evil spirit’s aid to tempt Donander away from -respectability and the true faith. In consequence Donander Veratyr, that -had been the Creator and Destroyer of all things except the human heart -which survived in him, went now into the chapel of Reginlief. There he -decorously said the prayers to which Donander was accustomed, and he -prayed for the second coming of Manuel and for the welfare of Donander’s -soul upon the holy Morrow of Judgment. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - BOOK TEN - - AT MANUEL’S TOMB - - “_What hast thou here, that thou hast hewed thee out a sepulchre?_” - —ISAIAH, xxii, 16. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - —Salut, ami, dit Jurgen, si vous êtes une - créature de Dieu. - - —Votre protase est du bien mauvais grec, - observa le Centaure, car en Hellade nous - nous abstenions de semblables réserves. - D’ailleurs mon origine vous intéresse - certes moins que ma destination. - - —LA HAULTE HISTOIRE DE JURGEN. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _66._ - _Old Age of Niafer_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the tale is of crippled old Dame Niafer, who had reformed the -Poictesme which her husband redeemed, and of the thinking which came -upon her in the last days of her life. Until latterly Niafer had not, -with at every turn so many things requiring to be done, had very much -time for thinking. But now there was nothing more ever to be done by -Madame Niafer. Radegonde saw to that. - -The gray-eyed minx ruled everything and everybody. That was not pleasant -for her mother-in-law to behold, after Niafer herself had ruled over -Poictesme for some twenty years, and all the while had kept frivolity -and disorder out of fashion. No mother could, in the first place, -honestly enjoy seeing her own son thus hoodwinked and led into perpetual -dissipation at all hours of the night, by a wife who, at thirteen -hundred and some years of age, might reasonably be expected to know -better. In the second place, Niafer could have managed things, and very -certainly poor Emmerick, with immeasurably more benefit to everybody, -and to common-sense too. - -All that warring with Maugis, for instance, had been a sad mistake. Now, -under my regency, the aged Countess would reflect with complacence, -there was grumbling here and there,—men being what they are, with no -least idea as to what is actually good for them,—but never any armed -revolt. When people were dissatisfied, you sent for them, they came, you -had a sensible talk, you found out what was really wrong, and you -righted matters to the utmost extent that such a righting seemed -judicious; you eked out the remainder with a little harmless -soft-soaping, and that was all there was to it. No warrior in his sane -senses would go to war with an intelligent old lady who esteemed him -such a particularly fine fellow. - -Now, if at the very beginning, that poor Maugis—quite a nice-looking -child, too, until he lost flesh under that continual plotting and -throat-cutting, with parents you had known for years,—had been had in to -dinner, just with the family, then all that killing and burning and -being awakened at unearthly hours by the misguided boy’s night attacks -upon Bellegarde would have been avoided. - -But Niafer, of course, had been allowed no say in the matter. She was -allowed no say in any matter by that woman, who topped off her ill-doing -by being always so insufferably pleasant and so considerate of Mother -Niafer’s comfort. And in this enforced idleness it was rather lonely now -that Holmendis was dead. Nearly seven years ago now that dependable and -always firm friend had gone crusading with St. Louis; and the pair of -them had passed from the ruins of Carthage to eternal glory with the aid -of dysentery. Niafer missed Holmendis a great deal, after the three -decades of close friendship and of the continuous intimacy about which -people said things of which the old Countess was aware enough and -utterly indifferent. - -She had her children, of course. It was particularly nice to have -Melicent back again, after all these years of never quite really knowing -whether the child was managing her abductor tactfully, in that far-off -Nacumera. But the children had their own children now, and their own -affairs; and none of these possessions were they inclined to let Niafer -control, in the Poictesme wherein, for eighteen years, she had -controlled everything. For the rest, Dame Niafer knew that a prophecy -which had been made to her very long ago by the Head of Misery was now -being fulfilled: she had no place in the world’s ordering, she was but a -tolerated intruder into her children’s living, and nobody anywhere did -more than condone her coming. - -Niafer did not blame her children. She instead admitted, with the vast -practicality not ever to be comprehended by any male creature, that -their behavior was sensible. - -“I would meddle perpetually if they permitted it. I am very often a -nuisance, as it is. And so, that part of the prophecy about my weeping -in secret is quite plainly nonsense, since there is nothing whatever to -weep about, or even to be surprised at,” Dame Niafer stated cheerily. - -And so, too, if sometimes, after one or another crossing of her still -pertinacious will, the dethroned old ruler of Poictesme would hobble -very quietly into her own rooms, and would remain there for a lengthy -while with the door locked, and would come out by and by with reddened -eyes, nobody noticed it particularly. For she, who in her prime had been -the most sociable of potentates, seemed nowadays to prefer upon the -whole to be alone. She was continually, without any ostentation, limping -away from any little gathering of her descendants. Mother was becoming -slightly queer: you shrugged, not at all unfondly, over the fact, and -put up with it. Grandmother would be there one moment laughing and -talking like everybody else; and the very next moment she was gone. And -you would find her, accidentally, in some quiet corner quite alone, bent -up a little, and not doing anything whatever, but just thinking.... - -Dame Niafer thought, usually, about her husband. Her lot had been the -most glorious among the lots of all women in that she had been Manuel’s -wife. That marvelous five years of living which she had shared with -Manuel the Redeemer was not an extensive section of her life, but it was -the one part which really counted, she supposed. It was only on account -of her human frailty that she remembered so many more things about -Holmendis, who was a mere saint, than she did about her Manuel. She -found it, nowadays, rather hard—and injudicious, too,—to recall any -quite definite details about her miraculous husband: there was only, at -a comfortable remoteness, a tall gray god in a great golden glowing. It -was all wonderful, and inspiring, and very sad, too, but noticeably -vague: and the tears which came into your eyes were pleasant, without -your knowing exactly what you were crying about. - -That was the best way in which to think of her Manuel. A prying into -particulars, a dwelling upon any detail whatever, was injudicious. Such -a perhaps blasphemous direction of your thoughts suggested, for -instance, that matters were going to be a trifle awkward, just at first, -after that second coming of the Redeemer. - -It was not, altogether, that Manuel would be a stranger to her, nor even -that omniscience, of course, knew all about Holmendis. In dealing with a -liberal patron of the Church it was the métier of omniscience to become -a little myopic. For that matter, Dom Manuel’s earthly past was not so -far gone out of his wife’s memory that he could be the only person to do -any talking about natural frailties. No, the drawback would be, rather, -that, when her Manuel had returned, in undiminished glory, you would -have to get accustomed to so many things, all over again.... Niafer -hoped that, in any event, at his second coming he would not bring back -with him that irritating habit of catching cold on every least occasion: -for you probably could not with decency rebuke a spiritual Redeemer for -his insistence upon keeping the rooms stuffy and shut up everywhere on -account of the draughts, any more than you could really look up to him -with appropriate reverence if he came snorting and sneezing all over the -place.... And if he for one single solitary moment expected to have, in -his reordering of human affairs, that Alianora and that Freydis of his -established anywhere near his lawful wife.... - -That mad contingency, however, was not at any time mentally provided -against, because at this point Niafer would turn away from this -undoubtedly blasphemous trend of speculation. Her Manuel was in all -things perfect. He would come again in unimaginable glory, and he would -exalt her, his chosen, his one bride, who was so utterly unworthy of -him, to the sharing of an eternal felicity which—after you got -accustomed to it, and really settled down, with a fresh growth of hair -and a complete set of teeth and all the other perquisites of unfading -youth,—would be quite pleasant. Details could wait. Details, the moment -you dwelt upon them, became upsetting. Details in any way relative to -those hussies were no doubt directly suggested by the powers of evil. - -It was after such considerations that Niafer would go to pray beside the -tomb which she had builded in honor of Manuel. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _67._ - _The Women Differ_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -NOW the tale tells that in the spring of the year old Niafer, thus -sitting beside her husband’s tomb, looked up and found another aged -woman waiting near her. - -“Hail, Queen of England!” said Dame Niafer, with quite as much civility -as there was any need for. - -“So!” said the other. “You would be his wife. Yes. I remember you, that -day near Wissant. But how could you be recognizing me?” - -“Are there not tears in your old eyes? There is no other person living, -since that double-faced Freydis got her just deserts,” replied Niafer, -very quietly, “who would be shedding tears over my Manuel’s tomb. We two -alone remember him.” - -“That is true,” said Alianora. And for no reason at all she smiled a -little. “One hears so much about him, too.” - -“The world has learned to appreciate my husband,” Niafer assented. She -did not altogether approve of Madame Alianora’s smile. - -Now the Queen said: “He was rather a dear boy. And I am not denying that -I cared a great deal about him once. But even so, my dear, this wonder -of the world that the poems and the histories are about, and that the -statues and the shrines commemorate, and that one, in mere decency, has -to pretend to remember!” - -“I am sure I do not at all understand you, Madame Alianora.” And Niafer -looked without any love at this Queen of England who in the old days had -been upon terms of such regrettable intimacy with Dom Manuel. - -But Alianora went on, with that provokingly pleasant air of hers: “No, -you would not understand the joke of it. You do not properly value the -work of your hands and of your imagining. But this legend which you in -chief, with the pride and the foolishness of Poictesme to back you, have -been quietly and so tirelessly fostering through all these years, has -spread through the known world. Our Manuel has become the peer of Hector -and of Arthur and of Charlemagne for his bravery and his wisdom and his -other perfections. Our Manuel is to come again, in all his former glory! -And I, who remember Manuel quite clearly—though I am not denying he has -had his successors in my good will and friendly interest,—well, in -perfect candor, my dear, I find these notions rather droll.” - -To this sort of talking Niafer replied, sharply enough, “I do not know -of any reason in the world for you to be speaking of my husband as ‘our’ -Manuel.” - -“No, my dear, I am sure he took excellent care that you should never -know about such things. Well, but all that is over a great while ago. -And there is no need for us two to be quarreling over the lad that took -his pleasure with the pair of us, and with Queen Freydis too, and with -nobody knows how many other women, and who, to do him justice, gave to -each playfellow a fair half of that pleasure.” - -This exposed unvenerable handsome old Alianora to the gaze of perturbed -decorum. “I do not think, madame, that you ought to be alluding to such -frivolous matters here at his tomb.” - -“After all, though,” Alianora stated, “it is not as if he were really -buried in this place. You dreaming braggarts of Poictesme had not even a -corpse to start with, when you began on your fine legend. No: the entire -affair is pure invention; and is very neatly symbolized by this stately -tomb with nothing whatever inside it.” - -“What, though, if Manuel had been truly buried here, what would this -world have been relinquishing to the cold grave?” said Freydis. For -Niafer saw that Freydis also was at hand. This Freydis was a witch woman -with whose connivance Dom Manuel had in the old days made unholy images -and considerable scandal. - -“Nobody knows that,” continued Freydis. “Not even we who, as we said, -loved Manuel the Redeemer in his mortal life knew anything about Manuel. -What sort of being lived inside that squinting tall strong husk which -used to fondle us? I often wonder about that.” - -“My dear creature,” said Alianora, “do you really think it particularly -matters? I am sure we never used to think about that especial question -at the time, because the husk was, in all conscience, enough to deal -with. Yes, you may say what you will about Manuel, but among friends -there is no harm in conceding that in some respects we three know him to -have been quite wonderful.” - -It was then that the old Queen of England looked up toward the gleaming -statue of the man whom these three women had loved variously. Manuel -towered high above them, bedazzling in the May sunlight, serene, -eternally heroic, eternally in that prime of life which his put-by spent -bedfellows had long ago overpassed; and he seemed to regard exalted -matters ineffably beyond the scope of their mortal living and the -comprehension of frail human faculties. But wrinkled jovial Alianora -smiled up at this superb Redeemer fondly and just a little mockingly. - -“You understood me,” Alianora said, “and I you. But we did not talk -about it.” - -“I say that nobody understood Manuel,” replied Freydis. “I say it is a -strange thing that we three should be continuing the life of Manuel and -the true nature of the being who lived inside that husk, and that we -three should yet stay ignorant of what we are giving to the times that -are to come. For Manuel has already returned, and he will keep returning -again and yet again, without redeeming anything and without there being -any wonder about it—” - -Alianora was interested. “But do you explain, my darling—!” - -“Dead Manuel lives again in your tall squinting son—” - -“Yes,—and do you just imagine, Freydis dear, what a reflection that is -to any mother, what with Manuel’s irregular notions about marriage—” - -“—And in the four children that he had by Niafer,” Freydis continued. -“And in these children’s children our Manuel’s life will be renewed, and -after that in their grandchildren: and Manuel’s life and Manuel’s true -nature will thus go on, in many bodies, so long as men act foolishly by -day and wickedly at night. And in the images which I aided him to make -and to inform with fire from Audela, in these also, when these are set -to live as men among mankind,—and, to my fancy, no more reasonably than -my two elder children, Sesphra and Raimbaut, have lived already,—in -these also, will our Manuel live.” - -“I see,” said Alianora: “and your explanation of his second and of, -indeed, his two thousandth coming seems to me, I confess, much the more -plausible. Yes, I see. Manuel has already returned; and he will return -again any number of times—” - -Freydis said moodily, “And to whose benefit and pleasuring?” - -“My darling Freydis! You may depend upon it that on each occasion two -persons will get a great deal of pleasure out of preparing the way for -him. And that,” said Alianora, “that and whatever else may befall -those persons who have Manuel’s proclivities and life in them will be -but another happening in the Biography of Manuel. We three have begun -a neverending set of comedies in which the life of Manuel will be the -main actor. We have, as one might say,—among friends, my -darlings,—collaborated with the dear boy to make an endless series of -Manuels, without any special reassurance that to do this was going to -give good and pleasure to anybody except—say what you will, my -dears,—it does always give to a hearty young woman. For we do not -know, even now, exactly what sort of a creature this Manuel was and, -thanks to our collaboration, will continue to be. Yes, now I see your -point, my dear Freydis; and it is really a curious one.” - -Again, though, Alianora smiled up toward the statue of Manuel as though -there were some secret between them. And Niafer had no patience whatever -with the leering and iniquitous old hussy. - -“The whole world knows,” said Niafer, indignantly, “what sort of person -my husband was, for my Manuel is famous throughout Christendom.” - -“Yes,” Alianora assented, “he is famous as a paragon of all the -Christian virtues, and as the Redeemer whose return is to restore the -happiness and glories of his people: and it is upon that joke, my dear -Niafer, I was congratulating you a moment or two ago.” - -“He is famous for his loyalty and valor and wisdom,” said Freydis. “I -hear of it. And I remember the tall frightened fool who betrayed me, and -whom at the last I spared out of mere pity for his worthlessness. And -still, I spare and I perpetuate and I foster his living, in my children, -because it is certain that a woman’s folly does not ever perish.” - -“Nevertheless, I know how to avail myself of a woman’s folly,” said -Horvendile,—for now, Dame Niafer perceived, that queer, red-headed -Horvendile also was standing beside her husband’s tomb,—“and of the -babble of children, and of the unwillingness of men to face the universe -with no better backing than their own resources.” - -Then Horvendile looked full at Niafer, with his young, rather cruel -smile. And Horvendile said: - -“So does it come about that the saga of Manuel and the sagas of all the -lords of the Silver Stallion have been reshaped by the foolishness and -the fond optimism of mankind; and these sagas now conform in everything -to that supreme romance which preserves us from insanity. For it is just -as I said, years ago, to one of these so drolly whitewashed and ennobled -rapscallions. All men that live, and that go perforce about this world -like blundering lost children whose rescuer is not yet in sight, have a -vital need to believe in this sustaining legend about the Redeemer, and -about the Redeemer’s power to make those persons who serve him just and -perfect.” - -“It is you who are much worse than a rapscallion!” cried out Dame -Niafer. “You are as bad as these women here. But I will not listen to -any of you or to any more of your jealous and foul blasphemies—!” - -Then Madame Niafer awakened, to find herself alone by the great tomb. -But real footsteps were approaching, and they proved to be those of a -person rather more acceptable to her than was that jeering Horvendile or -were those brazen-faced and thoroughly vile-minded women about whom Dame -Niafer had been dreaming. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _68._ - _Radegonde is Practical_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -FOR at this point Madame Niafer was approached by Jurgen, the son of -Coth, who came to Manuel’s tomb upon a slight professional matter. -Jurgen—now some while reformed by the ruthless impairments of middle -age, and settled down into tempestuous matrimony with the daughter of -Ninzian (by the wife of well-to-do old Pettipas),—had since his marriage -brought new life and fresh connections into the business of his nominal -father-in-law; and was to-day the leading pawnbroker of Poictesme. It -was thus to Jurgen, naturally enough, that Count Emmerick’s wife, -Radegonde, had applied in these hard times which followed the long and -impoverishing war with Maugis d’Aigremont. - -The Countess had been taking of Dom Manuel’s tomb what she described as -a really practical view. The tomb was magnificent and in every way a -credit to the great hero’s family. Still, as Radegonde pointed out to -her husband, that effigy of Manuel at the top was inset with scores of -handsome gems which were virtually being wasted. If—of course without -giving any vulgar publicity to the improvement—these jewels could be -replaced with bits of suitably colored glass, the visual effect would -remain the same, the tomb would be as handsome as ever, and nobody would -be the wiser excepting only Count Emmerick and Radegonde, who would also -be by a deal the wealthier. - -Emmerick had replied, with appropriate indignation, that it would be -blasphemy thus to despoil the tomb of his heroic father. - -But to the contrary, it was Emmerick, as he forthwith learned, who -blasphemed his heroic father’s memory in even for one moment supposing -that the blessed dead cared about such vanities as rubies and sapphires, -and wanted their own innocent grandchildren to starve in the gutter; -and, for the rest, would he simply look at that pile of bills, and not -be driving everybody crazy with his high-and-mighty nonsense. - -Emmerick did look, very briefly and with unhidden aversion, toward the -candid smallish mountain of unsettled accounts with which he was already -but too familiar. “Nevertheless,” said Emmerick, “it would be an -abominable action, if the story were ever to get out—” - -“It will not get out, my dear,” replied his wife, “for we will leave the -whole matter to Jurgen, who is the soul of discretion.” - -“—And I cannot afford to have any part in it,” said Emmerick, -virtuously. - -“You need take no part whatever,” his wife assured him, “but only your -fair half of the proceeds.” - -So Radegonde sent for Jurgen the pawnbroker, and asked him to appraise -the jewels in Dom Manuel’s effigy, and to name his best price for them. - -It was thus that Jurgen happened to come just then to Manuel’s tomb and -to disturb the dreaming of Madame Niafer. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _69._ - _Economics of Jurgen_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -“YOU,” the fluttered old lady began—oddly enough, it must have seemed to -Jurgen,—“you were the last of living persons to lay eyes upon him. It is -very strange that you of all people should come now to end my dreaming. -I take your coming, rogue, as an omen.” - -Then Madame Niafer began to tell him somewhat of her dream. And Jurgen -listened, with the patience and the fondness which the plight of very -old persons always seemed to evoke in him. - -Jurgen was upon excellent terms with Madame Niafer, whom, for Biblical -reasons, he was accustomed to refer to as the Centurion. “You say to one -man, Go, and he goeth; and you say to another man, Come, and he cometh,” -Jurgen explained. “In fine, you are a most terrible person. But when you -say to me, Go, I do not obey you, madame, because you are also a dear.” - -Niafer regarded this as sheer impudence, and vastly liked it. - -So she told him about her dream.... And it was possible, Dame Niafer now -admitted, that this dream might have a little misrepresented the -deplorable women involved, because that snaky-eyed Freydis was known, -since she got her dues from the Druids and the satirists, to be -satisfactorily imprisoned in infamous Antan, whereas that hypocrite of -an Alianora was now a nun at Ambresbury. But in Madame Niafer’s dreaming -the hussies had seemed equally free from the constraint of infamy and of -the convent: they had seemed to be far more dreadfully constrained, by -skepticism.... - -“Madame,” said Jurgen, at the end of her account, “what need is there, -after all, to worry over this little day-dream? I myself had but last -month, upon Walburga’s Eve, a far more extensive and disturbing dream: -and nothing whatever came of it.” - -The Countess answered: “I grow old; and with age one is less certain of -everything. Oh, I know well enough that the lewd smirking hussies were -very slanderously in the wrong! Still, Jurgen, still, dear rogue, there -is a haunting whisper which tells me that time means to take all away. I -am a lonely powerless old creature now, but I stay Manuel’s wife. That -alone had remained to me, to have been the one love and the proud wife -of the great Redeemer of Poictesme. Now, at the last, a whispering tells -me, time must take away that also. My Manuel, a whispering tells me, was -no more splendid than other men, he performed no prodigies, and there -will be no second coming of the Redeemer: a whispering tells me that I -knew this always and that all these years I have been acting out a lie. -I think that whispering talks nonsense. And yet, with age, Jurgen, with -age and in the waiting loneliness of age, one grows less certain of -everything.” - -“Madame,” said Jurgen, with his most judicial aspect, “let us regard -this really very interesting question from its worst possible side. Let -us—with suitable apologies to his great shade, and merely for the -quicker confounding of his aspersers,—suppose that Dom Manuel was, in -point of fact, not anything remarkable. Let us wildly imagine the cult -of the Redeemer which now is spread all over our land, to be compact of -exaggeration and misunderstanding and to be based virtually upon -nothing. The fact remains that this heroic and gentle and perfect -Redeemer, whether or no he ever actually existed, is now honored and, -within reason and within the reach of human frailty, is emulated -everywhere, at least now and then. His perfection has thus far, I grant -you, proved un-contagious: he has made nobody anywhere absolutely -immaculate: but none the less,—within limits, within the unavoidable -limits,—men are quite appreciably better because of this Manuel’s -example and teachings—” - -“Men are happier also, Jurgen, because of that prediction as to his -second coming which he uttered in your presence on the last night of his -living, and which you brought down from Morven.” - -Jurgen coughed. “It is a pleasure, it is always a pleasure, to further -in any way the well-being of my fellow-creatures. But—to resume the -immediate thread of my argument,—if this superb and most beneficial -example was not ever actually set by Dom Manuel—owing to the press of -family and state affairs,—if this example were, indeed, wholly your -personal invention, then you, O terrible Centurion, would be one of the -most potent creative artists who ever lived. Now that I proclaim, as a -retired poet, to be a possibility from which you should not take shame, -but only pride and thankfulness.” - -“Do you not be talking your wheedling nonsense to me, young fellow! For, -if my life had been given over to the spreading of romances about a -Manuel who never lived—!” - -Her weak, old, shriveled hands were fluttering before her, helplessly, -in a kind of futile wildness. She clasped them now, so that each hand -seemed to restrain the other. And Jurgen answered: - -“I quail. I am appropriately terrified by your snappishness, and -flattered by your choice of an adjective. I venture, none the less, to -observe that I have encountered, Centurion dear, in the writings of one -or another learned author, whose name at the present escapes me, the -striking statement, and the wholly true statement,—and a statement which -was, indeed, a favorite with my saintly father,—that a tree may always -be judged by its fruit. Now, the children of Dom Manuel have thus far -most emphatically borne out this statement. Count Emmerick”—here Jurgen -coughed,—“Count Emmerick is noted for his hospitality—” - -“Emmerick,” said Dame Niafer, “would be well enough if he were not led -by the nose in everything by that wife of his.” - -Then Jurgen’s shoulders went up, his hands went outward, to disclaim any -personal share in the old lady’s appraisement of his present client -Radegonde. But Jurgen did not argue the matter. - -“Madame Melicent,” Jurgen equably resumed, “has been the provoker of -much gratifyingly destructive warfare oversea, just as Madame Ettarre -has been the cause of another long war here at home, in which many -gentlemen have won large honor, and hundreds of the humbler sort have -been enabled to enter into a degree of eternal bliss appropriate to -their inferior estate. Such wars evoke the noble emotions of patriotism, -they enable people to become proficient in self-sacrifice, and they -remarkably better business conditions, as my ledgers attest. As for -Madame Dorothy, while she has incited no glorious public homicides and -arsons, she has gratified and she has made more pleasurable the -existence of half the gentry of Poictesme—” - -“And what, you rogue, do you mean by that?” - -“I allude to the organ of vision, without any anatomical excursus. I -mean that to behold such perfect beauty makes life more pleasurable. -Moreover, Madame Dorothy has incited a fine poem and a hungering and a -dreaming that will not die, and a laughter which derides its utterer, -too pitilessly—” - -Now Jurgen’s voice had altered so that the old lady looked at him more -narrowly. Niafer had an excellent memory. She perfectly recalled the -infatuation of Jurgen’s youth, she who had no delusions about this -daughter of hers. And Niafer reflected briefly upon the incurable -romanticism of all men. - -But Niafer said only, “I never heard of any such poem.” - -Jurgen now completed the third of those convenient coughing spells. “I -refer to an epic which stays as yet unpublished. It is a variation upon -the Grail legend, madame, and pertains to the quest of a somewhat -different receptacle. However! In regard to the other children of Dom -Manuel,—concerning whose mothers your opinions, my adored Centurion, do -equal credit to your sturdy morality and your skill in the art of -impassioned prose,—we have Messire Raimbaut, a very notably respected -poet, we have Sesphra, who has become a god of the Philistines. Poets -befall all families, of course, with nobody to blame, whereas a god, -madame, is not ever, as rhetoricians express it, to be sneezed at. We -have, moreover, Edward Longshanks, one of the most applauded monarchs -that England has ever known, because he so compactly exhibits in his -large person every one of the general defects and limitations of his -people. Thus far, madame, we may estimate the children of Dom Manuel’s -body to have made a rather creditable showing.” - -“There is something in what you say,” Dame Niafer admitted. “Yet what is -this nonsense about ‘the children of his body’? Have men any other -implement, unknown to their wives, with which to beget children?” - -Jurgen beamed. Jurgen, it was apparent, had found an enticing idea to -play with. - -“There is quite another sort of paternity, acquired without the need of -troubling and upsetting any woman. So, for the perfect rounding off of -our argument, we must consider also Dom Manuel’s children in the spirit, -those lords who were of the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion, and whose -heroism was modeled so exactly after his fine example.” - -Niafer replied, a little puzzled: “They were notable and pious persons, -who were sent into all parts of the earth as the apostles of the -Redeemer, and who will return again with Manuel.... But do you tell me -just what you mean!” - -“I mean that it was of rough and ungodly fighting-men that Dom Manuel’s -example made these incomparable heroes. There was a time, madame,—a time -to which we may now, in the proper spirit, refer without any -impiety,—when their delight in battle was as vigorous as their moral -principles were lax, a time when they jested at holy things, and when -their chastity was defective.” - -The Countess nodded. “I remember that time. It was an evil time, with no -respectability in it: and I said so, from the first.” - -“Yet do you consider what Dom Manuel’s example and teachings made, in -the end, of his companions in this life! Do you consider the saintly -deeds of Holden and of Anavalt, and how Ninzian was for so long the -mainstay of all religion hereabouts—!” - -“Ninzian was a holy person, and even among the apostles of Manuel he was -perhaps the most devout. Nevertheless—” - -But Jurgen now became more particular. “Do you consider how but fourteen -years ago Donander died a martyr in conflict with the pagan Northmen, -proving with his body’s loss the falsity and wickedness of their -superstitions when in the sight of both armies Donander was raised up -into heaven by seven angels in the same instant that a devil carried his -adversary northward!” - -“That miracle is attested. Yet—” - -“Consider how holy Gonfal also perished as a martyr among the infidels -of Inis Dahut, after his chaste resistance to the improper advances of -their queen! There, madame, was a very soul-stirring example for you, -because you brunettes are not easy to resist.” - -“Get along with you, you rogue! My eyes stay dark and keen enough to see -that what hair I have is white in these days.” - -“Then also, pious Miramon Lluagor, it is well known, converted many -hundreds of the heathen about Vraidex, by the great miracle which he -wrought when Koshchei the Deathless, and Toupan, the Duke of Chaos, and -Moloch, Lord of the Land of Tears, and Nergal, the Chief of Satan’s -Secret Police,—and several thousand other powers of evil whose names and -infernal degrees at this instant evade me,—came swarming out of hell in -the form of gigantic bees.” - -“It is known that such favor was vouchsafed by Heaven to the faith and -the prayers of Miramon. Ninzian, indeed, was present at the time, and -told me about those awful insects. Each was about as large as a cow, but -their language was much worse. Nevertheless—” - -But Jurgen was nowhere near done. “Then Guivric,” he pointed -out,—“Guivric of Perdigon, also, in whom the old leaven stayed longer -than in the others, so that for a while he kept some little faults, they -say, in the way of pride and selfishness,—Guivric got wholly rid of -these blemishes after his notable trip into the East to discomfit -single-handed the signal schisms of the pernicious and sinister Sylan. -There was never a sweeter nor a more prodigally generous nor a more -generally lovable saint upon earth than all found Guivric after his -return from exorcising that heathen heresiarch into a mere pile of -bones; and so the dear old Heitman stayed up to the glorious hour of his -seraphic death.” - -“That is true. I recall the change in Guivric, and it was most -edifying.” - -“Do you recall, also, madame, how the venerable Kerin went down to teach -the truth about the Redeemer in the deepest fastnesses of error and -delusion! and how he there confuted, one by one, the frivolous -scientific objections of the overseers of hell,—with a patience, a -painstakingness and a particularity surprising even in an apostle,—in an -argument which lasted twenty years!” - -“That also is true. In fact, it was his own wife who told me about it. -Nevertheless—” - -But Jurgen was still talking. “Lastly, madame, my beloved father Coth, -as a matter of equally general knowledge, went as an evangelist among -the brown-skinned and black-hearted unbelievers of Tollan. He introduced -among them the amenities of civilization and true religion. He taught -them to cover their savage nakedness. And, in just the manner of holy -Gonfal, Coth likewise subdued the goad of carnal desire and the prick of -his flesh—not once, but many times,—when Coth also was tempted by such -an ill-regulated princess as but to think of crimsons the cheek of -decency.” - -The Countess said, meditatively: “You and your cheek—However, do you go -on!” - -Jurgen now shook a grizzled head, in rather shocked deprecation. “You -ask the impossible. Upon the innumerable other pious exploits of Coth, -I, as his wholly unworthy son, may not dwell without appearing -vainglorious. That would be most unbecoming. For the modesty of my -father was such, madame, that, I must tell you, not even to me, his own -son, did he ever speak of these matters. The modesty of my father was -such that—as was lately revealed to a devout person in a vision,—even -now my father esteems himself unworthy of celestial bliss; even now his -conscience troubles him as to the peccadilloes of his earlier and -unregenerate days; and even now he elects to remain among what, in a -manner of speaking, might be termed the less comfortable conditions of -eternal life.” - -“He is privileged, no doubt, to follow his own choice: for his -consecrated labors are attested. Nevertheless....” - -Then for a while Dame Niafer considered. These certainly were the facts -as to the lords of the Silver Stallion, whom she herself could remember -as having been, in the far-off days of her youth, comparatively -imperfect persons: these acts of the apostles were facts recorded in the -best-thought-of chronicles, these were the facts familiar even to -children, facts which now a lengthy while ago, along with many other -edifying facts about the saintly lords of the Silver Stallion, had each -been fitted into its proper niche as a part of the great legend of -Manuel: and as she appraised these facts, the old Countess validly -perceived the strength of Jurgen’s argument.... - -“Yes,” Niafer conceded, by and by, “yes, what you say is true. These -consecrated persons had faults when they were first chosen by my husband -to be his companions: but through their intimacy with him, and through -the force of his example, they were purged of these faults, they were -made just and perfect: and after the Redeemer’s passing, they fared -stainlessly, and were his apostles, and carried that faith which his -living had taught them into every direction and about all quarters of -the earth. These are the facts recorded in each history book.” - -“So, you perceive, Centurion dear! I can but repeat that, in the axiom -favored by my honored father, every tree must be judged by its fruits. -The exploits of the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion I estimate as the -first fruits of the cult of the Redeemer. Men of the somewhat lax -principles to which these apostles in their younger days—I say it in the -proper spirit, madame,—did now and then, we know, succumb, such men are -not unmiraculously made just and perfect. I deduce we may declare this -cult of Manuel the Redeemer to be a heavenly inspired and an in all ways -admirable cult, since it produces miraculously, from the raw material of -alloyed humanity, such apostles. This cult has already, in the holy -lives and the high endings of the lords of the Silver Stallion, madame, -passed the pragmatic test: it is a cult that works.” - -“Besides,” said Niafer, with a not unfeminine ellipsis, and with a -feminine preference for something quite tangible, “there is that last -sight of my husband’s entry into glory, which as a child you had upon -Upper Morven, and the fearful eucharist which you witnessed there. I -could never understand why there was not even one angel present, when as -many as seven came for Donander. Even so, you did witness very holy and -supernatural occurrences with which Heaven would never have graced the -passing of an ordinary person.” - -“The imagination of a child—” began Jurgen. He stopped short. He added, -“Very certainly, madame, your logic is acute, and your deduction is -unassailable by me.” - -“At all events—” Then it was Niafer who stopped abruptly. - -But in a while she continued speaking, and in her withered face was much -that puzzled and baffled look which Coth’s old face had worn toward the -end. - -“At all events, it was only a dream about those hussies. And at all -events, it is near time for dinner,” said Dame Niafer. “And people must -have both their dreams and their dinners in this world, and when we go -out of it we must take what we find. That is all. I have not the -imagination of a child. I am old. And when you get old it is better not -to imagine things. It is better for an old person not to have any -dreams. It is better for an old person not to think. Only one thing is -good for an old person, and gives to that old person an end of -loneliness and of bad dreams and of too much thinking.” - -Niafer arose, not without difficulty; and the bent, limping, very aged -Countess Dowager of Poictesme now went away from Jurgen, slowly and -moodily. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - _70._ - _All Ends Perplexedly_ - -══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - -JURGEN, thus left alone, forthwith ascended the side of the great tomb. -He stood now at the top of it, holding to the neck of the horse upon -which sat the sculptured effigy of Manuel. The stone face, above and -looking beyond Jurgen, when seen at such close quarters, was blotched -and grotesquely coarse, the blank eyeballs gave it a repellent air of -crass idiocy. But Jurgen was there to appraise not the face but the -garments of the overtowering hero, and it was at the gems with which -this famous effigy was inset that Jurgen was really looking. - -Then, without any deep surprise, Jurgen whistled. To his trained eye it -was apparent enough that these gems with which Madame Niafer had -prodigally adorned her husband’s statue were one and all, and had been -from the first, bright bits of variously colored glass. The Countess -Radegonde, it appeared, had been by a great many years forestalled in -her economics and in her practical view of this tomb by the countess who -builded it. - -And somehow Jurgen was not much surprised. His only verbal outbreak was -to utter one of his favorite remarks. He said, “These women!” - -He climbed down to the pavement afterward, with the gingerly care -befitting a person of forty-and-something. He cocked his gray head, -looking upward with a remarkable blending of the quizzical and of the -regretful. Now, seen at an appropriate distance, now Manuel of Poictesme -appeared again resplendent and in everything majestic. He sat there, -wary and confident and superb, it seemed, perpetually to guard the -country which he had redeemed; and to which, men said, he was to -return.... - -Thus Jurgen waited for some while, regarding the vast tomb which was -wholly empty, and which everywhere was adorned with a worthless tinsel -glitter, and which yet stayed the most holy and, precisely as Jurgen had -pointed out, the actually inspiring shrine of the heroic cult of the -Redeemer.... - -Jurgen opened his mouth. Then he shut it. - -For Jurgen recalled that only last month he had become involved in a -somewhat perturbing experience, on account of having spoken extempore in -praise of the Devil; and so, as concerned the Redeemer, Jurgen decided -not to commit himself one way or the other. It seemed the part of wisdom -for an aging pawnbroker to keep out of all such extra-mundane -affairs.... Even so, a carnival of thoughts now tempted him to play with -them, because this was a paradoxical tomb about which, but for the -promptings of discretion, one might say a number of fine things. Those -tinsel fripperies were, to the eyes of a considerate person, worthy of a -reverence undemanded by mere diamonds, because of the deeds which they -had prompted: and this emptiness was sacred because of the faith which -people had put in it. And that this glittering vacuity could, as a -matter of fact, work miracles was now fully attested: for it had reduced -Jurgen to silence. - -No: you could never, shruggingly, dismiss this tomb as, upon the -whole, a malefic fraud which emanated only folly and intolerance and a -persecution of the short-sighted by the blind. That was, in fact, a -relatively unimportant aspect, in that it was an aspect which need -never trouble you personally, if you were careful. And, at -forty-and-something, you were careful. - -Meanwhile you knew the shining thing to have been, also, the begetter of -so much charity, and of forbearance, and of bravery, and of -self-denial,—and of its devotees’ so strange, so troublingly -incomprehensible, contentment,—that it somewhat frightened Jurgen. For -Jurgen, but a moment ago, had been handling—perhaps—a bit -over-intimately that really dangerous fountain-head of all the aspiring -and fine standards which the aging pawnbroker was used unfeignedly to -admire, with a vague, ever-present underthought as to the disastrousness -of acquiring them. It would, he felt, be the very deuce if in business -life one were ever to find these notions on the wrong side of his -counter.... - -Esthetically it was, of course, delightful to regard the preëminent -manifesters of the Redeemer’s power and sanctity, in those splendid -lords of the Silver Stallion about whom Jurgen had but now been talking. -It was an ennobling and a picturesque reflection that humanity had once -risen to such heights; that mere mortal men had, through their faith in -and their contact with the great Redeemer, become purged of all faults -and carnal weaknesses, and had lived stainlessly, and had even performed -their salutary miracles whenever such a course seemed requisite. Jurgen -thought it would be rather fun to work miracles. In any event, it was -pleasant, and it was non-committally uplifting, just to think about the -heroic saints of yesterday, and to envy their lot in life and their -assured fine place in history. - -Jurgen thought, for example, of gentle and great-hearted old Guivric -sharing his worldly wealth in such noble irrationality with all needy -persons; and of kneeling Miramon with those seven thousand horrific bees -swarming about him,—screeching out infernal threats, but powerless to -trouble the serene, psalm-singing and unstung saint. Jurgen thought of -Kerin facing so intrepidly yet other hideous cohorts of disputatious -fiends and cowing their science so-called with decisive Biblical texts; -and of the noble shocked figure of virtuous Gonfal holding fast his -nightgown about him with one hand, and with the other repulsing the -enamored—and, they said, quite good-looking also,—Queen Morvyth of the -Isles of Wonder, when she assaulted his chastity. Performances like -these were well worthy to be commemorated in history: and Jurgen -regarded them with a warm, gratifying thrill of purely esthetic -appreciation. - -For, from any practical standpoint, Jurgen obscurely felt, it would be -inconvenient to be quite as perfect and superb as all that. Or, you -might put it better, perhaps, that this was not a condition which a -really honorable person, with a shop and a wife and other obligations, -could conscientiously do anything directly to provoke for himself. Any, -as one might say, defenseless householder whom the all-powerful Redeemer -had explicitly and unarguably singled out to live in the heroic sanctity -of an apostle would be, of course, in quite another and wholly -justifiable case.... - -And Jurgen was wondering what it was that the child who Jurgen once had -been had, actually, witnessed and heard upon Upper Morven. He could not -now be certain: the fancies of a child are so unaccountable, so opulent -in decorative additions.... Yet the testimony of that child appeared to -have done more than anything else toward establishing Dom Manuel’s -supremacy over all the men that Poictesme had ever known; indeed, when -every fostering influence was allowed for, the whole cult of the -returning Redeemer had begun with the testimony of that child. And -perhaps it was natural enough (in this truly curious world) that Jurgen -nowadays should be the only person remaining in any place who was a bit -dubious as to the testimony of that child.... - -Anyhow, young Jurgen had brought down from Morven a most helpful and -inspiring prediction which kept up people’s spirits in this truly -curious world; and cheerfulness was a clear gain. The fact that nothing -anywhere entitled you to it could only, he deduced, make of this -cheerfulness a still clearer gain.... - -There might, besides, very well have been something to build upon. -Modesty, indeed, here raised the point if Jurgen—at that tender age and -some while before the full ripening of his powers,—could have invented -out of the whole cloth anything quite so splendid and far-reaching? And -that question he modestly left unanswered. Meanwhile (among so many -perplexities) it was certain that Poictesme, along with the rest of -Christendom, had now its wholly satisfactory faith and its beneficent -legend. - - - EXPLICIT - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - COMPENDIUM OF LEADING HISTORICAL EVENTS - - (_Abridged from the computations of Bülg_) - - ══════════════════════════════════════════════════ - - - 1239 Manuel the Redeemer departs from Poictesme, in the - September of this year. Last siege of the Fellowship - of the Silver Stallion held upon the feast of St. - Clement the Roman. Niafer named regent in her - husband’s stead, pending either the return of Dom - Manuel or the arrival of the twenty-first birthday of - their son Emmerick. - - 1240 Gonfal goes into the Isles of Wonder. Coth travels to - Sorcha, and thence westward. Kerin disappears in the - May of this year. Miramon Lluagor leaves Poictesme. - - 1243 Execution of Gonfal, on or about the feast day of - Tiburtius and Valerianus. - - 1244 Miraculous birth of Fauxpas de Nointel. - - 1245 Miramon Lluagor acquires, but gets inadequate benefit - from, the bees of Toupan. Coth imprisoned at Ran - Reigan. - - 1247 Coth reaches Porutsa, and is made Emperor of Tollan. - Coth is blown back into Poictesme. - - 1250 Death of Miramon Lluagor. Flight of Demetrios the - parricide into Anatolia. - - 1252 St. Ferdinand enters into eternal life. Anavalt goes - into Elfhame, and perishes there. - - 1253 Ork and Horrig suffer martyrdom among the Peohtes. - - 1254 Marriage of Dom Manuel’s reputed son, Prince Edward, at - fifteen years of age, to the infant daughter of St. - Ferdinand. - - 1255 Mélusine puts a magic upon King Helmas, and transfers - his court to the high place at Brunbelois. Betrothal - of Melicent to King Theodoret. - - 1256 Perion de la Forêt comes, in disguise, to Bellegarde. - Jurgen goes into Gâtinais. Dorothy marries Michael, - the son of Guivric. - - 1257 Melicent escapes out of Poictesme, and is purchased by - Demetrios. Jurgen makes merry with the third wife of - the Vidame de Soyecourt. - - 1258 Ending of Dame Niafer’s regency in the name of Manuel; - with the formal accession, in the June of this year, - upon the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul, of - Count Emmerick the Fourth. - - 1260 The portrait of Queen Radegonde becomes a mortal woman, - and terminates the intimacy with Holden which began - at Lacre Kai in 1237. Count Emmerick marries - Radegonde. Death of Holden. Death of Azra. - - 1261 Guivric goes east to face the Sylan. Coth dies in his - sleep. Kerin returns into Poictesme after twenty-one - years spent underground. - - 1262 Birth of Emmerick’s first son. Ninzian detected by his - nine hundred and eightieth wife, and is visited by - Lucifer. - - 1263 Rape of Ettarre, with her prompt rescue by Guiron. - Maugis d’Aigremont goes into rebellion. Donander - leaves Poictesme, and is killed by Palnatoki. - - 1265 Kerin murdered by outlaws. Continuation of Maugis’ - rebellion. - - 1268 Death of Pope Clement the Fourth, with the resultant - accession, in December, of Ayrart de Montors. Jurgen - visits the Château de Puysange, and there meets the - Vicomte’s wife. - - 1269 Birth of Florian de Puysange. - - 1270 Holmendis leaves Poictesme, and dies in Africa. - Edifying decease of Guivric. Jurgen returns into - Poictesme, and marries Lisa, the daughter by courtesy - of old Pettipas the pawnbroker. Count Emmerick at - odds with the Pope. - - 1271 Accession to the papal chair of Gregory the Tenth. - Continuation of Maugis’ disastrous rebellion, with - the partial burning of Bellegarde. - - 1272 Death of Balthis. Disappearance of Ninzian. Accession - of Dom Manuel’s reputed son to the crown of England. - - 1275 Perion and Melicent come back into Poictesme. End of - Maugis’ rebellion, with his just punishment by death. - Marriage of Ettarre to Guiron des Rocques, who in the - following year succeeds his brother, as Prince de - Gâtinais. - - 1277 Jurgen has a queer dream, upon Walburga’s Eve. Niafer - visited by a queer dream during the forenoon of St. - Urban’s day. Death of Niafer, in the June of this - year. - - 1291 Alianora dies at Ambresbury, and is interred piecemeal, - parts of her being buried in the Benedictine convent - there, and the remainder at the Friars Minors in - London. - - 1300 Count Emmerick murdered by his nephew, Raymondin de la - Forêt, who seeks refuge in the unhallowed forest of - Columbiers, and there marries Madame Mélusine the - enchantress. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ● Transcriber’s Notes: - ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. - ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. - ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only - when a predominant form was found in this book. - ○ Text that: - was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SILVER STALLION *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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