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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d4c294 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69779 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69779) diff --git a/old/69779-0.txt b/old/69779-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 79e184a..0000000 --- a/old/69779-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8558 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Something about Eve, 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: Something about Eve - A comedy of fig-leaves - -Author: James Branch Cabell - -Release Date: January 13, 2023 [eBook #69779] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Delphine Lettau, Cindy Beyer, Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan & the - online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at - http://www.pgdpcanada.net - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOMETHING ABOUT EVE *** - - - - - - SOMETHING ABOUT EVE - - - A Comedy of Fig-leaves - - BY - JAMES BRANCH CABELL - - - “I WAS AFRAID, BECAUSE I WAS - NAKED: AND I HID MYSELF” - - - LONDON - JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED - - - - - First Published in 1927 - Made and Printed in Great Britain by - Tonbridge Printers Peach Hall Works Tonbridge - - - - - To - ELLEN GLASGOW - - —very naturally—this book which - commemorates the intelligence - of women - - - - - CONTENTS - PART ONE: THE BOOK OF OUTSET - - 1 How the Tempter Came 3 - 2 Evelyn of Lichfield 6 - 3 Two Geralds 15 - 4 That Devil in the Library 21 - - PART TWO: THE BOOK OF TWILIGHT - - 5 Christening of the Stallion 33 - 6 Evadne of the Dusk 38 - - PART THREE: THE BOOK OF DOONHAM - - 7 Evasherah of the First Water-Gap 51 - 8 The Mother of Every Princess 65 - 9 How One Butterfly Fared 72 - - PART FOUR: THE BOOK OF DERSAM - - 10 Wives at Caer Omn 77 - 11 The Glass People 83 - 12 Confusions of the Golden Travel 86 - 13 Colophon of a God 99 - 14 Evarvan of the Mirror 102 - - PART FIVE: THE BOOK OF LYTREIA - - 15 At Tenjo’s Court 113 - 16 The Holy Nose of Lytreia 120 - 17 Evaine of Peter’s Tomb 126 - 18 End of a Vixen 142 - 19 Beyond the Veil 146 - - PART SIX: THE BOOK OF TUROINE - - 20 Thaumaturgists in Labor 155 - 21 They That Wore Blankets 159 - 22 The Paragraph of the Sphinx 164 - 23 Odd Transformation of a Towel 176 - - PART SEVEN: THE BOOK OF POETS - - 24 On Mispec Moor 183 - 25 The God Conforms 190 - 26 “Qualis Artifex!” 195 - 27 Regarding the Stars 206 - - PART EIGHT: THE BOOK OF MAGES - - 28 Fond Magics of Maya 215 - 29 Leucosia’s Singing 220 - 30 What Solomon Wanted 225 - 31 The Chivalry of Merlin 229 - 32 A Boy That Might As Well Be 238 - - PART NINE: THE BOOK OF MISPEC MOOR - - 33 Limitations of Gaston 247 - 34 Ambiguity of the Brown Man 255 - 35 Of Kalki and a Döoppelganger 259 - 36 Tannhäuser’s Troubled Eyes 263 - 37 Contentment of the Mislaid God 270 - - PART TEN: THE BOOK OF ENDINGS - - 38 About the Past of a Bishop 281 - 39 Baptism of a Musgrave 294 - 40 On the Turn of a Leaf 298 - 41 Child of All Fathers 301 - 42 Theodorick Rides Forth 305 - 43 Economics of Redemption 310 - 44 Economics of Common-Sense 319 - 45 Farewell to All Fair Welfare 323 - - PART ELEVEN: THE BOOK OF REMNANTS - - 46 The Gray Quiet Way of Ruins 329 - 47 How Horvendile Gave Up the Race 333 - - PART TWELVE: THE BOOK OF ACQUIESCENCE - - 48 Fruits of the Sylan’s Industry 345 - 49 Triumph of the Two Truths 352 - 50 Exodus of Glaum 362 - - - - - THE ARGUMENT OF THIS COMEDY - Set forth as clearly as discretion permits, for the convenience - of the intending reader - - THESE shadows here are subtle: for they wait - Like usurers that briefly lend the sun - Disfavor and a stinted while to run - With flaunting vigor through life’s large estate - Of fire and turmoil; or like thieves that hate - No law-lord save the posturing of desire - With genuflexions where dejections tire - The fig-leaf’s trophy with the fig-leaf’s weight. - - Yes; they are subtle: and where no light is - These tread not openly, as heretofore, - With whisperings of that at odds with this - To veil their passing, where a broken door - Confronts the zenith, and Semiramis, - At one with Upsilon, exhorts no more. - - - - - PART ONE - - THE BOOK OF OUTSET - - “Wheresoever a Man Lives, There - Will be a Thornbush Near His Door.” - - - - - 1. - How the Tempter Came - - -FOR some moments after he had materialized, and had become perceivable -by human senses, the Sylan waited. He waited, looking down at the very -busy, young, red-haired fellow who sat within arm’s reach at the -writing-table. This boy, as yet, was so unhappily engrossed in literary -composition as not to have noticed his ghostly visitant. So the Sylan -waited.... - -And as always, to an onlooker, the motions of creative writing revealed -that flavor of the grotesque which is attendant upon every form of -procreation. The Sylan rather uneasily noted the boy’s writhing antics, -which to a phantom seemed strange and eerie.... For this mortal world, -as the Sylan well remembered, was remarkably opulent in things which -gave pleasure when they were tasted or handled,—the world in which this -pensive boy was handling, and now nibbled at, the tip-end of a black -pen. Outside this somewhat stuffy room were stars or sunsets or -impressive mountains, to be looked at from almost anywhere in this -mortal world,—which would also afford to the investigative, who -searched in appropriate places, such agreeable smells as that of vervain -and patchouli, and of smouldering incense, and of hayfields under a -large moon, and of pine woods, and the robustious salty odors of a wind -coming up from the sea. - -Likewise, at this very moment, you might encounter, in the prodigal -world outside this somewhat stuffy room, those tinier, those mere baby -winds which were continually whispering in the tree-tops about this -world’s marvelousness now that April was departing; or you might hear -the irrationally dear sound of a bird calling dubiously in the spring -night, with a very piercing sweetness; or, if you went adventuring yet -farther, you might hear the muffled delicious voice of a woman -counterfeiting embarrassment and reproof of your enterprise.... Outside -this book-filled room, in fine, was that unforgotten mortal world in -which any conceivable young man could live very royally, and with -never-failing ardor, upon every person’s patrimony of the five human -senses. - -And yet, in such a well-stocked world, this lean, red-headed boy was -vexedly making upon paper (with that much nibbled-at black pen) small -scratches, the most of which he almost immediately canceled with yet -other scratches, all the while with the air of a person who is about -something intelligent and of actual importance. This Gerald Musgrave -therefore seemed to the waiting, spectral Sylan a somewhat excessively -silly mortal, thus to be squandering a lad’s brief while of living in -vigorous young human flesh, among so many readily accessible objects -which a boy like this could always be seeing and tasting and smelling -and hearing and handling, with unforgotten delight. - -But the Sylan reflected, too, a bit wistfully, that his own mortal youth -was now for some time overpast. It had, in fact, been nearly six hundred -years since he had been really young, a good five and a half centuries -since young Guivric and his nine tall comrades in the famous fellowship -had so delighted in their patrimony of five human senses and had spent -that inheritance rather notably. Yes, he was getting on, the Sylan -reflected; he had quite lost touch with the ways of these latter-day -young people. - -Yet it was perhaps unavoidable that in the great while since he had gone -about this world in a man’s natural body, the foibles of human youth had -become somewhat strange to him; and it was not, after all, to appraise -the wastefulness of authors that you had traveled a long way, from Caer -Omn to Lichfield, at the command of another Author, to put this doomed -red-headed boy out of living. - -The Sylan spoke.... - - - - - 2. - Evelyn of Lichfield - - -THE Sylan spoke. He spoke at some length. And the young man at the -writing-table, after arising with the slight start which these -supernatural visitations invariably evoked from him, had presently heard -the Sylan’s proposal. - -“Who is it,” said Gerald, then, “that tempts me to this sacrifice and to -this partial destruction?” - -The Sylan replied, “The name that I had in my mortal living was Guivric, -but now I am called Glaum of the Haunting Eyes.” - -That was a queer name, and it was a queer arrangement, too, which this -vague wraith in the likeness of a man was proposing,—an arrangement, -Gerald Musgrave decided, which, at least, was worth consideration.... - -For, as a student of magic, Gerald Musgrave in his time had dealt with -many demons: but never had been made to him, before this final night in -the April of 1805, such a queer, and yet rational, and even handsome -offer as was now held out. Gerald pushed aside the manuscript of his -unfinished romance about Dom Manuel of Poictesme; he straightened the -ruffles about his throat; and for an instant he weighed the really quite -alluring suggestion.... Most demons were obsessed by the notion of -buying from you a soul which Gerald, in this age of reason, had no sure -proof that he possessed. But this Glaum of the Haunting Eyes, it seemed, -was empowered and willing to rid Gerald of all corporal obligations, and -to take over Gerald’s physical life just as it stood,—even with all the -plaguing complications of Gerald’s entanglement with Evelyn Townsend. - -“I was once human,” the Sylan explained, “and wore a natural body. And -old habits, in such trifles as apparel, cling. I feel at times, even -nowadays, after five centuries of a Sylan’s care-free living, rather at -a loss for human ties.” - -“I find them,” Gerald stated, “vast nuisances. Candor is no more -palatable than an oyster when either is out of season. And my relatives -are all cursed with a very disastrous candor. They conceal from me -nothing save that respect and envy with which they might, appropriately, -regard my accomplishments and nobler qualities.” - -“That has been the way with all relatives, Gerald, since Cain and Abel -were brothers.” - -“Still, but for one calamity, I could, it might be, endure my brothers. -I could put up with my sisters’ voluble and despondent view of my -future. I might even go so far in supererogation as to condone—upon -alternate Thursdays, say,—a chorus of affectionate aunts who speak for -my own good.” - -“The first person, Gerald, that pretended to speak for the real good of -anybody else was a serpent in a Garden, and ever since then that sort of -talking has been venomous.” - -“Yet all these afflictions I might,” said Gerald,—“conceivably, at -least, I might be able to endure, if only the pursuit of my art had not -been hampered, and the ease of my body blasted, by the greatest blessing -which can befall any man.” - -“You allude, I imagine,” said the Sylan, “to the love of a good woman?” - -“That is it, that is precisely the unmerited and too irremovable -blessing which may end, after all, in reducing me to your suggested -vulgar fraction of a suicide.” - -Now Gerald was silent. He leaned far back in his chair. He meditatively -placed together the tips of his two little fingers, and then one by one -the tips of his other fingers, until his thumbs also were in contact; -and he regarded the result, upon the whole, with disapprobation. - -“Every marriage gets at least one man into trouble,” he philosophised, -“and it is not always the bridegroom. You see, sir, by the worst of -luck, this Evelyn Townsend was already married, so that ours had -necessarily to become an adulterous union. It is the tragedy of my life -that I met my Cousin Evelyn too late to marry her. Any married person of -real ingenuity and tolerable patience can induce his wife to divorce -him. But there is no way known to me for a Southern gentleman to get rid -of a lady whom he has possessed illegally, until she has displayed the -decency to become tired of him. And Evelyn, sir, in this matter of -continuing her immoral relations with me has behaved badly, very badly -indeed—” - -“All women—” Glaum began. - -“No, but let us not be epigrammatic and aphoristic and generally -flippant about a perverseness which is pestering me beyond any -reasonable endurance! You know as well as I do that every pretty woman -ought, by and by, to remember what she owes to her husband and to her -marriage vows, and to act accordingly. Repentance when suitably timed in -a liaison makes for everybody’s happiness. But some women, sir, some -women stay more affectionately adhesive than an anaconda. They weep. -They reply to their helpless paramours’ every least attempt at any -rational statement, ‘And I trusted you! I gave you all!’” - -Glaum nodded, not unsympathetically. “I also in my time have heard that -observation without any active enjoyment. It is, I believe, -unanswerable.” - -Gerald shuddered. “There is, for a Southern gentleman at all events, no -really satisfactory reply save murder. And against that solution there -is of course a rather general prejudice. Therefore a woman of this -bleating sort exacts fidelity, she makes every nature of unconscionable -demand, and she pesters you to the verge of lunacy, always upon the -unanswerable ground that her claim upon your gratitude, and upon your -instant obedience in everything, ought not to exist. Oh, I assure you, -my dear fellow, there is no more sensible piece of friendly counsel -existent than is the Seventh Commandment!” - -“Your aphorisms are more or less true, and your predicament I can -understand. Nevertheless—” - -But the Sylan hesitated. - -“You also understand us Musgraves perfectly!” Gerald applauded. “For I -perceive you are now about to wheedle me forward in this business by -throwing obstacles in my way.” - -“I was but going to point out the truism that, nevertheless, it may be -wiser to put up with your Eve unresistingly—” - -“The name,” emended Gerald, “is Evelyn.” - -At that the Sylan smiled. “Yes, to be sure! Women do vary in their given -names. It might be wiser, then, I was about to say, for you to put up -with your Evelyn unresistingly, rather than for a student of magic, with -so little real practical experience as yours, to go blundering about the -doubtful road which leads to Antan.” - -“But, sir, I have the soul of an artist! Once”—and Gerald pointed to -his manuscript,—“once it was the little art of letters. Then, through -my acquaintance with Gaston Bulmer, who is no doubt known to you—” - -The Sylan shook his spectral head, like smoke in a veering wind. “I have -not, I believe, that pleasure.” - -“You astound me. I would have supposed the name of Gaston Bulmer to be -in all infernal circles a household word, because the dear old rascal is -an adept, sir, of wide parts, of taste, and of sound judgment. Then, -too, since Mrs. Townsend is his daughter, he has now for some while been -my father-in-law for all practical purposes—But, where was I? Ah, yes! -Through Gaston Bulmer, I repeat, I became initiate into the greatest of -all arts. Now I desire to excel in that art. I note that I falter in the -little art of letters, that my prose is no longer superb and -breath-taking in its loveliness, because my heart is not any longer -really interested in writing, on account of my heart’s ever-pricking -desire to revive in its full former glories the far nobler and—at all -events, in the United States of America,—the unjustly neglected art of -the magician. And from whom else—just as you have suggested, my dear -fellow,—from whom else save the Master Philologist can I get the great -and best words of magic? Do you but answer me that very simple -question!” - -“From no one else, to be sure—” - -“So, now, you see for yourself!” - -“Yet the Master Philologist is nowadays a married man, and is ruled in -everything by his wife. And this Queen Freydis has a mirror which must, -they say, be faced by those persons who venture into the goal of all the -gods of men—” - -“That mirror, too,” said Gerald, airily, “I may be needing. Mirrors are -employed in many branches of magic.” - -Glaum now was speaking with rather more of graveness than there seemed -any call for. And Glaum said: - -“For one, I would not meddle with that mirror. Even in the land of -Dersam, where a mirror is sacred, we do not desire any dealings with the -Mirror of the Hidden Children and with those strange reflections which -are unclouded by either good or evil.” - -“I shall face the Mirror of the Hidden Children,” Gerald said, with his -chin well up, “and should I see any particular need for it, I shall -fetch that mirror also out of Antan. When a citizen of the United States -of America takes up the pursuit of an art, sir, he does not -shilly-shally about it.” - -“For my part,” the Sylan answered, “I wearied, some centuries ago, of -all magic: and I hanker, rather, after the more material things of life. -For five hundred years and over, in my untroubled abode at Caer Omn, in -the land of Dersam, I have reigned among the dreams of a god—” - -“But how did you come by these dreams?” - -“They forsook him, Gerald, when his hour was come to descend into -Antan.” - -“That saying, sir, I cannot understand.” - -“It is not necessary, Gerald, that you should. Meanwhile, I admit, the -life of a Sylan has no fret in it, a Sylan has nothing to be afraid of: -and there is in me a mortal taint which cannot endure interminable -contentment any longer. You conceive, I also was once a mortal man, with -my deceivings and my fears and my doubts to spice my troubled deference -to the ever-present folly of my fellows and to the ever-present -ruthlessness of time and chance. And, as I remember it, Gerald, that -Guivric, whom people so preposterously called the Sage, got more zest -out of his subterfuges and compromises than I derive from being -care-free and rather bored twenty-four hours to each insufferable day. -Therefore, I repeat, I will take over your natural body—” - -“But that, my dear fellow, would leave me without any carnal residence.” - -“Why, Gerald, but I am surprised at such scepticism in you who pay your -pew-rent so regularly! We have it upon old, fine authority that for -every man there is a natural body and a spiritual body.” - -Then Gerald colored up. He felt that both his erudition and his piety -stood reproved. And he said, contritely: - -“In fact, as a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, I am familiar -with the Burial Service—Yes, you are right. I have no desire to take -issue with St. Paul. The religion of my fathers assures me that I have -two bodies. I can live in only one of them at a time. It is, for that -matter, a bit ostentatious, it has a vaguely disreputable sound, for any -unmarried man to be maintaining two establishments. So, let us get on!” - -“Therefore, I repeat, I will take over your natural body, just as that -first Glaum once took over my body; and I will take over all your body’s -imbroglios, even with your mistress,—who can hardly be more tasking to -get along with than are the seven official wives and the three hundred -and fifty-odd concubines I am getting rid of.” - -“You,” Gerald said, morosely, “do not know Evelyn Townsend.” - -“I trust,” the Sylan stated, more gallantly, “to have that privilege -to-morrow.” - -It was in this way the bargain was struck. And then the Sylan who was -called Glaum of the Haunting Eyes did what was requisite. - - - - - 3. - Two Geralds - - -THE Sylan who was called Glaum of the Haunting Eyes, be it repeated, -did that which was requisite.... To Gerald, as a student of magic, the -most of the process was familiar enough: and if some curious grace-notes -were, perhaps, excursions into the less wholesome art of goety, that was -not Gerald’s affair. It was sufficient that, when the Sylan had ended, -no Sylan was any longer visible. Instead, in Gerald Musgrave’s library, -stood face to face two Geralds, each in a blue coat and a golden yellow -waistcoat, each with a tall white stock and ruffles about his throat, -and each clad in every least respect precisely like the other. - -Nor did these two lean, red-headed Geralds differ in countenance. Each -smiled at the other with the same amply curved, rather womanish mouth -set above the same prominent, long chin; and each found just the same -lazy and mildly humorous mockery in the large and very dark blue, the -really purple, eyes of the other: for between these two Gerald Musgraves -there was no visual difference whatever. - -One half of this quaint pair now sat down at the writing-table; and, -fiddling with the papers there, he took up the pages of Gerald -Musgrave’s unfinished romance, about the high loves of his famous -ancestor Dom Manuel of Poictesme and Madame Niafer, the Soldan of -Barbary’s daughter. Gerald had begun this tale in the days when he had -intended to endow America with a literature superior to that of other -countries; but for months now he had neglected it: and, in fact, ever -since he set up as a student of magic he had lacked time, somehow, with -every available moment given over to runes and cantraps and -suffumigations, to get back to any really serious work upon this -romance. - -Then the seated Gerald, smiling almost sadly, looked up toward his twin. - -“Thus it was,” said the seated Gerald, “a great while ago at Asch, when -two Guivrics confronted each other and played shrewdly for the control -of the natural body of Guivric of Perdigon. All which I lost on that -day, through my over-human clinging to the Two Truths, I now have back, -after five centuries of pleasure-seeking in the land of Dersam. And I -find this second natural body of mine committed to the creating of yet -more pleasure-giving nonsense, about, of all persons, that eternal -Manuel of Poictesme! I find this body also enamored of the fig-leaf of -romance!” - -“It may be that I do not understand your simile,” said the standing -Gerald, “for in the United States of America the fig-leaf is, rather, -the nice symbol of decency, it is, indeed, the beginning and the end of -democratic morality.” - -“Nevertheless, and granting all this,” replied the now demon-haunted -natural body of Gerald Musgrave, “the fig-leaf is a romance with which -human optimism veils the only two eternal and changeless and rather -unlovely realities of which any science can be certain.” - -“Ah, now I comprehend! And without utterly agreeing with you, I cannot -deny there is something in your metaphor. Yet I must tell you, sir, that -I am perhaps peculiarly qualified to deal with Dom Manuel because of the -fact that this famous hero was my lineal ancestor—” - -“Oh, but, my poor Gerald, was he indeed!” - -“Yes, through both the Musgrave and the Allonby lines. For my mother’s -father was Gerald Allonby—” - -And Gerald would have gone on to explain the precise connection, of -which the Musgrave family was justifiably proud. But the unappreciative -Sylan who now wore good Musgrave flesh and blood had remarked, of all -conceivable remarks: - -“I honestly condole with you. Yet ancestors cannot be picked like -strawberries. And my luck was even worse, for I was of Manuel’s -fellowship. I knew the tall swaggerer himself throughout his blundering -career. And I can assure you that, apart from his unhuman gift for -keeping his mouth shut, there was nothing a bit wonderful about the -cock-eyed, gray impostor.” - -This was surprising news. Still, Gerald reflected, a demon did, in the -way of business, meet many persons in circumstances in which the better -side of their natures was not to the fore. Gerald therefore flew to -defend the honor of his race quite civilly. - -“My progenitor, in any event, carried through his imposture. He died -very well thought of by his neighbors. That you will find to be a -leading consideration with any citizen of the United States of America. -And I in turn assure you that my account of the great Manuel’s exploits -will be, when it is completed, an exceedingly fine romance. It will be a -tale which has not its like in America. Loveliness lies swooning upon -every page, illuminated by a never-ceasing coruscation of wit. It is a -story which, as you might put it, grips the reader. There is no -imaginable reader but will be instantly engaged, by my adroit depiction -of the hardihood and the heroic virtues of Dom Manuel—” - -“But,” said the really very handsomely disguised Sylan, “Manuel had -always a cold in his head. Nobody can honestly admire an elderly fellow -who is continually sneezing and spitting—” - -“In American literature of a respectable cast no human being has any -excretory functions. Should you reflect upon this statement, you will -find it to be the one true test of delicacy. At most, some tears or a -bead or two of perspiration may emanate, but not anything more, upon -this side of pornography. That rule applies with especial force to love -stories, for reasons we need hardly go into. And my romance is, of -course, the story of Dom Manuel’s love for the beautiful Niafer, the -Soldan of Barbary’s daughter—” - -“Her father was a stable groom. She had a game leg. She was not -beautiful. She was dish-faced, she was out and out ugly, apart from her -itch to be reforming everybody and pestering them with respectability—” - -“Faith, charity and hope are the three cardinal virtues,” said Gerald, -reprovingly. “And I think that a gentleman should exercise these three, -in just this order, when he is handling the paternity or the looks or -the legs of any lady.” - -“—And she smelt bad. Every month she seemed to me to smell worse. I do -not know why, but I think the Countess simply hated to wash.” - -“My dear fellow! really now, I can but refer you to my previously cited -rule as to the anatomy of romance. A heroine who smells bad every -month—No, upon my word, I can find nothing engaging in that notion. I -had far rather play with some wholly other and more beautiful idea than -with a notion so utterly lacking in seductiveness. For this, I repeat, -is a romance. It is a romance such as has not its like in America. I -therefore consider that I display considerable generosity in presenting -you with those quite perfect ninety-three pages, and in permitting you -to complete this romance and to take the credit for writing all of it. -Why, your picture will be in the newspapers, and learned professors will -annotate your fornications, and oncoming ages will become familiar with -every mean act you ever committed!” - -To that the Sylan replied: “I shall complete your balderdash, no doubt, -since all your functions are now my functions. I shall complete it, if -only my common-sense and my five centuries of living among the loveliest -dreams of a god, and, above all, if my first-hand information as to -these people, have not ruined me for the task of ascribing large virtues -to human beings.” - -“I envy you that task,” said Gerald, with real wistfulness, “but, very -much as there was a geas upon my famous ancestor to make a figure in -this world, just so there is a compulsion upon me. The compulsion is -upon me to excel in my art; and to do this I must liberate the great and -best words of the Master Philologist.” - -Then the true Gerald went out of the room through a secret passage -unknown to him until this evening. - - - - - 4. - That Devil in the Library - - -YET Gerald looked back for an instant at that unfortunate devil, in -the appearance of a sedate young red-haired man, who remained in the -library. To regard this Gerald Musgrave, now, was like looking at a -droll acquaintance in whom Gerald was not, after all, very deeply -interested. - -For this Gerald Musgrave, the one who remained in the library, was -really droll in well-nigh every respect. About the Gerald who was -now—it might be, a bit nobly,—yielding up his life in preference to -violating the code of a gentleman, and who was now quitting Lichfield, -in order to become a competent magician, there was not anything -ludicrous. That Gerald was an honorable and intelligent person who -sought a high and rational goal. - -But that part of Gerald Musgrave which remained behind, that part which -was already marshaling more words in order the more pompously to inter -the exploits of Dom Manuel of Poictesme, appeared droll. There was, for -one thing, no sensible compulsion upon that red-haired young fellow thus -to be defiling clean paper with oak-gall, when he might at that very -instant be comfortably drunk at the Vartreys’ dinner, or he might be -getting pleasurable excitement out of the turns of fortune at Dorn’s -gaming-parlors, or he might be diverting himself in his choice of four -bedrooms with a lively companion. - -But, instead, he sat alone with bookshelves rising stuffily to every -side of him,—rather low bookshelves upon the tops of which were perched -a cherished horde of porcelain and brass figures representing one or -another beast or fowl or reptile. Among the shiny toys, which in -themselves attested his childishness, the young fellow sat of his own -accord thus lonely. And his antics, incontestably, were queer. He -fidgeted. He shifted his rump. He hunched downward, as if with a sudden -access of rage, over the paper before him. He put back his head, to -stare intently at a white china hen. He pulled at the lobe of his left -ear; and he then rather frantically scratched the interior of this ear -with his little finger. - -Between these bodily exercises he, who was so precariously seated upon -the crust of a planet teetering unpredictably through space, was making -upon the paper before him, with his much nibbled-at black pen, small -scratches, the most of which he presently canceled with yet other -scratches, all the while with the air of a person who was about -something intelligent and of actual importance. The spectacle was queer; -it was unspeakably irrational: for, as always, to an onlooker, the -motions of creative writing revealed that flavor of the grotesque which -is attendant upon every form of procreation. - -Yet it was upon a graver count that Gerald felt honestly sorry for the -inheritor of Gerald Musgrave’s natural body. For Gerald was giving up -his life out of deference to the code of a gentleman with rather more of -relief than he had permitted the Sylan to suspect. And the poor devil -who had so rashly taken over this life would—howsoever acute his -diabolical intelligence,—he too would, in the end, Gerald reflected, be -powerless against that unreasonable Evelyn Townsend and that even more -unreasonable code of a gentleman. - -Nobody, Gerald’s thoughts ran on, now that he had found a rather -beautiful idea to play with, nobody who had not actually indulged in the -really dangerous dalliance of adultery in Lichfield could quite -understand the hopelessness of the unfortunate fiend’s position. For in -the chivalrous Lichfield of 1805 adultery had its inescapable etiquette. -Your exact relations with the woman were in the small town a matter of -public knowledge familiar to everybody: but no person in Lichfield would -ever formally grant that any such relations existed. Eyes might meet -with perfect understanding: but from the well-bred lips of no Southern -gentleman or gentlewoman would ever come more than a suave and placid -“Evelyn and Gerald have always been such good friends.” For you were -second cousins, to begin with: and—in a Lichfield wherein, as -everywhere else in this human world, most people unaffectedly disliked, -and belittled, and kept away from their cousins,—that relationship was -considered a natural reason for you two being much together. Moreover, -every woman in Lichfield was, by another really rather staggering social -convention, assumed to be beautiful and accomplished and chaste: it was -an assumption which needed hardly to be stated: it was merely among all -Southern gentry an axiom in the vast code of being well-bred. - -It followed that, when you were once involved in a liaison, your one -salvation was for your co-partner in iniquity to become tired of you, -and to cease dwelling upon the fact that she had trusted you and had -given you all. That remained, of course, by the dictates of Southern -chivalry, at any moment her privilege: but in this case the -inconsiderate woman only grew fonder and fonder of Gerald, and repeated -the dreadful observation more and more frequently.... And it remained, -too, the privilege of the technically aggrieved husband to pick a -quarrel with you, provided only that the grounds of this quarrel in no -way involved a mention of his wife’s name. Then, still by the set rules -of Lichfield’s etiquette, there would be a duel. After the duel you -either were dispiritingly dead or, else, if you happened to be the more -assuredly luckless survivor, you were compelled, merely by the silent -force of everybody’s assumption that a gentleman could not do otherwise, -to marry the widow. To do this was your debt to society at large, in -atonement for having “compromised” a lady, where, bewilderingly enough, -she was unanimously granted never to have been concerned at all. For -never, in either outcome, would the occurrence of anything “wrong” be -conceded, nor would ever the possibility of a lady’s having committed -adultery be so much as hinted at in any speech or act of the chivalrous -gentry of Lichfield. - -Meanwhile you were trapped. There was no way whatever of avoiding that -bleated “Oh, and I trusted you! I gave you all!” You were not even -privileged to avoid the woman. It was not considered humanly possible -that you were bored, and upon some occasions frenziedly annoyed, by the -society of a beautiful and accomplished and chaste gentlewoman who -honored you with her friendship. There was, instead, compressing you -everywhere, the tacit but vast force of the general assumption that your -indebtedness to her could not ever be discharged in full. The -deplorable—and sometimes, too, the rather dear—fond woman’s inability -to keep her hands off you was conscientiously not noticed. So your -Cousin Evelyn pawed at you in public without an eyebrow’s going up: -hostesses smilingly put you together: other men affably quitted her side -whensoever you appeared. Her husband was no different: Frank Townsend, -also, genially accepted—in the teeth of whatsoever rationality the man -might privately harbor,—the axiom that “Evelyn and Gerald have always -been such good friends.” - -Of course, Gerald granted, this was, in the upper circles of the best -Southern families, an exceptional case. Time and again Gerald had envied -the dozens of other young fellows in Lichfield who were conducting their -liaisons with visibly such superior luck. For the lady tired of them or, -else, was smitten with convenient repentance: and these gay blades -passed on high-heartedly to the embraces of yet other technically -beautiful and accomplished and chaste playfellows. But Evelyn evinced an -impenitence which threatened to be permanent; Evelyn did not tire of -Gerald; she pawed at him; she slipped notes into his hand; she bleated -almost every day her insufferable claim to upset his convenience and his -comfort: and he cursed in all earnestness that fatal charm of his which -held him in such desperate loneliness. - -—In loneliness, because not even the lean comfort of candor, not even -any quest of sympathy, was permitted you. A gentleman did not kiss and -tell: he, above all, might not tell that the kissing had become an -infernal nuisance. Not any of your brothers, neither one of your -sisters—not even when your indolence and your general worthlessness had -reduced Cynthia to whimpering bits of the New Testament, or had launched -Agatha in a chattering millrace of babbling maledictory -vaticinations,—would ever recognize to you in plain words that you and -Cousin Evelyn were illicitly intimate. Nor would any of your kindred, -either, ever contemplate the possibility of you yourself acting or -speaking here with common-sense, or in any other manner violating the -formulas set for every gentleman’s conduct by the insane and magnificent -code of Lichfield. - -For it was, after all, magnificent, in its own way, the code by which -those bull-headed Musgraves—who shared the blood that was in your body, -but no one of the notions in your astonishingly clever head,—along with -the rest of this brave and stupid Lichfield, lived day after day, and -carried genial, never-troubled self-respect into the graveyard. This -code avoided, so far as Gerald could see, no especial misdoing or crime: -but it did show you how, with the appropriate and most graceful of -gestures, to commit either, when the need arose, in the prescribed -fashion of a well-bred Southern gentleman. Yes, really, Gerald -reflected, that code was rather a beautiful idea to play with. It was an -excellent thing to be a gentleman: but it proved always fatal, too, in -the end, simply because no lady was a gentleman. - -However, it was that poor devil in the library who was now involved in -the dangerous task of carrying through an adultery in Lichfield after -the fashion of well-bred persons. It was in his ears that a still rather -dear but too damnably adhesive Evelyn would be bleating every day a -reiteration of the fact that she had trusted him and had given him all. -And Gerald himself, having decorously laid down his life rather than -violate this dreadful code of a gentleman, was now fairly in train to -become a competent magician. - -Not ever again would he sit writing among those bookshelves, engrossed, -and rubbing at his chin or forehead, or scratching his head, or sticking -his little finger into his ear, or restively shifting his weight from -one buttock to the other buttock, in his multiform efforts to quicken, -somehow, the flow of lagging thought. He would pause no more to prop his -chin (with an unpleasantly moist hand, as a rule), and thus to stare -lack-wittedly at one or another of the china and brass toys which he -had, quite as idiotically, collected to make vivid his bookshelves. All -these queer exercises, as Gerald, standing there, had seen them in the -last few minutes performed by the natural body of Gerald Musgrave, did, -manifestly, not constitute an engaging or a sane way of spending the -evening, in a somewhat stuffy room. - -No, he was now, forever, very happily done with all these forlorn -gymnastics. It was only the natural body of Gerald Musgrave which -henceforward would, before this commensurately irrational audience of -small elephants and dogs and parrots and chicken, go through these -foolish writhing antics, in that wholly nice looking young idiot’s -endeavor to complete the romance about Dom Manuel of Poictesme.... Well, -one could but wish the poor devil joy of his bargain! and it no longer -really mattered that all which pertained to Gerald Musgrave was rather -droll, Gerald decided, as he passed out of sight of that red head bent -over that incessant pen scratching. - - - - - PART TWO - THE BOOK OF TWILIGHT - - “It is Not Well to Look a - Gift Horse in the Mouth.” - - - - - 5. - Christening of the Stallion - - -GERALD descended nineteen steps; and in the dusk he found waiting -there, beside a tethered riding-horse, yet another young man, with hair -as red as Gerald Musgrave’s own. - -“That you may travel the more quickly, along a woman-haunted way, in -your journeying toward your appointed goal,” this stranger began, “I -have fetched a horse for you to ride upon.” - -Yet the speaker was not wholly a stranger. So Gerald now said, “Oh, so -it is you!” As a student of magic, Gerald had held earlier dealings with -this red-haired Horvendile, who was Lord of the Marches of Antan. - -And Gerald went on, gratefully: “Come now, but this is kind! Even as a -courtesy between fellow artists, this is generous!” - -“The amenities of fellow artists,” returned Horvendile, “are by ordinary -two-edged. And this one may cut deeper than you foreknow.” - -“Meanwhile you have brought me this huge shining horse, which cannot be -other than Pegasus—” - -“Whether or not this divine steed be that Pegasus which bears romantics -even to the ultimate goal of their dreams, depends upon the horseman. It -has been prophesied, however, that the Redeemer of Antan and the monarch -who shall reign, after the overthrow of the Master Philologist, in the -place beyond good and evil, will come riding upon the silver stallion -that is called, not Pegasus, but Kalki—” - -“Oh! oh!” said Gerald: and for an instant he considered this surprising -turn of affairs. To reign in Antan had, very certainly, been no part of -his modest plans; but he saw at once how much more becoming it would be, -and how much better suited to his real merits, to enter into Antan as -its heir apparent, resistless upon the silver stallion famous in old -prophecies, rather than to come as a suppliant begging for a few words. - -“Prophecies,” said Gerald, then, “ought to be respected by all well -brought up persons. Only, does this horse happened to be Kalki? Because, -you see, Horvendile, that appears to be the whole point of the -prophecy.” - -Rather oddly, Horvendile said, “Whether or not this divine steed be that -Kalki which bears romantics even to the ultimate goal of all the gods, -depends upon the horseman.” - -Gerald considered this saying. Gerald smiled, and Gerald remarked: - -“Oh, but now I comprehend you! The rider and the owner of any horse is, -quite naturally, entitled to call the animal whatsoever he prefers. Very -well, then! I shall christen this riding-horse Kalki. Yes, Horvendile, -upon mature deliberation, I will accept the throne of Antan, without -considering my personal preferences and my dislike of publicity and -ostentation, in order that the prophecy may be fulfilled, because that -is always a good thing for prophecies.” - -“Since that is your decision, Gerald, you have but, after you have paid -homage here, to mount intrepidly. And the divine steed will carry you -upon no common road, but, since he is divine, along that way which the -gods and the great myths pursue in their journeying toward Antan.” - -“It is appropriate, of course, that I should travel on the road -patronized by the best classes. Nevertheless, it would, I think, be a -rather beautiful idea—” - -“Nevertheless, also,” said Horvendile, “and all the while that you waste -in talking about beautiful ideas, there is a man’s homage to be paid -here; and moreover, at the first gap of the Doonham, the Princess awaits -you with some impatience. It would not be going too far to say, indeed, -that she hungers for your coming.” - -“Come now, but the things you tell me steadily become more palatable!” -remarked Gerald, as he approached the huge stallion. “Now that I have -accepted the responsibilities of a throne and of all the great and best -words of the Master Philologist, it would be most unbecoming for a -princess to be ignored by anyone who already is virtually a reigning -monarch. There are amenities to be preserved between royal houses. Very -terrible wars have sprung from the omission of such amenities. So do you -lead me forthwith to this impatient princess; but do you first tell me -the adorable name of her highness!” - -Horvendile answered, “The princess who just now awaits you is Evasherah, -the Lady of the First Water-Gap of Doonham.” - -“I admit that the information, now I have it, means very little. -Nevertheless, my dear fellow, do you direct me to the water-gap of this -princess!” - -“Yet, I repeat, it would be wise for you, before departing from this -place, to render a man’s homage to the ruler of it.” - -“Well, Horvendile, the name of this tropical, damp, and this rather -curious smelling country is no doubt better known to you than, I -confess, it stays to me!” - -“This place has not any name in the reputable speech of men. It is the -realm of Koleos Koleros.” - -At that name Gerald bowed his head; and, as became a student of magic, -he courteously made the appropriate sign. - -And Gerald said: “Very dreadful is the name of Koleos Koleros! Yet, -quite apart from the fact that I am a member of the Protestant Episcopal -church, I owe this Koleos Koleros no homage. And I, very certainly, -shall not linger to pay any, with a princess waiting for me! Rather, do -I elect to pass hastily through this land of quags and underbrush, and -to leave this somewhat unsanitarily odored neighborhood, in which, I -perceive, misguided persons yet live—” - -For these two young men were no longer alone in this ambiguous valley. -Through the twilight Gerald now saw many women passing furtively toward -a dark laurel grove; and from out of that grove came a queer music. - -Then Horvendile spoke of these women. - - - - - 6. - Evadne of the Dusk - - -NOW all the while that Horvendile talked it was to the accompaniment -of that remote queer music: and Gerald was troubled. He came, at least, -as near to being troubled as Gerald ever permitted himself to do. For -Gerald did not really enjoy trouble of any kind, and said frankly that -he found it uncongenial. - -“But these,” said Gerald, by and by, “all these, my dear fellow, I had -thought to have perished a long while ago.” - -“You travel, Gerald, on the road of the greater myths. Such myths do not -perish speedily. And, besides, nothing is true anywhere in the Marches -of Antan. All is a seeming and an echo: and through this superficies men -come to know the untruth which makes them free. It follows, in my logic, -that to-day these women are the flute-players of Koleos Koleros. They -serve to-day, forever unsatiated, that most insatiable divinity who is -shaggy and evil-odored, and who can taste no pleasure until after -bloodshed—” - -“I have read, also,” Gerald broke in, with the slight smile of one who -is not unpleased to display his learning, “that this Koleos Koleros is a -somewhat contradictory goddess, producing the less the more constantly -that she is cultivated and stirred up—” - -“Oho, but a most potent goddess is this Koleos Koleros!” continued -Horvendile. “She is wrinkled and flabby in appearance, yet the most -stout of heroes falls at last before her. Infants perish nightly in her -gloomy vaults, and plagues and diseases harbor there—” - -But again Gerald had interrupted him, saying: “Yet I have read, -moreover, that this modest and retired Koleos Koleros, alone of eternal -beings, is ever ardent to quench the ardor of her servitors; and -that—still to praise merit where merit appears,—in her untiring -warfare with all men that rise up to oppose her, she displays the -magnanimity to favor, and to embrace lovingly, the adversary that -attacks her most often and most deeply.” - -Horvendile thereupon held out his hand. He showed thus the tip of his -forefinger touching the tip of his thumb so that they formed a circle. -And Horvendile said: - -“She varies even as the moon varies. Yet equally is this divine small -monster the bestower of life and of all joy; she charms in defiance of -reason: and whensoever Koleos Koleros appears, red and inflamed and -hideous among her tousled tresses, a man is moved willy-nilly to place -in her his chief delight.” - -“Oho!” said Gerald, and, as became a student of magic, he also made the -needful sign, “oho, but a most potent goddess is this Koleos Koleros!” - -“Now, then,” continued Horvendile, “all they who in this place serve -eternally this most whimsical divinity are a loving and a peculiarly -happy people. Their amorousness, which here is not ever blighted by -shrill reprobation, has need at no time to fear either the chastisement -of human law nor the anathemas of any other religion anywhere in the -quiet brakes and lowlands of the moist realm of Koleos Koleros. For, you -conceive, these feminine myths who now are flute-players in and about -the shrine of the wrinkled goddess, and who through so many centuries -have been trained in all the arts of pleasure, came by and by into a -certain confusion—” - -“But what sort of confusion, Horvendile, do you mean? For I find your -speaking another sort. And I am rather more interested in that -princess—” - -“I mean that their religion, which ranks pleasure above all else, -permits no man to pass by unpleased.” - -“Ah, now I understand you!” - -“—I mean that, through the duties of their religious faith, their way -of living has been given over to an assiduous and an empirical study of -all the charms peculiar to a woman, the more particularly as these -charms are employed—” - -“Let us say, in the exercise of their religion,” Gerald suggested, “for -I wholly understand you, sir.” - -“It has followed that the taste of these ladies has become more -delicate. It has followed that, by force of considering their own -feminine loveliness, always unveiled and in lively employment, and by -comparing it so intimately and so jealously with the loveliness of their -female rivals in the service of the wrinkled goddess, they have become -connoisseurs of the beauties peculiar to their sex. They have acquired a -refinement of taste—” - -“To be refined in one’s taste is eminently praiseworthy. Ah, my dear -fellow, if you but knew what shocking examples of bad taste we kings are -continually encountering among our sycophants! And that reminds me, you -said something about a princess—” - -“—They have learned to despise the hasty and boisterous and, between -ourselves, the very often disappointing ways of men—” - -“Ah, yes, no doubt!” said Gerald. “Men are a bad lot. But we were -speaking of a princess—” - -“—And they have lovingly contrived more finespun and more rococo -diversions without the crude assistance of any man. Then also they -delight in playing with many well-trained pets,—with goats and large -dogs and asses and, they tell me, with rams and with bulls also. The -surprising and mysterious joys which blaze up among these flute-players -are, thus, very violent and delicious.” - -Gerald said then that kindness to dumb animals was generally reckoned a -most estimable trait in the United States of America. Whereas, in all -quarters of that enlightened and hospitable republic, Gerald estimated, -a princess— - -“Yet,” Horvendile went on, “these learned women do not forget, in mere -pleasure-seeking, their religious duty of permitting no man to pass by -unpleased. Go to them, therefore, you will be welcome. Yonder at this -instant a religious festival is preparing. Yonder sweet-voiced Leucosia, -who hereabouts is called Evadne, waits for you—” - -“But I have not the honor of knowing this Evadne—” - -“She is easily known, by her violet hair and her sharp teeth. Moreover, -Gerald, her wise sisters—Telês, and Parthenopê, and Radnê, and Ligeia, -and Molpê,—all these will greet you with ardor. They will deny to you -no secret of their pious rites; they will share with you esoteric joys -religiously. They will incite you to perform among their choir, in the -most secret shrine of Koleos Koleros—” - -“But, really now, my dear fellow! I have no talent whatever for music. I -would be quite out of place in any choir.” - -“These flute-players are very ingenious. They will find for you some -suitable instrument. And there will be strange harmonies and much soft -laughter at this festival: each reveller will pour out libations -copiously: cups will be refilled and emptied until dawn. There will be -for you perfumes and rose garlands and the most exquisite of wines and -the most savory of dishes and other delicacies. Due homage will be paid -to Koleos Koleros.” - -“Nevertheless,” said Gerald, “there is a phrase which haunts me—” - -“That dusky grove of laurels yonder is the hall of this pious feast. -Nothing will be lacking to you at this feast if you attend it with -proper religious exaltation; and you will discover abilities there which -will surprise you.” - -“Ah, as to that now, Horvendile—! Yes, I have a man’s proper share of -ability, I have quite enough ability for two persons. Nevertheless, -there is a patriotic phrase which haunts me, and that phrase is _E -pluribus unum_. For I have compunctions, Horvendile, which are -translating that same phrase, a little freely, as ‘One among so many.’” - -“It seems to me a harmless phrase even in your paraphrase. More harm may -very well come of the fact that these learned ladies will endeavor to -cajole you out of the divine steed, so that he may be added to their -trained pets—” - -“Oh! oh, indeed!” said Gerald. “But that is nonsense. The rider upon -Kalki, and none other, has to fulfil that estimable old prophecy: and a -deal of good such wheedlings will do any woman breathing, with a fine -kingdom like that of mine set against a mere kiss or, it may be, a few -tears!” - -“That matter remains to be attested in due time. Meanwhile, I can but -repeat that if you do not render a man’s homage to the ruler of this -place there is no doubt whatever that the slighted goddess will avenge -herself.” - -“Sir,” Gerald now replied, with appropriate dignity, “I am, as were my -fathers before me, a member of the Protestant Episcopal church. Is it -thinkable that a communicant of this persuasion would worship a goddess -of the benighted heathen? Do you but answer me that very simple -question!” - -“In Lichfield,” Horvendile retorted, “to adhere to the religion of your -fathers is tactful, and in this place also, as in every other place, -tactfulness ought to be every wise man’s religion. Otherwise, you will -be running counter to that which is expected of the descendants of -Manuel and of Jurgen; and you may by and by have cause to regret it.” - -But Gerald thought of his church, and of its handsome matters of faith -in the way of organ music and of saints’ days and of broad-mindedness -and of delightful lawn-sleeved bishops and of majestic rituals. He -thought of newly washed choir-boys and of his prayer-book’s wonderful -mouth-filling phrases, of rogation days and of ember days and of Trinity -Sunday. He thought about pulpits and hassocks and stained glass and -sextons, and about the Thirty-nine Articles, and about those -unpredictable, superb mathematics which early in every spring -collaborated with the new moon to afford him an Easter: and these things -Gerald could not abandon. - -So he said: “No. No, Horvendile! I pay no homage to the wrinkled -goddess.” - -Then Horvendile warned him again, “You may find that decision costly.” - -“That is as it may be!” said Gerald, with his chin well up. “For a good -Episcopalian, sir, finds in the petulance of no heathen goddess anything -to blench the cheek and make the heart go pitapat.” - -Still, he looked rather fondly through the dusk. And now his shoulders -also went up, shruggingly. - -“Yet I concede,” said Gerald, “that, howsoever firm my churchmanship, -and even with a princess waiting for me, I am tempted. For yonder -flute-player who still delays to join her companions—who are now, no -doubt, already about their merry games with one another and with their -trained pets,—has charms. Yes, she has charms which give my thoughts, -as it were, a locally religious turn, and make the notion of joining her -a rather beautiful idea. I deplore, of course, her feathered legs. Even -so, she displays, as you too may observe, in her so leisurely retreat, -an opulence in that most engaging kind of beauty which once got for -Aphrodite the epithet of Callipygê. I contemplate, with at least locally -pious joy, the curving of those reins, the whiteness and the fineness of -the skin, and the graciousness of those superb contours, designed -without any stinting or exaggeration, into the perfection of those fair -twin moons of delight—” - -But in a moment Gerald said, “Still, there is something vaguely -familiar, a something which chills me—” - -And Gerald said also: “Or, rather, in their so gentle undulations as she -walks unhurriedly away from us, in their so amiable convulsions,—in -their heavings, their twitchings, their ripplings and their -twinklings,—rather, do the bewitching and multitudinous movements of -those silvery spheres resemble, to my half dazzled eyes, the -unarithmeticable smiling of the sunlit sea, to which, as you will -remember, Horvendile, old Æschylos has so finely referred. I feel that I -could compose a not discreditable sonnet to that most beautiful of -backsides. There is nothing more poetical than is the backside of a -naked woman who is walking away from you. Its movements awaken the -yearnings of all elegiac verse.... And I do not doubt, sir, that the -front of this feathery-legged lady is fully as enchanting as the rear. -Yes, I imagine that the façade too has its own peculiar attractions: and -I admit, in a word, that I am tempted to confront her—” - -Horvendile glanced toward the woman who alone remained within reach. -“That is Evadne, who in the days of her sea-faring was called Leucosia. -And it is plain enough that she waits for temptation to inflame and to -uplift you into raptures somewhat more practical than all this talking.” - -“She waits,” said Gerald, “in vain. At this distance she is a rather -beautiful idea: nearer, she would be only another woman with her clothes -off. Moreover, sir, I am a self-respecting member of the Protestant -Episcopal church: and besides that, as I now perceive, it is of Evelyn -Townsend’s figure that this woman’s half-seen figure reminds me. That -resemblance makes for every sedentary virtue. I have learned only too -well what comes of permitting any female person to trust you and to give -you all. Then, too, I am called to duties of more honor and -responsibility in my appointed kingdom. And for the rest, I prefer to -disappoint these ladies by failing in ardor at such a distance as will -not provoke my blushes. No, Horvendile: no, I am still haunted by that -patriotic phrase _E pluribus unum_; and I shall not just now presume to -render a man’s homage to Koleos Koleros, among quite so many -flute-players. Moreover, you assert that a princess is waiting for me, -to whom I prefer to present the member of another royal house in the -full possession of all faculties. So I do not elect, just now, to share -in these—if you will permit the criticism,—somewhat un-American -methods of religious exercise. I ask, instead, that you conduct me to -the impatient princess about whom you keep talking so obstinately that, -I perceive, there is no least hope of my stopping you.” - -It was in this way that Gerald began his journey by putting an affront -upon Koleos Koleros. - - - - - PART THREE - THE BOOK OF DOONHAM - - “Though a Woman’s Tongue be but Three - Inches Long, It can kill a Six-foot Man.” - - - - - 7. - Evasherah of the First Water-Gap - - -“A GOOD-MORNING to you, ma’am,” Gerald had begun. His horse was -tethered to a palm-tree, and Horvendile was gone, so that there now was -only the Princess to be considered. “And in what way can I be of any -service?” - -Yet his voice shook, as he stood there beside the alabaster couch.... -For Gerald was enraptured. The Princess Evasherah was, in the dawn of -this superb May morning, so surpassingly lovely that she excelled all -the other women his gaze had ever beheld. Her face was the proper shape, -it was appropriately colored everywhere, and it was surmounted with an -adequate quantity of hair. Nor was it possible to find any defect in her -features. The colors of this beautiful young girl’s two eyes were nicely -matched, and her nose stood just equidistant between them. Beneath this -was her mouth, and she had also a pair of ears. In fine, the girl was -young, she exhibited no deformity anywhere, and the enamored glance of -the young man could perceive in her no fault. She reminded him, though, -of someone that he had known.... - -Such were the ardent reflections which had passed through Gerald’s mind -in the while that he said decorously, “A good-morning, ma’am: and in -what way can I be of any service?” - -But the Princess, in her impetuous royal fashion, had wasted no time -upon the formal preliminaries which were more or less customary in -Lichfield. And while Gerald’s patriotic republican rearing had been -explicit enough as to the goings-on in monarchical families, he was -whole-heartedly astounded by the animation and candor which here -confronted him. There was no possible doubting that the Princess -Evasherah was prepared to trust him and to give him all. - -“But, oh, indeed, ma’am,” Gerald said, “you quite misunderstand me!” - -For he had it now. This woman was uncommonly like Evelyn Townsend. - -Gerald sighed. All ardor had departed from him. And with a few -well-chosen words he placed their relationship upon a more decorous -basis. - -Now the Princess Evasherah, that most lovely Lady of the Water-Gap, was -lying down even when Gerald first came to her, just after sunrise. She -was lying upon a couch of alabaster, which had four legs made of -elephants’ tusks. Upon this couch was a mattress covered with green -satin and embroidered with red gold; upon the mattress was the Princess -Evasherah in a brief shirt of apricot colored silk; and, over all, was a -saffron canopy adorned with fig-leaves worked in pearls and emeralds. - -This couch was furthermore shaded by three palm-trees, and it stood near -to the bank of the river called Doonham. And by the sparkling ripples of -that river’s deep waters—as the Princess Evasherah explained, some -while after she and Gerald had reached a friendly and clean-minded -understanding, with no un-American nonsense about it,—was hidden the -residence of the Princess, where presently they would have breakfast. - -“But,” Gerald said, a little dejectedly, “I have just now no appetite of -any kind.” - -“That will not matter,” said the Princess: and for no reason at all she -laughed. - -“—And to live under the water, ma’am, appears a virtually unprecedented -form of royal eccentricity—” - -“Ah, but I must tell you, lord of the age, and most obdurate averter -from the desirer of union with him, that very long ago, because of a -girlish infatuation for a young man whose name I have forgotten, I -suffered a fiery downfalling from the Home of the Heavenly Ones, into -the waters of this river. For I had offended my Father (whose name be -exalted!) by stealing six drops of quite another kind of water, of the -water from the Churning of the Ocean—” - -“Eh?” Gerald said, “but do you mean the divine Amrita?” - -“Garden of my joys, and summit of sagacity,” the Princess remarked, “you -are learned. You have knowledge of heavenly matters, you have traversed -the Nine Spaces. And I perceive that you who travel overburdened with -unresponsiveness upon this road of the gods are yet another god in -disguise.” - -“Oh, no, ma’am, it is merely that, as a student of magic, one picks up -such bits of information. I am the heir apparent to a throne, I cannot -honestly declare myself any more than that: and I am upon my way to -enter into my kingdom, but it is not, I am tolerably certain, a -celestial kingdom.” - -The Princess was not convinced. “No, my preceptor and my only idol, it -is questionless you are a god, all perfect in eloquence and in grace, a -temptation unto lovers, and showing as a visible paradise to the -desirous. Here, in any event, out of my keen regard for your virtues, -and in exchange for that great gawky horse of yours which reveals in -every feature its entire unworthiness of contact with divine buttocks, -here are the five remaining drops, in this little vial—” - -Gerald inspected the small crystal bottle quite as sceptically as the -Princess had regarded his disclaimer of being a god. “Well, now, ma’am, -to me this looks like just ordinary water.” - -She placed one drop of the water upon her finger-tip. She drew upon his -forehead the triangle of the male principle, she drew the female -triangle, so that one figure interpenetrated the other, and she invoked -Monachiel, Ruach, Achides, and Degaliel. No student of magic could fail -to recognize her employment of an interesting if uncanonical variant of -the Third Pentacle of Venus, but Gerald made no comment. - -After that the Princess Evasherah laughed merrily. “Now, then, companion -of my heart, now that you have promised me that utterly contemptible -horse of yours, I unmask you. For I perceive that you, O my master, more -comely than the moon, are the predestined Redeemer of Antan—” - -“That much, ma’am, I already know—” - -“In short,” said the Princess, “you are Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and -Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly -Ones, thus masked in human flesh and in human forgetfulness and in -peculiarly unhuman coldness. Yet very soon the power of the Amrita will -have bestowed unfailing vigorousness upon your thinking, and presently -the hounds of recollection will have run down the hare of your -inestimable glory.” - -“That is well said, ma’am. It is spoken with a fine sense of style. And -I conjecture that, although the better stylists usually omit this -ingredient, it has some meaning also.... Yes, you do allude to my having -red hair, but the hare of my inestimable glory, which you likewise -mention, is not capillary, but zoölogical,—in addition to being also -metaphorical.... You state, in brief, in a figurative Oriental way, that -by and by I shall recollect something which I have forgotten.... But -just what is it, ma’am, that you so confidently expect me to recollect?” - -“My lord, and acme of my contentment, you will recall, for one matter, -the love that was between us in this world’s infancy, when you did not -avert from me the inspiring glances of fond affection. For you, the -bright-tressed, the resplendent, are unmistakably the Well-beloved of -Heavenly Ones. I perfectly remember you, by your high nose, by your -jutting chin, and by the eminence of yet another feature whose noble -proportions also very deeply delighted me during my visit to your -Dirghic paradise, and which I perceive to remain unabatedly heroic.” - -Gerald, gently, but with decision, took hold of her hand. It seemed to -him quite time. - -Then the fair Lady of the Water-Gap, she who would have been so adorable -if only she had not reminded Gerald more and more of Evelyn Townsend, -began to talk about matters which Gerald as yet really did not remember. - -She spoke of Gerald’s golden and high-builded home, in which, it seemed, -this Princess had trusted him and had given him all: and she spoke also -of the unresting love for mankind which had led Gerald to quit that -exalted home, among the untroubled lotus-ponds of Vaikuntha, upon nine -earlier occasions, and of his nine fine exploits in the way of -redemption. - -She spoke of how Gerald had visited men sometimes in his present heroic -and elegant form, at other times in the appearance of a contemptible -looking dwarf, and upon yet other occasions as a tortoise and as a boar -pig and as a lion and as a large fish. His taste in apparel seemed as -fickle as his charitableness was firm. For over and over again, the -Princess said, it had been the power of Gerald, as Helper and Preserver, -which had prevented several nations and a dynasty or two of gods from -being utterly destroyed by demons whom Gerald himself had destroyed. It -was Gerald, as he learned now, who had preserved this earth alike from -depopulation and from ignorance, when during the first great flood the -Lord of the Third Truth, in his incarnation as a great fish, had carried -through the deluge seven married couples and four books containing the -cream of earth’s literature: whereas, later, during a yet more severe -inundation, Gerald had held up the earth itself between his tusks,—this -being, of course, in the time of his incarnation as a boar pig,—and -swimming thus, had preserved the endangered planet from being as much as -mildewed. - -And Evasherah spoke also of how when Gerald was a tortoise he had -created such matters as the first elephant, the first cow, and the first -wholly amiable woman. He had created at the same time, she added, the -moon and the great jewel Kaustubha and a tree called Parijata, which -yielded whatever was desired of it, and it was then also that -Fair-haired Hoo, the Well-beloved Lord of the Third Truth, had invented -drunkenness. There had been, in all, Evasherah concluded, nineteen -supreme and priceless benefits invented by Gerald at this time, but she -confessed her inability to recall offhand everyone of them— - -“It is sufficient,—oh, quite sufficient!” Gerald assured her, with -wholly friendly condescension, “for already, ma’am, it embarrasses me to -have my modest philanthropies catalogued.” - -Yet Gerald, howsoever lightly he spoke, was thrilled with not -uncomplacent pride in his past. He was not actually surprised, of -course, because logic had already pointed out that the ruler of Antan -would very naturally be a divine personage with just such a magnificent -past. To be a god appeared to him a rather beautiful idea. So he first -asked what was the meaning of that skull over yonder in the grass: the -Princess explained that it was not her skull, but had been left there by -a visitor some two months earlier: and then Gerald, after having agreed -with her that people certainly ought to be more careful about their -personal belongings, went on with what was really in his mind. - -“In any event, ma’am,” he hazarded, with the brief cough of diffidence, -“it seems there have been tender passages between us before this -morning—” - -“I trusted you! I gave you all!” she said, reproachfully. “But you, -disposer of supreme delights, and fair vase of my soul, you have -forgotten even the way you used to take advantage of my confidence! For -how can the modesty of a frail woman avail against the brute strength of -a determined man!” - -“No, Evelyn, not to-night—I beg your pardon, ma’am! My mind was astray. -What I meant to say was that I really must request you to desist.” Then -Gerald went on, tenderly: “To the contrary, my dear lady, our love stays -unforgettable. I recall every instant of it, I bear in mind even that -sonnet which I made for you on the evening of my first respectful -declaration of undying affection.” - -“Ah, yes, that lovely sonnet!” the Princess remarked, with the -uneasiness manifested by every normal woman when a man begins to talk -about poetry. - -“—And to prove it, I will now recite that sonnet,” Gerald said. - -And he did. - -Yet his voice was so shaken with emotion that, when he had completed the -octave, Gerald paused, because it was never within Gerald’s power to -resist the beauty of a sublime thought when it was thus adequately -expressed in flawless verse. So for an instant he stayed silent. - -He caught up the lovely, always straying hands of the Princess -Evasherah, of this impulsive and investigatory lady, who so troublingly -resembled Evelyn Townsend, and Gerald pressed these hands to his -trembling lips. This lovely girl, returned to him almost miraculously, -it might seem, out of his well-nigh forgotten past, was not merely -intent once more to trust him and to give him all. She trusted also, as -Gerald felt with that keen penetration which is natural to divine -beings, to delude and to wheedle him into some material loss. What the -Princess desired to cajole him out of was, perhaps, not wholly clear. -Nevertheless, he felt that, in some way or another way, Evasherah was -attempting to deceive him. It might be that neither her explanation as -to that skull nor even her so candid seeming adoration of his wisdom and -his comeliness was entirely sincere. For women were like that: they did -not always mean every word they said, not even when they were addressing -a god. And so, the gods had over-painful duties laid upon them, Gerald -decided. - -After that he sighed: and he continued the reciting of his sonnet with -an air of lofty resignation, with which was intermingled a certain -gustatory approval of really good verse. - -“Light of my universe, that is a very beautiful sonnet,” the Princess -remarked, when he had finished, “and I am proud to have inspired it, and -I am almost equally proud of the fact that you (through whose supreme -elegance and amiable aspect my heart is once more rent with ecstasy) -should remember it so well after these thousands of years.” - -“Years mean very little, ma’am, to Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and -Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly -Ones: and centuries are, quite naturally, powerless to dim my memories -of any matter in any way pertaining to you. Yet affairs of minor -importance do rather tend to become a bit ambiguous as the æons slip -by.... For example, what, in the intervals between my redemptory -exploits—upon mere week days, as it were,—what do I happen to be the -god of?” - -“That,” said the Princess, “O my master, and pure fountain-head of every -virtue, is a peculiarly silly question to be coming from you, who are, -as everybody knows, the Lord of the Third Truth.” - -“Ah, yes, to be sure,—of the Third Truth! My divine interests are -invested in veracity. Well, that is highly gratifying. Yet, ma’am, there -are a great many gods, and it is a rather beautiful idea to observe -that, even where their professional spheres are the same, these gods -differ remarkably. Thus, Vulcan is the lord of one fire, and Vesta of -another, but Agni and Fudo and Satan rule over yet other fires, each -wholly individual. Cupid and Lucina traffic in the same port, but not in -the same way. Æolus controls twelve winds, and Tezcatlipoca four winds, -and Crepitus only one wind—” - -“Director of my life, and comely shepherd of my soul, I know. Few gods -are strange to me or to my embraces. Many a Heavenly One has invited me -to love, and I have yielded piously: my kisses have written the tale of -my religious transports upon many divine cheeks.” - -“—And I imagine that this water from the Churning of the Ocean was not -intended, in the first place, to further my apotheosis. I mean, ma’am, I -do not suppose you went to the trouble of stealing six drops of the -Amrita in order just to recall to me that divinity which, in the press -of other affairs, I had somehow permitted to slip my mind?” - -“Disposer and sole archetype of the seven magnanimities, you speak the -truth. For the five remaining drops, as I was trying to tell you when -you kept interrupting me, O my lord, and beloved of my heart, and joy of -both my eyes, were intended for the five human senses of the young man -about whom I was then rather foolish; and upon whom I meant to bestow -immortality and eternal youth. The first drop, inasmuch as the Amrita -confers a never-ending vigorousness, I had of course already placed. So -my Father (whose name be exalted!) smote us both with lightnings, in his -impetuous way, and tumbled us both from out of the Home of the Heavenly -Ones into this river. My young man was thus drowned before I had the -chance to confer upon him any of the favors which I greatly fear your -superior strength and your pertinacity are now about to force from me—” - -Gerald replied: “I really do think you would get on far more quickly -with your story if you were to keep both of these like this. The -position, you see, is much more American: it lacks that earlier air of -such personal freedom as a democracy does not think well of.” - -“Light of the age, I hear and I obey. Yet all my tale has been revealed -to your consideration—” - -“Yes,” Gerald assented, “but your history interests me far more—” - -“Far more than what, O cruel and resplendent one?” - -“Why, far more than I can say, of course. So let us get on with it!” - -“But my sad history is now as refined glass before your discerning -glance. It suffices to add that the immortal part of my young man was -happily removed from the waters of this river, and is now worshipped as -a god in Lytreia. But for me, alas! the squirrel of calamity continued -to revolve in the cage of divine wrath. For, so perfectly ridiculous is -the way my Father (whose name be exalted!) behaves when the least thing -upsets him, that I was condemned through the length of nine thousand -years to assume certain official duties in the waters of this river, in -the repugnant shape of a crocodile.” - -But with that statement Gerald took prompt issue. “What may be your -official duties as the guardian of these waters I can no more guess than -I can guess how your visitors happen to be so careless about leaving -their skulls behind. That really is a sort of slapdash and inconsiderate -behavior which I cannot condone without considerable reflection. But I -do know that the shape which I have beheld, and still see a great deal -of, in nothing resembles the shape of a crocodile.” - -“Epitome of every excellence, and exalted zenith of my existence, that -is because the nine thousand years of my doom have now happily expired. -The proof of this is that already my luckless substitute arrives. We -shall now behold her encounter with the terminator of delights and the -separator of companions. Thereafter, when we have had breakfast, O vital -spirit of my heart, whom my unmitigated love incites me to devour out of -pure affection, I shall ride hence upon the horse with which you have so -gallantly presented me, to enter again into the Home of the Heavenly -Ones.” - -With that, the Princess pointed. - - - - - 8. - The Mother of Every Princess - - -WITH that, the Princess pointed. And Gerald also now looked toward the -river.... He viewed an unsolid-seeming world of dimly colored movings. -Directly before him the deep river sparkled and rippled eastward with -unhurried, very shallow undulations. But, under the sun’s warmth, mists -rising everywhere above the waters streamed eastward too, unhastily, and -in such unequal volume that now this and now another portion of the wide -landscape beyond the river was irregularly glimpsed and then, gradually -but with a surprising quickness, veiled. Very lovely medallions of green -lawns and shrubbery and distant hills thus seemed to take form and then -to dissolve into the mists’ incessant gray flowing, toward the newly -risen sun.... - -And Gerald also saw that, some fifty feet away from him, an unusually -unclad elderly woman was approaching the river bank, carrying in her -thin arms a child. The woman trudged forward toward the river like a -drugged person, because of the doom which was upon her. - -Now this woman seemed to stumble, and she fell into the water, but in -falling she cast the child from her, so that it remained safe in the -coarse tall-growing grass. - -The woman whom divine will had led hither to serve as a scapegoat for -the Princess Evasherah proceeded to drown satisfactorily, and with -indeed a sort of decorum. She sank twice, with hardly any beating or -splashing of the waters, because of that doom which was upon her. The -child, though, whom no long years of living had taught to accept a -preponderance of unpleasant happenings, screamed continuously, in -candid, mewing disapproval of divine will. - -Out of the near-by reeds came a bright-eyed jackal; and it furtively -approached the child. - -The Princess rose from the alabaster couch and from Gerald’s partially -detaining arms. She stood for an instant irresolute. In her lovely face -was trouble. Her mouth, a little open, trembled. Gerald liked that. Here -was revealed the ever-tender heart of womanhood and the quick generous -sympathy with all afflicted persons which living had taught him to look -for only in the best literature. - -The Princess quitted Gerald. She hastened to the river bank. The jackal -backed from her, crouching in a half-circle, with bared teeth, and the -reeds swallowed the beast. The Princess leaned down, and with a lovely -gesture of compassion the Princess caught the drowning woman by one hand -and assisted her ashore. - -It was then that the Princess Evasherah cried out in wordless surprise. -Then too her raised hands clenched, and her little fists jerked downward -in a gesture of candid exasperation. - -And then also the woman whom the Princess had just saved from drowning -unfastened the small copper bowl and the knife which hung by copper -chains about her waist. The Princess took these, she approached the -wailing child, she stooped, and the crying ceased. The Princess returned -to the strange woman, calling out, “Hrang, hrang!” To the gray lips of -this woman Evasherah applied the blood which was now in the copper bowl, -and the remainder of the child’s blood she sprinkled over the woman’s -unveiled breasts and between the woman’s legs, which were held wide -apart for this fecundation. - -“Hail, Mother!” said Evasherah. “All hail, O red and wrinkled Mother of -Every Princess! Hail, patient and insatiable Havvah! A salutation to -thee! Spheng, spheng! a salutation to thee, and all delight to thee for -a thousand years of thy Wednesdays! Drink deep, beloved and wise Mother, -for an oblation of blood which has been rendered pure by holy texts is -more sweet than ambrosia.” - -At first the elder lady had seemed peculiarly red and inflamed and -hideous among her tousled tresses. Now she was placated, she panted, and -her eyes rolled languorously. She began, with aggrieved reproach, “But, -O my dearie! you have relapsed into a masculine display of clemency such -as has flung away your allotted chance of redemption.” - -“Sorrow and mourning reside in my heart, O my Mother: my limbs are -rendered infirm by remorse. For I had no least notion it was you. I -thought only that some mortal woman was to take over my duties in the -repulsive shape of a crocodile; and I could not bear to hear the small -voice of the little child crying out as the sharp jackal teeth drew -nearer, and to reflect that I was destroying two lives in order to -purchase my freedom from this endless love-making and over-eating.” - -“But it was a boy child. Dearie, you are talking as though these sons of -Adam were of real importance. And to hear you, nobody would ever give -you your due credit for having piously ended the ambitions of so many -hundreds of them, since you have protected the entrance to the road of -gods and myths against the impudence of these romantics.” - -“Yet, refuge of the uplifted, and asylum of the vigorous, the persons -whose blood has nourished my exile were all young men aflame with impure -intentions. And a child is different. It is not right that the stainless -flesh of a little boy, which is an offering acceptable to all our -exalted race, should be torn by the long teeth of an undomesticated -dog.” - -“That is true. That is alike a truthful and a pious reflection. A child -is different from all other afflictions, because a child alone can -always be an endless and a quite new sort of trouble. That nobody knows -better than I who am the Mother of Every Princess, with my daughters -everywhere policing the wild dreams of men so inadequately. Yet a thing -done has an end. And it may be that by and by I can get around your -Father—” - -“Whose name be exalted!” remarked Evasherah. - -“That also, dearie, is a wholly proper observation,—though, as I was -saying, you know as well as I do how pig-headed he is. Meanwhile, there -is nothing left for you, for the present, save another incarnation, and -another century or two of seductiveness upon the verge of Doonham.” - -“But I have been,” observed the Princess, “a crocodile professionally -for nine thousand years, for all that my chest is so delicate. The cats -of conjecture are therefore abroad in the meadows of my meditation -purring that this time I would prefer something a little less damp.” - -“Dearie, since your next incarnation is but a matter of form, do you by -all means please yourself, so that you stay a destruction to young men -and to their upsetting aspirations. You have been wholly inadequate this -morning, I observe—” - -“Why, but—” said the abashed Princess. - -Her voice sank as she went on rather ruefully with a talking which to -Gerald was now inaudible. He could merely see that the elder lady had -hazarded a suggestion which Evasherah at once dismissed with an emphatic -toss of her lovely head. He saw too the Princess place together the -palms of her hands and then draw them about seven inches apart. - -“Oh, fully that, at first!” she stated, in the raised tones of mild -exasperation, “so that, altogether, this unresponsive person (within -whose ancestral tomb may all goats propagate!) remains quite -incomprehensible.” - -The old woman replied: “In any event, you have failed; but that does not -really matter. He travels, you assure me, with his assured betrayer. And -the road he follows, that also, is lively enough and long enough to -betray him in the end. For he will meet others of my daughters; and if -all else fails, he will meet me.” - -“The ship of my enduring resolution is not yet wrecked upon the iceberg -of his indifference; and I am not through with him, by any means. I am -returning to this unremunerative occupier of my couch,—for breakfast, O -my Mother,” the Princess added, with a merry laugh. - -And the old lady answered her with a mother’s ever-responsive -tenderness. “That is my own child. One has to persevere with these -romantics, no matter how hard the task may seem. For none of us knows -yet what these romantic men desire. My daughters prepare for them fine -food and drink, my daughters see to it that their homes are snug, and at -the end of each day my daughters love them dutifully. All things that -men can ask for, my daughters furnish them. Why need so many of these -men nurse strange desires which do not know their aim? for how can any -of my daughters content such desires?” - -“One can but summon, O my Mother, the terminator of delights and the -separator of companions and the ender of all desires.” - -“There are other ways, my dearie, which are more subtle. That way is of -the East, that way is old and crude. Still, that way also quiets -over-ambitious dreaming; and that way serves.” - -Gerald blinked. He was a bit troubled by the matter-of-fact occurrence -before his eyes of a perfectly incredible happening. - -For the elder lady became transfigured. She became larger, all ruddiness -went away from her, and she took on the black and livid coloring of a -thunder cloud. In her left hand she now carried a pair of scales and a -yardstick. Her face smiled rather terribly as she steadily grew larger. -Her necklace, you perceived, was made of human skulls, and each of her -earrings was the dangling corpse of a hanged man in a very poor state of -preservation. Altogether, it was not a grief to Gerald when the Mother -of Every Princess had attained to her full heavenly stature, and had -vanished. - -But the Lady of the Water-Gap was changed in quite another fashion. -Where she had stood now fluttered a large black and yellow butterfly. - - - - - 9. - How One Butterfly Fared - - -SO it was in the shape of a large butterfly that Evasherah returned -toward Gerald, to careen and drift affectionately about him, in a -bewildering medley of bright colors. He cried to her adoringly, “My -darling—!” He grasped at her: and she did not avoid him. - -Gerald now held this lovely creature, by the throat, at arm’s length. He -began the compelling words, “Schemhamphoras—” And in Gerald’s face was -no adoration whatever. - -Instead, he continued, rather sadly, “—Eloha, Ab, Bar, Ruachaccocies—” -and so went through the entire awful list, ending by and by with -“Cados.” - -His prey was now struggling frantically. The unreflective girl had not -allowed for her lover’s being a student of magic. And her restiveness -was—well, it might be, pardonably,—a bit interfering with Gerald’s -æsthetic delight, now that he paused to admire the splendor of the -trapped Princess’s last incarnation, before he used the fatal Hausa -charm. - -For Evasherah’s wings were of a wonderful velvety black and a fiery -orange color, her body was golden, and her breast crimson. He noted also -that Evasherah, in her increasing agitation of mind, had thrust out from -the back of her neck a soft forked horn which diffused a horrible odor. - -And those curved, strong, needle-sharp fangs which were striking vainly -at him were so adroitly designed that Gerald fell now to marveling, -still a little sadly, at their superb efficiency. A yellowish oil oozed -from their tips. They had, he saw, just the curve of two cat claws: -whensoever such fangs struck flesh, their victim’s recoil would but -clamp fangs which were shaped like that more deeply and more venomously; -it was a quite ingenious arrangement. It perfectly explained, too, how -the visitors of this soft-spoken, cuddling and utterly adorable Princess -happened to leave their skulls in the thick grass around her alabaster -couch. - -Then Gerald said: “O Butterfly, O Gleaming One, your breakfast this day -is disappointment, your fork is agony, and your napkin death. O -Butterfly, repent truly, abandon falsehood, put away deceit and -flattery, cease thinking about your deluded lovers even remorsefully. -Repent in verity, do not repent like the wildcat which repents with the -fowl in its mouth without putting the fowl down. Where now is the -artfulness which was yours, where are the high-hearted, tricked -lovers?—To-day all lies in the tomb. This world, O Butterfly, is a -market-place: everyone comes and goes, both stranger and citizen. The -last of your lovers is a pious friend, he assists the decreed course of -this world.” - -Still, it was rather strange that the body she had chosen appeared to -belong to the species _Onithoptera crœsus_,—Gerald decided, as his foot -crushed the squeaking soft remnants and rubbed all into a smeared paste -of blood and gold-dust,—because, of course, this kind of butterfly was -more properly indigenous to the Malay Archipelago than to these parts, -over and above the fact that for any butterfly to have the fangs of a -serpent was false entomology. - -However, the geography and local customs and all else which pertained to -the Marches of Antan were tinged with some perceptible inconsequence, -Gerald reflected, as he returned to his tethered stallion. He mounted -then, cheered with the yet further reflection that he had got from -Evasherah the rather beautiful idea of being a god, and had got also the -four remaining drops from the Churning of the Ocean. The properties of -this water were sufficiently well known to every student of magic. - - - - - PART FOUR - THE BOOK OF DERSAM - - “What Has a Blind Man - to Do with Any Mirror?” - - - - - 10. - Wives at Caer Omn - - -NOW Gerald mounted on the stallion Kalki, and Gerald traveled upon the -way of gods and myths, down a valley of cedar-trees, into the realm of -Glaum of the Haunting Eyes. The land of Dersam was already falling away -into desolation, because of the disappearance of its liege-lord into -mortal living. And at Caer Omn, which formerly had been the Sylan’s -royal palace, and where Gerald got his breakfast, the three hundred and -fifty-odd concubines of Glaum were about their cooking and cleaning and -nursing, but the seven wives of Glaum sat together in a walled garden. - -Six of these wives were young and comely, but the seventh seemed—to -Gerald’s finding,—as wrinkled as a wet fishnet, and as old as envy. - -By the half-dozen who retained their youth, however, Gerald was -enraptured. As he looked from one of them to the other, each in her turn -appeared so surpassingly lovely that she excelled all the other women -his gaze had ever beheld.... But, no! Glaum was his benefactor. Glaum at -this instant, in Lichfield, was toiling away at that unfinished romance -about Dom Manuel of Poictesme which by and by was to make the name of -Gerald Musgrave famous everywhere. It would, therefore, never do to -encourage these so shapely and chromatically meritorious dears to follow -out the dictates of womanly confidence and generosity to the point where -they could bleat about it. No, to permit them all to deceive one husband -would be an unfriendly and injudicious pleonasm, Gerald reflected. And -Gerald sighed whole-heartedly. - -The seven women had sighed earlier. “What else is now come to trouble -us?” said the wives of the Sylan when Gerald came. - -He answered them, with a great voice: “Ladies, I am Fair-haired Hoo, the -Helper and the Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved -of Heavenly Ones. Yet, I pray you, do not be unduly alarmed by this -revelation! I am not a ruthless deity, I deal fiercely with none save my -misguided opponents. I, in a word, am he of whom it was prophesied that -I, my dear ladies, or perhaps I ought to say that he—although, to be -sure, it does not really matter which pronoun a strict grammarian would -prefer, since in any case the meaning is unmistakable and very -sublime,—would at his or at my appointed season appear, in unexampled -and appropriate splendor, to reign over Antan, riding upon the silver -stallion Kalki.” - -But the wives of Glaum seemed unimpressed. “Your meaning, sir,” said one -of them, “may be terrible, but certainly it is not plain.” - -This wife had reddish golden hair, uncovered: she wore a blue gown, so -fashioned that it left her right breast wholly uncovered also; and, -doubtless for some sufficient purpose, she carried an iron candlestick -with seven branches. - -Gerald asked, with indignation tempered by her good looks: “And do you -doubt my divine word? Do you dispute my Dirghic godhead?” - -Another wife answered him, a glorious dark sultry creature in purple, -who wore a semi-circular crown and had about the upper part of each bare -arm two broad gold bands. - -She said: “Why should we question that? Gods by the score and by the -hundreds, gods in battalions, have passed through the land of Dersam, -going downward toward Antan, to enter into well-earned rest after their -long labors in this world.” - -“Ah, so it appears that Antan is the heaven of all deserving gods, and -that I am to rule a celestially populated kingdom well worthy of me!” - -“We have not ever been to Antan. We thus know nothing of its customs. We -know only that many gods have passed us, traveling upon all manner of -steeds as they went down into Antan. Bes rode upon a cat, and Tlaloc -upon a stag, and Siva upon a bull: we have seen Kali pass upon the back -of a tiger: above our heads Zeus has gone by upon the back of an eagle, -as he traveled abreast with Amen-Ra upon the back of a very large -beetle. We therefore think it likely enough that you who pass upon this -shining horse are yet another one of these gods. What are the gods to -us, in this our season of unexampled trouble?” - -Then the seven wives fell into a lamentation, and their complaining was -that, since Glaum of the Haunting Eyes had left them, the sacred mirror -reflected only the person who stood before it. - -“And is not such the nature of all mirrors?” Gerald asked. - -“Oh, sir,” replied the wife who carried a bunch of keys, and who wore -that unaccountable tall bifurcated orange-colored headdress, “but until -yesterday ours was the mirror which showed things as they ought to be.” - -“And what did one discover in it?” - -Now the old wife spoke. Her head was wrapped in a white turban; her face -had no more color than has the belly of a fish; and a sprinkling of -white hairs, so long that they had grown into spirals and half-circles, -glittered upon her shaking chin. “To the aged, such as I have now -become, the Mirror of Caer Omn reveals nothing any more: but to the -young, such as we all were before Glaum left us, it was used to reveal -that which may not be described.” - -“Then why do you not place before it some young person—?” - -“Alas, sir, but there is no longer any co-respondent youth in the -mirror!” - -The speaker was the brown-haired and alluringly plump wife who wore -nothing at all anywhere, and whose delicious body had been depilated in -every needful place. - -Then the seven wives of Glaum of the Haunting Eyes raised a lament; and -now the pallid sharp-nosed wife who was far gone in pregnancy, and who -wore that maroon-colored headdress shaped like a cone, began to speak of -the young fellows who had been used to come to them out of the sacred -mirror. - -She spoke of very handsome, tall, brisk, nimble, impudent young fellows, -that had been always jolly and buxom and jaunty, and not ever grumpish -like a husband; of over-rash young fellows who must have their flings, -who stuck at nothing, who went to all lengths, who had a finger in every -pie, who kept the pot a-boiling; of what forward, eager, pushing, -plodding, thwacking, negligent of no corner, business-like, -never-wearying, soul-stirring workmen they had been at every job they -undertook; of what great plagues they had been, too, without the least -bit of any patience or of any modesty; and of how unreasonably you -missed these sad rapscallions now that there was no longer any -co-respondent youth remaining in the sacred Mirror of Caer Omn. - -Gerald replied: “Your plaint is very moving. I regard a mirror which -begets any such young fellows as a rather beautiful idea. It is true -that I am a bachelor who therefore object to no reasonable mitigation of -matrimony. But I am also a god, dear ladies, a god who brings all youth -with me here in this vial.” - -At that the last wife spoke. Her hair was flaxen; her body was -everywhere engagingly visible through her gown, of a transparent soft -green tissue; she carried a small golden-hilted sword. And this wife -said: - -“You differ, then, from those other gods who have passed this way. No -youth went with these gods, who had themselves grown old and tired and -more feeble, and who journeyed toward a resting from all miracles and -away from a world wherein they were no longer worshipped.” - -“But I,” said Gerald, “I am a god who is, moreover, a citizen of the -United States of America, wherein every sort of religion yet flourishes -as it can never do in an effete and sophisticated monarchy. So do you -show me the way to the temple of the sacred Mirror of Caer Omn!” - - - - - 11. - The Glass People - - -THE seven wives conducted Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and the -Preserver, to the Temple of the Mirror. It was the old wife who now -lifted from the mirror a blue veil embroidered with tiny fig-leaves -worked in gold thread. You saw then that this mirror was splotched and -clouded and mildewed. It reflected sallowly a distorted and rather -speckled Gerald: it glistened with an unwholesome iridescence. - -Thereafter Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord of the -Third Truth, when he had announced his various titles, with such due -ceremony as befits an exchange of amenities between divine powers, -moistened his finger-tip with one drop of water from the Churning of the -Ocean. Upon the sacred Mirror of Caer Omn he drew with his finger-tip -the triangle of the male and of the female principle, so that the one -interpenetrated the other: and he invoked Monachiel, Ruach, Achides, and -Degaliel. - -Then there was never a more inconsequent rejoicing witnessed anywhere -than was made by the seven wives of Glaum of the Haunting Eyes, now that -the sacred mirror was altered, for these seven ungrateful -scatter-brained women were now singing a sort of hymn in honor of the -charitableness and the vigorous procreative powers of the sun. - -“But what under the sun has the sun,” said Gerald, a little flustered, -“to do with the not inconsiderable favor which I have conferred upon -this country? And do you think such anatomical details as you are -singing about quite the proper theme for an opera?” - -They replied: “Sir, it is obvious that you are a sun god, of the clan of -Far-darting Helios and Freyr the Fond Wooer and the Elder Horus and -Marduk of the Bright Glance, all of whom have ridden this way as they -passed down toward Antan. Sir, it is clear that the Lord of the Third -Truth, also, is a god whose mission it is to awaken warmth and humidity -and a renewal of life in all that he touches—” - -“But,” Gerald said, “but with my finger!” - -“—Just as,” they concluded, “you have done to this mirror. Therefore, -sir, we are praising your charitableness and your vigorous procreative -powers.” - -“Ah, now I comprehend you! Still, let us, in these public choral odes, -let us adhere strictly to the charitableness! Those other solar traits I -would describe as far better adapted to chamber music, in some duet -form. Meanwhile, since this somewhat un-American hymn is intended as a -personal tribute, I accept your really very personal arithmetic in the -proper spirit, dear ladies, as a pious exaggeration. For of course, just -as you say, it does seem fairly obvious I am a sun god.” - -Yet Gerald, after all, was now more deeply interested in that huge -mirror than in anything else. He saw that the mirror which they -worshipped in the land of Dersam was not in any way dreadful. If only -the mirror of Freydis was like this, then every inheritance which -awaited him in his appointed kingdom might well be pleasant enough. - -For now the Mirror of Caer Omn shone with a golden clear glowing, and in -its depths he viewed with lively admiration a throng of strange and -lovely beings such as he had not known in Lichfield. - - - - - 12. - Confusions of the Golden Travel - - -BUT when three huge men beckoned to him, and Gerald had moved forward, -he found, with wholly tolerant surprise, that this mirror was in reality -a warmish golden mist, through which he entered into the power of these -three giant blacksmiths, and into the shackles of adamant with which -they bound him fast to a gray, lichen-crusted crag, the topmost crag -above a very wide ravine, among a desert waste of mountain tops; and he -entered, too, into that noble indignation which now possessed Gerald -utterly. For it was Heaven he was defying, he who was an apostate god, a -god unfrightened by the animosity of his divine fellows. He had -preserved, somehow,—in ways which he could not very clearly recall, but -of which he stayed wholly proud,—all men and women from destruction by -the harshness and injustice of Heaven. He only of the gods had pitied -that futile, naked, cowering race which lived, because of their -defencelessness among so many other stronger animals, in dark and -shallow caverns, like ants in an ant-hill. He had made those timid, -scatter-brained, two-legged animals human: he had taught them to build -houses and boats; to make and to employ strong knives and far-smiting -arrows against the fangs and claws with which Heaven had equipped the -other animals; and to tame horses and dogs to serve them in their -hunting for food. He had taught them to write and to figure and to -compound salves and medicines for their hurts, and even to foresee the -future more or less. All arts that were among the human race had come -from Prometheus, and all these benefits were now preserved for his so -inadequate, dear puppets, through the nineteen books in which Prometheus -had set down the secrets of all knowledge and all beauty and all -contentment,—he who after he had discovered to mortals so many -inventions had no invention to preserve himself. Prometheus, in brief, -had created and had preserved men and women, in defiance of Heaven’s -fixed will. For that sacrilege Prometheus atoned, among the ends of -earth, upon this lichen-crusted gray crag. He suffered for the eternal -redemption of mankind, the first of all poets, of those makers who -delight to shape and to play with puppets, and the first of men’s -Saviors. And his was a splendid martyrdom, for the winged daughters of -old Ocean fluttered everywhere about him in the golden Scythian air, -like wailing seagulls, and a grief-crazed woman with the horns of a cow -emerging from her disordered yellow hair paused too to cherish him, and -then went toward the rising place of the sun to endure her allotted -share of Heaven’s injustice. - -But he who was the first of poets burst Heaven’s shackles like -packthread, ridding himself of all ties save the little red band which -yet clung about one finger, and rising, passed to his throne between the -bronze lions which guarded each of its six steps, and so sat beneath a -golden disk. All wisdom now belonged to the rebel against Heaven, and -his was all earthly power: the fame of the fine poetry and the -comeliness and the grandeur of Solomon was known in Assyria and Yemen, -in both Egypts and in Persepolis, in Karnak and in Chalcedon, and among -all the isles of the Mediterranean. He sported with genii and with -monsters of the air and of the waters; the Elementals served King -Solomon when he began to build, as a bribe to Heaven, a superb temple -which was engraved and carved and inlaid everywhere with cherubim and -lions and pineapples and oxen and the two triangles. There was no power -like Solomon’s: his ships returned to him three times each year with the -tribute of Nineveh and Tyre and Parvaam and Mesopotamia and Katuar; the -kings of all the world were the servants of King Solomon: the spirits of -fire and the lords of the air brought tribute to him, too, from behind -the Pleiades. His temple now was half completed. But upon his ring -finger stayed always the band of blood-colored asteria upon which was -written, “All things pass away.” These glittering and soft and -sweet-smelling things about him, as he knew always, were only loans -which by and by would be taken away from him by Heaven. He turned from -these transient things to drunkenness and to the embraces of women, he -hunted forgetfulness upon the breasts of nine hundred women, he quested -after oblivion between the thighs of the most beautiful women of Judea -and Israel, of Moab and of Ammon and of Bactria, of Baalbec and of -Babylon: he turned to wantoning with boys and with beasts and with -bodies of the dead. These madnesses enraptured the flesh of Solomon, but -always the undrugged vision of his mind regarded the fixed will of -Heaven, “These things shall pass away.” The temple which he had been -building lacked now only one log to be completed. He cast that gray and -lichen-crusted cedar log into the Pool of Bethesda: it sank as though it -had been a stone: and Solomon bade his Israelites set fire to the temple -which all these years he had been building as a bribe to Heaven. - -But when the temple burned, it became more than a temple, for not only -the flanks of Mt. Moriah were ablaze, a whole city was burning there, -and its name was Ilion. He aided in the pillaging of it: the golden -armor of Achilles fell to his share. In such heroic gear, he, like a fox -hidden in a slain lion’s skin, took ship to Ismaurus, which city he -treacherously laid waste and robbed: thence he passed to the land of the -Lotophagi, where he viewed with mildly curious, cool scorn the men who -fed upon oblivion. He was captured by a very bad-smelling, one-eyed -giant, from whom he through his wiles escaped. There was no one anywhere -more quick in wiles than was Odysseus, Laertes’ son. He toiled unhurt -through a nightmare of pitfalls and buffetings, among never-tranquil -seas, outwitting the murderous Laestrigonians, and hoodwinking Circe and -the feathery-legged Sirens and fond Calypso: he evaded the man-eating -ogress with six heads: he passed among the fluttering, gray, squeaking -dead, and got the better of Hades’ sullen overlords and ugly spectres, -through his unfailing wiliness,—he who was still a poet, making the -supreme poem of each man’s journeying through an everywhere inimical and -betraying world, he who was pursued by the wrath of Heaven which -Poseidon had stirred up against Odysseus. But always the wiles of -much-enduring Odysseus evaded the full force of Heaven’s buffetings, so -that in the end he won home to Ithaca and to his meritorious wife; and -then, when the suitors of Penelope had been killed, he went, as dead -Tiresias had commanded, into a mountainous country carrying upon his -shoulder an oar, and leading a tethered ram, for it was yet necessary to -placate Heaven. Beyond Epirus, among the high hills of the Thesproteans, -he sat the oar upright in the stony ground, and turning toward the ram -which he now meant to sacrifice to Poseidon, he found Heaven’s -amiability to remain unpurchased, because the offering of Odysseus, who -was a rebel against Heaven’s will to destroy him, had been refused, and -the ram had vanished. - -But in his hand was still the rope with which he had led this ram, and -in his other hand was a bag containing silver money, and in his heart, -now that he had again turned northerly, to find in place of the oar an -elder-tree in flower, now in his heart was the knowledge that no man -could travel beyond him in hopelessness and in infamy. He remembered all -that he had put away, all which he had denied and betrayed, all the -kindly wonders which he had witnessed between Galilee and Jerusalem, -where the carpenters of the Sanhedrin were now fashioning, from a great -lichen-crusted cedar log found floating in the Pool of Bethesda, that -cross which would be set up to-morrow morning upon Mt. Calvary. Then -Judas flung down the accursed silver and the rope with which he had come -hither to destroy himself, because an infamy so complete as his must -first be expressed with fitting words. It was a supreme infamy, it was -man’s masterpiece in the way of iniquity, it was the reply of a very -fine poet to Heaven’s proffered truce after so many æons of tormenting -men causelessly: it was a thing not to be spoken of but sung. He heaped -great sheets of lead upon his chest, he slit the cord beneath his -tongue, he tormented himself with clysters and with purges and in all -other needful ways, so that his voice might be at its most effective -when he sang toward Heaven about his infamy. - -But when he sang of his offence against Heaven, he likened his -hatefulness to that of very horrible offenders in yet elder times, he -compared his sin to that of Œdipus who sinned inexpiably with his -mother, and to that of Orestes whom Furies pursued forever because he -had murdered his mother. But it was not of any Jocasta or of any -Clytemnestra he was thinking, rather it was of his own mother, of that -imperious, so beautiful Agrippina whom he had feared and had loved with -a greater passion than anyone ought to arouse in an emperor, and whom he -had murdered. Nothing could put Agrippina out of his thoughts. It -availed no whit that he was lord of all known lands, and the owner of -the one house in the world fit for so fine a poet to live in, a house -entirely overlaid with gold and adorned everywhere with jewels and with -mother of pearl, a house that quite dwarfed the tawdry little Oriental -hovel which Solomon had builded as a bribe to Heaven, because this was a -house so rich and ample that it had three-storied porticos a mile in -length, and displayed upon its front portico not any such trumpery as an -Ark of the Covenant but a colossal statue of that Nero Claudius Cæsar -who was the supreme poet the world had ever known. Yet nothing could put -Agrippina out of Nero’s thoughts. From the satiating of no lust, -howsoever delicate or brutal, and from the committing of no enormity, -and from the loveliness of none of his poems, could he get happiness and -real peace of mind. He hungered only for Agrippina, he wanted back her -detested scoldings and intermeddlings, he reviled the will of Heaven -which had thwarted the desires of a fine poet by making this so -beautiful, proud woman his mother, and he practised those magical rites -which would summon Agrippina from the dead. - -But when she returned to him, incredibly beautiful, and pale and proud, -and quite naked, just as he had last seen her when his sword had ripped -open this woman’s belly so that he might see the womb in which he had -once lain, then the divine Augusta drew him implacably downward among -the dead, and so into the corridors of a hollow mountain. This place was -thronged with all high-hearted worshippers of the frightening, -discrowned, imperious, so beautiful woman who had drawn him thither -resistlessly, and in this Hörselberg he lived in continued splendor and -in a more dear lewdness, and he still made songs, only now it was as -Tannhäuser that the damned acclaimed him as supreme among poets. But -Heaven would not let him rest even among these folk who had put away all -thought of Heaven. Heaven troubled Tannhäuser with doubts, with -premonitions, even with repentance. Heaven with such instruments lured -this fine poet from the scented Hörselberg into a bleak snow-wrapped -world: and presently he shivered too under the cold wrath of Pope Urban, -bells rang, a great book was cast down upon the pavement of white and -blue slabs, and the candles were being snuffed out, as the now formally -excommunicated poet fled westerly from Rome pursued by the ever-present -malignity of Heaven. - -But from afar he saw the sapless dry rod break miraculously into -blossom, and he saw the messengers of a frightened Bishop of Rome (with -whom also Heaven was having its malicious sport) riding everywhither in -search of him, bearing Heaven’s pardon to the sinner whom they could not -find. For the poet sat snug in a thieves’ kitchen, regaling himself with -its sour but very potent wines and with its frank, light-fingered girls. -Yet a gibbet stood uncomfortably near to the place: upon bright days the -shadow of this gallows fell across the threshold of the room in which -they rather squalidly made merry. Death seemed to wait always within -arm’s reach, pilfering all, with fingers more light and nimble than -those which a girl runs furtively through the pockets of the put-by -clothing of her client in amour. Death nipped the throats of ragged poor -fellows high in the air yonder, and death very lightly drew out of the -sun’s light and made at one with Charlemagne all the proud kings of -Aragon and Cyprus and Bohemia, and death casually tossed aside the -tender sweet flesh which had been as white as the snows of last winter, -and was as little regarded now, of such famous tits as Héloïse and Thaïs -and Queen Bertha Broadfoot. Time was a wind which carried all away. Time -was preparing by and by (still at the instigation of ruthless Heaven) to -make an end even to François Villon, who was still so fine a poet, for -all that time had made of him a wine-soaked, rickety, hairless, -lice-ridden and diseased sneakthief whose food was paid for by the -professional earnings of a stale and flatulent harlot. For time ruined -all: time was man’s eternal strong ravager, time was the flail with -which Heaven pursued all men whom Heaven had not yet destroyed, -ruthlessly. - -But time might yet be confounded: and it was about that task he set. For -Mephistophilus had allotted him twenty-four years of wholly untrammeled -living, and into that period might be heaped the spoilage of centuries. -He took unto himself eagle’s wings and strove to fathom all the causes -of the misery which was upon earth and of the enviousness of Heaven. -That which time had destroyed, Johan Faustus brought back into being: he -was a poet who worked in necromancy, his puppets were the most admirable -and lovely of the dead. Presently he was restoring through art magic -even those lost nineteen books in which were the secrets of all beauty -and all knowledge and all contentment, the secrets for which Prometheus -had paid. But the professors at the university would have nothing to do -with these nineteen books. It was feared that into these books restored -by the devil’s aid, the devil might slily have inserted something -pernicious: and besides, the professors said, there were already enough -books from which the students could learn Greek and Hebrew and Latin. So -they let perish again all those secrets of beauty and knowledge and -contentment which the world had long lost. Now Johan Faustus laughed at -the ineradicable folly with which Heaven had smitten all men, a folly -against which the clear-sighted poet fought in vain. But Johan Faustus -at least was wise, and there had never been any other beauty like this -which now stood before him within arm’s reach (as surely as did death), -now that with a yet stronger conjuration he had wrested from -all-devouring time even the beauty of Argive Helen. - -But when he would have touched the Swan’s daughter, the delight of gods -and men, she vanished, precisely as a touched bubble is shattered into -innumerable sparkling bits, and over three thousand of them he pursued -and captured in all quarters of the earth, for, as he said of himself, -Don Juan Tenorio had the heart of a poet, which is big enough to be in -love with the whole world, and like Alexander he could but wish for -other spheres to which he might extend his conquests, and each one of -these sparkling bits of womanhood glittered with something of that lost -Helen’s loveliness, yet, howsoever various and resistless were their -charms, and howsoever gaily he pursued them, singing ever-new songs, and -swaggeringly gallant, in his fair, curly wig and his gold-laced coat -adorned with flame-colored ribbons, yet he, the eternal pursuer, was in -turn pursued by the malevolence of Heaven, in, as it seemed, the shape -of an avenging horseman who drew ever nearer unhurriedly, until at last -the clash of rapiers and the pleasant strumming of mandolins were not -any longer to be heard in that golden and oleander-scented -twilight,—because of those ponderous, unhurried hoofbeats, which had -made every other noise inaudible,—and until at last he perceived that -both the rider and the steed were of moving stone, of an unforgotten -stone which was gray and lichen-crusted. - -But when fearlessly he encountered the overtowering statue, and had -grasped the horse about its round cold neck, he saw that the stone rider -was lifeless, and was but the dumb and staring effigy of a big man in -armor which was inset with tinsel and with bits of colored glass. It was -the bungled copy and the parody of a magnanimous, great-hearted dream -that he was grasping, and yet it was a part of him, who had been a poet -once, but was now a battered old pawnbroker, for in some way, as he -incommunicably knew, this parodied and not ever comprehended Redeemer -and he were blended, and they were, somehow, laboring in unison to serve -a shared purpose. He derided and he came too near to a mystery which he -distrusted, and which yet (without his preference having been consulted -in the affair) remained a part of him, as it was a part of all poets, -even of a cashiered poet, and a part very vitally necessary to the -existence of a Jurgen. A Jurgen had best not meddle with such matters -one half-second sooner than that dimly foreseen, inevitable need arose -for a Jurgen also to be utilized in the service of this mystery, without -having his preference in the affair consulted. The aging pawnbroker was -a little afraid. He climbed gingerly down from the tall pedestal of -Manuel the Redeemer, he descended from that ambiguous tomb upon which he -was trampling, he stepped rather hastily backward from that carved -fragment of the crag of Prometheus. He stepped backward, treading beyond -the confines of the golden mirror which was worshipped at Caer Omn; and -he was thus released from its magic. - - - - - 13. - Colophon of a God - - -NOW before him the mirror still glowed goldenly, and now a hunchback -held out both his hands toward Gerald, whom he was trying to allure into -the form and mind of this sardonic, cracker-jawed, sly knave who had -such melancholy eyes. Gerald was much tempted to become this Punch, and -to relive for a little the rascal’s defiant and ever-restless life. And -then too, behind Punch waited tall Merlin, crowned with mistletoe, he -that created all chivalry, and that, being himself the great fiend’s -son, first taught men how to live as became the children of God. It -would be quite entertaining to enter into Merlin’s dark heart. Moreover, -to the other hand of Punch, stood a glittering suave gentleman with a -blue beard, in whose uxoricides it might be vastly interesting to -share.... - -Yet Gerald, facing these three rather beautiful ideas, was of two minds. -“For I am a god, with a throne awaiting me in Antan, where all the other -gods will be my lackeys,—and, for that matter, with no doubt a whole -cosmos of my own twirling and burning to unheeded clinkers somewhere in -space, which I ought at this moment to be looking after and -embellishing. And in this particular small world which I am quitting, -the powers of Heaven do quite honestly seem—when you look at them from -a perhaps biassed standpoint, that is,—and only to a certain extent, of -course,—and if you are so ill-advised as to consider matters in a -pessimistic, morbid, wholly un-American way—” - -Gerald paused. He smilingly shook his red head. “No. It is far better -for us gods not to criticize the handiwork of one another. So I shall -without one word of reproof permit my fellows to play as they like with -this planet called Earth. I shall of course, very probably, make new -planets a bit more conformable to my personal fancy. But I shall say -nothing about the planet I am now quitting at all likely to hurt -anybody’s feelings. No: I shall, rather, rely upon the appealing -eloquence of a dignified silence reinforced by a decisive departure.” - -And Gerald said also: “As for this mirror which is worshipped in the -land of Dersam, it pleases me as a toy. But I who am a Savior and a sun -god with nine such very fine exploits behind me, in the way of swimming -and of decimating devils, and of restoring warmth and making moons, and -of really remarkable broad-mindedness as to what particular animal I may -happen to look like,—I, the Helper and the Preserver, who am called to -reign over the goal of all the gods of men,—why, I must necessarily -lose by exchanging such a tremendous destiny for anything to be found in -this mirror.” - -Then Gerald said: “No. I must never forget that, whether I am a Savior -or a sun deity, or whether I am habitually used to discharge both -functions, I in any case remain Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and -Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, and so on. I am a most notable -figure, of some sort or another sort, in Dirghic mythology. I am the -appointed rider of the silver stallion. I am destined to inherit from -the Master Philologist the great and best words of magic, and after that -poor hospitable fellow’s downfall to reign in his stead over the place -beyond good and evil which is the goal of all the gods of men and the -reward of their meritorious exertions. I cannot forsake such a majestic -destiny in order to play with the droll and pretty figures that move -about in the depths of this mirror. And whether or not this is a mirror -which I may require hereafter, when I have come into my kingdom and have -resumed my exalted divine estate in my appropriate mythology, is a -matter which I shall settle in due time who have all eternity wherein to -do whatever I may prefer.” - - - - - 14. - Evarvan of the Mirror - - -THEN Gerald perceived that the wives of Glaum were not yet through -with their wonder-workings, for these seven women were now about a -ceremony which they called Asvamedha. They led into the temple a brown -horse. Before the mirror they struck down this horse with pole-axes. The -tail was cut off by the flaxen-haired wife in green, and the naked wife -carried it away, Gerald did not know whither. The horse’s head also was -severed from the body, by that wife who was with child; the head was -then adorned with a chaplet made of small loaves of bread. This head was -afterward impaled upon a stake and thus was set upright before the -mirror, but not facing it. Then the six wives of Glaum who yet remained -in the temple mixed the blood of the horse with the blood of unborn -calves; they turned the stake: and they showed Gerald what he must do. - -When he had obeyed, and when they had all invoked Evarvan, then the -golden glowing of the sacred mirror was turned into a paler haze like -that of moonshine. Out of this silvery mistiness came a crowned woman. -She was clothed in white, and about her head shone an aureole. - -And Gerald was enraptured. For this Evarvan of the Mirror was so -surpassingly lovely that she excelled all the other women his gaze had -ever beheld. Yet somehow it was not the coloring nor the placing of her -features that he was noting. Rather, he was observing himself and the -thing which was happening to this careful, this well-poised, fastidious, -parched, rather pitiable Gerald whom for so many years he had known. The -creature had not for a great while, not since, indeed, the days of his -first insanity about Evelyn, been visited by any real emotion: now, -momentarily at least, he was ablaze: he was caught perhaps: and it was -this imminent personal peril that Gerald was noting, aloofly, with a -drugged sense of derisory exultation. - -For this Gerald, as it seemed to him, had known quite well, a great -while ago, before his lips had touched for pastime’s sake the lips of -any woman anywhere, that this woman who, it seemed, was called Evarvan, -existed in some place, and waited for him, and would by and by be found. -That very important fact, which a boy had known, a thriftless, very -silly young man had let slip out of mind. Throughout all the -twenty-eight years of his living, it seemed to Gerald, this Evarvan had -been the true and perfect love of his heart’s core.... To the extreme -romanticism of this phrase he conceded a smile: that he should have -concocted a phrase so abominable showed him just now to be neither -fastidious nor well poised.... Nevertheless, here was the woman whose -existence he, even in Lichfield, had always dimly divined, and of -whom—he had it now,—of whom Evelyn Townsend had been a parodying -shadow in human flesh. The likeness had been just sufficient to get him -into a great deal of trouble. He saw that likeness now, quite plainly. - -“And this woman too is going to get me into trouble, I very much fear. -For all my being cries out to her. Eh, Gerald, one needs caution here, -my lad, you who find trouble uncongenial!” - -Evarvan spoke. And she was speaking, oddly enough, as it seemed to him, -of that Evelyn who went about Lichfield immured in the body which was a -poor copy of Evarvan’s body. Yet Gerald was listening hardly at all. He -did not like the strong, insane and over-youthful emotions which this -woman roused in him. They endangered his welfare. For this woman was -awakening in him those old, unforgotten fervors which he had once felt -for Evelyn Townsend, and which had betrayed him into the horrid bondage -of an illicit love-affair. This Evarvan was ensnaring him, he knew, into -the insanities appropriate to youth and inexperience: and such nonsense -had to be controlled. - -So it was half dazedly Gerald protested that—quite apart from the -claims of his divine duties as a Savior and a sun god, and apart too -from the obligations he was under to ascend the throne of Antan,—he -could no longer endure the stupidities and the fretfulness and the -jealousies of the Evelyn who had made adultery wholly unendurable. - -“If she were but a bit like you, ma’am,” Gerald gallantly -remarked,—with somewhat increasing composure now that this woman -reminded him the more closely that he observed her yet more and more of -Evelyn,—“the case would be different.” - -“But I,” said Evarvan of the Mirror, “will remain with you always, if -you indeed desire to become my lover. For there is a way, Gerald, there -is for you through my mirror’s aid an open way to contentment. You shall -know an untruth, and that untruth will make you free: the doings of the -world, and all the bustling that is made by merchants and by warriors -and by well-thought-of persons talking about important matters, will -then run by you like a little stream of shallow, bickering waters: and -you will heed none of these things, but only that loveliness which all -youth desires and no man ever finds save through my mirror’s aid. You -will live among bright shadows very futilely: yes: but you will be -happy.” - -Gerald replied hoarsely: “I desire only you. I cannot think of thrones, -nor of any gods, now that you stand here within arm’s reach. All my -life-long I have desired you, as I know now, my dearest, throughout the -dreary while of over-much playing and laughter that I have lived in -ever-dwindling faith I would yet win to you by and by. But now I am -again as Johan Faustus,—or, rather, I am as Jurgen in that other old -story, when he had come at last to Helen, the delight of gods and men: -only I am more favored than was Jurgen, for my Helen speaks....” - -“Oh, and I speak for your own good, my darling, for there is a condition -to be fulfilled before I may trust you and may give you all.” - -Gerald answered: “No, Evelyn, not to-night—But indeed I entreat your -pardon, my dear. My mind must have been wandering. Yes, yes! as I was -saying, the difference is that Helen speaks!” - -“For your own good, my dearest.” - -“Yes; you speak, naturally, of a condition for my own good, just as -Glaum hinted that so many more or less friendly persons would be doing -in these parts.” - -“I speak, though, of a very easy condition. You must yourself perform a -tiny Asvamedha; and you must immolate before my mirror, not any really -valuable horse, of course, nor even a good-looking horse, but only that -hideous and wholly worthless horse which you have brought with you into -the land of Dersam.” - -Then Gerald said: “And that is a small price to pay for the attainment -of the one thing which my heart quite earnestly desires, is it not? For -all my life I have hungered, as I believe that all poets hunger, for -that unflawed beauty, seemingly not ever to be found upon this earth, -which now stands revealed in the form of a woman, and which now speaks -to me with the voice of a woman—oh, quite with the voice of a -woman!—and speaks, too, for my own good. Yes, it is a small price, such -as any boy of nineteen or thereabouts would pay gladly. For I must tell -you, who are the delight of gods and—well! of adolescent boys, at -least, in every quarter of the world,—that all this very strongly -reminds me of that first sonnet which I made about you when I was a boy -of nineteen.” - -Evarvan did not wholly conceal her uneasiness over the prospect of -hearing this sonnet. But there was none the less in her voice a -tenderness almost motherly now that she asked of Gerald, “And did you -make verses, then, about me, dear, so early?” - -“To prove it,” Gerald replied, “I will now recite to you that identical -sonnet.” - -And he did. - -But his voice was so shaken with emotion that, when he had completed the -octave, he paused, because it was never within Gerald’s power to resist -the beauty of a sublime thought when it was thus adequately expressed in -flawless verse. So for an instant he stayed silent. He caught up the -lovely hands of Evarvan of the Mirror, and he pressed them to his -trembling lips. - -For this beguiling bright dream was now become a snare to delay him in -journeying onward to his appointed kingdom, and to betray him again into -bondage to the rather beautiful ideas and tinsel notions of youth. -Presently he would be seeing no more of this traitorous dream woman, who -was preparing to trust him and to give him all, and who none the less -was more lovely and more dear than any real thing anywhere. Afterward he -would regret her, he knew: always he would regret Evarvan, among -whatsoever delights they were which awaited Gerald in his appointed -kingdom. Nevertheless, this dream was an impediment in the way of a -Savior and a sun deity, with whose appropriate functions this dream was -interfering: and the most painful duty which confronted Gerald was not -precisely to be discourteous to a lady, but to discourage sacrilege. - -Dismissing these cursory reflections, Gerald sighed: and he continued -the reciting of his sonnet with an air of lofty resignation intermingled -with a gustatory approval of really good verse. - -“That,” said Evarvan of the Mirror, when he had ended, “is a very -beautiful sonnet, and I am proud to have inspired it. But we were -talking about something else, I have quite forgotten what—” - -“I,” Gerald said, “have not forgotten.” - -“Oh, yes, now I do remember! We were talking about the lucky chance -afforded you to get rid of that dreadful horse of yours.” - -Gerald looked for one instant at the most lovely of all the illusions he -had found in the Mirror of Caer Omn. Then he began to recite the -multiplication tables. - -You saw that she was frightened. She said, “Oh, and I trusted you! I -gave you all!” - -She bleated now; her beauty was dimmed: and she seemed just the Evelyn -Townsend who had pestered Gerald beyond any reasonable endurance. - -But Gerald, howsoever heavy was the heart of Gerald who quite honestly -objected to being troubled by anything, went on inexorably to exorcise -Evarvan with the old runes of common-sense. He spoke of the elephant -that is the largest of beasts, and of the very dissimilar household -economy practised by a King of Israel and by Elijah the Tishbite, and of -the straight line that is the shortest distance between two points; and -the old magic was potent. - -Before his eyes Evarvan of the Mirror was changed. Of the degradation -which was put upon her, it suffices to report that this lovely lady went -backward in the course of every mortal woman’s living. She passed from -girlhood into a lank-legged childhood, and thence into drooling and -feebly puking infancy, and after that into the shapes she had worn in -her mother’s womb. In the end there remained of the most dear illusion -which Gerald had found in the Mirror of Caer Omn only two pink figures -in the form of a soft throbbing egg and of a creature like a tadpole -darting lustfully about it: and these melted back into the moonshine of -the Sacred Mirror of Caer Omn. - -Nor was that all. The wives of Glaum and the Temple of the Mirror and -all that was about Gerald began to waver. All the material things about -him showed now like paintings on a gauze curtain which was moving and -crinkling in a very gentle breeze. The shaping of the six wives became -longer and more attenuated: they were shaped like the shadows of women -in a fine sunset. These so prettily tinted shadows strained toward the -mirror and entered it precisely as you may see smoke drift toward and -out of an opened window. Then all the temple followed them collapsingly, -as if colored waters were running into a hole. The mirror swallowed all. -Caer Omn was gone: the land of Dersam was a ruined land without -inhabitants. Afterward the pale glass blinked seven times like summer -lightning, and the mirror was not there. - -Gerald stood alone in a cedar-shadowed way. He was weeping quite -unaffectedly. His very deepest poetic sensibilities had been touched by -the rather beautiful idea that he had loved this woman all his -life-long, and that now he had lost her forever: but a little way behind -Gerald the silver stallion stayed unimmolated, and grazed placidly. - - - - - PART FIVE - THE BOOK OF LYTREIA - - “Whether You Boil or Roast Snow, - You Can Have but Water of It.” - - - - - 15. - At Tenjo’s Court - - -GERALD passed on, riding upon the stallion Kalki, down a valley of -cedar-trees, into the realm of Tenjo of the Long Nose. This was the land -of Lytreia, they told him. But, here too, dejection overbrooded all, and -the atmosphere was elegiac, for people everywhere were lamenting that -vigor and resiliency and liveliness had gone out of their noses, so that -no man in Lytreia was able to sneeze or to employ his nose in any other -normal way. - -“Well, now, suppose you take me to this king of yours,” said Gerald, -“for it may be I can re-awaken hereabouts all the lost joys of -influenza.” - -“And who shall we say to him has come into Lytreia, red-headed and -riding upon the back of this huge and sparkling horse with the splendid -nose?” - -“You will say to your king that this land is honored by a visit from -Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, -the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones, as he passes toward his appointed -kingdom in Antan, riding in very terrible estate upon the back of his -famous silver stallion Kalki, a beast which, strictly speaking, has no -nose, but only nostrils at the tip of his long, noble head.” - -They also seemed unimpressed. “No god is of terrible estate except the -Holy Nose of Lytreia; nor do we concede the existence of any kingdom not -his. Nevertheless, you may come with us.” - -“Upon my word,” thought Gerald, “but in these parts the people pay very -inadequate homage to us gods and are little better than heretics.” - -But he went with these over-sceptical persons quietly to their King -Tenjo. - -And Tenjo received the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones more affably. -First, though, the grave, white-bearded King shared with the visiting -god a quite excellent dinner, which was handsomely served to them by ten -pages in ermine and a seneschal in vermilion silk: not until dinner was -over, and the two sat drinking their spiced wine out of gold goblets, -would the King talk about his troubles. Then Tenjo complained that his -nose was fallen and flabby. It was no longer worshipful. That was in all -ways deplorable, said the King, refilling his goblet, inasmuch as his -people worshipped a nose, and could respect no male creature who had not -a large and high-standing and robust and succulent nose. - -Gerald was a little puzzled, because this seemed to him a queer sort of -calamity to be befalling anybody, unless it was caused by the magic of -the wu. But Gerald made no comment. He asked only how this sad state of -affairs had come about. - -He was told that all the youth and vigor had been taken out of the Holy -Nose of Lytreia, and out of Tenjo’s nose, and out of the nose of every -man in the kingdom, by the blighting magic of a sorceress who had lately -established her residence in the tomb of King Peter the Builder. - -“It is there,” said Tenjo, “the veiled Mirror of the Two Truths is -hidden: but not even of that does this sorceress seem afraid.” - -“Nor, for that matter, am I: for I am Lord of the Third Truth. Well, it -is fairly evident this woman is a wu.” - -“You may be right. I confess that dreadful possibility had not ever -occurred to me—” - -“Only we gods are omniscient, my dear Tenjo,” said Gerald, kindlily. “So -there is no need for any mere king to be ashamed of his human -blindness.” - -“—Because, as I must tell you, before this minute I had not ever heard -of a wu.” - -“You have been lucky. The less one hears of such creatures, the better -for everybody. So, how is this woman called?” - -“She is called Evaine,” said Tenjo; “and she is called also the Lady of -Peter’s Tomb, now that she has taken possession of it.” - -Then Gerald finished his fourth goblet, and Gerald hiccoughed, and -Gerald said: “Your case, my dear fellow, while perplexing, is not wholly -desperate. For I bring youth with me, and I will renovate your withered -noses. I am competent to deal with any wu. I give you, in fact, my -divine word that you shall be rid of this wu. Yes, Lytreia shall be rid -of her, even though it is necessary that to undo her hoodoo I do with -due to-do woo the wu, too—” - -“Would you be so kind,” said Tenjo, looking troubled, “as to repeat -that, rather more slowly?” - -Gerald obliged him, and continued: “Yes, I assure you, upon the most -sacred oath of our Dirghic heaven,—known only to the gods, my dear -fellow, so that you will, I trust, pardon my not repeating it,—that I -will subject this wu and this mirror also to my divine inspection—” - -“Ah, but I must tell you,” said Tenjo, seeming yet more troubled, “that -the man who looks into that mirror straightway finds himself transformed -into two stones. For that reason it is hidden away in Peter’s Tomb, and -it is kept veiled, and of course no man has ever dared go near it.” - -“How, then, did this mirror ever manage to change anybody into two -stones if nobody ever dared go near it?” - -“Why, but the mirror was compelled to change them into two stones -because that was the law. It was not at all the mirror’s fault. Surely, -you who are a god and are omniscient, and who are now nearly drunk -enough to see everything double, can see that much?” - -“So far as your explanation goes, I can see the mirror’s blamelessness -in the face of an obdurate physical law. Nor does any god object to a -physical law which concerns other people.” - -“And they kept away from the mirror because they knew about this law. -Surely, that too was natural?” - -“In a way, yes. But how could they be certain about this law?” - -“How could they help it, how could anybody be ignorant of one of our -very oldest and most famous laws, which comes down to us, indeed, from -sources so august and venerable that they antedate all history?” - -“Why, then, who enacted this law?” - -“How should I know, when, as I was just telling you, this law is older -than any recorded history?” - -“But in a thousand pounds of law there is not an ounce of pleasure, and -there are entirely too many laws,” said Gerald, shaking his red head -above his golden goblet rather despondently. “There is common, -statutory, international, maritime, ecclesiastical, and martial law. -There is the law of averages, the Salic law, and Grimm’s law of the -permutations of consonants. There is Jewish sacred law; there is prize -law; there is the law of gravity; there is John Law, who first developed -the natural wealth of the Mississippi, and William Law, who was a great -mystic. There are, in logic, the laws of thought, just as in astronomy -and physics and political economy there are, severally, the well-known -laws of Kepler and Prevost and Gresham. In fine, there are laws -everywhere, and they are very often a nuisance. He that goes to law -loses time and money and rest and friends. Law is a lottery, law is a -bottomless pit, law is an ass which slaps his tail in every man’s face. -So it very well may be, my dear fellow, that in a world so legally -overstocked this law of yours is superfluous, and therefore wrong.” - -But Tenjo was not convinced by Gerald’s relentless logic. Tenjo said -only: - -“I do not any more know what you are talking about than you do. But I do -know that”—here Tenjo hiccoughed, with judicial graveness,—“that it -does not alter the principle of the thing. So this mirror will continue -to transform into two stones all men who look into it, although I cannot -see how it matters the worth of one box of matches in hell, because so -long as the law is such, no man will ever look into this mirror.” - -“Yet, do you but answer me this very simple question! What if some -intelligent, unsuperstitious person were to look into this mirror,—and -were to come back not changed into stone, and not hurt in any -way,—would that not prove to you the insanity of this law?” - -“Of course it would not! That would only prove the man was a liar. The -plain fact of his not being changed into two stones would be legal proof -in any of our courts or in any law-respecting place anywhere that he had -not ever looked into the Mirror of the Two Truths.” - -“Oh, very well!” said Gerald. “No, thank you, my dear fellow, not -another drop! Let us go to the temple! And let us each lean upon the -other’s arm, for your most excellent wine does not seem to have -clarified anything exactly.” - - - - - 16. - The Holy Nose of Lytreia - - -NOW, when the grave, white-bearded King and the red-headed god had -come to the Temple of the Holy Nose, they entered it arm in arm, -followed by the King’s court. And when they approached the adytum, the -head priestess came toward them exhibiting a cteis, or large copper -comb, which she offered to Tenjo. The King accepted it, he parted her -hair in the middle, and he spoke the Word of Entry. - -Said Tenjo: “I enter, proud and erect. I take my fill of delight -imperiously, irrationally, and none punishes.” - -The head priestess replied, “Not yet.” - -Tenjo said then, “But in three months, and in three months, and in three -more months, the avenger comes forth, and mocks me by being as I am, and -by being foredoomed to do as I have done, inevitably.” - -This ceremony being discharged, they all entered the adytum, and then -the three priestesses led Gerald toward the collapsed and shrivelled -idol which was in the adytum. And Gerald whistled. - -“—For do you call this,” said Gerald, “a nose?” - -“Sir,” replied the priestesses, “we do. As, likewise, do all other -well-conducted persons.” - -“Yet, I would call it,” said Gerald, whose naturally fine color was now -perceptibly heightened by Tenjo’s excellent wine, “another member.” - -“Such, sir,” they answered him, “is not our custom.” - -“Nevertheless,” said Gerald, waggling very gravely his red head, -“nevertheless, it is written in the scriptures of the Protestant -Episcopal church that, even as great ships are turned about in the sea’s -roaring main with a very small helm, even so is every man guided in the -main by a small member—” - -They said, “Yet, sir—” - -“And this member is not well spoken of by the Apostolic Fathers. This -member has ruined virgins: its conquests are stained with blood: it has -caused the widow to regret: it has deceived the wisest and most elderly -of men. It is, in fine, a member whose blushing hue is wholly proper to -its iniquitous history.” - -They replied, “Still, sir—” - -“It is an over proud and wild member. Most justly is it written that -every kind of beasts and of birds and of serpents and of things in the -sea is to be tamed, and has been tamed, by human kind; but that this -member can no man tame; for it is an unruly member, seeking ruthlessly -its prey; a rebellious member, prominent in uprisings; a member very -often full of deadly poison.” - -They said, “None the less, sir—” - -“I deduce that this member here represented is not worshipful. I deduce -that it is not well for you of Lytreia to worship this shrivelled image -of a tongue, for all that you call it a nose.” - -“But, sir, while there is much piousness and erudition in what you say, -you must understand that the word ‘nose’ is a word with connotations and -with a reputed correspondence in anatomy—” - -“I do not at all understand that saying, and so I cannot quite see your -point of view. I merely know that, in consonance with the words of St. -James the Just, and according to the scriptures of the Protestant -Episcopal church, this member is a tongue. And I admit that this tongue, -which your heathenish upbringing induces you to call a nose, is in a -peculiarly bad way. But the divine word of Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper -and Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, has been pledged to help and -to preserve this idol. So we will see what can be done about it.” - -Then Gerald moistened his finger-tip with a drop of the water from the -Churning of the Ocean. As the Lady of the First Water-Gap had done to -Gerald’s forehead, so Gerald did to the shrivelled idol of Lytreia. - -It was changed. Its limpness departed; its coloring quickened; corded -large blue veins, very intricately forked and branched, arose about its -now glowing surface, which revealed also many tiny veins that were -brightly red and astonishingly tortuous. It became enormous and -high-standing and robust and succulent. It throbbed and jerked. It was -hot to the touch: and the roughened cartilage of its erect tip-end now -glistened with imperial purple. - -And everywhere at that same instant the magic of Evaine was lifted from -Lytreia, and the nose of every man regained its proper proportions and -vigor. Young couples to the right hand and to the left could be seen -withdrawing to sneeze in private: the girls were already producing their -handkerchiefs. And the three priestesses began to bathe the rejuvenated -idol with refreshing water: they wreathed it with leaves of the Indian -wood-apple; they placed before it flowers and incense and sweetmeats. -Meanwhile they chaunted a contented song in honor of the Holy Nose. - -Tenjo and all the older lords and dowagers of Tenjo’s court had kneeled -in worship. Gerald only remained standing as arrogantly erect as was the -idol which people worshipped in Lytreia. - -“I honor in a civil way,” said Gerald, “the spirit of this tongue—” - -“But this,” said Tenjo the King, now speaking almost peevishly, “is not -a tongue. It is the Holy Nose of Lytreia.” - -“Do you not be flying, my dear fellow, upon the wings of bad temper, -into the face of scripture and of logic! In a civil way, I repeat, I -honor this member. I personally am rather fond of talking. Nevertheless, -as being myself a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, and as -being also a self-respecting member of the Dirghic mythology, I must -decline to worship this so restive and inflammable member of any man’s -body.” - -Tenjo at that got up from off his knees. He came toward Gerald: and the -white-bearded, grave King then spoke with rather less of peevishness -than of compassion. - -“You will regret such sayings. For that also is a law of Lytreia. -However, do you now ask what you will for the vigor which you have -restored to our noses, and we will gladly pay that price. Yet for the -blasphemies which you have uttered in this temple the spirit of the Holy -Nose will by and by be asking a price: and that price nor you nor any -other lad will ever pay gladly.” - -Gerald replied, “For the renovation of your noses, and as a propitiatory -trap for the doomed wu in Peter’s Tomb, you will pay me the price of one -black rooster.” - -“But what,” asked Tenjo, “is a rooster?” - -“Why, a rooster is the herald of the dawn, it is the father of an -omelet, it is the pullet’s first bit of real luck, it is the male of the -_Gallus domesticus_.” - -“We do not call a male chicken that—” - -“No,” Gerald assented, “no, but you ought to. And not to do so is wholly -un-American.” - -“Yet why do you Americans call this particular bird a rooster, when -everybody knows that all birds except ostriches and cassowaries roost, -and that every flying bird everywhere is thus a rooster?” - -“Well, I admit that we do not reason about it as you reason in Lytreia. -I admit that the word ‘rooster’ is a word without connotations and -without any correspondence in anatomy. Nevertheless, every nation has -its customs. And it is as much our well-established American custom to -call the male of the chicken a rooster as it is your custom to call that -thing a nose.” - -“But we call that a nose because it is, in point of fact, a nose. It is, -as we have told you I do not know how many times, the Holy Nose of -Lytreia.” - -Gerald was honestly exasperated by the obstinacy of the people of this -kingdom. - -“Even so,” said he, “if you want the truth—” - -He spoke then the truth about that tongue, as it appeared to him. But -his remarks were lost to history through the circumstance that none of -his hearers ever thought of setting them down in writing. - -Instead, his hearers shuddered. They gave him a black cock, and they -drove him out of that temple. It was in this way that Gerald put an -affront upon the Holy Nose of Lytreia. - - - - - 17. - Evaine of Peter’s Tomb - - -NOW Gerald rode upon the silver stallion toward the immemorial, -moss-overgrown tomb of King Peter the Builder, and Gerald carried under -his left arm the black cock. Gerald noted, with an interest natural to -any student of magic, the glorification tree which grew beside this -tomb. He once more whistled meditatively. Then he hitched his shining -stallion to an over-candidly carved and painted post which stood at the -door of the tomb, and he went in. - -The interior of this spacious tomb was lighted with nineteen iron lamps -swung from the ceiling. Gerald thus saw, first of all, the great -four-square mirror covered with a flesh-colored cloth. Before it fumed a -smoking brazier; and beside this stood the appearance of a woman. To her -left hand was a broad bed, and to her right, a gilded pig-trough heaped -with fig-leaves. These leaves this woman was crumpling and tearing into -little pieces one by one before she destroyed them in the fire of the -brazier. - -She heard Gerald’s civil cough. She turned: and Gerald was enraptured. - -For Evaine of Peter’s Tomb was so surpassingly lovely that she excelled -all the other women his gaze had ever beheld. The colors of this -beautiful young girl’s two eyes were nicely matched, and her nose stood -just equidistant between them. Beneath this was her mouth, and she had -also a pair of ears. The girl was young, she exhibited no deformity -anywhere, and the enamored glance of the young man could perceive in her -no fault. There was, to be sure, a puzzling likeness to somebody he had -once known, but Gerald’s quick wits soon unriddled the mystery. This -woman reminded him of Evelyn Townsend. - -Nor was this all. He observed now that this woman was, just as he had -suspected, a Fox-Spirit, for now from Evaine of Peter’s Tomb emanated -the power of her magic. That magic which overmasters all animals now -smote at Gerald; and in a mildly amusing way he found its assaults -really quite interesting. - -“For this is the goety of beasts,” he reflected. “This is the brutish -half-magic of the wu which maddens men, along with all other animals in -their rutting season, and robs them of self-control. This magic -persuades me, almost, that I, too, am only a bundle of cellular matter -upon its way to becoming manure. Yes, my life, too, at just this moment, -seems but a grudged brief season of bewildered appetites and of baffled -surmise such as is the life of a mortal man. I, too, seem a mere human -being passing from the forgotten to the unforeseeable. Under the -assaults of this small carnal magic, I seem again to go in that -continuous masked loneliness which mortal persons in Lichfield and -elsewhere call living. I long to put out of mind the frailness and the -transiency of my hold upon living. The nonsensical notion has occurred -to me that such forgetfulness may be hired by bringing the epidermis -which masks me into superficial contact with the homogenous animal -matter in which hides this Fox-Spirit.... Yes, I am being, as it were, -maddened with desire; I am very rapidly becoming the prey of this -Fox-Spirit’s irresistible powers of fascination, so to speak. And I find -it really quite interesting to observe how this half-magic which -destroys so many men now impiously strikes beyond its proper arena, at -that which is divine; and how this foolish magic attempts to deceive -even me, who am a Savior and a sun god.” - -Such were the cursory reflections which passed through Gerald’s mind in -the while that he said, aloud, “Good-evening, ma’am!” - -The Fox-Spirit Evaine, without replying to him directly, took out of her -bosom a white gem about the size of an orange. She tossed this up into -the air, and caught it again. Gerald conjectured that this was her soul, -but he made no comment. - -He displayed to her his cock, saying, as was needful, “I entreat you to -accept my rooster—” - -“But what,” asked learned Evaine, “what did you call this tamed -descendant of the wild Bankiva fowl,—whose original habitat was in -Northern India from Sindh to Burma, and in Cochin China, and in many of -the Malay Islands as far as Timor, and in the Philippines?” - -“Why, in the United States of America, ma’am, we, rather more briefly, -and for a variety of reasons, call this bird a rooster.” - -“It has been well observed,” she replied, “by Pliny the Elder—a -celebrated Roman naturalist, born 23 A.D., perished in the eruption of -Vesuvius 79 A.D.,—that every nation has its customs.” - -Then the Fox-Spirit dexterously cut off the head of Gerald’s cock with -the sacrificial ax, and turning toward the East, she spoke the needed -words three times. One entered now in a scarlet coat, a yellow vest, and -pale green knee-breeches. His head was like that of a mastiff, with the -addition of two horns and the ears of an ass, but he had the legs and -hoofs of a calf. Such was he who carried off the black cock which Gerald -had brought for the Fox-Spirit’s master, as a propitiatory offering and -a trap. - -Gerald smiled. Gerald shook hands, politely, with Evaine the learned -Fox-Spirit. - -“I am,” said Gerald, “a god.” - -She replied: “I am one who serves all gods. I honor every tribe of those -divine beings whose existence scholars have so variously accounted for -as the products of physical and ethical and historical and etymological -blunders abetted by homonymy and polonymy. But I require for my piety a -honorarium.” - -“And what is that honorarium?” - -She told him. - -And as she spoke, Evaine drew near to him, and yet nearer, and she was -remarkably desirable. If only she had not now reminded Gerald more and -more of Evelyn Townsend, she would have been resistless. - -“Very well, then!” said Gerald, affably: “you shall have that honorarium -to-morrow morning if you still care to demand a reward so trivial.” - -Immediately afterward he said, “But, indeed, ma’am, you quite -misunderstand me!” - -Then with a few well-chosen words he placed their relationship upon a -more decorous basis. - -And Evaine the Fox-Spirit laughed. Such unresponsiveness she declared to -be, when manifested by a god, wholly surprising, and comparable to the -Seven Wonders of the World, namely: (1) the Pyramids of Egypt; (2) the -Hanging Gardens of Babylon; (3) the Tomb of Mausolos; (4) the Temple of -Diana at Ephesus; (5) the Colossus of Rhodes; (6) the Statue of Zeus by -Phidias; and (7) the Pharos at Alexandria. Yet, Evaine continued, she -perceived that she might trust him— - -“You may do nothing of the sort!” said Gerald, decisively. “You may not -even give me all. No, ma’am, it would be quite unadvisable, because, as -I am forced to point out, you in your unfading youth and omniscient -learning are many thousands of years older than I am in my present -incarnation. Beside you, I am a mere boy. Now, it is often a great -disadvantage to a boy, it is by and by a curse to him, to succumb to the -loving confidence and generosity of a woman much older than himself. It -is unwholesome. It is un-American.” - -“Is it, then, inconsistent with the manners of a continent in the -Western Hemisphere—first named America by Waldseemüller, a teacher of -geography in the college of Saint-Dié among the Vosges, in a treatise -called _Cosmographia_, published in 1507,—for me to like you so much -that I just want to touch you and be near you?” - -“No, ma’am, that, I regret to say, is universal. Besides, I did not -particularly mean you. I only mean that there are such women, as we both -know, dear lady, who prey upon young boys. They employ for this purpose -all their confidence and generosity without the least scruple. And many -a hard, bitter, cynical man has originally had his faith in and his -regard for everything good and holy blasted in his very first boyhood by -the confiding nature and generosity of some middle-aged woman or another -and her subsequent references to the advantage he took of her.” - -“It is possible that you speak with the clearness recommended by -Quintilian as the chief virtue of speech,—born in Spain about 25 A.D., -died about 95 A.D., patronized by Vespasian and Domitian,—but it is -certain that I do not understand one word of your speaking.” - -“—However,” Gerald continued, “when a boy has a nice, clean friendship -with an older woman it is one of the most valuable and helpful -experiences that can come into his life. A friendship such as this -appears to me a rather beautiful idea. The older woman—particularly -when she is older by many thousands of years,—can teach him, as his -mother out of the superficial knowledge of a callow half-century or so -cannot possibly do, about women. She can inspire and direct him. She can -fire his ambition. She can encourage him. She can be to him in every way -a liberal education.” - -“Now, certainly, I shall never understand your American way of uttering -so many platitudes—derived from the Greek word _platys_, meaning -‘flat,’—when I was attempting to do all these things!” - -“Ah, but we must keep the education entirely oral, and we must keep, -too, your little hands—So, now, that is very much better!” - -“It is better still to permit a wilful person to have his way,—a remark -attributed to Periander, an ancient sage, and Tyrant of Corinth during -the sixth century B.C.,—since you elect to give me my honorarium for -nothing,” Evaine said, rather sulkily. - -Gerald elected to do nothing of the sort. But, since his real intentions -would have been an awkward matter to explain, he kept silent about them. - -After that Gerald questioned the learned Fox-Spirit. She explained to -him willingly enough the laws of Lytreia and described the basket they -were found in, and she made it plain just how these laws were enforced -by a committee of midwives and stonemasons. She spoke of the magic she -had put upon Lytreia. She spoke of Tenjo, telling how in the prime of -his youth he came to be called Tenjo of the Long Nose; and her -statistics were remarkable. She talked then about the wind between the -stars, and about the grandeur that was Greece, and about Hobson’s -choice, and about Davey Jones’s locker, and about the cause of -volcanoes, and about the curate’s egg, and about the best cures for -baldness. For no information anywhere was hidden from the wisdom of -Evaine, who knew all things, and who served all gods. - -“I perceive,” said Gerald, “that you have knowledge, and I like your -reflections extremely. So do you speak yet further out of the stores of -your omniscience!” - -He had been glancing all the while toward the veiled Mirror of the Two -Truths. But he of course said never a word about this mirror. His -present task was simply to lure on this cultured and malefic creature to -her complete ruin. - -For the Fox-Spirit, as Gerald saw, was still about the brutish magic of -the wu, which drives men mad, and she now spoke of more and yet more -evil matters such as were very well adapted to incite Gerald to -brutality. She spoke of the battle of life, and of the feast of reason, -and of the irony of fate, and of the lap of luxury. She talked of the -writing on the wall, and of the scroll of fame, and of the lexicon of -youth, and of the cloud that had a silver lining. She touched upon the -two seas, of troubles and of upturned faces. She discussed the durance -that was vile, and the hours that were wee and sma’, and the -consummation that was devoutly to be wished for, and the light that was -dim and religious, and the heat which was not the humidity. She -indicated the balm in Gilead, the place in the sun, and the safety in -numbers. She afterward gave succinctly the recipes for making a mountain -out of a molehill, a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and a virtue out of -a necessity. For no evil phrase of any sort was hidden from the wisdom -of Evaine, who knew all things, and who served all gods, and who was now -intent to exercise upon Gerald the magic of the wu, which drives men -mad. - -But Gerald only smiled, almost approvingly. This woman was reminding him -more and more of Evelyn Townsend, and his pulses had not ever been -calmer. - -“I perceive,” said Gerald, “that you have a great deal of knowledge, -with the vocabulary of a dear friend to back it devastatingly. -Therefore, ma’am, to avail myself of your knowledge alone may serve my -divine ends much better than your really most flattering proffers in -other fields.” - -For now it was Gerald’s turn to speak. So now he revealed to the baffled -Fox-Spirit the fact that he was Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and -Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly -Ones, a very potent god who had temporarily mislaid his mythology. He -told the omniscient Fox-Spirit, who knew all things excepting only how -and at what hour her knowledge would end, of Gerald’s adventures during -the rather crowded twenty-four hours since he had left Lichfield. - -And now she was smiling over his obtuseness. For to all-wise Evaine it -was at once apparent that Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the -Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones, was a -culture hero like Quat or Quetzalcoatl or Cagn or Osiris or Dionysos. -All these were former acquaintances of hers: she knew, she said, every -inch of them, for each one of these had stopped to visit her who served -all gods, as each had passed downward toward Antan. Evaine, if anybody, -would thus know a culture hero wherever she saw a culture hero. - -Every mythology contained one of these glorious philanthropists, born of -a mysterious and superior race, just as Gerald had been born in the -United States of America, a philanthropist, as the learned Fox-Spirit -said, very usually theriomorphic, who came in the appearance of a -jackass or of some other animal among less favored peoples to teach them -strange new arts and mysteries, and to endow them with every kind of -cultural advantage and prosperity, just as Gerald had benefited the -people of Dersam and of Lytreia, and was preparing to benefit Antan. - -She pointed out, furthermore, that a culture hero was in no way -un-American. There had been, for example, Quetzalcoatl. She also -remembered quite clearly Yetl,—because a deity in the form of a bird -was always, she said, rather difficult,—and Poshaiyankya, and Coyote, -and Esaugetuh, and that other waggish Indian deity—his name at present -evaded her,—who had traveled incognito in the shape of a large spider. -For all these aboriginal American culture heroes had visited Evaine as -they passed downward toward Antan, and every one of them had been in a -somewhat earlier generation Gerald’s fellow countryman. - -“In the light of your forceful logic, ma’am, I concede that, over and -above being a Savior and a sun god, it seems probable I must be a -culture hero too.” - -“But yet, in any case,—dear, unresponsive, frigid child,” said the -Fox-Spirit, speaking far more simply than she had done before,—“do you -not know that all mythologies are controlled by the Master Philologist, -so that he alone may say in which one of them and in what capacity you -belong?” - -“I find that saying obscure.” - -“It means only that sooner or later all gods save only Koleos Koleros -and the upright spirit of the Holy Nose pass down into Antan.” - -“Yes, for, as they told me at Caer Omn, Antan is the heaven of all -deserving gods, where they rest from their divine labors.” - -But the Fox-Spirit shook her head, rather forebodingly. “I, certainly, -would not say that.” - -“Do you, then, but answer me this very simple question! What becomes of -them there? what fate befalls in that place all which men have found -most beautiful and most worshipful?” - -“How can one say, when no god has ever returned? It is known only that, -in one way or another way, the Master Philologist disposes of every -deity that men have served, save only the two supreme gods of all -mammals,—a class of vertebrates embracing bats, the warm-blooded -quadrupeds, seals, cetaceans, man, and sirenians.” - -Gerald drew a long face. “Your account of the matter, ma’am, suggests -that my predecessor upon the throne of Antan lacks piety. You imply that -the creature is deficient in true religious feeling. That is a fault I -would have to requite when I take from him his throne and all the great -and best words of magic.” - -“To do that, child, needs power such as has not been shown by any god -among the many millions of gods that men have worshipped since the first -infancy of Chronos,—a Greek personification of Time, usually depicted -as carrying a sickle and an hourglass.” - -“Ah, but, my dear lady, I, who am at once a culture hero and a sun deity -and a Savior, must be a peculiarly powerful god. And, besides, ma’am, -from what you tell me—Why, but, really now, it appears probable that -the Master Philologist has damaged the Dirghic mythology to which I -myself belong! No god can patiently endure such usage; and my divine -wrath will, thus, redouble my power.” - -“But, still,—but, still, you dear, nice-looking and vainglorious -baby—!” - -Evaine had paused. She was regarding him almost compassionately: and -Gerald felt he could never get used to the flighty way in which people -everywhere in the Marches of Antan seemed to pity the high gods. It was -a quite friendly way they had of looking at you, but to extend -commiseration where reverence was the proper thing savored almost of -irreligion. - -Gerald shrugged. He said: - -“I shall therefore be resistless. I shall compel him to restore into -general circulation the Dirghic mythology, after having amply repaired -whatsoever damage he may have done to it, and then I shall assume, in -addition to his throne, my proper station as a culture hero and a sun -deity and a Savior in that mythology. So the affair is, virtually, -settled: we may now turn to other matters: and in return for the -gracious aid afforded by your large wisdom, I will make in your honor a -sonnet.” - -“It is a very beautiful sonnet,—consisting of fourteen decasyllabic -lines, expressing two phases of a single thought or sentiment,” said -Evaine the Fox-Spirit,—“and I am proud to have inspired it.” - -“You forget,” said Gerald, “that I have not yet recited my sonnet. I -will now do so.” - -And he did. - -But his voice was so shaken with emotion that, when he had completed the -octave, he paused, because it was never within Gerald’s power to resist -the beauty of a sublime thought when it was thus adequately expressed in -flawless verse. So for an instant he stayed silent. - -He caught up the lovely hands of Evaine the Fox-Spirit, and as he -pressed them to his trembling lips he noted that these hands smelled -like hops drying in the sun. It seemed to him exceedingly pitiful he had -given that promise to Tenjo. It seemed to him there was a certain -sameness in the dear women who made colorful the Marches of Antan, and, -to some extent, a similarity in their more intimate love passages with -Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver. He found it depressing to -reflect that destruction waited, so very near, for so much loveliness. -He found it perfectly dreadful to foreknow that he would often regret -this omniscient Evaine and her fine stores of useful information, once -he had kept the divine word given to Tenjo, and had put an end to her -living before she could do any further damage to the men of Lytreia. - -Gods ought to abstain from all love-affairs: for through love alone -might a god look to be wounded,—upon rainy Sunday afternoons, perhaps, -or after drinking a bit more than was good for one,—to be wounded, at -such unavoidable seasons of low vitality, with recurrent, plaguing -memories of his mortal playthings, so dear, so very dear, and so soon -reft away from his immortal arms, irrevocably.... - -After these cursory reflections, Gerald sighed, and—with the thoughtful -commentary that, since this was a Miltonic sonnet, his poem here went on -with the same sentence,—he continued his reciting. - -And when he had ended, the Fox-Spirit sighed contentedly. She spoke with -acumen and authority as to the main events of Milton’s life and as to -his principal works, and she added: - -“That is a very beautiful sonnet,—a verse form of Italian origin, first -used in English by Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1557,—and I am proud to have -inspired it. That is the sort of poetry which would incline any living -woman to trust you and to give you all the very moment you stopped -reciting it. So now will you not come to bed?” - -“No, Evelyn, not to-night—I beg your pardon, ma’am! My thoughts were -wool-gathering. What I had meant to say was but that if you insist upon -yet further displays of your great-hearted womanly confidence and -generosity you shall be walloped with a broomstick—severely. No, do you -retire now, my dear lady, by all means, and with my apologies for -keeping you up so late because of the delight I have got from your -instructive way of talking. But I shall pass the remainder of the night -in the aloofness appropriate to a god, in this quite comfortable -armchair.” - -And this he did. - - - - - 18. - End of a Vixen - - -WHEN Evaine was asleep, though, then Gerald rose softly from his -chair. He approached the bed. Very carefully he inserted his hand -between the young breasts of Evaine, and lightly he drew out the strange -white gem. He waited now, looking down compassionately at this really -very lovely girl.... - -But at his touch the learned Fox-Spirit had moved, so that she now lay -flat upon her back, with her mouth a little open. Evelyn slept thus. And -that was why Evelyn snored.... - -Gerald shrugged. He took up the sacrificial ax. - -Now that the dawn was at hand, he went out from the tomb, to the -glorification tree, and he began to fell the tree with this ax. At the -first stroke blood gushed out of the gray bark copiously, and Gerald -heard a wailing noise. Gerald looked upward. The appearance of a young -child dressed in blue garments was to be seen in a cleft in the side of -the tree. It had the seeming of a boy child about seven or eight years -old, a freckled boy, with tousled red hair, and with as yet only one -upper front tooth. - -This child wailed broken-heartedly: “A blasphemer is come up against the -Two Truths; a vainglorious fool derides the pair that endure where all -else perishes; and life is denied to me by his wrongheadedness.” - -Gerald had put down the ax. He was trembling. He did not like the love -and the great yearning which had awakened in his heart. He folded his -arms very tightly: he seemed tense and rather frightened looking as he -waited there peering sidewise toward this boy. - -“Child,” Gerald said, “what is your will that you cry out for life from -the glorification tree?” - -“My father, I demand the life which you have not given me, that life -which you owe to me, and that life which is denied me so long as you -deny the Two Truths.” - -“I serve the demands of my appointed kingdom, child. I serve the needs -of no other truth and the needs of no pawing women who would keep me out -of that kingdom.” - -“My father, your kingdom is a doubtful dream, but the flesh of my mother -is real.” - -“My dream is lovelier than any woman. Oh, and a doubtfulness also is -more lovely than the body of a woman, for I know the shaping of that -body over-well.” - -“My father, you refuse the pleasures which will not ever be returning.” - -“I am a god. I serve the needs of my own will.” - -“The gods also pass, my father, they also pass without any returning, -upon the road which you now tread.” - -“Let us pass, then, unhindered! But no woman permits it.” - -“That is because these women, O my father, have a very rational wisdom.” - -“Such is, perhaps, the case. But a god has his irrational dream. And -that is better.” - -“It is well enough, my father, for that dream to end contentedly in the -arms of some woman.” - -“It is well enough. It is customary. But I am Fair-haired Hoo, the -Helper and the Preserver. I go to my appointed kingdom: and I am Lord of -a Third Truth, whose mightiness I must help and preserve.” - -Then Gerald hewed on: and as the tree fell, the child vanished. - -Now Gerald set fire to the tree: and when a tidy blaze was crackling, he -spoke the needed words, and into the heart of this fire he tossed the -strange white gem. Straightway you heard a loud screeching. Out of the -tomb of Peter the Builder came a vixen fox, screaming and shuddering -quite horribly, but not ever ceasing to approach the fire. She entered -the flames. Silence followed, and the dawn of a superb May morning which -was marred only by an unpleasant odor of singed hair and burning flesh. - -Gerald after that went back into the tomb from which the omniscient -Fox-Spirit had been dispossessed. He looked rather sentimentally upon -the empty disordered bed: then he passed beyond the brazier, in which -the ruins of fig-leaves yet smouldered, toward the Mirror of the Two -Truths. - -The fact no longer mattered, perhaps, that any man who looked into this -mirror straightway found himself transformed into two stones: but it -very greatly mattered what effect this mirror would have upon a sun god -and a Savior and a culture hero. So he removed the flesh-colored veil. - - - - - 19. - Beyond the Veil - - -BUT he was not turned into two stones. Nor was there confronting him -any mirror. Beyond the flesh-colored veil he found only an ancient -painting very carefully done, but upon an unhuman scale which made this -painting monstrous. The subject of the picture, however, is not known, -because Gerald never told anybody. - -But it is known that Gerald shook his head at this painting. - -“Laborious daub of prevaricating pigment!” he remarked. “O futile -painting, which so many foolish believers in Lytreia think to be the -Mirror of the Two Truths! I question your arithmetic. For I myself am -the Lord of a Third Truth, for all that I have just at present no -precise idea as to its nature. In consequence, I know the two objects -which you magnify are not all which exists. And I deny that their -never-ending search of each other is the one gesture of life. No: I at -least, I feel assured, am destined to take part in some quite other -gesture, of a more graceful and more cleanly and more dignified -nature,—a gesture of, it well may be, eternal importance....” - -Yet Gerald glanced about him a little forlornly. This place was now -rather lonesome and ambiguous looking. In the crypt immediately beneath -him, Gerald knew, lay all that remained of King Peter and the most of -his numerous family; dozens upon dozens of peculiarly ugly objects were -there, all that remained of a great conqueror and of the queens who had -delighted him, all that attestedly remained now anywhere of a strong -hero’s pride and famous warfaring and of his many women’s loveliness.... - -“Oh, yes, it may be,” Gerald conceded, half frettedly, because he did -not like to be troubled with such reflections, “it may be that I am -wrong in this belief. And that seems to me yet another reason for -adhering to this belief. I, standing here alone upon the remnants of so -many utter strangers, admit indeed to some depression of spirits. It -seems to me, at this exact instant, that just conceivably I may be -neither a Savior nor a sun god nor a culture hero, but merely another -bull-headed Musgrave, for whom death waits, and after death, perhaps, -oblivion. Nevertheless, I find it a more beautiful and a much more -entertaining idea to believe in than to deny the immortality even of a -mere Musgrave. There is to my mind nothing at all interesting in the -idea of my own extinction. And it appears that my belief in this matter, -with no assured knowledge anywhere to go on, must be simply a question -of personal taste. Modesty even suggests that my belief is an affair of -irrelevance.” - -And Gerald said also: “Therefore it furthermore appears to me, O -peculiarly unimaginative painting, a sheer waste of opportunity to -assume that anything is ever going to end even for a mere Musgrave all -conscious experience. I had far rather play with a beautiful idea than -with one utterly lacking in seductiveness. I very much prefer to believe -that I at least am, in one way or another, reserved to take part in some -enduring and rather superb performance,—somewhere, by and by,—in a -performance concerned with some third truth, more august and -æsthetically more pleasing than are the only ever-enduring truths -apparent to us here. We copulate and die, and that is all?—Well, -perhaps! But, then again, perhaps not! One must, you see, be -broad-minded about the matter.” - -He for a moment kept silence. That regrettably candid painting and all -the other adjuncts of this place were certainly very depressing, now -that the learned diableries of the Fox-Spirit no longer enlivened this -tomb. Nevertheless, Gerald kept his long chin well up. - -“Yes, every man ought to be broad-minded about this matter, and ought to -cherish always, if only as a diverting and inexpensive plaything, this -pungent notion of being immortal. It is really inexpensive, because, -should your notion prove ungrounded, you run no risk, no tiniest risk, -of being twitted, by and by, for credulity, or even of ever discovering -your error. Meanwhile this faith in your own durability and potential -importance is in some sense a cordial; and is in sundry ways a fine toy. -It renders life, and dying too, endurable: and it offers against all -vacant half-hours a variety of diverting speculations... as to that -possible third truth.” - -Again Gerald paused. For it seemed to him, as he unwittingly repeated -the age-old self-persuasions of so many of his ancestors, that he had -found now another facet in this jewel of an idea that he was playing -with; and this fact considerably cheered Gerald. - -“Then, too,” said he, “then, too, that rather wide-spread expectation of -an oncoming triumph—somewhere, in some hazed roseate arena, beyond the -discomforts of death and the incredible impudence of the mortician’s -titivating,—that triumph which is to be a perpetual triumphing of -justice and of rationality and of kindliness and of all the other -canonical virtues, this rumored triumph yet cows many persons, not -infrequently, into one or another thrifty-minded practice of these -generally beneficent virtues.” - -Gerald said then: “It thus makes for, at any rate, terrestrial ease and -stability and repose: it gives people, as the phrase runs, something to -go by, in that it supports the most of every nation’s social and legal -rules of thumb. And it tends appreciably to limit men’s common greed and -viciousness, and all the harsher lusts of human beings, to exercises -through which there seems some quite tangible gain within tolerably safe -reach.” - -And Gerald said also: “Yes: it is much better for men to believe in some -third truth which will be revealed to them after the death of their -bodies; and a general faith in the immortality even of mere Musgraves -appears to me, thus, very plainly, because of its happy blending of the -functions of a narcotic and of a policeman, a generally desirable -assumption. It remains in all ways a desirable faith, no matter whether -or not there be any grounds for it. And if this careful painting -presents the entire truth, that fact is but another excellent reason for -paying no attention to it.” - -Gerald now felt quite comfortable through having listened so -respectfully to his own relentless logic. - -“For these reasons, O foolish painting of the Two Truths, I deny your -fleshly significance. Whether I happen to be a sun god or a Savior or a -culture hero or just another bull-headed Musgrave, I deny that you -present to me any truth whatever. I snap my fingers at your materialism; -I turn up my nose at your indecorous anatomical studies; and I send the -divine foot of the Lord of the Third Truth smashing through your ancient -canvas. These things I do to proclaim the majesty of the Third Truth. -And I depart from this Peter and this Peter’s Tomb, to seek my appointed -kingdom.” - -It was in this way that Gerald yet again put an affront upon Koleos -Koleros and upon the Holy Nose of Lytreia. - - - - - PART SIX - THE BOOK OF TUROINE - - “Weathercocks Turn more Easily - when Placed very High.” - - - - - 20. - Thaumaturgists in Labor - - -GERALD passed on, still riding upon the silver stallion, which Evaine -the Fox-Spirit had not, after all, demanded of him that morning as her -promised honorarium. And the next place he came to, and where he got his -breakfast, was Turoine. This was a small free city given to sorceries of -two colors. - -To every side of him the inhabitants of Turoine were about their arts: -and Gerald, as a former student of magic, quite naturally observed their -various activities with interest. - -Now the first sorcerer that he encountered was making a figure out of -pink wax with which was mixed baptismal oil and the ashes of a -consecrated wafer. The next sorcerer was murmuring charms over a very -fat toad which was imprisoned in a net rudely woven out of the golden -hairs from the head of some luckless, unresponsive woman, who was now -about to meet a not wholly desirable doom after that toad had been -buried at her threshold. And the third sorcerer huddled over a small -fire wherein burned cypress branches and broken crucifixes and portions -of a gibbet. In his hand was a skull filled with dark wine which had -been seasoned with hemp and with the fat of a girl child and with poppy -seed: and his familiar, in the shape of a large dun-colored cat, was -lapping up that bitter drink. - -No sorcerer anywhere in Turoine was idle upon this fine May morning. And -in this small, ever-busy city—where all the buildings were quaintly -marked with stars and pentagrams and the signs of the zodiac and the two -kinds of triangles, and were cozily overgrown with honeysuckle and arum -lilies and black poppies and deadly nightshade,—these sorcerers were -about a bewildering variety of studies. - -“I,” one of them told Gerald, “am learning the secrets which proceed -from Saturn, that ashy lord of the greater infortune. I have especial -power over all husbandmen and beggars, over grandfathers and monks of -every order and ministers of the gospel, over all potters, and miners, -and gardeners, and cow-tenders. I have learned how to make men envious, -covetous, slow of thought, suspicious, and stubborn. And I am also able -to afflict whatsoever person I elect with toothache and dropsy and black -jaundice and leprosy and hemorrhoids, either severally or in unison.” - -Another said: “I study to divine and to make smooth the approach of -every evil fortune,—with smoke and arrows and wax, with an egg, with -mice, and with the simulacra of dead persons;—but, above all, as you -may perceive, I have been most successful with the head of an ass in a -brazier of live coals. And my guide is not any bow-legged, swarthy -eunuch, but Leonard, the Grand Master of the Sabbat.” - -“I,” said a third, “have found in Turoine the Great Juggle Bag, for my -guide is Baalberith. So have I mastered all kinds of unheard-of, secret, -merry feats and mysteries and inventions—” - -“But what,” asked Gerald, “what purpose does your knowledge serve?” - -“By means of it, sir, those who are favored by my lord Baalberith, the -Master of Alliances, may make real the sin performed in a dream; may -open the locked door of any jail or bedchamber or counting house; may -smite a husband with embarrassing weakness; may inspire strange maids -and married women with flaming desires; may increase his natural height -here by seven ells and here by three inches; may make himself invisible -or invulnerable; may change his form into that of a cat or a hare or a -wolf; may control thunder and lightning; may collect and talk with -snakes; and”—here the sorcerer coughed,—“and may perform five other -advantageous, extravagant and authentic devices.” - -But Gerald shrugged. “These sciences are well enough for a sorcerer; and -I perceive that the industrious may pick up much useful information in -Turoine. But I am a god who travels toward his appointed kingdom, and -toward the mastery of secrets rather more vital than any of these. For -your arts are of that black magic which hurts but cannot help; your -guides are devils; and you deal only in misfortune and destructiveness.” - -“Then perhaps, sir, you may be better pleased by the enchanters who live -at the other end of this city. For these enchanters have no guides save -restlessness and foiled desires and impotence; they get no direct aid -from hell, but from somewhat less ancient intellectual centres; and they -work all their magic, such as it is, with words.” - -“And what does the magic of these same enchanters create?” - -“It creates, sir, a comfortable sense of equality with your betters -wherever there is least reason for it.” - -“I find that saying obscure. Nevertheless, I will visit these -enchanters,” said Gerald. - -And he rode on. - - - - - 21. - They That Wore Blankets - - -THUS Gerald came to the enchanters who were used to perform all their -magic with words. And they greeted his coming with a very cordial -enthusiasm for creatures so gray and vague and bedraggled looking as -they sat huddled there, each one of them clothed in a blanket, and -thoroughly drenched as though with sour smelling rain. - -Now the first enchanter to speak wore a violet blanket. He arose; and -dripping bilge-water everywhere about him in the while that he smiled -with wholly friendly condescension, he observed: - -“Here is another rider on the silver stallion. Here is yet another -figure of papier mâché which Horvendile has despatched upon a profitless -journeying.” - -“But I—” said Gerald. - -Without at all heeding Gerald, a second enchanter, in a well soaked -green blanket, laid down his scissors; and he addressed the first -enchanter with some fervor, saying: - -“Let us not speak harshly of our good Horvendile’s magic, for everybody -ought to respect the impotence of the aging. We must concede, of course, -that his magic is no longer fresh. It is not possible to deny that a -woefully infirm magic has set this papier mâché figure on a hackneyed -journeying. Candor compels us to grant that this journeying crosses once -sparkling rivers which have long ago run dry. We, as intelligent -enchanters, must admit that a wearying fog lowers thickly about this -journeying, that above it the sun of romance shines very pale and cold, -and that this journeying is sterile and empty of gusto. Nevertheless, -this journeying, as we ought not to ignore, is no doubt an afterthought, -it is the belated invention of a tired mind, and a desperate and -ill-advised proceeding. For these reasons, howsoever sorrowfully we, as -Horvendile’s fellow artists and well-wishers, must always deplore among -ourselves the kindergarten notions of this poor Horvendile, and his -ponderous playfulness, and the limitations of his few and unenterprising -ideas, still we must be careful not to apply to his magic one single -harsh word.” - -“Yet—” Gerald stated. - -Nodding in profound and entire approbation, with which Gerald was not in -any way connected, an enchanter in a sopping yellow blanket now -remarked: - -“I, too, am always ready to defend the magic of our fellow practitioner. -My conscience forces me to grant that his magic is not faultless. In -mere honesty I have to confess that his magic is stupid and stilted and -silly; that it is sniggering and sly and nasty; that it wallows in a -morass of self-satisfaction; and that it is steeped and soaked in -ever-fretful egoism, in spite of our friendly candor in all dealings -with him from the very first. Nor can I dispute that our confrère -behaves too much like a decadent small boy who is proud of having been -haled into the police court for chalking dirty words on a wall. Apart, -though, from his stinking filth and his vileness and his tinsel -cynicisms, and aside from his bestiality and his vulgar frippery and his -dabblings in cesspools and his vapid sophistries, I stand always ready -to defend the magic of Horvendile, because it is not, after all, as if -he were a mage of any real importance, and one ought always to be -indulgent to persons of third and fourth rate ability.” - -“Even so—” Gerald pointed out. - -But now an enchanter in a thoroughly drenched scarlet blanket was -saying, as he meditatively unclosed his pastepot: - -“I quite agree with you. Nobody admires the merits of our esteemed -confrère more whole-heartedly than I do. It would be merely silly to -deny that he has weakened his always rather wishy-washy magic potions by -too frequent blendings. It is impossible to ignore that his magic has -become a cloying weariness and a mincing indecency. We are forced to -acknowledge that Horvendile is insincere, that he very irritatingly -poses as a superior person, that he is labored beyond endurance, that he -smells of the lamp, that his art is dull and tarnished and trivial and -intolerable, but, even so, we ought also to admit that he does as well -as could be expected of anybody who combines a lack of any actual talent -with ignorance of actual life.” - -“However—” Gerald explained. - -The fifth enchanter to interrupt Gerald wore a black blanket; and he, -too, appeared to drip with wisdom and bilge-water and judicious -amiability in the while that he said: - -“It is, in fact, alike our duty and our privilege to be most lenient -with this laborious bungler who, after all, is probably doing the best -he can. So I, for one, I never dwell even fleetingly upon the awkward -fact that the banality of his magic is no excuse for the way he botches -its execution. Indeed, I do not know but that a person of very lively -imagination might conceive of our confrère’s turning out worse work than -he does. Nor do I think I am being over-charitable. For, upon my -word,—while I can see that his magic is morbid, that it is sophomoric, -that it is malignant, that it is plagiarized, that it is intolerably -insipid, that it is sacrilegious, that it is naïve, that it is pseudo -whatever or other may happen to sound best, that it is over brutal in -cynicism, that it is incurably sentimental, and that it bores me beyond -description,—yet otherwise I can, at just this moment, think of no -especial other fault to find with his magic.” - -So it was that these dripping and affable enchanters went on defending -Horvendile with such generous volubility that Gerald could get in no -word. - -Then each took off the single garment which he wore, and so vanished, -because without their wet blankets these enchanters were in no way -noticeable. And Gerald rode away from that place contentedly, because it -was a natural comfort to know that he traveled with a guide and a patron -who was so well thought of by the best judges. - - - - - 22. - The Paragraph of the Sphinx - - -NOW upon the outskirts of Turoine, after Gerald had ridden through -this city, Gerald paused to talk with the Sphinx who lay there writing -with a black pen in a large black-covered book like a ledger. The -monster had so long couched in this place as to be half-imbedded in the -red earth. - -“This partially buried condition, ma’am,” Gerald began,—“or perhaps one -ought to say ‘sir’—” - -“Either form of address,” replied the Sphinx, “may be applicable, -according to which half of me you are considering.” - -“—This semi-interment, then, madam and sir, is untidy looking, and -cannot be especially comfortable.” - -“Yet I may not move,” replied the Sphinx, “in part because I have my -writing to complete, in part because I know all movement and all action -of every kind to be equally fruitless. So do I retain eternal bodily as -well as mental poise.” - -“Such acumen borders upon paralysis,” Gerald said: “and paralysis is -ugly.” - -“Do you not despise ugliness!” the Sphinx exhorted, “who have traveled -thus far upon the road of gods and myths. For what things have you found -stable upon this road save only Koleos Koleros and the Holy Nose of -Lytreia? and what is there more ugly than these two?” - -Gerald replied: “That nose I found it my Christian duty to describe as a -tongue; and the lady whom they call Koleos Koleros I have not yet seen. -But, in any case, you, ma’am—for, after all, it is not quite nice for -me to have your loins upon my mind—No, really, it does seem more -becoming for me to treat you as a lady—” - -“So, and do you find me ugly?” - -“You mistake my meaning. I was about to observe that you, ma’am, also -appear tolerably stable. And the Mirror of Caer Omn, that likewise -remains in worship.” - -“Dreams pass eternally varying through that golden mirror. Thoughts pass -eternally varying through my wise head. But all these dreams and -thoughts stay barren, as barren as they are irresolute. For we create -nothing. We control no material thing. And we aspire toward no goal. -That is why we are permitted to endure powerlessly in realms wherein two -powers alone are never barren; wherein they control all; and wherein -neither may ever be uncertain of its goal so long as the other -survives.” - -Gerald found this wholly incomprehensible and of no striking interest. -So he only shrugged. - -“Nevertheless, in my worlds,” Gerald said, “there shall not be any -ugliness.” - -“Do you, then, possess many worlds?” - -“Not as yet, ma’am. I allude to the worlds I shall create by and by, -when I have come into my kingdom yonder, in the place beyond good and -evil, and have regained my proper station as the Lord of the Third Truth -in the Dirghic mythology.” - -Now the Sphinx frowned. “I perceive you are only another downfallen god -upon your journey to the Master Philologist. I might have guessed it, -for Thor and Typhon and Rudra and the Maruts and all the other storm -gods who have gone blustering downward into Antan, all had red hair.” - -Gerald slapped his thigh. - -“Upon my word, ma’am, but that is a real clue! The storm gods did, in -every mythology known to me, have red hair. I incline to believe that -the wisdom of the Sphinx has solved the mystery of my being. I am no -doubt a storm god also; I am rapidly becoming a complete pantheon upon -two legs; and at this rate my waistcoat will end by embracing pure -monotheism. Meanwhile I really do wonder, ma’am, at your offhand way of -speaking about the gods, and I wonder, too, what grudge you can have -against us gods?” - -“For one thing, it is said that the gods created those men who interrupt -me in my writing to plague me with just such silly questions.” - -“Men naturally seek wisdom from you, ma’am, to whom the whole story of -human life is familiar.” - -“But the story of human life is not one story. There are three stories -of human life.” - -“Ah, ah! And what are they?” - -“Why, there was once a traveling man who came one night to an inn—” - -“I believe I have heard of his indecorous adventures there. So do you -spare my blushes, ma’am, and tell me the second story!” - -“It seems, then, there were once two Irishmen—” - -“That anecdote also, in all conceivable variants, I am quite certain I -have heard. So what is the third story?” - -“There was once a young married couple. And it seems that on the first -night—” - -“Yet that story, in a great number of versions, is equally familiar to -me. And really, ma’am, I question if these intolerably hackneyed tales -sum up all human wisdom.” - -“But the young married couple in the outcome got pleasure for their -bodies in the service of those two powers which I was just talking -about. The Irishmen found an unlooked-for drollness in the mechanics of -those two powers, which they preserved in a neat and nicely memorable -phrase, getting pleasure for their minds. So, by the way, did the two -Jews and the two Scotchmen. And the traveling man, upon the next -morning, after those same two powers had obtained their will of him, -went away from that inn, traveling nobody knows whither; and so got, -through a darker night, unbroken and uncompanioned sleep, unbothered any -longer by those powers. Thus these three stories really do sum up all -the gains which it is possible for a man to acquire through human living -and all the wisdom that it is salutary for any man to know about.” - -“Well, that is as it may be! I am persuaded that in the goal of all the -gods there is a more august power than any which men know of hereabouts -assuredly. For I note the sympathy and compassion and love and -self-denial which human beings display toward one another, after all, -rather copiously. I reflect that every art is a form of self-expression. -And I deduce that the artist who created human beings was prompted in -his embodiment of all these qualities by sheer egotism. He observed -these qualities in his own nature: he approved of them: and so he -embodied them. No actually reflective person, therefore, will ever -imagine that human life does not go forward toward some kindly -winding-up, since none who finds philanthropy in his own heart can doubt -that philanthropy exists in the heart of his creator.” - -“And does that stuff which you are now talking really seem to you,” the -Sphinx asked, “sensible?” - -“My dear lady, it seems to me something far better: it seems to me a -rather beautiful idea. So I play with it sometimes. Now I dismiss that -idea, out of deference to your proverbial wisdom: and I ask what far -more gratifying and uplifting wisdom, ma’am, you may be writing in your -black-covered book?” - -“Oh, yes, my book!” said the Sphinx, with the livelier interest natural -to an author. “You find me just now in some difficulty with my book. You -conceive there has to be an opening paragraph. It would not be possible -to leave out the first paragraph—” - -“I can see that. I can recall no book in which there was not a first -paragraph.” - -“—And this paragraph ought to sum up all things, so to speak—” - -“That likewise is a familiar rhetorical principle—” - -“—And it is with the composition of this paragraph that I am just now -having trouble.” - -“Well, you could not possibly have consulted a more suitable person. I, -too, used to dabble in the little art of letters before I became a god -with four aspects. I am familiar with all rhetorical devices. I am a -past master of zeugma and syllepsis; at hypallage, and chiasmus also, I -excel; and my handling of meiosis and persiflage and oxymoron has been -quite generally admired. So do you read me your rough draft: and I have -no doubt I can arrange all difficulties for you.” - -The Sphinx for a moment considered this suggestion, and, before the -prospect of a connoisseur’s efficient criticism, the monster seemed -rather shy. - -“Do not be vexed unduly,” the Sphinx then said, “if you can find no -meaning in this paragraph—” - -“I shall not be excessively censorious, I assure you. No beginner is -expected to excel in any art.” - -“—For this paragraph was placed here simply because there happened to -be a vacancy which needed filling—” - -“I quite understand that. So let us get on!” - -But there was no hurrying the diffident Sphinx. “The foolish, -therefore,” the Sphinx continued in shy explanation, “will find in it -foolishness, and will say ‘Bother!’ The wise, as wisdom goes, will -reflect that this paragraph was placed here without its consent being -asked; that no wit nor large significance was loaned it by its creator; -and that it will be forgotten with the turning of the one page wherein -it figures unimportantly—” - -“No doubt it will be!” said Gerald, now speaking a little impatiently, -“but let us get on to this famous paragraph!” - -“—So do you turn the page forthwith, in just the care-free fashion of -old nodding Time as he skims over the long book of life: and do you say -either ‘Bother!’ or ‘Brother!’ as your wits prompt.” - -“I will, I assure you, the moment your book is published. But why do you -keep talking about your paragraph? why do you not read me what you have -written?” - -“I have just done so,” replied the Sphinx. “I have not been talking. I -have been reading ever since I said, ‘Do you not be vexed’ and now I -have read you the whole paragraph.” - -Gerald said, “Oh!” He scratched his long chin a bit blankly. He -approached the monster, and leaning over one forepaw, he read for -himself in that black ledger the paragraph of the Sphinx. - -Then Gerald said, “But what comes next?” - -“Were I to answer that question you would be wiser than I. And of course -nobody can ever be wiser than the Sphinx.” - -“But is that as far as you have yet written?” - -“It is as far as anybody has written,” said the Sphinx, “as yet.” - -“In all these centuries you have not got beyond that one paragraph?” - -“Now, do you not see my difficulty? I needed an opening paragraph which -would sum up all things, so to speak, and all the human living which men -keep pestering me to explain. And when I had written it there was not -anything left over to put in the second paragraph.” - -“But, oh, dear me! This is materialism! this is flat sacrilege committed -in the actual presence of a god! I am embarrassed, ma’am. I hardly know -which way to look before the spectacle of such conduct. For you fill -your page, with your ambiguous paragraph—” - -“Do you not be vexed unduly if you can find no meaning in this -paragraph—” - -“—Which has not anything to do with my exalted duties in this world—” - -“This paragraph was placed here simply because there happened to be a -vacancy which needed filling—” - -“But I am not a paragraph, ma’am! I am no less a person, I may tell you -in confidence, than Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord -of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones, upon a -journey,—quite incognito, and therefore unattended by my customary -retinue,—toward my appointed kingdom. And I confess that to my divine -mind your writing has not any valid significance—” - -“The foolish, therefore, will find in it foolishness, and will say -‘Bother!’—” - -“—And conveys no valuable lesson—” - -“The wise, as wisdom goes, will reflect that this paragraph was placed -here without its consent being asked; that no wit nor large significance -was loaned it by its creator; and that it will be forgotten with the -turning of the one page wherein it figures unimportantly—” - -“Quite honestly, ma’am, I am not a paragraph! No, I assure you that I -really am the Lord of the Third Truth, upon my way to rule over Antan. I -am the predestined conqueror who will force that irreligious Master -Philologist to refrain from any further evil-doing, and to turn over a -new leaf—” - -“Do you turn the page forthwith, in just the care-free fashion of old -nodding Time as he skims over the long book of life—” - -“Yes, yes!” said Gerald, smiling, “I was thinking you could bring in -that bit, neatly enough, if I gave you the simile to start on. And I -know, of course, how all you authoresses love to quote your own works. -So now, ma’am, if I were to remark, in a half puzzled way, that I hardly -know what to say about your irrational paragraph—” - -“Do you say either ‘Bother!’ or ‘Brother!’ as your wits prompt.” - -“Quite so! And that finishes it. You have now had the privilege of -quoting in the course of one conversation your complete collected works, -from cover to cover: and that ought to leave any authoress in a fairly -amiable frame of mind. My complaint, then, ma’am, is that you have -exhausted my time rather than your subject. There should be by all means -a second paragraph. You see, dear lady,—and I am speaking now from the -professional knowledge of a god,—it is the gist of every religion -that—still to pursue your bibliomaniacal metaphor,—one has but to turn -over that page in order to begin upon the most splendid of romances.” - -“What kind of romance can any dead man be getting pleasure out of in his -dark grave?” the Sphinx asked, in frank surprise. - -“Well, I must not speak over-hastily. I cannot supply offhand your -second paragraph until I have learned what the Dirghic religion states -to be the nature of this second paragraph.... For, you conceive, ma’am, -in the opinion of many wise and virtuous persons that paragraph deals -with a voyaging in the great sun boat, to a hidden land very far down in -the west, after the heart of each passenger has been weighed against a -feather, and forty-two judges have passed favorably upon his claims to -free transportation. But dissenters, just as wise and virtuous, and just -as numerous, declare the subject of that paragraph to be a pleasure -garden in which properly behaved persons will recline in continuous -tipsiness upon golden couches covered with green cushions, cosily shaded -by lotus- and banana-trees, and will have no other occupation than -perpetually to remove the virginity of large-eyed celestial ladies. Yet, -other sages declare that paragraph to deal with the crossing of a -bridge—in which transit a peculiarly obliging dog will serve as the -guide,—into the presence of the bright Amshaspands. Whereas, still -other estimable people contend that your second paragraph should treat -of a four-square city builded of gold and jasper, upon a twelve-fold -foundation of various precious stones, and irrigated by its own private -crystal sea.... For, I repeat, ma’am, the best-thought-of religions vary -quite noticeably as to the nature of this second paragraph: and it would -be wholly a sad thing if by speaking over-hastily I were to run counter -to my own mythology. But, in any case, I have no sympathy whatever with -the mental morbidity of such materialism as would deny the existence of -any kind of second paragraph.” - -Then Gerald frowned, and he rode on. - - - - - 23. - Odd Transformation of a Towel - - -GERALD now passed beyond Turoine, and, crossing Mispec Moor, he came -thus to the tumbled-down hut of a decrepit old woman. - -“And how are you called, ma’am?” - -“What is that to you?” she answered, peevishly. - -And this wrinkled creature seemed to Gerald remarkably red and inflamed -and regrettably hideous among her tousled tresses. - -“Well, ma’am,” replied Gerald, pleasantly, “a name is a word: and words -are my peculiar concern.” - -“If it matters to you, young Carrot-top, I have had many names. And -under one name or another I was used to deal with every man. Now my -powers fall into decay, and one month is like another month, with never -any changing in it. All about me is bleached, dearie, all is colorless. -There is no more employment for me: and I am an old worthless flabby -white-haired creature, still palely quivering with desire for the good -ever-busy days—oh, and for the nights too, dearie,—that are overpast. -Eh, dearie, though you would not ever think it, once I was Æsred, a -mother of the Little Gods and of much else. And I fared handsomely then, -taking liveliness and color out of all things, and turning men into -useful domestic animals. But now the world is old, and I am the world’s -twin: and all vigorousness has gone from me, and one month is like -another month, with never any changing in it.” - -“I am a god who bring with me all vigor and all youth,” said Gerald: for -he remembered what the Sphinx had said about not despising ugliness. - -Gerald spoke the appointed words: and he baptized the old whining trot -after the rite of the Lady of the First Water-Gap. He straightway saw -the dingy towel about her shaking head transformed. This towel had now -become a crown composed, a bit surprisingly, of the four suits from a -pack of playing cards. There were four clubs set upright, like the -strawberry leaves in a duke’s coronet, and alternated with four spades: -and the band of this crown was moulded in bas-relief with eight hearts -and with sixteen diamonds. - -In fact, everything near Gerald was changed. To Gerald’s right hand and -to his left were seen neat fields and green things growing pleasantly, -and the tumbled-down hovel was now a spruce new cottage. But what seemed -even more interesting to Gerald was the circumstance that the wrinkled -angry looking old woman had become a quite personable creature, not -young and callow, but in the very prime of life: and the name of Æsred -now, as she told him, and as he noted at least two other reasons for -believing, was Maya of the Fair Breasts. - -But she said also, forthwith: “Now that I am young, and have not any -chaperon in the house, it would look better for you to be getting on -with your journey, because you know how people talk. Yes, and how quick -they are to be talking about all widow women anyhow—” - -“Oh! oh!” said Gerald: “are you not, then, prepared to trust me?” - -“—With or without,” continued Maya, “the least provocation. As for -trusting you or any other young fellow living, I never heard before of -such nonsense. It is only the elderly men that any woman can depend on, -just as far as she can see them, in broad daylight, a good while after -they can be depended on at night.” - -“You are not even ready to give me all?” - -Maya was reasonable. “I will give you your dinner, and on top of that -your hat. For I can have no vagabond god hanging around my neat cottage -when I am trying to get the dishes washed, and have the name of a widow -to keep respectable.” - -“Here,” Gerald stated, with conviction, “is an unusual woman. I search -the pages of history in vain to find any parallel to the strange -behavior of this woman.” - -And Gerald reflected. Very certainly this Maya of the Fair Breasts did -not excel all the other women his gaze had ever beheld. Yet the colors -of her two eyes were nicely matched, and a fairish nose stood about -equidistant between them. Beneath this was a tolerably good mouth, for -all that the lips were sullen: and the indefinitely brownish hair, which -was queerly arranged in nineteen formal braids, no doubt concealed a -pair of well-enough ears. This rather heavy-visaged woman was reasonably -young, she seemed hardly more than thirty-seven or thereabouts: she -exhibited no deformity anywhere: her figure was acceptably preserved, -her breasts were positively alluring.... In fine, the appraising glance -of the young man could with the kindly eyes of twenty-eight perceive in -her no really grave fault. - -Moreover, she reminded him of no woman that he had ever seen anywhere -before this morning. - -So Gerald said: “I am satisfied. I shall stay for dinner. I shall -thankfully accept all the refreshments you proffer, of every kind.” - -Then Maya answered: “But, indeed, you sauce-box, you quite misunderstand -me. So do you keep your proper distance! For I am not the sort of woman -that you seem only too well acquainted with.” - -Gerald said, with a caressing thrill in his voice, “Yet, do you but -answer me this very simple question—” - -Maya replied, “Oh, get away with you!” - -Thus speaking, she boxed the jaws of the predestined ruler over all the -gods of men; and with a few well-chosen words she placed their -relationship upon a more decorous basis. - - - - - PART SEVEN - THE BOOK OF POETS - - “He Goes Farthest That Knows - Not Where He is Going.” - - - - - 24. - On Mispec Moor - - -GERALD, after they had dined, persuaded Maya of the Fair Breasts to -permit him to rest over for supper also, now that his journeying was -virtually complete. For beyond the home of the wise woman upon Mispec -Moor the way lay unimpeded to the ambiguous lowlands of Antan, where -Queen Freydis and her consort the Master Philologist ruled in, it was -said, a very old, red-pillared palace which had once belonged to still -another queen, named Suskind. - -But, as to this Antan, Gerald could not, even now, learn anything quite -definite, because of all the gods and myths who had passed down into -Antan none ever returned. It thus stayed, as yet, regrettably dubious -whether these glorious beings now all lived together in unimaginable -splendor, as Gerald had gathered at Caer Omn; or whether, as ran the -gloomier report which prevailed in Lytreia, they had each been destroyed -by the Master Philologist. - -In any case, from Mispec Moor you clearly saw Antan. Thus, there -remained for Gerald hardly more than an hour’s ride, and perhaps a -morning’s spirited work, in order to complete his predestined conquest -of his appointed kingdom. Gerald therefore rested until to-morrow, with -this not over-hospitable hostess,—who viewed him with such uncalled-for -suspicion that (as he found toward midnight) the woman had actually -bolted the door to her room, out of a foolish notion that he might be -trying to enter this immovable door, from which he was, instead, with -entire dignity tiptoeing away. He rested so as to be in his very best -fettle when he approached, to-morrow, the climax of his superb -achievements. - -Meanwhile he questioned Maya of the Fair Breasts as to his future -kingdom; and she told him it was a poorly thought-of place. Nobody ever -went there, Maya said, except such trash as poets and threadbare myths -and over-inquisitive persons and such celestial riffraff as had lost -their station in human esteem and their priests and their temples, said -Maya, nodding her head rather gravely. That curious crown of hers -sparkled cheerily with every movement of her head, for she sat at the -window in a patch of sunlight, about her darning. And as to what became -of such worthless people, Maya continued, after they reached Antan, -that, certainly, was a question of no importance— - -“Yes, but what is the general opinion hereabouts, among the sorcerers -and enchanters of Turoine?” - -“Our opinion is that the matter is not worth bothering about.” - -“Yes, but what do you think—?” - -Maya looked up from her darning, in mild but candid surprise. “You -really do ask the silliest questions! For one, I do not think at all -about those outcast tramps and vagabonds except to see that they steal -nothing as they go by.” - -So then Gerald questioned her about Freydis. - -“I have heard of the woman,” said Maya, rather absent-mindedly, as she -went on with the darning upon which stayed fixed her actual -attention,—“of course: but nothing to her credit. They report, for -example, that she has a mirror—” - -“I, too, have heard continually of that mirror, but never of exactly -what she does with it.” - -“For that matter, Gerald, I also have a mirror, if that is all which is -needed. Everybody has a mirror. In fact, I have a number of mirrors.” - -“I know. I have noticed them everywhere about the cottage. But all your -mirrors, dear lady, are rose-colored.” - -—To which Maya replied irrelevantly, and without looking up from her -darning: “But did you not know from the first that I was a wise woman? -In any case, it is said that Queen Freydis holds her mirror up to -nature, and that she does not scruple to hold this mirror up to her -disreputable visitors, too. For they really are, you know. It is all -very well being a god while it lasts. Only, it never does. And then -where are you? Why, exactly! That is why the overlords of Turoine have -always seemed to me more business-like. And there is no flaw in it, -people say,”—now, though, as Gerald deduced, Maya was talking about the -Mirror of the Hidden Children,—“no distortion of any kind, no -flattering in it, and no kindly exaggeration. It is not in anything like -my more sensible rose-colored mirrors. And nobody could of course be -expected to approve of such a mirror.” - -“Nevertheless, if there indeed be any such mirror, I mean to face it, -when to-morrow I enter into my kingdom, and liberate the great words of -the Master Philologist, and restore the Dirghic mythology, for in that -mythology, I must tell you, I am a god with four aspects.” - -“What nonsense you do talk!” said Maya, comfortably, as she slipped the -darning-egg into another stocking. - -Then Gerald confided in her. Then Gerald told Maya of how he, howsoever -unmeritorious, was heir to all the unimaginable wonders which harbored -yonder. He told her that he and none other was Fair-haired Hoo, the -Helper and Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of -Heavenly Ones. He told her of everything that had happened in his -triumphant expedition, thus far. He told her of somewhat more than had -happened, for under Gerald’s expansive handling of the rather beautiful -idea of his own invincibility the tale became an epic. And Gerald told -her, too, of how he intended to rule in the goal of all the gods. He -briefly indicated his summer and winter palaces, the probable personnel -of his harem, the deities who would serve in his immediate household, -and, in a general way, the worlds which he would create: and he promised -to remember Maya, liberally, after he had come into his kingdom. - -And Maya all this while went on darning placidly. She admitted that -men— - -“But, as I was telling you, I am a god,—a god with no less than four -aspects.” - -That did not really matter, Maya considered. The gods, as near as she -had been able to judge those scatter-brained ne’er-do-wells that went -tramping by, were just the same, and, if anything, more so. It was -simply incredible, she continued, how little wear there was in a -stocking nowadays. She then admitted that male persons did have these -notions, even about such unlikely places as Antan. And Gerald would, in -any event, be finding out for himself all about Antan to-morrow, because -if he for one solitary instant thought she was going to have him hanging -about her cottage forever—! - -“Come now, my dear, but hospitality is a very famous virtue: and, -besides, you owe it to me that you are now the handsomest woman in these -parts.” - -“But that, Gerald,—even if it were the truth, of course, for you need -not think you are fooling me, you scamp,—that is just why people will -be imagining things if you continue to stay here.” - -“Then let us take good care not to be suspected unjustly, because that -would be unfair to everybody—” - -“Oh, get along with you! and do you pick up every one of those -stockings, too, now you have scattered them all over the floor. And -really, you red-headed pest, I am not joking, either. That horse of -yours—” - -“Ah, yes, that horse of mine! I admit that to the discerning eyes of a -woman it is not the handsomest beast in the world. And I suppose you are -about to point out that this horse is unworthy of me, and that I ought -to dispose of it, in one way or another—” - -“But whatever nonsense are you talking, now! It is an extremely handsome -horse. There is some sort of prophecy about it, too, is there not? So -you would be even more foolish than you seem to be, to part with that -horse.” - -“Well, to be sure, there may be something in what you say.” - -“—And what I was attempting to tell you is that, if you will simply -permit me to talk for one minute without interrupting—” - -“Hereafter I remain as quiet, my dear, as a belch in polite society; and -you may go on.” - -“Why, then, I was trying to say that your horse can get you to Antan -within an hour. You can find out for yourself all about the place. And I -daresay this Queen Freydis, from all I have heard of her, will not have -the least objection to your rude way of grabbing and pawing at people -and interfering with my housework and generally misconducting yourself. -It is the sort of thing she is quite used to. But I do not like it: I -feel you would not do it if you really respected me. And I am sorry if -anything I have said or done has given you any such wrong notions about -me. And if you stuck yourself with that needle it was simply your own -fault. And that is all there is to it.” - -Gerald replied: “You are regrettably lacking, my dear, in the confidence -and the generosity peculiar to your sex. It is impossible for the mind -to conceive of anything more dreadful than your conduct. Nevertheless, I -must stay until Wednesday, for otherwise I cannot possibly judge of your -magics.” - -“Oh, very well, then!” Maya answered, with unconcealed regretfulness -over the fact that she would have to put up with Gerald for yet another -day. - - - - - 25. - The God Conforms - - -FOR Gerald, upon reflection, had decided it would be really amusing to -remain upon Mispec Moor until Wednesday, since only upon Wednesday could -Maya show the perfection of her thaumaturgy. Thursday, though, as the -wise woman forewarned him candidly, was her cleaning day; and she simply -could not be bothering over company with the house all topsy-turvy. - -“And I also warn you well in advance, my darling,” said Gerald, “that -the performance must be gratis, since I have no material possessions, -save possibly my riding-horse, to barter for the privilege of witnessing -your parlor magic.” - -“Why, but what in the world would I be needing with another horse, who -already have dozens of them eating their heads off all over the moor? -and when in the world, you pest, I became ‘your darling’ I would really -like to know!” - -“Now, but have you, indeed? The very first moment I saw you, my dear.” - -“I do wish you would sometimes, just for a change, talk half rationally. -And of course it has always been my custom to further the true happiness -of the men with whom I was particularly intimate by turning them into -domestic animals of one kind or another. Quite a number of them came out -horses—” - -“I do not altogether approve of such a custom. Still, women have -incalculable fancies: and all men find out sooner or later that it is -less trouble to indulge these fancies than to thwart them. At any rate, -a god has no concern with these minor sorceries.” - -“Of course not!” Maya agreed. “A scatter-brained, talk-you-to-death, -carrot-topped, and generally good-for-nothing god is not concerned with -anything except with getting on to that minx Freydis.” - -Gerald waved aside the insinuation. He continued to talk about more -immediate matters, and he said: - -“Nevertheless, your story interests me. It would be droll to have a -horse like that. So suppose, now, my dear, suppose that I trade my -divine steed for one of those unusual horses of yours?” - -“No, Gerald, really I would rather not. For the men that I put my magic -upon used once to be fine knights or barons or even kings,—and, for -that matter, there were a couple of emperors, though only in a small -way,—and I confess to a certain sentiment about them still.” - -Then in a clay chafing-dish Maya of the Fair Breasts burned fig-leaves -with benzoin and macis and storax. And she showed Gerald how one might -master mercurial things. She displayed to him the small magics which are -Wednesday’s. She revealed to him—cursorily, since they had only a -morning at their disposal,—the secrets of remunerative mediocrity in -the learned professions, in truth-telling, in upholstering, in the -removal of mountains into the sea, in the erection of bridges over any -unpassable place, in the preparation of rose-colored mirrors, in -criticism, in oratory, in jurisprudence, and in the safe interpretation -of Holy Writ. As himself a former student of magic, Gerald found these -formulæ of interest: but, as a god, he regarded Maya with profound -respect, as one who, with no native divine advantages, had yet mastered -this quite reputable stock of knowledge and ability. - -Yet the workings of these magics were not apparent until Gerald had put -on the spectacles which Maya gave him. He found these glasses so -soothing to the eyes that he retained them, just for the remainder of -his visit to her cottage. - -For, after all, Gerald decided to stay over the week-end, since Maya was -so unflatteringly eager to be rid of him. It was an eagerness troubling -to his self-respect. Here was he, a god whom women had always run after, -and had pestered beyond reasonable endurance, here was he, of all -persons, being treated with unconcealed indifference by a mere -hedge-sorceress, by a creature who had not even any remarkable good -looks or wit to justify her impudence. This Maya of the Fair Breasts -needed taking down quite a large number of pegs. So Gerald fell to -wooing her with an ardor that somewhat surprised him. For it was -eminently necessary, it was, indeed, a rather beautiful idea, to win the -woman, and then to jilt her, so as to teach her, once for all, not ever -again to make free and easy with the will of a god. - -Meanwhile, Maya had suggested that he conceal the fact he was a god; and -that she should introduce him to the local gentry of Turoine as a -visiting sorcerer. - -“For I must tell you, Gerald,” Maya said, “all the best-thought-of -people hereabouts are in one or another branch of sorcery. We have, -thus, never had any relations with Heaven. All our connections have been -with another quarter. And it is not that we are unduly conceited and -exclusive, it is simply that it has just happened so. Nevertheless, so -many gods have straggled by, on their way to an ambiguous end, as they -went down to encounter the Master Philologist, and whatever it is that -he does to them, that there is a tendency among the best people -hereabouts, as I will not conceal from you, to regard them as not quite -the sort that one meets socially.” - -“But I—!” said Gerald, in uncontrolled indignation. - -“I know, my poor boy, you are entirely different. And I am perfectly -broad-minded about it, myself. But other people are not. And it would -sound much better.” - -Then Gerald spoke with dignity and firmness. Gerald said that not for -one moment would he stoop to such a subterfuge. Not for an instant would -he who was a lord of all exalted white magics pretend to be a sorcerer -soiled with infernal traffics and patronized by mere devils. After that, -Gerald passed as a visiting sorcerer. - - - - - 26. - “Qualis Artifex!” - - -AND Gerald used to amuse himself by talking with the travelers who -passed by the neat log and plaster cottage of Maya the wise woman, upon -their way to the court of Queen Freydis and her consort the Master -Philologist. For it was a good and shrewd policy, Gerald felt, for a -monarch to familiarize himself with his future subjects: so he would sit -by the wayside, in the shade of a conveniently placed -chestnut-tree,—incognito, as it were,—and would artfully allure them -into conversation. - -“Hail, friends! And what business draws you to the city of all marvels?” -said Gerald, on the first morning that he fell into this long-sighted -course. - -He was told—by the big-bellied, yellow-haired man, whose skin was so -curiously spotted,—that they were two poets upon their way to Antan, -the goal of all the gods, and the friendly haven of true poets, where -poets might hope to find at last that loveliness which they desired and -could nowhere discover in their everyday life upon earth. To Gerald this -was excellent news, since it increased the number of his future subjects -very gratifyingly. - -But he said nothing, while the big-bellied, spotted, thin-legged -gentleman in the purple robe adorned with golden stars, went on in his -answer to Gerald’s first question, by explaining that the speaker was -Nero Claudius Cæsar, the king of all poets, and that his scrawny -companion, in a brown doublet of which both elbows needed patching, was -an artist of considerable talent from out of the Gallic provinces, who -was called François Villon. - -Gerald found this also of some interest, in view of what he remembered -about the Mirror of Caer Omn. Not often did you thus come face to face -with two discarded personalities. But Gerald said nothing about this -either. Instead, he questioned Nero yet further, and he thus learned -that these two poets were on their way to the court of Freydis, because -there alone in the universe was art properly regarded: for there, -indeed, true artists were manufactured out of common clay, and were -informed with the fire of Audela. - -It was one or another old hero from out of Poictesme, Nero had heard, -who had first modeled these earthen images; and Freydis, as occasion -served, gave life to these images and set them to live upon earth, as -changelings. But, above all, said Nero, in Antan the true poets of this -world fared happily among the myths and the gods who once had afforded -to these poets such fine themes, so that to-day of course these poets -wrote even more splendid poems now that they composed with the eye upon -the object. - -Yet, Nero thought, playing idly with the emerald monocle which hung upon -a green cord about his scrawny neck, this Queen would not be very likely -ever to create in clay, or to find coming to her court, such another -artist as Nero himself had been in the days of his Roman pre-eminence. -No other person known to him had ever excelled in all the polite arts. -For in dancing and in oratory, in wrestling (even with such dreadful -adversaries as lions) and in music both vocal and instrumental,—alike -as a charioteer and as a tragic actor,—but, above all, as a poet, and -equally as a dramatic, a lyric and an epic poet,—Nero had been -unanimously awarded the first prize in every contest. He did not care to -appear boastful: yet, by all canons of criticism, one had to consider -the list of his overwhelming triumphs, in Rome, in Naples, in Antium, in -Alba,—at the Parthian games, at the Isthmian games, at the Olympic -games,—and, in fine, in each contest which Nero had ever entered -anywhere in all the kingdoms of which he was Emperor. No other artist -had a record to compare with that: no other of the world’s great -geniuses had ever been confessedly supreme in every polite form of -æsthetic endeavor. - -Of course, as a student of history, Nero conceded that the elect artist -was not to be placed, not permanently, by his ranking in the eyes of his -contemporaries, who might often be swayed by such matters, really -extraneous to enduring art, as the artist’s ingratiating manners and his -personal beauty. As a man of the world, he even conceded the judges of -the sacred games in awarding all the first prizes to Nero might -furthermore have been influenced by the large sums of money which the -Emperor always conferred upon his acclaiming judges after such -occasions, as well as by the dexterity of the tortures which would have -followed any decision less just. - -But the indisputable fact, the fact of superb importance, was that Nero -had made of his life a poem which was wholly a unique masterpiece in the -way of self-expression: he, above all other men, had served the one end -of every poet’s art, by revealing the true nature of man’s being; for -Nero had embodied, with loving carefulness, each trait which he found in -himself, through some really memorable action,—rearing, as it were, -among marshes and quicksands, and in yet other places which other -persons feared to visit, those strange and passionately colored orchid -growths which alone could express the highly complex nature of every -man’s desires— - -“That jargon becomes somewhat senescent,” said Gerald. “Still, as a -museum piece,—yes, even now, sophistication does display something of -the quaint beauty of thorough obsoleteness. It has acquired the charm, -and, as it were, the patina, of sedan chairs and of full-bottom wigs and -of girdles of chastity and of suits of armor, and of all other things, -once useful enough, which are nowadays endeared to every poet’s heart by -the fact that they are forever outmoded. So let us grant it, O Cæsar, in -the days that are gone you were a devil of a fellow and a sad rip among -the ladies—” - -“Why, but, for that matter—” Nero began. - -“I know. You broad-mindedly despised neither sex. You were in amour a -Greek scholar. You were something of a surgeon also. I concede it, I -blush, and I urge you to omit all embarrassingly personal details.” - -So Nero went on, saying that other emperors, with very much his chances, -had lacked the genius necessary to develop these chances. There had, of -course, been minor artists. Caligula, for example, among so much -hackwork in the way of throat-cutting, had shown at least one jet of -rather lovely inspiration when he attempted a criminal assault upon the -moon; that was a really finely imagined bit of work. Then, also, -Domitian and Commodus and Tiberius had displayed praiseworthy ambitions; -quite neat little things had been done by Tiberius, in an amateur way, -at Capri; Caracalla too had been so-so: but they had all tended to -wallow unimaginatively in cut and dried executions; merely to chop off -anybody’s head was not art, no matter how often you did it. Besides, -work done upon a public scaffold inevitably coarsened one’s touch. And -Heliogabalus, whatsoever the lad’s thin vein of undeniable talent in the -way of lyric lechery, had lacked the stamina and gusto for any sustained -masterpiece in Nero’s copious epic style. - -For Nero alone had been, in every branch of self-expression, the -sincere, skilled artist, enriching his handiwork always with that -continual slight novelty which art demands. He had builded his -appropriate stage, in the Golden House— - -“A house entirely overlaid with gold,” said Gerald, reminiscently, “and -adorned everywhere with jewels and mother of pearl, a house so rich and -ample that it had three-storied porticos a mile long, and huge revolving -banqueting halls, and ivory ceilings which perpetually scattered -perfumes and red rose-petals—” - -Nero, at that, had out his emerald monocle; and through it he now -regarded Gerald with the childlike amiability of a sincere artist -whensoever his vanity is flattered. - -Yes, Nero admitted, he had endeavored to express himself in that house -also. The Golden House had been (to play with metaphor) the handsome -binding of that poem which was his life, when in a setting such as the -world had never known, before or since, he had given to his every human -trait its full color value. In the Golden House he had reared his -orchids, he had labored to open many frank and incisive and utterly -unstinted avenues of self-expression to that somewhat complex thing -called human nature.... - -But here he entered rather explicitly into details. Gerald felt the -style of this emperor to be growing woefully un-American; and Gerald -fidgeted. - -“Let us, I again urge you,” said Gerald, “speak of less personal -matters, and diversify the vividness of these orchids with a few -fig-leaves!” - -Perhaps, of course, the Emperor continued, he, like every other really -great artist, had been somewhat the anthologist, in that he had invented -outright none of the art forms among the many in which he had -distinguished himself. He had taken over from his predecessors a number -of inspirations and a formula or two, as he would be the very last to -deny: but the fine craftsmanship was all his, as well as that -distinguishing, that peculiarly Neronic, touch of romantic irony, by -virtue of which this artist had slain with suavity, had destroyed with a -caress, and had ennobled all that was most dear to his human nature by -killing it. He spoke now of the deaths of his wives, of Octavia and -Poppæa, and of others who had been his wives just for the evening; he -spoke of Sporus, of Aiëtes, of Narcissus, and of that other exceedingly -beautiful boy, Aulus Plautinus.... - -And again Gerald raised a protesting hand. “Let us still,” said Gerald, -“avoid these quite un-American personalities! Meanwhile, you do not -speak of your mother Agrippina.” - -He surprised in the spotted face of Nero something very like terror. But -Nero said only, “No.” - -And besides, the Emperor continued, with rising animation, that happy -chronological accident, the fact that Christianity began in the days of -Nero its advance toward world supremacy, had enabled him, by pure luck, -to lend to the great poem of his life just the needful felicitous touch -of working in a new medium. To burn well-thought-of taxpayers and -putative virgins as the torches at your supper parties was a device -which, out of a natural desire to surprise and to amuse one’s guests, -might have occurred to almost any host in quest of that continual slight -novelty which the art of hospitality also demands. But that these -flambeaux should later become the brightest glories of a triumphant -church had made these supper parties, which were really quite modest -affairs, unforgettable. Nero had expressed himself—not merely, as he -thought at the time, through persons supposed to be deficient in -patriotism and more or less suspected of being (here again, to play with -metaphor) not one hundred per cent Roman,—but, as it had turned out, -through saints and apostles, and through consecrated religious martyrs, -such as not every artist could get for his themes and raw material. So, -the succeeding discouragements of Christians had, æsthetically, fallen -flat, in their impression upon posterity: their authors had come into -this field too late, to find that tragic vein worked out, and all its -most striking possibilities exhausted, by the great artist that was -Nero. It was hardly remembered that Marcus Aurelius and Diocletian and -many others had broken and flayed and mutilated and burned to the very -best of their ability: these plodders were but the epigoni and the -unimaginative plagiarists of Nero. - -So had it come about that of all the emperors Rome had known, and of all -the tyrants and despots in every land and era, who had followed the fine -art of self-expression, and who had shown what human nature really -is—in, as it were, the nude, when any man is released from time-serving -and is made omnipotent,—of all these, there had remained just one whose -name was remembered everywhere; just one whose fame was imperishable; -just one who had become a never-dying myth: and that one was Nero. The -legend of Nero was, in a world wherein every other man stayed more or -less unwillingly an unfulfilled Nero, the supreme type of the literature -of escape. The legend of Nero was a poem which men would not ever -forget: it was a poem current in all languages: and it was a poem which, -now, everybody could cordially admire and delight in, because time had -removed the need of considering any current moral standards or one’s own -physical safety in judging this poem, now that Nero was only a character -in a book, like—as the Emperor said, with a quaint revealment of his -retained interest in literature,—like Iago or Volpone or Tartuffe. For -whether you called any particular book a history or a poem or a drama -did not, of course, effect the impressiveness and vigor and complexity -of the character drawing in it, nor the value of the author’s apt and -edifying revelations as to any eternal verities of man’s being. - -“For, certainly,” said Nero, “my life presented, as no other artist has -ever done, the gist of all human nature as that nature actually is, when -freed of such inhibitions as constrain it in but too many baffled lives. -My life was, thus, a connoisseur’s production, and a work of art which -escaped even the grave risk of anti-climax. For there was not anything -lacking in the ending of it, either. My fall and the circumstances of my -death were so æsthetically right that, as an artist, I never in my life -enjoyed anything quite so much. Nothing could conceivably have been in -better taste. For, overnight, as you may remember, I passed from the -throne of the world, to hide in a tumbled-down out-house, under a -ragged, very faded blue coverlet, and to perish thus by my own -hand,—with an appropriate tragic verse upon my lips,—and without any -friend remaining anywhere. No tragedy could have been more boldly -proportioned, with all the Aristotelian unities so exactly preserved. -And it was most gratifyingly led up to, too. For just as I was about to -approach the dénouement of my poem, the statues of my Lares tumbled down -miraculously, the hind quarters of my favorite riding-horse were -transformed into the hind quarters of an ape, and the doors of the -mausoleum of Augustus having unclosed of their own accord, there issued -from the tomb a divine voice which summoned me to destruction. These -incidents, I repeat, were gratifying, for they showed that the exercise -of my art had been viewed by Heaven appreciatively. Ah, yes, in all I -was peculiarly favored.” - - - - - 27. - Regarding the Stars - - -VILLON spat meditatively between his yellow front teeth. He fingered, -in the while that he continued his reflections, his scarred and puckered -lower lip. Then he confessed that he dissented from a great many of his -predecessor’s remarks. - -“You were impressive. Your life was a competent job, boldly executed, -and nobody denies its merits on their own melodramatic plane. Yet it -lacked the indispensable touch of tenderness, without which no work of -art is of the first class. No: it was I who was truly favored; and I -made of my life a flawless poem without dragging in such gaudy -accessories as thrones and burning cities and the wasting of a lovely, -mother-naked virgin on a mere lion.” - -And this François Villon went on to speak of the great blessings which -had been accorded him. He had been granted irresolution, and lewdness, -and poverty, and cowardice, and a large weakness for drink, and an -ingrained dishonesty, and a disease-wrecked body, and everything else -which was needed to make him a knave as contemptible as any man could -hope to be. - -“I was, in brief, gentlemen, as I have elsewhere remarked, a hog with a -voice. And there was no voice like my voice.” - -For out of the mire that wallowing, lustful and cowardly beast had sung. -Now he sang jeeringly, and made fun of the whole world with satire and -mockery and invective, and with plain filth-flinging,—which was all -quite good art, because it pleases people to see a man superior to his -fate. Now he sang piercingly of the great platitude that death conquers -and ruins everything: and to that sentiment nobody can ever turn a deaf -ear, because it is the only sentiment with a universal personal -application. But, above all, he sang of his regret for his past -indiscretions, and of his yearning for spiritual cleanliness, -and—“soaring,” as Villon now quoted, with admirable complacency, “to -the very gates of Heaven upon the star-sown wings of faith and -song,”—he had proclaimed his trust in that divine love which, -ultimately, would redeem all properly repentant persons from the logical -outcome of their doings in this world, and would give to the marred life -of every properly repentant person a happy ending in a fair-colored -paradise agreeably full of harps and lutes. And people liked that, too, -of course, because such a philosophy made everybody feel muggily -consoled and, for no especial reason, magnanimous. - -So had Villon become a very great poet whose art was a fine blending of -mirth and of pathos and of faith, and so might he hope to win to high -honors in Antan, where, if anywhere, poets were properly rewarded. And -the squalor and degradation of his terrestrial living were, now, but so -many picturesque ingredients in the superb poem of his life, now that -Villon too was—just as his Roman confrère had pointed out,—to be -regarded as a character in a book. The difference was that Villon had -become a never-dying myth of vagabondage with its heart in the right -place, and a parable which revealed how much of good always survives in -the most vile and abandoned of criminals and even in persons -unsuccessful in business life. The legend of Villon thus proved exactly -the contrary to that which was proved by the legend of Nero: as the one -demonstrated the real nature of man to aspire only to lust and cruelty -the moment that inhibitions were removed, so did the other legend show -the real fundamental nature of every man to be incurably good and -lovable under all possible surface stains. And the legend of Villon, -Villon repeated, had in it tenderness,—that indispensable flavor of -tenderness and of a sentimentality as wholesomely nourishing as -molasses, without which no work of art can ever really be of the first -class so far as goes its popular appeal. - -“For my life, gentlemen, was truly a superb parable. And it has been -properly appreciated, it has ever been paid the fine compliment of being -plagiarised by Holy Writ. Why, what the devil! if the parable of the -Prodigal Son be good art in the New Testament, is it the less good art -for being acted out with the vigor and the brio I brought to that task? -For I too wasted all my substance, with some feminine assistance, and -went down among the swine and the husks, without ever forgetting that by -and by I was to be comforted with never-failing love and veal cutlets. -In brief, although I lived perforce in the gutter, yet my eyes were upon -the stars.” - -Then Gerald remarked, to this one of his discarded personalities: “You -move me, Messire François. You sound upon my heart-strings a resounding -chord, through your employment of a figure of speech which is always -effective. I do not know why, but any imaginable bit of verse conveying -a statement manifestly untrue can be made edifying and sublime through -ending it with the word ‘stars’. We poets have convinced everybody, -including ourselves, that there is some occult virtue in the act of -looking at the stars. So, when you said just now, ‘Although I lived -perforce in the gutter, yet my eyes were upon the stars’, I was moved -very mightily. I seemed to hear the yearning cry of all human -aspirations, foiled but superb. Yet if you had asserted your eyes to -have been habitually, or at least every clear night, upon the -planets—or, for that matter, upon the comets or the asteroids,—I would -not have been moved in the least.” - -“It is sufficient that you were moved without knowing why,” observed -Nero. “That is the magic of poetry. Very often when I recited some of my -best poems, to commemorate the sorrows of Orestes or Canace or Œdipus, I -myself could not quite understand the springs of that terrible misery -which convulsed my hearers. They wept; they fainted; a number of the -women entered prematurely into the labors of childbirth; and I was -compelled to have the doors and windows guarded by my Praetorian -soldiers because so many of the audience invariably attempted to escape -from the well-nigh intolerable ecstasies which my art provoked. Such is -the magic of great poetry, a thing not ever wholly to be explained even -by the poet.” - -Then Gerald said: “Yet, you two poets who have traveled through the -Marches of Antan, wherein only two truths endure, and the one teaching -is that we copulate and die,—do you not look to find when you have -reached Antan, which is the goal of all the gods, some third truth?” - -And it seemed to him that the faces of the two myths had now become -evasive and more wary. - -Nero replied, “For a poet, there exist always just as many truths as he -cares to imagine.” - -And Villon remarked: “I would phrase it somewhat differently. I would -say there exist more truths than any poet cares to imagine. But it comes -to the same thing.” - -“Yes,” Gerald assented,—“for it comes to an evasion. Yet I, who also am -a poet, I retain my faith in the rather beautiful idea of that third -truth.” - -And then Gerald told them that he himself had long dabbled in the art of -poetry. “Indeed,” he added, generously, “I will now recite to you one of -my sonnets which appears appropriate to the occasion.” - -“Dog,” Villon replied, taking up his hat, “does not eat dog.” - -And Nero very hastily stated that, howsoever unbounded their regret, -they really must be hurrying on to the city of marvels. - -So these myths departed, traveling together, with an intimacy somewhat -remarkable in the light of their flatly diverse teachings. And Gerald -warned them to make the most of the present state of affairs in Antan, -because the day after to-morrow the Lord of the Third Truth, a deity -with several not uninteresting aspects, would be descending upon Antan, -to take over all the powers of the Master Philologist, and to deal with -Queen Freydis afterward as his divine inclinations might prompt. - -Thereafter Gerald went back to Maya and to his dinner quite jauntily, -now that he knew in his appointed kingdom the true poets of this world -were assembling to purvey his amusement: and he felt himself to be afire -with impatience to reach that city of all marvels, yonder behind him, as -he walked away from Antan, leisurely ascending to the trim cottage of -Maya the wise woman, who went as a crowned queen, and would have none of -his love-making, and yet was such an excellent cook, in her plain way. - - - - - PART EIGHT - THE BOOK OF MAGES - - “Not Every Good Scholar - is a Good Schoolmaster.” - - - - - 28. - Fond Magics of Maya - - -GERALD delayed his departure until Friday, because Gerald was -cordially amused by the fond magics of Maya of the Fair Breasts. He -regarded them, as he did her, through those roseate spectacles which the -wise woman had loaned him to be an unfailing comfort to his eyes: and he -found all very good. - -He had known many lovelier and more brilliant women, alike in the -relinquished world of Lichfield and in his journeying through the -Marches of Antan. But Maya contented him: he had really not the heart to -disappoint his Maya by not forcing upon her—after four prolonged and -tender arguments,—those physical attentions which all women seemed to -expect. - -After that, she put aside her crown; and Gerald never saw it any more. - -And after that, also, the date of his departure from her neat cottage -was postponed until after Sunday, though it was quite understood that, -the very first thing after a particularly early breakfast on Monday, he -would pass on to enter into his appointed kingdom, and to possess -himself of the Master Philologist’s great words, and to reanimate the -Dirghic mythology in which he was a god, and would come to know the -third truth over which he exercised celestial authority. - -Meanwhile he stayed upon Mispec Moor, to regard with indulgence, and -even with some pity, his predecessors in Maya’s affection, those -beguiled men whom she had converted into domestic animals. His divine -steed was for the while turned out to graze with those docile geldings -that had once been knights and barons and reigning kings: all wandered -contentedly enough about the neat cottage, along with a number of steers -and sheep and three mules, who, also, had once been noblemen and -well-thought-of monarchs. - -Gerald saw that these animals seemed not dissatisfied with their -transfiguring doom. Yet it appeared a bit wanton—even to him, who had -once been a tortoise and a lion and a fish and a boar pig,—that these -gentlemen should have been snatched from positions of responsibility and -worldly honor, from thrones and tournaments and large bank accounts, and -set to eating grass in a field. And Gerald sincerely pitied them for -their ignorance as to the correct way in which to deal with the small -magics of Maya. - -The dear woman herself you could not blame. She could not help trying, -out of pure kindliness and affection, to hold men back from daring and -splendid exploits, because she really thought they would be much safer, -and more happy, as domestic animals. - -And, in fact, she justified her charitableness with a logic which was -plausible. She argued that all men were better content after they had -become domestic animals. She pointed out that her lovers, in -particular—Why, but Gerald could see for himself how little vexed were -her steers and geldings, now, by affairs of the heart. Upon every -imaginable moral ground they had been made better by their double -transformation. They did not run after lewd females, they were not -bloodthirstily jealous of one another, and they were asleep every night -at a respectable hour. If Gerald had only known them, as she had known -them, when they were gentlemen of high distinction and reigning -monarchs, he would never argue about an improvement so obvious. - -Besides, domestic animals were spurred by magnanimity and altruism into -no devastating wars, thrift did not often make them covetous of money, -neither did self-respect induce them to spend money foolishly: religion -did not lead mules to bray in any pulpit, nor did the conscientiousness -of a sheep ever make of him an ever-meddling and pernicious pest. In -fine, the domestic animals were undisfigured by any human virtues, and -were quite easy to get along with. Whereas, if any woman attempted to -have that many men about the house—! Maya, who had lost so many -husbands (at least partially) did not complete the statement. But her -expression made the aposiopesis eloquent. - -Gerald had no smallest doubt but that, if he himself had not been divine -and beyond her arts, Maya of the Fair Breasts would long ago, out of -pure kindliness and affection, have transformed him too into a sheep or -an ox or some other useful quadruped, and would thus have held him back -from his appointed inheritance in Antan. And he did not blame her. The -placid, stupid, rather lovable woman simply did not understand that to -be contented was not all: she did not comprehend the obligations which -were upon a god to live with generous splendor and to perform very -tremendous feats in the way of heroism and of philanthropy. - -Of course, just as she said, the exploits of a champion who came to -enlighten and improve any place—even to redeem it from what, by the -standards of the United States of America, was iniquitous and backward -and probably undemocratic,—did of necessity upset the routine to which -the inhabitants had grown accustomed. Antan, as Gerald looked down upon -it from the porch of Maya’s cottage, seemed a contented and tranquil -realm. No matter by howsoever un-American standards people might be -living there, to redeem the place from those standards would bring -upsetment and confusion. And it did seem almost a pity—just as Maya -said,—to be bothering people who were contented enough, when you too -were contented.... Even so, there was an obligation upon a god. To be -contented, to have no cares to worry you by day, to lack for nothing by -day, and every night to induce decorously through connubial affection a -profound and refreshing slumber,—that was not everything a god desired. -Yonder there was a third truth. Yonder was Gerald’s appointed kingdom, -and not here upon Mispec Moor. - -Besides, Gerald had begun to wonder more and more about Freydis. By all -reports, it was she who really ruled those hills and lowlands yonder, -which to-morrow—or at least, next week,—would be Gerald’s hills and -lowlands; and it was she who controlled in everything the Master -Philologist, whom Gerald was appointed to overthrow. It had not been -prophesied, however, so far as Gerald knew, how he would deal with -Freydis. That, to every appearance, was a matter left to his divine -election. Well, one would not be over-harsh with any woman whom rumor -declared so beautiful, Gerald decided, half drowsily, as he sat there so -utterly comfortable in the spectacles and the dressing-gown and the -brown carpet slippers which Maya had provided, and so pleasantly replete -with Maya’s excellent cooking. - - - - - 29. - Leucosia’s Singing - - -AND upon another day, as Gerald sat by the roadside beneath his -chestnut-tree, and waited for supper to be ready, three persons passed -toward Antan, traveling together. They were all notable looking men; and -Gerald greeted them with the sign which is known only to supreme mages. -They returned his greeting, but they shaped signs that were of an older -magic than any which was familiar to Gerald. - -And then the first of these men said, “I was Odysseus, Laertes’ son.” - -Gerald thus knew that before him stood yet another of his discarded -personalities. But Gerald made no comment. - -And Odysseus continued: “I had wisdom. My prudent wisdom was to men of -every calling an object of considerable attention, and the fame of it -reached Heaven. I ruled in Ithaca, an island kingdom, well situated -toward the west. I went unwillingly with the other well-greaved Greeks -to besiege Ilion: the enterprise to me seemed rash, and unlikely to be -remunerative: yet, being engaged, I dealt prudently, and in the end, -where so many merely brave persons had failed, it was through my -prudence that the enterprise succeeded. For ten years Ilion defied the -strength of Achilles and of Ajax; Ilion derided all the endeavors of -auburn-haired Menelaus and of godlike Agememnon: but the cunning of -Odysseus felled Ilion in one night. I took my share of the spoils; I -left the glory to them that wanted it. I returned across the world to -that which I more prudently desired, toward the quiet comforts of my -home in craggy Ithaca. The prayer of the blinded Cyclops, the wrath of -earth-shaking Poseidon, the white thunder of offended Zeus, and the -twelve winds of Æolus, all fought against me. I prevailed. The sea-witch -Scylla, an exorbitant lady with twelve arms, a ravening monster whom -none might pass and live, I passed. Charybdis, which devoured all, did -not devour me, for I clung prudently to a fig-tree.” - -“Indeed,” said Gerald, “the leaves of that tree are very often a great -protection,—O much-enduring and crafty Odysseus,” Gerald added hastily, -as became a Greek scholar. - -“Moreover, the sun’s daughter, fair-haired Circe, and bright Queen -Calypso, the divine one of goddesses, these also detained me rather more -amiably. I embraced them; they did not find me slothful in their beds. -For they were goddesses, as quick in anger as they were in lust. It is -not prudent to deny a goddess. From the fond arms of these immortals I -passed on toward my desired goal. Yet nobody is always prudent. When my -ship approached the island of the man-devouring Sirens I caused the ears -of my sailors to be stopped with wax; but I caused myself to be bound to -the mast, so that I might hear the song which Leucosia sang in the while -that Parthenopê and Ligeia made a sweet music. I desired to hear without -any hurt that song which was so lovely that it drew less prudent men to -the arms of its singer, wherein, as they well knew, dark death awaited -them. I heard that song. It did not matter to me that I saw how the low -beach about those music-makers gleamed, like silver, where a thin -sunlight fell upon the scattered bones of many men whom they had slain. -I struggled to cast myself into the gray sea-water, so that I might go -to Leucosia. But my bonds held me. I was bound, both my hands and feet -were bound, with very strong cables. The black ship passed onward, -whitening the water with its polished blades of fir-wood; and I wept as -I too passed onward, away from my own ruin, and drawing nearer to the -goal which my prudent wisdom had desired.” - -“Truly, the enchantment of her singing must have maddened you. Yet such -is the magic of great poetry,” Gerald remarked, “a thing not ever wholly -to be explained even by the poet.... Yet your goal, nevertheless, was -reached, they tell me, O much-contriving Odysseus. Your goal was -reached, as I remember it, in the many-pillared hall of your home in -Ithaca, and in a fine slaughter of those suitors who were pestering your -wife because they believed that she was your widow.” - -“Very naturally my goal was reached. I was Odysseus. Very naturally I -made an end of those wasters of my substance who had been eating and -drinking for nine years at my expense. There arose, as one by one their -heads were smitten off, a hideous moaning. The floors ran with blood. It -was wholly plain that Odysseus faced those imprudent persons who had -made over-free with his flocks and his wine jars and his wife and the -other goods of his household. Yet I knew, by and by, that what I now -desired was not to be found in craggy Ithaca nor in the calm embraces of -Penelope nor in the tranquillity of my well-ordered home. I gave laws. I -heard cases. I decided squabbles between one shepherd and another -shepherd. I who had contrived the burning of Ilion now oversaw the -branding of my cattle. War did not trouble Ithaca, of whose king all -other kings were afraid. For I was very famous. I lacked for nothing in -wealth. I lived at ease. But no man hears the singing of Leucosia except -at a great price. I heard Leucosia no more. I heard, instead, the voices -of fools praising my strength and my prudent wisdom, and the voice of my -wife talking sensibly about I never noticed exactly what. I lacked for -nothing which prudent men desire, in my snug, sleek, well-ordered -Ithaca. But I had seen too much in my voyaging about a world which was -more lewd and riotous than I permitted anybody to be in my Ithaca. I -remembered too many things. No, I did not regret Calypso nor Circe nor -that fine girl Nausicaä. I could at will have returned to them. But I -remembered the singing of Leucosia, to whom I dared not return. For no -man hears the singing of Leucosia except at a great price.” - -“But of what did she sing, O much-planning Odysseus?” - -“She sang of that which haunted me, and which derided the rewards of my -prudent wisdom. She sang of the one way to that which I truly desired.” - -“That, O noble son of Laertes, is not a remarkably explicit reply.” - -Now the wise Greek regarded Gerald sombrely. Odysseus said, by and by: - -“She sang of that which troubles a prudent person’s soul and despoils -his rational living of all fat contentment. Let it suffice that she -sang, I think, of Antan. That is why I must travel to Antan, wherein—it -may be,—is my desire.” - -—It was only then that Gerald recollected something. He recollected -that Evadne of the Dusk, that feathery-legged Evadne, who, Horvendile -had said, was called Leucosia in the days of her sea-faring. But Gerald -said nothing about what, after all, was none of his affair.... - - - - - 30. - What Solomon Wanted - - -AND then the second traveler spoke. He spoke of that which had been -his in the days when all riches and all pleasures and all power had been -accorded to Solomon because of his sixfold wisdom. To no other being -that ever lived among mankind was given such mightiness as was granted -to King Solomon in the time that he reigned over Israel and ruled this -world. - -For Solomon had sexanary wisdom. Solomon knew the six words which were -not known to any other men. He understood the speaking of these words. - -The word of the beasts. It was spoken, and there assembled in the sight -of Solomon a pair of every creature that walks or creeps upon earth, -from the elephant to the smallest worm. Upon the neck of each was -pressed the seal of Solomon, so that the race of each must henceforth be -subject to him. They revealed to him the wisdom of the beasts that -perish and do not bother about it. He feasted them at a table of silver -and iron which covered four square miles; and at that banqueting Solomon -the King served as the pantler, bringing with his hands to every beast -and reptile its food according to its kind, from the elephant to the -smallest worm. - -The word of Morskoï. It was spoken, and all manner of fishes rose to the -surface of the sea’s water near Ascalon. Upon the neck of each was -pressed the seal of Solomon. Then came a hundred thousand camels and a -hundred thousand mules laden with new corn, and all the creatures of the -water were fed, and after that they served King Solomon, and they -revealed to him the wisdom of the Sea Market. - -The word of the fowls. It was spoken, and the sky was hidden by the -birds who came to render fealty and to instruct King Solomon in the -wisdom of the Apsarasas. The peewit alone did not come. But he came -afterward, crying, “He that hath no mercy for others, shall find none -for himself.” And it was the peewit who fetched to Solomon wise Balkis, -and who taught Solomon to look through the surface of this earth as a -man peers through a sheet of glass. - -The word of the Adversary. It was spoken, and the entire citizenry of -hell kneeled before King Solomon, saving only Sachr and Eblis. The -female Djinns were shaped like dromedaries with the wings of a bat; the -male Djinns were like peacocks with the horns of a gazelle. The Mazikeen -and the Shedeem came also. To the neck of each was pressed the seal of -Solomon: and they revealed to him both the black and the gray wisdom. - -The word of Arathron. It was spoken, and there came to King Solomon the -Seven Stewards of Heaven. The eyes of Solomon were closed, and his hand -had shaken a little, as he pressed to the neck of each kneeling Steward -the seal of Solomon, for he was troubled by the exceeding glory of the -supreme Princes of Heaven. Of these the most terrible were Ophiel and -Phul, whose reign is not yet. But these seven Stewards also served King -Solomon; and they revealed to him the white wisdom. - -The word of the mirror. It was spoken, and before him stood a wicker -cage containing three pigeons. Beside this cage lay a small mirror three -inches square. - -All these six words were known to the wise King. It was the power of -these six words which made him lord over the wild beasts and the birds -of heaven, and over the devils and the elemental spirits and the ghosts -of the dead, and over the sea-depths, and over the cherubim. All -creatures upon earth trembled before King Solomon because of these six -words: no other king withstood Solomon, nor sent forth his chariots -against the army of Solomon. For the soldiers of Solomon were the beasts -of the field and of the wild wood; the birds of prey were his horsemen; -the little birds were his very cunning spies. His admirals were the huge -whales and sea serpents, and Leviathan also served in the navy of King -Solomon. His lieutenants were the overseers of hell; the supreme angels -were his counsellors. He had also his mirror. The power of these six -words was exceedingly great. - -Yet there remained one other word, that word which was in the beginning, -and which will be when all else has perished. There stayed yet -unrevealed that word which is spoken by the Master Philologist to all -the gods of men. That word alone was not known to King Solomon. His -little mirror showed him that word, as it showed every other thing; but -the word was written in a language which he could not read. - -“What need is there for you to be bothering about that word?” said all -the women who loved and cherished him. He answered, “I do not know.” The -wives and concubines then stated, speaking with nine hundred voices in -unanimity, that no one of them had ever before heard of such nonsense. -And he answered them again, “I do not know....” - -For this reason King Solomon must pass down into Antan, to hear the -speaking of the last great word of power. - - - - - 31. - The Chivalry of Merlin - - -THEN said the third of these wise men: “I was Merlin Ambrosius. The -wisdom that I had was more than human, for it came to me from my father. -But I served Heaven with it. The land was starved and sick and -frightened. Many little chieftains fought in its wild naked fields, and -murderously waylaid one another in its old forests, causelessly. I made -the land an ordered realm. I gave the land one king, a king whose sword -was as bright as thirty torches. That sword flashed everywhither about -the land to enforce justice and every other virtue commendable to -Heaven. Arthur Pendragon and the knights who served him all served my -whims. They were my toys.... I in my playing gave to the gaping, -smooth-chinned boy, and to his shaggy followers, a notion to play with -in their turn. This notion was that each one of them, and that every -other man, was the child of God and his Father’s vicar upon earth; and -that each human life was all a journeying home, toward a not ever ending -happiness, and that it was a journeying which should be performed in a -style appropriate to Heaven’s heir apparent. Those savages believed me. -They were joyous both night and day. They learned to be envious of no -one, to love God, and to support no unjust cause. They learned to speak -seasonably and graciously, to be generous in giving, to clothe -themselves neatly, and to sing and dance, and to war fearlessly against -evil. It all quite upset my father.... Yet my notion was, I still -believe, a very beautiful notion. It created beauty everywhere, because, -as I have said, the heir apparent of Heaven must journey homeward in an -appropriate style. Yes, the results were eminently picturesque. Caerleon -arose; there was no city more delectable upon earth than was the -pleasant town of Caerleon, builded upon Usk between the forest and the -clear river. Arthur sat there upon a daïs over which was spread a -covering of flame-colored satin. Under his elbow was a cushion of red -satin. The lords and princes and the knights sat about King Arthur -Pendragon, each in his order and degree. The oppressed and the unhappy -came to Arthur. He was to the young a father, to the old a comforter. -Wrong was loathsome to him, the right was very dear to Arthur, and he -knew not what it was to fear. My father did not think at all well of -him.... But I was pleased with my toys, for now I found in every part of -the land a romantic strange beauty. The knights rode at adventure upon -enormous stallions. They clanked as they rode. They went masked in blue -armor and in crimson armor and in silver-speckled green armor. Upon -their heads were brightly colored lions and leopards and griffins and -sea horses, and very often their helmets were wrapped about with a -woman’s sleeve. The giants that these knights fought against were mighty -giants who ate at one meal six swine: the dragons that they fought -against were marvelous huge worms with shining scales and wattles and -magnificent whiskers. The maidens whom they rescued were each more -lovely than the day. These maidens had blond curling hair and frontlets -of red gold upon their heads. About each tender and rose-tinted body was -a gown of yellow satin. Upon the feet of these maidens were shoes of -variegated leather fastened with gilt clasps.... In fine, the heirs of -Heaven discharged their moral and constabulary duties quite -picturesquely as they rode homeward. It was in this way I who was Merlin -Ambrosius played with heroic virtues: it was thus that I who was the son -of my father made, for my amusement, men that were more virtuous and -colorful than Heaven had ever been able to make them. Still, still, it -really was a rather plainly outrageous notion upon which all this was -founded: and by and by the dear and droll, and heart-breakingly -beautiful antics of my flesh and blood toys did not content my desire.” - -Gerald remarked, now that the old gentleman had paused in his meditative -speaking, “Your desire, Messire Merlin, as I remember it, was for an -enchantress who outwitted and betrayed you.” - -“Men,” Merlin answered, with a grave smile, “have made a mistake in that -report. Is it likely that I could be outwitted? No: I was Merlin -Ambrosius.” - -And then Merlin told Gerald about the child Nimuë, who was the daughter -of the goddess Diana, and of how old, wearied, over-learned Merlin had -come to her in the likeness of a young squire. He told of how they -played for a long while with his ancient magics, there in the spring -woods, beside a very clear fountain in which the gravel shone like -powdered silver. To make this twelve-year-old child laugh, as she did so -adorably, the mage had turned into prettiness and drollery every -infernal device. He created for the child Nimuë, there in the April -woods, an orchard full of all those fruits and flowers, howsoever -unseasonably mingled, which have the liveliest sweetness and flavor. -Phantoms danced for her wide-eyed amusement, in the shaping of armed -knights and archbishops and crowned ladies and goat-legged fauns: and it -was all quite excellent fun.... Then Merlin told to Nimuë, because she -pouted so adorably, the secret of building a tower which is not made of -stone or timber or iron, and is so strong that it may never be felled -while this world endures. And Nimuë, the moment that he had fallen -asleep with his head in her lap, spoke very softly the old runes. In the -while that she continued to caress her lover, she imprisoned Merlin in -an enchanted tower which she had builded out of the magic air of April -above a flowering white hawthorn-bush, so that Nimuë might keep her -wonderful, so wise, dear lover utterly to herself. - -“And I was happy there for a long while,” said Merlin. “My toys, now -that I played no more with them, began to break one another. Dissension -and lust and hatred woke among them. They forgot the very pretty notion -which I had given them in their turn to play with. The land was no -longer an ordered realm. My toys now fought in the land’s naked fields, -and they murderously waylaid one another in its old forests. Arthur was -dead, at the hands of his own bastard son begotten in incest. It was an -awkward ending for the heir apparent of Heaven. The Round Table was -dissolved. The land was starved and sick and frightened.” - -Now Merlin, the old poet who did not any longer delight to shape and to -play with puppets, had paused: and he sat gazing thoughtfully, with -wholly patient, tired eyes, at nothing in particular. Then Merlin said: - -“I heard of all these things. They did not matter. I was happy. Yes, I -suppose that I was happy. My ways were utterly domestic. They stayed -thus for a long while.... There was no variety. In that small heaven -which a child had builded out of the magic air of April there was no -variety whatever. There was no enemy, no adversary for me to get the -better of through some cunning device. There was only happiness.... -Nimuë stayed always young and kind and beautiful and contented just -because I was there. The child loved me. But there was no variety. No -son of my father stays forever a domestic animal. So in the end I who -was Merlin Ambrosius found my desire was not in that tower of April air. -There was only heaven. There was only just such a never-changing -happiness as I had once talked about to the gaping, smooth-chinned boy -and to his shaggy followers.” - -“Yet how could you escape from the blessings of a happy home-life, -Messire Merlin, if that tower was truly enchanted?” - -“It does not seem reasonable that I should tell you all my secrets,” -Merlin replied, drily, “any more than it seemed reasonable that the son -of my father should share every secret with Nimuë. The child loved me -utterly. And I loved her. Yes, I loved Nimuë as I have loved no other -creature fluttering about earth. She did not seem to walk.... Even so, I -was Merlin Ambrosius. So in the end I left my child mistress. I quitted -the small heaven which a child’s pure-mindedness had contrived. And I go -now into Antan to get, it may be, my desire.” - -Then there was silence, now that the three mages had all spoken. - -And Gerald shook his head. “You gentlemen have talked with gratifying -candor. You have expressed yourself, with chaste simplicity, in very -plain short sentences. You have reasoned powerfully. You imply that -neither a wife nor a mistress, or even a harem, is able to dissuade a -wise man from this journeying toward the goal of all the gods. I infer -that, to the contrary, the domestic circumstances of no one of you were -wholly satisfactory in the old time. Well, that is a situation still to -be encountered more frequently than is desirable, even in Lichfield, and -it is the reason that I too am on my way to Antan. I am stopping here -just for the week-end. Yet I still do not know what in the world you -gentlemen really desire.” - -“For one, I desire nothing that is in this world,” replied Odysseus. - -“Yet, do you but answer me this very simple question! What do you three -expect to find in Antan? Because I can assure you that, after the -impending changes to be made in the government and other civic affairs -of Antan by the Lord of the Third Truth,—a deity, gentlemen, with -several not uninteresting aspects, a deity with whom I may without -boasting say that I have considerable influence,—why, then, the moment -everything is in tolerable working order, it will be a real pleasure to -afford you three gentlemen all possible courtesies.” - -But the three mages did not seem impressed. - -“I was wise,” said Solomon. “I knew all things save one thing. I did not -know that word which was in the beginning, and which will be when all -else has perished. And that word no god knows until he has heard it -spoken by the Master Philologist.” - -“My desire,” said Merlin, “was for the maid Nimuë and for the love of my -child mistress. When I had my desire it did not content me. So I now go -into Antan to find, it may be, something which I can desire. But my -father’s son does not go asking favors of any god.” - -Then Gerald said: “Yet, you three mages who have traveled through the -Marches of Antan wherein only two truths endure, and the one teaching is -that we copulate and die,—do you not look to find in the goal of all -the gods some third truth?” - -And it seemed to him that the faces of these myths had now become -somewhat evasive and more wary. - -But they said only, speaking severally: “A wise man knows that no truth -is affected either by his beliefs or by his hopes.”—“A wise man accepts -each truth as it is revealed to him.”—“A wise man will risk nothing -upon the existence of any truth.” - -“Still, gentlemen, these are enigmas! These sayings are not a plain -answer to a plain question: and I do not quite understand these -sayings.” - -They answered him, “There is no need that you should understand.” - -Then these three passed down toward the sunset statelily. And Gerald, -gazing after them, once more shook his red head. These wise myths seemed -to him in a bad way: it would not be easy to content the more eminent -sages among his future subjects, because these three at least, for all -their wisdom, appeared never to have found out what they wanted. - -Gerald shrugged. He, in any event, perfectly well knew what in this -bracing country air he wanted at once. So Gerald went in at once to -supper with his Maya who was such an excellent cook in her plain way. - - - - - 32. - A Boy That Might As Well Be - - -“WHAT more is needed,” Maya had asked, “to make this last day with me -pass pleasantly?” - -—For this, again, was the very last day which Gerald could possibly -spend in the trim log and plaster cottage. Maya had decided, without any -reticence, that it was high time he attended to whatsoever foolishness -he seemed to think himself committed to, in that disreputable low place -down yonder, and that to keep putting it off in this way looked like -shirking, and that, for her part, she simply could not understand why he -did not get his nonsense over with.... - -And Gerald said, “It would be nice if we had a son.” - -But Maya at once dissented, as, it seemed to Gerald she nowadays -dissented, at least in part, from everything that Gerald proposed. - -“No, Gerald,” said Maya. “For you would grow far too fond of him. You -would be foolish about him. You would be unwilling to leave him, you -probably never would leave him. And it would end in your being in my -way, and bothering me in the night season, and being under my feet all -day, for the rest of your life—” - -“But I am a god—” - -“Yes, Gerald, to be sure, you are. I had forgotten. I apologize. Now, do -not be upset about it! Stop pouting! You are a god, that is quite -understood. You are immortal, you are going to outlive me indefinitely, -and you are going to perform wonders in Antan, and it is all going to be -very nice. I hope so, anyhow. I was only saying it would be much better -for us to have no son.” - -But Gerald answered: “Do not keep contradicting me in that maddening -way! If you again fly out at me like that, Maya, you will rouse my -temper. Then I shall rage and roar and, quite possibly, ramp. I will -bluster and speak harshly. I will huff, I will puff, I will blow the -house down. For I insist it would be quite nice if we had a son.” - -“Oh, very well, then!” said Maya; and she turned with that sulkiness -which she ever and again displayed—nowadays,—toward a large basket of -magics. - -“—I mean, though, once he were old enough. Babies are too limited in -conversation, they are too vocal, and they are too leaky.” - -Maya had lifted from an amber basin a small shining lizard. She held it -toward her mouth, breathing softly upon the creature, in the while that -she answered Gerald. - -“I think, myself,” said Maya, “that, since you insist upon having a son, -he might as well be seven or eight years old to begin with.” - -Then Maya took off the top of the basket, she reached far into the blue -basket with the hand in which she held the shining lizard, and out of -this basket, clinging to Maya’s hand for support, climbed a freckled -red-haired boy, about eight years old, in blue garments, and having as -yet only one upper front tooth. - -“We have now got a splendid son,” said Gerald, contentedly. “But who is -to christen our son? For I shall of course call him Theodorick Quentin, -just as my father and my oldest brother were called.” - -The boy was, thus, named Theodorick Quentin Musgrave, and Gerald -delighted in the child. For the Lord of the Third Truth put off once -more his entry into his kingdom.... - -“I told you so!” said Maya. - -“But, really now, my darling, would you have me lacking in all proper -paternal feeling! It is necessary I give the child a fair start in life; -and I ask you, candidly, could any parent discharge that duty, with any -real thoroughness, in less than a week?” - -“That, though, is not at all what I said. And for any full-grown man to -be talking such nonsense—” - -“So now you see for yourself! Therefore I shall be leaving you both next -Tuesday, and it is quite useless for you to implore me to stay a -half-second longer than that. Besides, I rather like him.” - -Yet the child showed peculiarities. For one thing, his tongue had no red -in it, but was formed of perfectly white flesh. When Gerald noticed this -odd fact he said nothing about it, though, because Gerald comprehended -the limitations of gray magic. And for another thing, on the third day -of Theodorick’s existence, Gerald happened to lay aside his rose-colored -spectacles while he was playing with his son. Then the boy was not -there. Gerald shrugged, just in time to avoid shuddering. He replaced -his spectacles, and all was as before, to every freckle and each red -hair. - -After that, Gerald wore his spectacles always. - -For Theodorick Quentin Musgrave had become very dear to him. No more -than any other father could Gerald rationally explain this dearness or -justify it by any common-sense logic. He only knew that the brat aroused -in him a tenderness which came appreciably near to being unselfish; that -it worried him to have the brat go unchristened in this neighborhood so -full of sorcerers and wizards; that when he touched the brat it pleased -him, for no assignable reason; and that when the brat displayed the -mildest gleam of intelligence, it at once seemed quite brilliant and -profound, and inexpressibly beyond all other people’s children. - -For Theodorick noticed everything. And Gerald delighted particularly in -the child’s intelligence and powers of observation, because, since no -sort of cleverness could possibly be inherited from poor dear stupid -Maya, all the boy’s more excellent mental traits were obviously -paternal. - -For example, “There is a lady,” Theodorick had stated, pointing toward -Antan. - -“Oh, any number of ladies, my son,” Gerald assented, as he thought of -the many beautiful goddesses and feminine myths who (for all that, he -reflected, he had never seen any female creature pass toward Antan) must -be aiding to make yet more glorious that kingdom over which Gerald would -by this time next week be ruling. - -And Gerald’s hand went to the shoulder of the freckled brat whom, after -next week, he would not ever be seeing any more: and Gerald wondered at -the wholly illogical pleasure he derived just from touching this child. - -“Oh, yes, there are no doubt a great many ladies in Antan,” said Gerald, -“and the coincidence is truly quaint that I have not yet seen any woman -traveling in that direction.” - -But the boy explained he meant the very large lady lying down over -yonder as if she were dead, but not dead, because her heart was -breathing. - -Then Gerald saw that, in point of fact, the hills toward the southwest -had, from this station, the shaping of a woman’s body. She seemed to lie -flat on her back, with her long hair outspread everywhither about her -head, of which the profile, now that you look for it, was complete and -quite definitely formed. Also you saw her throat and her high breasts, -whence the hills sloped downward into the contour of a relatively -smallish, flat belly. Just here the outline of the vast violet-tinted -figure was broken by the nearer green hill immediately across the road -which led to Antan, but all that you could see of this womanlike figure -was complete and perfectly moulded. Moreover, Gerald noted that, near -where the heart would have been, a forest fire was sending up its -languid smoke, which was, of course, what Theodorick Quentin Musgrave -had meant by saying that the lady’s heart was breathing. - -Gerald was very proud of Theodorick’s cleverness in noticing the shaping -of these hills, which Gerald himself had not ever observed, in the -entire three weeks he had spent upon Mispec Moor. But when this odd -accident of nature was pointed out to Maya, she only said that she saw -what you meant of course, but that, after all, it was only two hills, -and that hills looked much more like hills than they looked like -anything else. - - - - - PART NINE - THE BOOK OF MISPEC MOOR - - “To Tame the Wolf You Must Marry Him.” - - - - - 33. - Limitations of Gaston - - -IT WAS at this time, toward the middle of June, that Gaston Bulmer -came from Lichfield. Gerald was sitting, as was his daily custom now, -under the chestnut-tree beside the road which led to Antan. He waited -there to engage in conversation the next of his future subjects who -might pass by in that perpetual journeying toward Antan. Gerald, under -this same chestnut-tree, had by this time talked with many such -unearthly wayfarers: and if the rather interesting things they had told -him were all written down, it would make a book unutterably enormous and -utterly incredible. - -In such circumstances it was, just after two not unfamiliar mountebanks -had gone by carrying with them the paraphernalia of their Punch and -Judas show, that Gerald noticed a small sulphur-colored cloud sweeping -rapidly from the east. It descended: and when it was near to Gerald, it -unclosed. Gaston Bulmer then stepped, a bit rheumatically, from its -glowing depths, and he laid down a rod of cedar wood tipped with an -apple carved in blue-stone. - -There was not in all this anything in itself astonishing, since Gaston -Bulmer was an adept in the arts of which Gerald, in the strange days -before he knew that he was a god, had been a student. But to note how -Gaston had aged in the last week or so was astounding. Yet Gerald, in -any case, was wholly delighted to see again his old friend and -preceptor, and a person who had for so long been virtually his -father-in-law. - -Gaston would not come up to the cottage, though, for dinner, because, as -he confessed, he preferred not to encounter Maya. Rather, it was his -wish, and it seemed, indeed, to be his errand, to free Gerald from what -Gaston Bulmer, surprisingly enough, described as the wise woman’s -pernicious magic. - -Gerald said: “Oh, bosh! For really now, Gaston, if such nonsense were -not heart-breaking it would be side-splitting. I am inexpressibly -shocked by your hallucination, which is, I trust, of a most transitory -nature. However, let us not discuss my wife, if you please. Instead, do -you tell me how my body is faring.” - -So they sat down together under the chestnut-tree. And Gaston Bulmer -answered, “That body, Gerald, since you quitted it, has become a noted -scholar and a man of letters.” - -“Ah! ah!” said Gerald, greatly pleased, “so my romance about Dom Manuel -of Poictesme has been completed, and is now being admired everywhere!” - -“No, for your body has become, just as I said, a scholar. Scholars do -not write romances.” - -“Yet you referred to a man of letters—?” - -“Your body is now a rather famous ethnologist. Your body deals with -historical and scientific truths. Your body thus writes large quartos -upon topics to which no romance, howsoever indelicate, could afford to -devote a sentence.” - -Gerald fell to stroking that long chin of his. “Still, I recall that the -present informant of my body once informed me there were only two truths -of which any science could be certain.” - -“And what were these two truths?” - -Gerald named them. - -Gaston said then: “The demon is consistent. For these two are precisely -your body’s scientific specialty. To-day your body writes invaluable -books in which the quaint and interesting customs that accompany an -interplay of these two truths, and the various substitutes for that -interplay, are catalogued and explained, as these customs have existed -in all lands and times. Lichfield to-day is wholly proud of the -scholarship and the growing fame of Gerald Musgrave.” - -“I am glad that my body has turned out so splendidly. And I trust that -all goes equally well with your daughter Evelyn?” - -“Gerald,” the older man replied, looking more seriously troubled than -Gerald ever liked to have anybody seeming in his company, “Gerald, it is -an unfair thing that your Cousin Evelyn, without knowing it, should be -living upon terms of such close friendship with a demon-haunted body.” - -“Ah, so that friendship continues!” - -“It continues,” said Gaston, “unaltered. It may interest you, Gerald, by -the way, to hear that your Cousin Evelyn has now a son, quite a fine -red-headed boy, born just a year after you relinquished your body to -that treacherous Sylan.” - -Gerald answered affably: “Why, that is perfectly splendid! Frank always -wanted a boy.” - -“My son-in-law, in fact, is much pleased. It is about my daughter I was -thinking. It seems to me the situation is hardly fair to her, Gerald.” - -Gerald replied: “My body is all of me that she was ever acquainted with, -Gaston. So I fail to perceive that anything is altered.” - -“Yet, when I reflect that a beautiful and accomplished and chaste -gentlewoman, Gerald—” - -“Ah, ah! But, yes, to be sure! you speak in the time-hallowed terms of -Lichfield. And I really do not know why I interrupted you.” - -“—When I reflect that, without knowing it, a gentlewoman is living upon -terms of such close friendship with a mere demon-haunted body—” - -“And is, in fact, trusting and giving all?” - -“All her friendship and the natural affection of a kinswoman. Yes, that -is a sad spectacle. It is an unsuitable spectacle. So it seems to me -your duty as a Musgrave, and as a Southern gentleman, to return -forthwith to mortal living and to your mortal obligations, and in -particular to the obligations of your life-long friendship with your -Cousin Evelyn.” - -Gerald said, for the second time, “Oh, bosh!” - -For the notions and the chivalrous assumptions of Gaston Bulmer all now -appeared to Gerald out of reason, in view of the divine predestination -which was upon him. A god had no concern with such slight imbroglios as -the code of a merely terrestrial gentleman and the proper maintenance -upon Earth of polite adultery. It would, indeed, be positively ill-bred -for a Dirghic god to meddle with any of the affairs of a planet which, -according to Gerald’s Protestant Episcopal faith, had been created and -was controlled by an Episcopalian deity; for Gerald had of course -retained, provisionally, that religion in which he was a communicant -until he could find out something rather more definite about the -religion in which he was a god. - -Gerald therefore said: “My good Gaston, that your meaning is excellent, -I do not doubt. And it is not your fault of course that, in your merely -human condition, you do not quite understand these matters, and -certainly cannot view them with an omniscient eye.” - -The older man said: “I understand, in any event, that through all these -years you have stayed here bewitched with terrible half-magics, and that -your own eyes are blinded with the woman’s rose-colored spectacles. And -I seek to preserve you.” - -“You would preserve me for the provincial life of your little Lichfield! -You would make me just another chivalrous, bull-headed, rather -nice-looking and wholly stupid Musgrave! In fine, you would urge me to -become genteel and to deny my glorious destiny. Yet to do that would be -cowardly, Gaston: for, whether I like it or not, there is upon me the -divine obligation to fulfil some very ancient prophecies.” - -“What sort of prophecies are these?” - -“They are Dirghic prophecies. But, then, it is not the language in which -a prophecy is uttered that matters, rather it is—Well, it is the spirit -of the thing! For you must know—although, in view of my wife’s social -position, I have compelled her, after some little argument, to introduce -me hereabouts as a visiting sorcerer,—yet I may tell you, in strict -confidence, Gaston, it is decreed that, as the Lord of the Third Truth, -I am to reign in Antan.” - -“And who told you any such unlikely nonsense?” - -“Some people that I met upon the road. Oh, quite honest looking people, -Gaston!” - -“And who told you that you were the Lord of any Third Truth?” - -“There my authority is unimpeachable. For I had it from the lips of a -beautiful and accomplished and chaste gentlewoman, Gaston, who was -speaking with all the frankness begotten by our being in bed together at -the time.” - -“And how can you reign in Antan, or anywhere else, when you do not ever -go there? Through all these years, I gather, you have loitered here -within a man’s arm’s reach of Antan!” - -Gerald said, with the slight frown of one who finds trouble uncongenial: -“I am puzzled, my dear friend, by your continued references to all these -years. And I admit that various matters have a bit hindered my technical -and merely formal entry into my kingdom. Yet I shall be leaving Mispec -Moor the instant that this week’s washing is in, on Thursday -afternoon—” - -“But, my poor Gerald! you will not go, either forward to Antan or back -to Lichfield, on what you think to be next Thursday. You have lost here -all sense of time, you do not even know that the days you have spent in -this place have counted as four years in Lichfield. I tell you that the -wise woman, with her half-magics and her accursed spectacles, holds you -here bewitched. And I now perceive that nothing whatever can be done for -you, who are ensnared by the most fatal of all the magics of the -wrinkled goddess.” - -—To which Gerald, for the third time, replied: “Oh, bosh! No sorceress -has any power over a god. And so completely do you misunderstand my -wife, Gaston, that I must tell you hardly a day passes without her -urging me to hurry on to Antan.” - -Gaston Bulmer was still regarding him with that extraordinary and wholly -uncalled-for look of compassion. - -“How completely,” he remarked, “she understands you Musgraves! Yes, you -are lost, my poor Gerald.” - -“—It follows that your notions are preposterous. Oh, that is not your -fault, my dear fellow, and not for an instant am I blaming you. Your -conduct, from your human point of view, is very right, very friendly, -very proper. So your rather laughable blunder does not offend me in the -least. And if, as you declare, I have lingered here for some four years -as you human beings estimate time, what do four years amount to with an -immortal who has at his disposal all eternity? Come now, Gaston, do you -but answer me that very simple question!” - -But Gaston answered only: “You are content. You are lost.” - - - - - 34. - Ambiguity of the Brown Man - - -AND Gaston said no more about the matter, because just here their -talking was interrupted. For now, as these two still sat at the -roadside, they were joined by a brown man, dressed completely in neat -brown, who was journeying toward Antan. - -“Hail, friend!” said Gerald, “and what business draws you to the city of -all marvels?” - -And the brown man, pausing, said that, in point of fact, it was upon a -slight matter of business routine that he desired to consult with Queen -Freydis. All gods, he said, had rather speedily passed downward to -encounter the word which was in the beginning,—for it was thus that the -brown man spoke, very much as King Solomon had spoken,—all gods, that -is, save only one, who so bewilderingly altered his tenets that there -was no telling where to have him. - -The brown man thought that, nowadays, in a comparatively enlightened -nineteenth century, was perhaps the appropriate time for something to be -done about this celestial chameleon. And in any case, he said yet -further, he always enjoyed his little conferences with Freydis, who was -rather a dear— - -“So, so!” said Gerald, “you, sir, have previously visited Antan?” - -“Oh, very often. For I am the adversary of all the gods of men.” - -And Gerald viewed with natural interest the one person who pretended to -know at first-hand anything about Gerald’s appointed kingdom: yet, even -so, if this brown gentleman, as Gerald had begun to suspect, happened to -be the Father of All Lies, there was no real point to questioning him, -inasmuch as you could believe none of his answers. - -“—For, I infer,” said Gerald, “that you who travel on the road of gods -and myths are that myth not unfamiliar to my Protestant Episcopal -rearing; and that I have now the privilege, so frequently anticipated -for me by my nearer relatives, of addressing the devil?” - -“I retain of course in every mythology, including the Semitic, my -niche,” replied the brown man, “from which to speak to intelligent -persons in somewhat varying voices.” - -Then Gaston Bulmer arose, and the aging adept shaped a sign which to -Gerald was unfamiliar. - -“I suspect, sir,” said Gaston Bulmer, “that my mother’s father, who was -called Florian de Puysange, once heard the speaking of that voice.” - -“It is a tenable hypothesis. I in my day have spoken much.” - -“—As did, I believe, yet another forebear of mine, the great Jurgen, -from whom descends the race of Puysange, and who once encountered -someone rather like you in a Druid wood—” - -“I cannot deny it. The Druids also knew me. I, who am the Prince of this -world, meet however, as you will readily understand, so many millions of -people during the course of my efforts to keep them contented with my -kingdom that it is not always possible for me to recollect every one of -my beneficiaries.” - -“Still,” Gerald said, “you have played in large historical events a -strange high part; you have known all the very best people: and you must -have much of interest to tell me about. You, sir, at least shall dine -with me, since my friend here is obdurate. My wife avoids the usual run -of gods, but to devils I have never heard her voice the slightest -objection. So, if you will do me the honor to accompany me to my -temporary home, in that cottage—” - -But the brown man smiled. And he excused himself. - -“For your wife and I are not wholly strangers. And the circumstances in -which we last parted were, I confess, a bit awkward. So I really believe -it would be more pleasant, for everyone concerned, for me not to meet -your wife just now. Do you present, none the less, my compliments.” - -“And whose compliments shall I tell her that they are?” - -“Do you say a friend of her earliest youth passed by, one somewhat -intimately known to her before she first became a mother; and I make no -doubt that Havvah will understand.” - -“But my wife’s married name is Maya, and before our marriage it was -Æsred—” - -“Ah, yes!” the brown man said, precisely as Glaum had done, “women do -vary in their given names. Do you present my compliments, then, to your -wife: for that word, by and by, means the same thing to every husband.” - -“I will convey the message,” Gerald promised: “but the aphorism I would -prefer to have delivered by somebody else.” - -And he so parted with both his guests. - -For Gaston Bulmer embraced Gerald and then went sorrowfully back to -Lichfield, in a cloud which the aging adept’s despondency made quite -black: and the brown man leisurely strolled on toward Antan, with the -ease of one who was well used to walking to and fro about the earth. - -He did not hurry, nor did he look inquisitively about him, Gerald -noticed, as has done the other travelers toward the city of all marvels. -The brown man, alone of the many that had passed toward Antan, appeared -to travel upon a road with which he was thoroughly acquainted, toward a -familiar goal. - - - - - 35. - Of Kalki and a Döppelganger - - -SO IT was that Gerald stayed yet a while longer upon Mispec Moor. July -passed uneventfully. Each pleasant summer day found Gerald sitting -beneath his chestnut-tree at the roadside: and he talked there with many -wayfarers who have no part in this tale. For almost all these travelers -told the same story. Nine out of every ten of them had yesterday been a -god whom human beings served; each had been worshipped by mankind in one -or another quarter of the world: to-day their human concerns were over, -and they journeyed toward the goal of all the gods. What did they look -to find there? Gerald would ask: and—to this very simple -question,—every one of them replied evasively. They went to hear that -word which was in the beginning, and which would be after everything -else had perished, that word which was unknown to all the gods of men. -They would say no more: and Gerald did not deeply bother about the -matter, because he was nowadays quite well contented, and when he went -to Antan would soon be clearing up every mystery for himself. - -And the divine steed Kalki also appeared content enough, nor was his -aspect altered by inaction. The horse retained that uniform strange -shining and that metallic glitter which made him seem actually to be -made of untarnished silver. Of course when you saw him grazing upon -Mispec Moor just after a rain-shower his back would be dark and sleek, -and his broad sides would be streaked with wavering, oily-looking bands. -But at all other times he kept his glowing silver color, which was -unlike that of any other horse Gerald had ever seen. - -Meanwhile the divine steed grazed with the geldings who once had been -the human lovers of Maya. He went as they did, lifting each hoof with -somewhat droll carefulness as he grazed forward on the sloping ground -about the cottage. For Gerald would often watch this grazing. And to him -these horses as they moved slowly and irregularly windward seemed -continually to pick up and to replace their hoofs upon the ground as -though they believed each hoof to be a rather fragile parcel. The -pendulous, stretched, heavy necks of these horses, each neck staying -always monotonously parallel to all the other necks, appeared to him too -heavy ever again to be lifted erect. To wonder in the drowsy summer -afternoon how this lifting could possibly be achieved aroused an -unpleasant sensation in Gerald’s collarbone. - -So Kalki fed all day among the geldings, and on windy nights he huddled -with them in the lee of the cottage. Each day Kalki went looking -downward, grazing interminably, and without ever ceasing to move those -wobbling, dark, prehensile, rotatory, snuffling lips as the divine steed -fed upon the sparse grass of Mispec Moor. He, just as greedily as the -geldings, would contort his lips and twist his head when he attempted to -get at the longer and more luscious grass which grew almost inaccessibly -about the fence posts. And to reflection there was something of the -incongruous in the spectacle of a divine steed engrossed by this -problem. - -Now and again, as Gerald noted also, the stallion would raise his superb -head, and Kalki would look almost wistfully toward Antan. But soon he -would be back at his grazing: and, upon the whole, he seemed content -enough with the pleasures appropriate to ordinary horses. And Gerald -thought too that, nowadays, Kalki looked less often toward the goal of -all the gods. - -Yet Kalki turned out to be not wholly unique. For, one morning, as -Gerald went toward his chestnut-tree, he noted the approach from afar of -a traveler who rode upon a horse that had very much the appearance of -Kalki. And when Gerald had reached the roadway he saw that the newcomer -was in fact mounted upon a steed which might well have been Kalki’s -twin. - -“Hail, friend!” said Gerald, “And what business draws you to the city of -all marvels?” - -Then a regrettable thing happened; for the young horseman pretended not -to have heard Gerald, and as the boy passed he looked investigatively -about Mispec Moor, and he pretended not to have seen Gerald, who stood -within a few feet of him. - -He was a notably handsome boy, too, in a blue coat and a golden yellow -waistcoat, with a tall white stock and ruffles about his throat. His -hair seemed red: and Gerald noted, moreover, the lazy and mildly -humorous, half-mocking gaze with which this boy regarded Mispec Moor, as -he rode by unhurriedly toward Antan, without any pausing, and Gerald -noted in particular the very lovely smiling of this boy’s so amply -curved and rather womanish mouth, as the boy went by upon the horse -which was astonishingly like Kalki. - -Yes, he had quite the air of a gentleman: and it was a great pity that -this young whippersnapper had not the manners of a gentleman also, -Gerald reflected, as Gerald stood there, feeling unwarrantably snubbed, -and blinking behind his rose-colored spectacles. - - - - - 36. - Tannhäuser’s Troubled Eyes - - -AND upon yet another day Gerald talked with the comely but now aged -knight Tannhäuser, as this famous myth passed by, in full armor, upon -his journey into Antan. - -“There,” said Tannhäuser, “there I may find again, it may be, the fair -Dame Venus and all the brave and high-hearted sinners who would not -compromise with the narrow and cruel ways of respectable persons.” - -“My friend,” said Gerald, mildly, “there is considerable virtue to be -found, here and there, among respectable persons. There is even a virtue -in compromise.” - -And Tannhäuser shouted: “That I deny! All my life denies that, and so -long as my name lives I am that lie’s denial! For it was the good and -the respectable who betrayed me. I found pride and worldliness and a -lack of cordiality to exist among the bourgeoisie and even among those -professional churchmen who should have been the first to sustain and -guide a repentant sinner. And so I turned again to that frankly pagan -beauty which is hateful to pious and small-minded persons.” - -Then this resplendent gray-haired myth spoke heatedly of his own life -history and of how his love for this frankly pagan beauty had led him -into the hollow mountain called the Hörselberg, to live there as the -lover of Dame Venus in all manner of frankly pagan pleasure-seeking; and -of how, after seven years of frankly pagan recreations, when repentance -smote him, abetted by the frailties of middle age, it was among the -leading church members, and in the heart of the very head of the church, -that he had found no sympathy. Therefore Tannhäuser was returning to -those frankly pagan recreations, so far at least as they were consistent -with late middle life, because he was disgusted by those whining and -hypocritical, cruel church members. - -And Gerald listened. He remembered how in the Mirror of Caer Omn he for -a while had been Tannhäuser. Yet it was a queer thing, and a -circumstance which made Gerald suspect time to be changing him, somehow, -who used to be such a tremendous iconoclast, that now this old -rebellious myth,—which represented yet another of Gerald’s discarded -personalities,—appeared to Gerald remarkably over-colored and rather -pitiably foolish. For here was a story which led to wrong conclusions. -It ended by depicting a god at loggerheads with the head of his own -church: and it begot, somewhat inevitably, those loud sneers at the -bourgeois virtues, and those denunciations of people who, after all, had -done nothing worse than to live quiet and common-sense lives which -Tannhäuser was now declaiming, and which to Gerald appeared unutterably -childish. There was no conceivable reason why a well-thought-of pope -should be hobnobbing with and coddling a broken-down old lecher just -come out of a superior brothel. In fact, in reproving Pope Urban so -publicly, Heaven had been, to Gerald’s finding, rather tactless, and had -violated the _esprit de corps_ which ought to be preserved among the -fellow workers in every church. And in any case, Tannhäuser’s present -reflections upon religion were not such as Gerald, now that he had -become a god, could listen to with approval. - -Still, Gerald did listen: and Gerald smiled, friendlily enough. - -“I know, I know!” said Gerald. “I know, friend, all about you. When you -repented of evil-doing,—and, really, you did take your time about -that,—then you turned hopefully to religion, but, alas! you were -repelled by its ministers. You found them to be human beings subject to -human frailties. You found that—in Heaven’s eyes, anyhow,—even a pope -might make a mistake. And so, quite naturally, you proceeded to drown -the surprise and horror awakened by this discovery in out-and-out -debauchery and in cutting reflections upon all pew-renters. For your -discovery was revolutionary; no doubt the stars were shaken in their -courses, to observe a human being making a mistake; and you also must -have found the spectacle extremely trying. Still, you in this way became -useful to romantic art.” - -Then Gerald said: “Lord, man, but what a following you have had! and -what a number of people have got harmless pleasure out of developing the -discovery which Tannhäuser first made, that inconsistency and -mean-spiritedness may be found among the clergy and the churchgoers! You -will thus continue to be a benefactor of your kind for centuries, I have -not a doubt. Yet I sometimes fancy that inconsistency and -mean-spiritedness may be found even among recognizedly depraved persons -who do not go to any church at all. I find that every religion cows a -number of its devotees into a thrifty-minded practice of generally -beneficent virtues. The average of desirable qualities in the -congregation of every church appears to me, after all, quite perceptibly -higher than is that average among the regular customers of any brothel -or the clients of the public hangman. I do not deny that my discovery -also is, from any æsthetic standpoint, revolutionary. I confess that it -is nowhere represented in romance, as yet, and that no conceivable -realist can ever regard such a grotesque fancy with anything save -loathing. But I believe that some day an intrepid handling of this -daring theme will prodigally repay some very great innovator, and will -become useful to romantic art.” - -And Gerald said also: “Moreover, you remain quite invaluable as a -pretext and a palliation whenever youth hungers for its fling. Only, I -must dare point out, my dear sir, that your second century-long fling -was, by the best people, unavoidably, felt to be excessive. All of us, -more or less, have had our flings: even so, a fling needs to be -conducted, and above all to be wound up, with some discretion. It ought -to be high-hearted and lyrical in every feature: it ought especially to -have the briefness of the lyric. And it ought not, no, it really ought -not, to wind up in the Hörselberg. Now I, too, my friend, for example, -have had my fling. But I have had it in a quiet, self-controlled and -gentlemanly way, without overdoing the thing. Thereafter I settled -down,—just temporarily, to be sure, but still I have settled down,—in -no lewd and feverish Hörselberg, but here, where a contented husband -risks no further chance of becoming useful to romantic art.” - -“It is possible for one to exist, but not for anybody to live, here!” -replied Tannhäuser, scornfully, as his wild gaze swept over the still -stretches of Mispec Moor. - -“Allow me!” said Gerald, with the tiniest of smiles; and he perched his -rose-colored spectacles upon the beaked high nose of Tannhäuser. - -There was a pause. And Tannhäuser sighed. - -“I see,” said the knight then, “a quiet little home of your own, in the -country, with your wife and with the kiddies, too, I daresay. And with -fresh vegetables, of course, right out of your own garden.” - -“In just such a home, Messire Tannhäuser, as is the cornerstone of every -nation, the cradle of all the virtues, and the guiding-star of I forget -precisely what. It is also the brightest jewel in the crown of something -or other, and it assists other desirable abstractions in the capacity of -a bulwark, a spur, and an anchor. It is, you may depend upon it, the -proper place in which to end one’s fling.” - -“And I! I might, if only I had married that dear fine sweet girl -Elizabeth, I, too, might have had such a home! For, after all, there is -nothing like marriage and the love of a good woman. An endless round of -perpetual pleasure-seeking rings hollow by and by, and one hungers for -the simple sacred joys of home-life. I must, oh, very decidedly, I must -settle down. I, too, must have just such a home as this.” - -But the thought of all which he had been missing so affected Tannhäuser -that he took off the spectacles and unaffectedly wiped his eyes. After -that the aging, comely knight sat for a while silent and rather -frightened looking. He stared again at the cottage and at the moor, and -then he stared at Gerald. - -“And you live in this hole, with a muddy brat and a dull-witted, -middle-aged, not at all good-looking woman for your only company! I -marvel at the enchantment which controls you. At least Dame Venus held -me with an intelligible sort of sorcery.” - -“That,” Gerald replied, as he contentedly put on his rose-colored -spectacles again, “is nonsense.” - -“It is a very dreadful nonsense. It is a soul-destroying and besotting -nonsense, from which I flee to look for the less terrible enchantments -of the Hörselberg.” - -Then Gerald put his question. “You, who have traveled through the -Marches of Antan, wherein only two truths endure, and the one teaching -is that we copulate and die,—do you not look to find in the goal of all -the gods some third truth?” - -But the comely knight seemed not to have heard this question, in his -frank terror of domesticity. Tannhäuser had mounted his horse, and he -now rode galloping like a madman toward Antan. - - - - - 37. - Contentment of the Mislaid God - - -NOW life contented Gerald as he lived it through this recognized -parenthesis in his divine career. Very soon this little episode of his -stay upon Mispec Moor would be ended: it would even be forgotten, -perhaps, in the press of regal and superhuman affairs. Meanwhile he -lived in quite tolerable ease. He had nothing to trouble him. Hardly a -morning passed without his finding some more or less interesting -celestial outcast to talk to under his chestnut-tree. Maya continued to -be an excellent cook, in her plain, unpretentious way: and she saw to it -that the cottage was kept comfortable and efficient in all appointments. - -And Maya was dear to him. She nowadays found fault with virtually -everything that Gerald did. And whenever he ventured any suggestion, as -to Theodorick or the economics of the cottage or their social -engagements in Turoine,—or even if Gerald as much as suggested opening -or closing a window,—Maya at once produced at least nine grounds upon -which the suggestion was plainly very foolish and would never have -occurred to anyone of real intelligence. And she cherished the most -imaginative views as to the extent of Gerald’s selfishness and lack of -consideration for other people, and of his habit of never doing anything -whatever for her pleasure. - -Sometimes, though, she would go for as much as an hour without dwelling, -at especial length, upon what a trial Gerald was to her in one way or -another. And in all respects she was a capable woman who made him an -excellent wife, and treated him far better than she could have found any -excuse for doing in what she said about him. - -And Gerald loved Theodorick Quentin Musgrave, also, with an affection -which rather troubled Gerald. The child, he knew, displayed no -extraordinary charm nor talent: no course of reasoning could justify any -extreme fondness for Theodorick upon the ground of his physical or -mental gifts. Theodorick Quentin Musgrave was not brilliant, he was not -lovely, he was not especially amiable: he was, indeed, by way of being a -particularly selfish small tyrant, continually adding to the disorder of -the cottage, to the dismay of Gerald’s finicky liking for neatness, and -continually devising unneeded trouble and commandeering manual tasks -from his parents because of the droll pleasure which Theodorick appeared -to derive from seeing his parents fetch and carry in his service. - -Yet, whensoever Gerald put his arm about the small, warm, yielding, -sturdy, but so helpless body, it was as though Gerald’s own body were -melting in a grateful glow of what was—bewilderingly—a sort of panic -terror. He loved this freckled, fragile creature with an unwisdom which -was, as Gerald knew, an assuredness of more or less future discomfort -and, it well might be, of anguish, for him who quite honestly disliked -trouble of any kind. Since this child had been created, Gerald’s -well-being was not any longer a matter which Gerald could hope to -control or even to protect: his happiness was now risked upon what might -befall this imp. It was the helplessness of the child which frightened -Gerald with a sense of his own helplessness. Life was so cruel to -children. Life damaged and hurt children in so many ways inevitably. And -every hurt to this child, now, would be an anguish to Gerald, who could -avoid none of them. He could not even manage to get the child properly -christened, in this neighborhood so profuse in sorcerers and wizards, -who used, as everybody knew, unchristened children in horrible ways -which it was not comfortable to think about.... - -Then, too, Gerald was not certain Theodorick Quentin Musgrave was real. -Gerald remembered always, at the back of his mind, that frightful -instant when he had removed his spectacles, to find the child had -vanished. Gerald assured himself that the cause was a slight -indigestion, and that the moment’s blur of vision came from a disordered -stomach. But he was wholly careful not ever again to look at Theodorick -except through the rose-colored spectacles which made visible the magics -of Maya. He kept resolutely out of his full attention the fact that -Theodorick might be an illusion which Maya had created. And he grew -accustomed to that unusual milk-colored tongue, which showed like a -white snake within the red moist little mouth whenever the child -laughed. - -And Gerald sometimes wondered if Maya had over-ambitiously designed to -make permanent this mere parenthesis in his career. She had attempted, -to be sure, no magic such as that with which she had transformed his -predecessors. No sorceress would dare, for that matter, thus to presume -against a god.... Gerald knew that, instead, it was his Maya’s wholesome -simplicity and the prosaic human comfort which he did get, after all, -from living with this middle-aged and fault-finding and not in the least -beautiful woman that had detained him, just for the while of this -parenthesis in his career. He of course would pass on, to enter into his -kingdom, by and by. And there was no conceivable hurry about it, now -that his journeying to Antan was for every practical purpose finished, -and now that whensoever he elected he might within the next half-hour or -so be taking over the realm and all the powers of the Master -Philologist. - -Meanwhile, though, Gerald would now and then wonder amusedly if his -dear, stupid Maya could perhaps have struck upon the device of detaining -him by not using any magic whatever: if she in secret flattered herself -that this device was succeeding: and if she actually cherished the -delusion that she was hoodwinking omniscient Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper -and Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly -Ones? - -Anyhow, his life here very amiably contented him for the while. The -local circles of sorcerers and wizards were pleasant enough, barring -only that haunting memory as to how they used unchristened children. -Gerald and Maya did not go out a great deal; but they were on friendly -terms with the neighbors; they attended an occasional Sabbat; and they -kept in touch generally with the affairs of Turoine. And for the rest, -the little happenings of his home life temporarily contented the Lord of -the Third Truth. - -And he began to reflect that, just possibly, Antan might be to him, -after he had entered into his kingdom, a disappointment. From here Antan -seemed uniformly wonderful. It was astonishingly pleasant to sit upon -the western porch of the small cottage, especially toward evening, when -your shoes propped up before you on the porch railing reflected a -pinkish glow from the sunset, and to imagine what was going on in that -broad expanse of yet unvisited fields and hills which now were turning -into gray and purple mists directly beneath the gold and crimson of the -sunset. The trouble was that you, who were gifted with the imagination -of a god, were very certainly imagining more wonderful happenings for -that mysterious theatre than could by any chance be enacted there. - -For one matter, after dark, Antan always displayed eight lights, six of -them grouped together in the middle of the vista with the general effect -of a cross, and the other two showing much farther off to the northwest. -About those never-varying huge lights Gerald had formed at least twenty -delightful theories, all plausible as long as you remained upon Mispec -Moor, whereas if you went to Antan not more at most than one of these -theories could prove true. - -To go to Antan thus meant the destruction of no less than nineteen -rather beautiful ideas as to those lights alone. However, Gerald felt, -there was no help for this: and he whole-heartedly meant to take over -his appointed kingdom without any unpleasant criticizing, no matter what -might be the deficiencies of the place, by and by. Meanwhile, there was -no great hurry: and it was, indeed, a prudent and long-sighted course -for him to be pausing here to enjoy these fine scenic effects, because -by and by he would not ever again be seeing Antan from this distance. - -After nightfall those eight lights never varied. But by day there was -always a different and, as it seemed, a more lovely display of rounded, -parti-colored, cleared hills, which here and there were darklier -streaked, no doubt with orchards. Beyond them many flat-topped mountains -showed, yet farther to the west, like a sleeping herd of gigantic blue -crocodiles all couched across the west and facing north. And above so -much terrestrial graciousness moved an incessant pageant of clouds, not -a bit like the flat clouds which you looked up at from Lichfield, -because the clouds which brooded over Antan were seen, from Gerald’s -station upon Mispec Moor, as on a level with you: and, when they were -thus considered sidewise, they resembled moving walls and crags and -drifting curtains through which the sunlight smote in slanting and huge -and pallid and quite tangible looking shafts. - -Always, too, you noticed, nowadays, that vast and violet-shrouded, -high-breasted woman’s figure lying yonder, motionless, with that -ever-burning heart; and you were visited by an odd fancy. You fancied -that Queen Freydis, the as yet unwon-to queen of your appointed kingdom, -was like that woman. And this fancy came to you none the less often -because of your plain perception of its illogic. - -“Come, now!” said Gerald, “a mistress of that size would be unsuitable. -Charms of so diffuse an acreage would create, even in a god, a sense of -inadequacy. Nevertheless, I am falling rather ardently in love with -those two hills. I begin to adore the casual play of lights and shadows -upon yonder piled-up dirt, which when seen from any other station than -this would not in the least resemble a woman. And such amorous notions, -apart from their insanity, are not befitting in a contentedly, if -temporarily, married person.” - -The transience of his comforts made them very dear. It was well worth -the inconvenience of sleeping in his spectacles (as Gerald, for his own -reasons, did) so that in the night season he could awaken, to see Maya’s -tranquil brown head yonder beside the smaller and tousled and livelily -red head of Theodorick Quentin Musgrave,—both visible yonder because of -the lamp which the child demanded at night, and because of his -insistence that Mother was to sleep with him instead of with Father. - -Outside, Gerald would hear those of his transformed predecessors who now -were horses, shuffling and restively stamping, and at times snorting and -whinnying, in the chill outer darkness; or a misguided gentleman who -lived nowadays as a steer would low, much farther off; or Gerald would -hear yet another one of Maya’s former husbands coughing, with the -far-reaching and morose scornfulness peculiar to a sheep. And then the -difference between the estate of Gerald’s predecessors and the snug -warmth of his so comfortable soft bed, and his knowledge of that -unmarred bodily ease which, just now, was his through every hour of the -day, would trouble Gerald, because he knew it all to be so satisfying -and so transient. - - - - - PART TEN - THE BOOK OF ENDINGS - - “Trust Nobody but Thyself, and - None Other will Betray Thee.” - - - - - 38. - About the Past of a Bishop - - -SO GERALD stayed content enough, all through those pleasant summer -days. It was odd to reflect that these days were counting as he did not -know how many years in Lichfield. He would now and then contrast himself -with his great ancestor Dom Manuel, the same about whom, in that quaint -far-off time when Gerald had believed himself merely human, and was -interested in such human nonsense, Gerald had intended to write a -romance,—because the Redeemer of Poictesme, as Gerald remembered it, -had passed a month with the wood demon Béda, in the forest of Dun -Vlechlan, where the company consisted entirely of evil principles, and -where the passing of each day left Manuel a year older. - -Gerald would reflect how much more sensible and pleasant was the course -which he was following, surrounded with every domestic virtue, where the -days did not count at all. For Gerald was content, and certainly he had -grown no older in body. He had become used to living upon Mispec Moor: -he wondered sometimes if Antan could afford any splendor which he -personally would find more to his taste; and he felt that he would -honestly miss the simple wholesome ways of Maya’s log and plaster -cottage after he had entered forever into the red-pillared palace of his -kingdom beyond good and evil,—next week, perhaps, or at all events not -later than September. - -And it stayed diverting to observe those persons who almost every day -passed beyond Mispec Moor in their journeying toward the goal of all the -gods of men. Then by and by one of these wayfarers turned out to be a -stalwart, white-bearded old gentleman dressed as a bishop. And the sight -of him delighted Gerald: for here at last was somebody who could -properly christen Theodorick Quentin Musgrave. - -Meanwhile this traveler was asking hospitality of Maya. She, who -disliked travelers, prepared the white and tender flesh of a calf, she -kneaded cakes of fine meal and baked them upon the hearth, she fetched -milk and butter. All these she set before the seeming bishop upon the -front porch of her cottage quite affably. For this old gentleman, it -appeared, had known Maya of the Fair Breasts a great while ago, at the -very beginning of a career confessedly so populous in husbands that -Gerald always felt a certain delicacy in asking questions about it. - -“But there was never any reasoning with you, my dear,” said the old -gentleman, as they all ate amicably together upon the porch. “So you -eluded my purpose, and you preferred to content that first man of yours -for his loss of the over-wilful beauty and the rebellious wisdom of your -predecessor—” - -Maya replied: “I do wish you would try just one more of those cakes, for -I made them myself, exactly as you used to like them in the plains of -Mamrê, when you were up to your nonsense with Sarah. Yes, I believe that -a girl, a really nice girl, that is, should keep her caresses for her -husband. Oh, I am casting no reflections upon either of your -sweethearts. It is a matter every woman must decide for herself. I -merely say that, for my part, I think a love-affair with a god while he -is still in power is ostentatious and can only end in unhappiness—” - -“But—!” Gerald had begun indignantly. - -She patted his hand. “No, Gerald, I did not mean you. Your power is -limitless, and you are quite different from all other gods, and nobody -knows that better than I do. So please do not start any pouting while we -have company! He thinks that he is a god, too,” Maya then stated, -casually, to her visitor. “That is why his feelings are upset. He -believes he is the Fair-haired Hoodoo, the Yelper and the Pretender, or -something of that sort. As for that woman, Adam was very lucky to get -rid of her.” - -“I wonder,” said the white-bearded gentleman, smiling reminiscently, “I -wonder if he always thought so?” - -“My dear old friend! but you and I know quite well what the creatures -are! Of course he cherished the memory of her for the rest of his life, -long after the worthless piece had gone, just literally, to the devil. -She was not bad looking: that much, anyhow, one can say in her favor: -and so the poor fellow had always his memories of that beauty which he -had known, once. He used to say it was too lovely to be retained by any -man. And I agreed with him. No man had the least chance, with infernal -connoisseurs about.... And his sons,” said Maya, as she reflectively -scratched at her nose, “have, somehow, all preserved that memory. There -is no one of them but now and then finds my daughters rather inadequate, -and half remembers that woman and gets lackadaisical over her. It is -just another thing about the creatures which my daughters have to put up -with.” - -“She too is yonder, they tell me,”—and the old gentleman nodded toward -Antan. Then he continued: “And I suspect there is no one of your -daughters but is jealous of this ever-living memory of that Lilith who -stays always the first, never quite forgotten love of every son of Adam; -and who prevents more of them than you would care to acknowledge, my -dear, from ever utterly giving over their hearts to any of your -daughters.” - -“We are jealous, within limits,” Maya replied, in the while that she -hospitably refilled his glass with fresh milk. “No woman likes playing -second fiddle, even in the moonstruck brain of a poet. Yet my daughters -know it does no real harm. And if men were not up to something, they -would be up to something else. Besides, it gives them their nonsense to -be romantic over in private, without pestering their poor sweethearts, -and their wives too at first, to be romantic along with them, which is a -thing no nice woman really feels comfortable about—” - -But the old gentleman had sighed. “You touch upon a somewhat harrowing -subject. For I fancy that no other luckless being has ever had to cater -to the shifting needs of popular romance so arduously or so variously as -I.” - -And Maya now was beaming upon him quite fondly. “Yes, but how clever you -have been about it! In fact, I suppose that nobody anywhere has ever had -a more wonderful career than yours. And it seems only yesterday—does it -not?—that we were all young together in the Garden, and your reputation -was merely local. But you Jews are so adaptable!” - -“I was not even a Jew, my dear, to begin with. Perhaps that is why I -never quite got on with them. I was a storm deity of the Midianites. But -the Jews kidnapped me, in some way or another, when I was just a godling -playing happily with my thunderbolts upon the flanks of Sinai.” - -“Even so, when I think of what a position you have attained in the best -Christian circles, and of the perfect respectability of the church to -which you now belong, and of all the splendid poetry you have inspired, -and of how generally famous you have become everywhere, I am wholly -proud that you once, when we were both younger”—and Gerald saw that -Maya had colored up rather prettily,—“had other plans for me.” - -“You,” said the old gentleman,—who, as Gerald now observed, was really -quite Jewish looking,—“were the first of my disappointments. Yes, I -suppose that in many respects my career has been unusual. Yet it has -ended by placing me in a most awkward position: and nothing ever turned -out in accordance with my plans, somehow.” - -Then the stalwart, white-bearded old gentleman who was dressed as a -bishop spoke of his first family, and of how his descendants through a -son named Isaac went astray. He spoke of his efforts to retain the -affection of his family, through the vigorous methods appropriate to a -storm god. But nothing had seemed to avail. There had been fine plagues -and deluges and captivities and decimations and devastating miracles by -the score. He had sent the swords of Babylon and of Philistia and of -dozens of other kingdoms to slay them, and huge dogs to tear their -corpses, and many birds of prey and all the wild beasts of earth to -devour and to destroy them, without arousing one ray of real affection. -He had laid waste their cities; he had made their widows as the sands of -the sea; he had starved them, and had smitten them with leprosy, and had -burned them with lightnings; he had afflicted them with the most voluble -and pessimistic prophets: he had, in a word, done absolutely everything -he could think of as likely to requicken their waning affection. But the -more he annoyed his descendants, the less they had seemed really to love -him. Upon the heels of every warning, and immediately after each -paternal correction, the survivors of it seemed only the more inclined -to prefer some other patron: and it was all very discouraging. - -And of his second son he spoke also. Here he became remarkably vague, -and he talked as if muddled by the whole affair. There had been a great -sacrifice and an atonement, the workings of which the old gentleman -could not pretend to understand. He could not yet say just who had been -put in a more amiable frame of mind by that atonement, since personally -he imagined any father would have found it most distasteful and -upsetting. Anyhow, the affair had resulted in a church with which he had -felt it rather his duty to associate himself. And, awkwardly enough, -after he had thus been persuaded by them formally to commit himself to a -policy of peace and forgiveness and general loving-kindness, his -incomprehensible servants had gone on squabbling and murdering, only -much more often than before, because now they did it on high moral -grounds. They had fought over transubstantiation, and over Greek -diphthongs, and over the respective merits of complete and frontal -baptism, and over infant damnation, and over redemption through faith -alone, and over a number of other recondite matters which no Arabian -storm god, very simply reared in the country during the really formative -years of his life, and with no regular academic training, could well be -expected to understand: and it was all very discouraging. - -Nor to-day was his position much happier. He found himself ranked rather -high in the church with which he was associated professionally. Yes, the -old gentleman admitted, with plain bewilderment, his name was honored. -But all his actions—even such quite notable actions as holding a -conference with his disciples in a fiery furnace, and affording his -messengers inter-urban transportation by means of a whale, and of -causing the sun itself to stand still,—all these fine exploits, along -with his every natural exhibition of the irascibility and truculence -appropriate to a storm god, had been reduced to poetic inventions. His -very existence had been complicated with a triplicity which, since the -mind could not grasp it, prevented his existence from being, actually, -believed in by anybody. That had seemed, from the first moment he heard -of it, a doctrine a bit difficult for him personally to accept, after -having been an undivided deity in regular practice for so many thousands -of years. And eighteen centuries of pondering upon that doctrine of his -triune nature, to which he was through his official position committed, -had showed a matter so abstruse and puzzling to be far beyond the -comprehension of any country-bred Arabian storm god, howsoever -faithfully he had broadened his mind, at the courts of various Christian -monarchs and in the larger nunneries, since the commencement of his -religious training among the farming element of Seir and Sinai. Nor -could he honestly say that he had ever been able to take quite kindly to -the notion that his being was confessedly a mystery not to be understood -by prelates graduated from the best seminaries, and that his actions -were all poetic inventions. For that left of him, so far as could be -seen by a plain-thinking Arabian storm god, nothing which the human mind -could grasp as an actuality; it made every one of his really -thorough-going servants who accepted utterly the teachings of his -church, so far as he could infer, a devotee of vacuousness: and it was -all very discouraging. - -“Altogether,” said the old gentleman who was dressed as a bishop, “I -feel that my present ranking in the Christian church is a perplexing -and, in some sense, a false position for an Arabian storm god. I have -aged under it. Oh, I have tried to be quite fair about the matter. -Sometimes I even go so far as to concede that people who have never met -a particular person might, just possibly, believe that person to be -three persons whose actions were all poetic inventions. The human -imagination is vigorous. I must point out to you, though, my friends, -that nobody could conceivably believe that about himself. These very -curious theories about me thus postulate the existence of at least one -sceptic, and they hinge indeed upon the existence of that sceptic, in -me. Now, I feel instinctively there must be an error in any such logic. -I feel it unfair that I alone of all the persons connected with my -church should be inevitably doomed to remain an atheist. And I have aged -steadily under the injustice and unreason of it all. Otherwise, if I yet -retained the vigor of my youth, I might yet, in my frank way, attempt to -clean the slate, as it were, with whirlwinds and thunderbolts and -another deluge or so, and to make a fresh start all around. But, alas, I -have aged, my dear Havvah, since the days of our first acquaintance. The -inexplicable theology and the rationalization, as they call it, to which -I have been subjected by my incomprehensible servants, now for some -eighteen centuries with ever increasing rigor, have brought me to the -point that I cannot logically believe in my own existence. The things -they tell me simply do not hold together. And so—” - -He comprehensively waved his hand toward Antan. - -But Gerald rose, and Gerald put aside his glass of milk and his veal -sandwich. - -And Gerald said, beamingly: “You who have traveled through the Marches -of Antan, wherein only two truths endure, and the one teaching is that -we copulate and die,—you at least, I know, must, as a leading official -of the Protestant Episcopal church, look confidently forward to finding -in the goal of all the gods a third truth. The fact emboldens me to ask -that you do but answer me this very simple question—” - -“Alas, my friend,” the badgered looking old gentleman broke in, -“professionally, of course, my faith is all that it should be. But in my -private capacity, as a plain-thinking Arabian storm god, now that I am -retiring from active churchwork, I suspect that when anybody anywhere -once understands the nature of any two truths, that will be quite time -enough for him to be requiring a third truth to exercise his wits upon.” - -“That truism, sir, is not to be denied,” said Gerald, rather -crestfallen. “Yet that is likewise an evasion.” - -“In fact,” said the bewildered old gentleman, shaking sadly his white -head, “in fact, ever since I acquired triplicity, I have been accused of -duplicity also. The Gnostics, I remember, said very unkind things about -that: the Valentinians were no more charitable: whereas I would really -hesitate to repeat, my friends, the remarks of the Priscillianists.” - -“—And in any case,” Gerald said, emphatically, “howsoever you may evade -me, it would not do for you to evade your duties to the Protestant -Episcopal church. The world as yet has need of bishops and of all that -they signify. I must point out to you, sir, that the wild talking of -bishops yet frightens many persons into a thrifty-minded practice of -generally beneficent virtues. Indeed, sir, bishops remind me rather of -calomel in the effect which they have upon the run of men, because I -find their effect also to be, ultimately, beneficial. There are also -other points of resemblance. And if the strange ways of episcopal action -now and then unavoidably upset you, sir, you ought to remember that it -is, after all, for the general good. I, moreover, must point out that it -absolutely would not do for you to go into Antan and be one of my -subjects—” - -“He thinks,” Maya once more explained, parenthetically, to her guest, -“that he is a god, you understand.” - -“But I am!” said Gerald. “These continual interruptions are really very -awkward, my dear. And the present situation also is awkward, in view of -my Protestant Episcopal upbringing. It is a situation which must at any -cost be avoided. This gentleman simply must not go into Antan.” - -“But what is to be done about it?” - -“Oh, do you not be uneasy! Your age, sir, and its attendant delusions, -such as wanting to go into Antan, are matters quite easily remedied by -any competent Dirghic deity. You could not possibly have pursued a wiser -course than to come to me for assistance. So, if you will permit me, -sir—” - -Thereafter Gerald, still in something of a flutter, baptized the old -gentleman who was dressed as a bishop with the last remaining drop of -water from the Churning of the Ocean. - - - - - 39. - Baptism of a Musgrave - - -FORTHWITH the old white-bearded gentleman became a most personable -looking youngish Oriental, who shone with a fiery radiance, and about -whose head played a continual flashing like small lightnings. And he -said, approvingly: - -“That is a fine magic which has restored to me my youth and the -vigorousness I had in Midian before I was kidnapped by those -stiff-necked and unaffectionate Jews.” - -“And will you now be going into Antan?” asked Gerald, rather anxiously. - -“Not yet, my friend,” replied the merry, strong, young Arabian storm -god. “Oh, very certainly, not yet! No, I have had quite enough of my -illogical position as a Christian and of the worries of being -rationalized by incomprehensible foreigners. I shall thankfully return -to my Midianites and to my little shrines upon Seir and Sinai and Horeb, -and to the quiet living of a local godling. I shall be hearing again my -own people’s sane and intelligible prayers for rain, and I shall be -snuffing up the smoke of such rational offerings as kids and goats and -an occasional prisoner of war, just as I used to do, where I was given -due credit for my actions, and where you heard no unpleasant personal -scandal circulated about my being triplets. In the meanwhile, my -benefactor, is there not any favor which, in my turn, I can do you?” - -“Indeed, my dear sir,” Gerald answered, harking back to that worriment -which in a neighborhood so full of sorcerers and wizards stayed always -in the rear of Gerald’s mind, “there is a small one, now you mention it. -For we have a boy, as you perceive. And it occurs to me that this is the -first chance to have Theodorick Quentin Musgrave properly christened -according to the rites of the Protestant Episcopal church—” - -The storm god asked of Gerald, in good-humored surprise. “But do I now -look to you much like an Episcopalian clergyman?” - -“Well, sir, I admit the situation is perplexing. Nevertheless, you -remain, so far as I can see, one of the three official heads of the -Christian church, in every denomination. And as such, you must be wholly -competent to administer the sacred rites of that baptism to which we -Musgraves are accustomed.” - -He who had been a bishop laughed again. For an instant he glanced -sidewise at Maya, rather impishly. Then the god called to him Theodorick -Quentin Musgrave. - -The boy came forward without speaking. There had never been any dearer -brat since time began, Gerald reflected, than was this sturdy droll -red-headed jackanapes who waited there holding his small chin well up in -order to look with politely puzzled interest at the storm god’s -glittering face and the tiny lightnings which played about it. Gerald -was abeam with the most fatuous sort of pride in Theodorick’s perfect -behavior. Gerald glowed all over, now that awkward matter of the boy’s -christening was being at last attended to, by the very highest -authority. And Gerald nodded smilingly and with some inconsequence at -his dear stupid Maya, so that she too might note how splendidly -Theodorick was behaving. The boy was displaying the composure and the -excellent manners of a true Musgrave. - -Then the storm god dipped his fingers in his unfinished glass of milk, -and upon Theodorick’s lifted forehead he drew a sign. Gerald was not -wholly certain, afterward, that it was the sign of a cross. - -“This is another sort of baptism than that which restored my youth. For -youth this child already has,—to every seeming,” the god said, a bit -unaccountably. “Therefore I now release this child whom I did not -create, I release him from the bondage of the woman and of the Adversary -who caused him to live upon this earth. I decree a forgiveness for the -seven crimes. I cry a remission of the seven punishments.” - -“I must say, though, you have been long enough about it,” Maya placidly -observed.... - -As for Gerald, now that the ceremony was over, he was unaffectedly -hugging Theodorick, and telling him that he was far too big a boy to be -kissing people, and the vaguely puzzled, clinging child was asking, But -who started it, Father?... - -And the storm god was saying to Maya, “Do you forget, my dear Havvah, -that it is from your service I am releasing him?” - -She answered, still quite placidly: “So far as that goes, the imp has -well earned a holiday; and it is not as if I were dependent upon him. -No, but I confess to wondering—and not for the first time, -either,—just what you may be up to.” - - - - - 40. - On the Turn of a Leaf - - -SO THE Oriental storm god went back into the world of everyday, to -look for his old shrines upon Sinai and Horeb: and Gerald was happily -rid of a future subject whom, he could not but feel, it would have been -a bit awkward to have as a subject. And the evening passed tranquilly, -although it seemed to Gerald that Theodorick was rather moody and quiet -after his christening. - -But it was not until the next day that Theodorick, just after breakfast, -spoke with a voice which seemed to Gerald not quite the voice of a -child: and Theodorick told his parents he wanted to go down into Antan. - -Gerald was troubled. Yet he suggested, with very careful levity, “If—?” - -“If you please,” the but half-smiling, ugly, so dear brat now added, -docilely. - -“Why, it must be as your father says,” Maya replied. She had paused in -her sweeping off of the porch, and for a moment she held the broom -slantwise as she meditated over the boy’s notion. “But, for one, I see -no great harm in your having a little outing, for I will put a -protection on you. Only, you must promise to be back in good time to -have your face and hands washed for supper.” - -Gerald said forlornly, “But what are those small yellow things you are -sweeping from the porch, my dear?” - -“They are fallen leaves from a sycamore-tree, left here last night by -that wind, Gerald: and I really do wish you would not ask such silly -questions, when I was talking about something quite different.” - -“But that means summer is ending, Maya. It means an end of all growing. -It means that not anything now will become any larger or more lovely.” - -“Upon my word, but I never did hear of any such nonsense as you do talk -sometimes, for a grown man, Gerald, as if summer did not always end!” - -“That is it, precisely. It always ends: and the warmth and comfort of it -perish. Yes, there is death in the air. I do not find that cheering. And -that is all, my darling.” - -“Why, then, Gerald, if you are quite through with that up-in-the-air -sort of talking—which may be very deep and clever indeed, only I happen -not to understand it, and certainly have no wish to,—why, then, I was -asking you about something entirely different.” - -“Oh, yes, you were speaking of Theodorick! Well, boys do get restless -without any playmates, I suppose. I will talk to him about his notion -while you are making up the beds.” - -Nothing could have been more prosaic. Yet Gerald was troubled. He could -hear Maya inside the cottage, already thumping at the pillows. All about -him seemed matter of fact, and comfortable, and familiar, and stable. -And yet everything, as he somehow knew, was about to change. There awoke -in him as yet no real unhappiness, but just a faint uneasiness mixed -with resentment, now that he noted the fall of the first leaf in autumn, -and knew he was powerless to stay the beginning change in everything -about his small, snug home. - - - - - 41. - Child of All Fathers - - -THEN Gerald followed the child down to the roadside. And they talked -together under the chestnut-tree, just where Gerald had talked with so -many strange beings who had passed beyond Mispec Moor in that continuous -journeying toward Antan. - -First Gerald performed that needful rite which would reveal the truth. -The child watched quietly. By and by Theodorick began to smile. But he -said never a word until his father was through with these droll doings. - -Then Gerald questioned his small son. Theodorick replied. The appearance -of a little child still sat there, and the soft red lips of a child were -moving, but that curious tongue which was like a small white serpent was -speaking about matters never known to any child. - -No one of Gerald’s excursions into the darker magics had prepared him -for what was now in part revealed. Something of the spaces outside the -world apparent to human senses Gerald knew, and of the realms beyond -Earth’s orbit he, as a former student of magic, was not ignorant. But -now he understood from what remote abyss his wife had drawn the being -which seemed his child: a bit unwillingly, he could even surmise with -what kind of enchantments Maya had fetched this seeming into the happier -superficial world which is apparent to human senses. - -And Gerald was moved: he was, as so many husbands have been, before and -since, now almost frightened by this glimpse of the unswerving and -whole-hearted and unscrupulous love which women nourish for that man -whom marriage has given them to look after. He was not worthy, he -contritely felt, of being thus idolized and of being coddled at the -fearful price of such unearthly indiscretions. And Gerald was sincerely -touched, now that he comprehended to what lengths Maya had gone to -gratify his whim of wanting a son, out of hand. She had warned him, too, -that he was contriving for himself grief. Yes, her womanly intuition -had, somehow, foreseen that to which all his cleverness had been blind. -And yet, even so, Maya had not denied him his desire, because poor Maya -pampered him in everything, to the accompaniment of a commentary -howsoever tart. - -And Gerald thought too of how, a moment since, his worst dread had been -that the boy was an illusion. He looked at his beloved son, knowing now -what inhabited that freckled and droll, sturdy little body. The boy had -of a sudden become strange; he was now a threat of unimaginable danger, -and a creature worse than evil: yet Gerald knew, with a dull wonder, -that he loved Theodorick Quentin Musgrave even now.... - -Gerald by and by put yet another question to this dreadful parody of a -child’s innocence and helplessness, to the being whom Gerald invoked as -Abdel-Hareth. - -“But I have served her purpose,—my father,” the child replied, with a -rather perturbing smile. “Oh, but I know! She has had many husbands. -Most of them desired a son. I have always been that son.” - -Then, after an instant of silence, the being who was speaking through -the child’s dear lips told of the bonds from which the Midianite storm -god’s touch and absolution had released him. Gerald found this part of -the story particularly unpleasant. And Theodorick Quentin Musgrave, whom -Gerald still addressed as Abdel-Hareth, went on to tell why he must now -go downward into Antan, to encounter, not the Master Philologist, but -Queen Freydis. - -Gerald asked, What was needed of Queen Freydis? The child told him. Then -Gerald shivered. He felt, if only for the instant, physically cold and -nauseated. Still, that this creature should desire to return to its -unearthly home was natural enough. - -“I comprehend,” said Gerald. “I comprehend a great deal which was -unknown to me ten minutes ago. I confess to being surprised by much that -I have learned from you. Nevertheless, my son,—if you will pardon the -force of habit, sir, and the love I had for my own little, so dear -son—! But I drift into emotional remarks which would be wholly out of -place. My voice, as I note with sincere regret, evinces a distressing -tendency—” - -Gerald paused. He gulped. He spoke now in a voice that was light and -high-pitched and rather hysterical. - -“In fine, my dear Abdel-Hareth, as you see, I incline somewhat to -blubber like a badly whipped baby. I can but ask you to respect the -emotions of a suddenly bereaved parent, without bothering to understand -his confused utterances. No: you have given me my desire, and my great -happiness. A part of that dies now. But I have had it, utterly. I am -content. I will see to it that you, in your turn, sir, get what you -desire.” - - - - - 42. - Theodorick Rides Forth - - -IT WAS after using his handkerchief a bit that Gerald returned to -Maya. Nor did it surprise him she had already prepared a neatly wrapped -up lunch for Theodorick Quentin Musgrave to be eating that day in Antan. - -Gerald said, with painstaking carelessness, “Well, my dear, after -talking the matter over, I have decided we may as well let the boy go.” - -“Why, to be sure!” said Maya. “And a great deal of bother, too, there -has been made this morning over nothing, as if I did not already have -quite enough to bother me!” - -And with that, she summoned from among her enchanted geldings the -handsomer of the pair who formerly had been emperors. - -“For a child of mine must go in proper state,” said Maya. - -Then Gerald said: “No. An imperial steed is well enough, but a divine -steed is better. Let him take Kalki!” - -“Now, really, Gerald, your unreasonableness sometimes surprises even me! -For you know perfectly well that Kalki is your own horse, and that you -will be needing him yourself when you ride down to the appointed kingdom -you are always talking your stuff and nonsense about.” - -Gerald looked at her for some while. He was conscious of a hushed great -exultation that in a world wherein all else seemed doubtful and unstable -he had, somehow, through blind luck, won to his Maya and her -snappishness and her unswerving and whole-hearted and quite unscrupulous -love for him. She was not pretty, she was not brilliant, she was not -even easy to live with. But Gerald knew now that he and this woman were -one person; and that any living without Maya would be a maimed business; -and that there could be nothing in Antan which could conceivably content -him for the loss of this dear, ever-wrangling, dull-witted woman. - -Then Gerald said: “But it is prophesied that the power of Antan shall -pass to the rider upon Kalki. No harm can befall the rider upon Kalki. -So we will let—we will let our son take Kalki. For in this way we will -secure his protection, and we will remove the one chance of my ever -leaving you, who are worth all the kingdoms that have ever been.” - -Maya said, “But—” - -Gerald, smiling, replied, “Nevertheless!” - -Then the illusion called Theodorick Quentin Musgrave was lifted up by -Gerald to the back of Kalki, and it was Gerald who adjusted the stirrups -for his successor upon the divine steed. And the seeming of a child rode -down toward the goal of all the gods, a rather quaintly pathetic little -figure perched up there so high upon the back of the huge shining -stallion. - -Gerald watched the two pass out of his sight. His arms lifted after them -ever so slightly. His arms seemed to ache as he recalled the feel of -that small body and the warmth and yieldingness of it, which were now -lost forever. Theodorick Quentin Musgrave was only an illusion contrived -by forces which it was not comfortable to think about. Gerald knew that -now with certainty. And it did not matter. Nor did it cheer him to -reflect—as he did,—that he was in no worse case than all other -fathers, no one of whom might ever retain the child that was little and -helpless, and was loved for no reason at all, as nobody could quite love -the hobbledehoy thumping schoolboy or even the estimable young man into -whom that warm and yielding, sturdy, so small body might develop.... - -Then Gerald turned to Maya. “I have only you. But that which I have -suffices me. I have been lucky, O my dearest, very far beyond my -merits.” - -She was regarding him with a sort of troubled fondness; and her speech -now was hardly snappish at all. “You really are, my poor Gerald, quite -too ridiculous about the child! You talk, you actually do talk, as -though he were not ever coming back,—and in good time for supper, too, -unless he wants a spanking.” - -At that, Gerald raised a protesting hand. “Do you not trick me into -optimism, also! Too much ambition and high dreams and that which was -perhaps divine have now departed forever. The illusion which you created -to be our son has departed, forever. But use and wont and a great deal -of honest love remain. I do not say these things are heroic. I do say -that these suffice. So do you let the strong bonds which are about me -content you, my darling, without wreathing them in the paper flowers of -optimism.” - -“But are you, also,” Maya said, “content?” - -Gerald answered: “I am well content. Day in, day out, let there be -between us faith, and aid, and a great fondness, O my dear, and no -parting! For I am content and very contrite. I know that any life -without you would be a maimed business. I know that I desire only to -continue in our quiet way of living upon Mispec Moor. For the middle way -of life is best. What need have I to be a god or to be seeking -unfamiliar places so that I may rule over them? That way is troubled, -and too full of noise and striving. It is better to be content. It is -better to be content with the dear, common happenings of human life, -shared loyally with the one woman whose love for you is limitless and -does not change, for all that it is blind to none of your failings; and -to know that these things are enough and very far beyond your deserts; -and not to be insanely hankering after any more high-hearted manner of -living which is out of your reach or, at any rate, is attained through -more trouble than it is probably worth. Ah, yes, the middle way of life -is best.” - -“At least it is some comfort,” Maya said, “to hear you talking almost -sensibly.” - -Then she reached up, still with a grave and rather tender smiling upon -her beloved, homely face; and she took away from Gerald’s eyes the -rose-colored spectacles. - -“In fact,” said a male voice, “the woman’s task is ended.” - - - - - 43. - Economics of Redemption - - -FOR now had come to them, traveling back from Antan, the brown man. -This brown man came, he said, to summon Maya to her appointed task of -transforming yet other men into domestic animals. - -“—For women,” he said, also, “have always their fond task and their -beneficent labor. Here, I repeat, the woman’s task is ended. But yonder -many men go untamed and unbroken to the sane ways of compromise.” - -Then Maya a bit absent-mindedly assented, as she put away those -spectacles of hers for future use, that, in point of fact, she supposed -she had done everything that was actually necessary in Gerald’s case, -although nobody ever would really know what a trial he had been to her. - -And Gerald for one instant looked at his wife. He found in his wife’s -face that which it is the doom of most husbands to find there at one -time or another. And it caused Gerald to laugh a little. - -“Nevertheless,” Gerald said, quietly, “I am Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper -and the Preserver, the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones. I am Lord of the -Third Truth, in this world which knows of only two truths and of the -compromises which they beget.” - -The brown man greeted that with a thin smile. “You have been long -expected. Oh, very long have scepticism and despair, with somewhat -varying voices, invoked your name, saying, ‘Who will overthrow the -Master Philologist!’” - -“Well, and now,” said Gerald, with the outline of a swagger, for he was -getting himself more in hand, “now that prophecy is about to be -fulfilled, for I am Hoo, and none other.” - -“But, really, friend, I do not see how you can be an interrogative -pronoun.” - -“To a god, and more particularly to a Dirghic god, all incarnations are -possible. There is no reason whatever why I should not be an -interrogative pronoun. It is merely a matter of divine election.” - -And the brown man civilly inclined his grave brown head, as he remarked: - -“Do you have it your own way! Indeed, my people have very often derived -their deities from less promising locations than the pages of a grammar. -And upon the whole, your epiphany is most gratifying. For I try to keep -my people content: yet it has been lamented, from the beginning, that no -mythology revealed a god who might answer that word which the Master -Philologist speaks to all the gods of men. And so, between despair and -scepticism, those of my people who were so unwise as to exercise their -minds in fields wherein thinking does not make for happiness, have very -long been saying, ‘Who will redeem the goal of all the gods of men from -the Master Philologist?’ Now it appears that this word also has become -flesh; and that this interrogative pronoun Who? stands here before us. -Yes, I consider that quite gratifying; for it is desirable that the -sceptical and the despairing also should be contented, by being -justified in their faith.” - -“You quibble,” Gerald replied, “you quibble very tediously and -frivolously, in the divine presence of a god who is about to take over -his appointed kingdom, and to make known that Third Truth which is not -known upon Mispec Moor, where the one teaching is that we copulate and -die.” - -“But uncelestial common-sense has always been my failing. So I must tell -you, friend, that it seems to me, now that you have abandoned the -Redeemer’s steed to a small freckled illusion, Antan has nothing to -expect even from the mysterious awfulness of an interrogative pronoun. -And yet, for one, I abandoned the place when your dwarfed deputy -approached it—” - -“And you acted wisely, sir,” Gerald replied, with simple dignity. “No -matter how potent may be the impious sorceries of the Master -Philologist, a child has entered into his domain, fearing nothing and -loving all. The fact that the powers of evil cannot prevail against this -conjunction is well known to every citizen of the United States of -America.” - -But the brown man still seemed rather moody. “I cannot say.... No, you -and my friend Jahveh have, between you, loosed against Antan a power -which is not of my kingdom. I therefore do not pretend to say what may -come of the experiment. I merely await with lively interest, and at a -reassuring distance, the upshot of this experiment, now that—of all the -beings from beyond Earth’s orbit,—Abdel-Hareth has been deputed to ride -upon the Redeemer’s steed.” - -“And, in any case, it is always very certain, dearie,” Maya said, “that -no real comfort can ever come of such foolish notions as I have ridded -you of a little by a little. And in exchange for those toplofty dreams, -I have trusted you as far as seemed expedient, and I have given you all -that was really good for you. I have given you a season of content and -every wholesome joy of domesticity now for some thirty years of mortal -time. No man gets more from life, my poor dearie. None attempts to get -more without ending in disappointment and discontent: and so no sane man -tries to get any more than you have had. And the end finds even the most -wise and reasonable son of Adam—though, to be sure, that is not saying -much,—if he but lives rationally enough to survive all thirty of those -quiet happy years, with a wife who is just as I am, whatever she may -have seemed to begin with.” - -Gerald saw, without any grief or horror, that he had now lost both his -child and his wife. For Maya had become old. She was again the -shrivelled and wrinkled creature, red and inflamed and hideous among her -tousled tresses, that he had first found upon Mispec Moor. And -fleetingly he reflected that she spoke the truth: all women, howsoever -dear and beautiful, did become like that, provided they did not first -die and become even more repulsive carrion.... But Gerald lacked time to -discuss these generalities just now: for he had been looking toward -Antan.... - -“To this chatter about domesticity and pessimism and content,” Gerald -replied sternly, “I answer that the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones is -above all aphorisms. I answer that I am Hoo, the Lord of that Third -Truth whose nature is unknown to you. Now that Third Truth is loosed. Do -you look now upon Antan!” - -The woman and the Adversary had turned when Gerald pointed, quite as -majestically as though he knew just what he was talking about. In the -midst of Antan they could see, as Gerald had already seen, a flaring -green flame. Now this great flaming sunk earthward, much as the waters -of a fountain descend; the flame spread evenly to every side, sweeping -outward in an ever-widening circle; and now this flaming was no longer -green, but red and glowing. You saw this flood of fire pass equably and -swiftly, surging outward toward the horizon, where at once the mountains -collapsed and disappeared. All that remained was flat and black and -bare. Antan no longer existed. - -It was from such a miracle that the woman and the Adversary looked back -toward Gerald, with every sign of sincere respect. - -And Gerald’s bewilderment was rather more profound than theirs. He could -surmise only that the dreadful being to whom he had given Kalki had held -to its plan, as voiced by the lips of a child, and had loosed elemental -fires of a nature incomprehensible to Gerald, since they were drawn from -beyond Earth’s orbit. Yet that seemed to Gerald no real reason for -marring a fine attitude or for failing to preserve his self-respect -before the woman and the Adversary. Tricked he might have been: that was -a wholly different thing from ever admitting that he had been tricked. -Gerald knew at least that the illusion which had appeared to be his son -had entered the perhaps equally illusory place where Gerald now might -never enter; and that, whatever had befallen the best loved but one of -his illusions, the rider upon the silver stallion had destroyed Antan. -And it seemed obvious, too, that Abdel-Hareth had returned homeward.... - -Therefore Gerald claimed with a clear conscience the miracle which -Gerald had, in fact, actually performed, at one remove. And Gerald kept -his long chin, resolutely, well up.... - -“So that,” observed the brown man, quietly, “that is the end of Antan. I -do not complain.” - -“I had forgotten,” then said the wrinkled old woman who had been Maya of -the Fair Breasts, “I had forgotten how wilful is that Abdel-Hareth who -got his being upon Earth from me. Something of this sort was to be -looked for, the first moment that the headstrong wretch was freed from -my control. Still, Jahveh has gained less than we have gained through -Jahveh’s meddling. Abdel-Hareth has served me even at the last by -removing Antan from the horizon. Earth will be quieter now; and my -daughters will not be so hard put to it to keep men in reasonable -order.” - -“I forget nothing,” the brown man remarked, drily. “And so I did not -await the coming of your first-born in the likeness of a child whose -fearless innocence surmounts all evil. For it was the seeming of a -little child who rode up against Antan, you conceive, with every -appearance of that faith against which the snares of no sorcerer and of -hardly nine women in ten can prevail. Such innocence is a quite -dangerous counterfeit. For one, I do not meddle with it nor with any -other unearthly phenomenon. I have my realm. It suffices me.” - -The woman asked, “But what, what, Janicot, do you suppose has happened?” - -“How shall we ever know, dear Havvah, when manifestly there are no -survivors of that happening? Antan, in any case, is no loss to us.” - -Here Gerald broke in upon their talking; and Gerald shook at them his -red head lordlily. - -“You little creatures guess in vain at the means which I have employed. -And equally in vain will you supplicate me to reveal those means. For I -shall tell you nothing. It is sufficient that the Well-beloved of -Heavenly Ones has accomplished the mission of his tenth incarnation with -a thoroughness not customary in interrogative pronouns. I came to redeem -my appointed kingdom from the rule of usurpers. I came as the Lord of -that Third Truth which is unknown to those who teach only that we -copulate and die. That Third Truth has been loosed. No, I shall tell you -nothing of its nature, for you are not fit to comprehend the Third -Truth. But the mightiness of it your own eyes have witnessed. So Antan -is now redeemed—” - -His voice broke here. But Gerald presently continued: - -“Antan is now redeemed at a great price. That woman and that child to -whom my heart was given have perished. I remain. I know that these two -were illusions. Nevertheless, I remain. There is no bond upon the Lord -of the Third Truth to be happy: there is a strong bond upon every Helper -and Preserver not to evade the full discharge of his mission. What, you -may ask of me, is the mission of the Lord of the Third Truth? And I will -reply to you out of my divine wisdom. It is the mission of the Lord of -the Third Truth, howsoever he may palter or struggle against his doom, -to destroy that which he most loves.” - - - - - 44. - Economics of Common-Sense - - -NOW Gerald sat with his head bowed. He heard a talking between the old -woman who had been his Maya and the brown man who was the Adversary of -all the gods of men. - -“What is it men desire?” said the woman. “My daughters prepare for them -fine food and drink, my daughters see to it that their homes are snug, -and at the end of each day my daughters love them dutifully. All things -that men can ask for, my daughters furnish them. Why need men cherish -strange desires which do not know their aims? for how can any of my -daughters content such desires?” - -“I also marvel at the desires of men,” replied the Adversary. “I, too, -am ready to accord whatsoever a man can ask for sensibly and in plain -words. I, who am the Prince of this world, remain a generous and -ever-indulgent monarch. I will to make my people happy. My curious -opulence awaits at every hand to afford my subjects whatsoever they can -ask. But men want more. They desire that which was never in my kingdom. -They have followed after impalpable gods: they have been enamored of -phantoms. They have believed that their desire was in Antan, in part -because they did not know what was their desire, and in part because -they did not know what was Antan. Yes, it is well that Antan has -perished.” - -“This world is well enough,” the woman said. “It is well to be born into -this world of an ever-loving mother. It is well to be a young man in -this world wherein one may follow after young women and be cherished by -them. There is soft living in this world when you have come as near -discretion as men ever get and have had the wit to find a wife to take -care of you. And at the end it is well to fare out of this world quietly -and incuriously, with a deft-handed woman to nurse you and to wash your -body afterward. But men want more.” - -“This world is very good. My kingdom is a wholly sufficing kingdom,” -agreed the Adversary. “The wise man, as goes human wisdom, will be -content with the inexhaustible goodness of those material things which -all are mine. For the five senses are an endless comfort; the five -senses are an endless store of anodynes. A man may purchase bodily ease -and a drugged brain with his five senses. But men want more.” - -“So they have passed beyond my daughters,” the woman said. “One by one, -a many have passed, perversely and so lonely, from all my daughters -could contrive to content them: and one by one a host of demented -romantic men have struggled toward Antan, and toward what befalls all -mortals and immortals there. Yes, it is very well that Antan has -perished.” - -“One by one,” said the Adversary, “they have derided my kingdom. They -have followed after impalpable gods. These gods passed futilely. But -they drew many of my subjects from me, all to be lost forever in that -beguiling Antan.” - -“Men are great fools, and my daughters can hardly hamper their folly. -That which my daughters can do they perform willingly. But not all men -could my daughters preserve from the madness which drew men toward Antan -and into ruinous desires to judge the goal of every god. At last, Antan -has fallen: it is very well.” - -The Adversary said, more leniently: “Men are, beyond doubt, great fools. -But they are my people; and those that I can save I save. Yet many evade -me. And their dreaming troubles all my realm and me, too, they trouble -now and then. But Antan has fallen: and after that foolishness at least -my people will not be following any more.” - -“The daughters of Eve are not troubled now and then, they are troubled -at every moment, by the dreams of men. Such of these blundering men as -fond and eternal laboring may save, my daughters win away from their -toplofty dreams. But the work is hard; the work is endless; and our -losses are many.” - -And then the Adversary said: “We two who began in the Garden to contrive -for the happiness of men, and to be speaking always for the real good of -men,—yes, certainly, our work is hard and endless. For men stay -romantically minded creatures who aspire beyond my kingdom. Yet we do -not despair.” - - - - - 45. - Farewell to All Fair Welfare - - -WHEN Gerald raised his head he was alone on the naked moor, for the -brown man had departed, and Maya had gone away with the first of all her -lovers, and her illusions had vanished, including the neat log and -plaster cottage. And mists were creeping up from the ruined kingdom of -Antan, in billows of ever-thickening gray which seemed to be the smoke -from that great burning. - -Then Gerald said: - -“I have come out of my native home on a gain-less journeying with no -profit in it: yet there has been pleasure in that journeying. I do not -complain. Let every man that must journey, without ever knowing why, -from the dark womb of his mother to the dark womb of his grave, take -pattern by me! - -“For all that every pleasure is departed from me, I have had pleasure. I -do not grieve because I have gained nothing in my journeying. The great -and best words of the Master Philologist stay unrevealed; that supreme -word which was in the beginning, and which will be when all else has -perished, I may not surmise: but I have played with many words which -were rather pretty. In the art of magic which I chose to be my art I -have performed no earth-shaking wonders, yet in small thaumaturgies I -have had some hand. I did not ride the divine steed to my journey’s end: -but a part of the way I rode quite royally. - -“That which I heard of from afar I have not won to in my foiled -journeying. So I now cry farewell to that Queen Freydis whom, I suspect, -I might have loved with a great love if lesser women had not solicited -me. I cry farewell to the Mirror of the Hidden Children in which, I -believe, I might have found myself as I am, and might have come to -knowledge of the Third Truth. And I cry farewell to Antan, to that -never-won-to goal of all the gods which was, I think, my appointed -kingdom. I have surmised high things. I have gained none of them. My -doom has been a little doom. It contents me. - -“I may well be content, because all that a man may hope for I have had, -who have learned at least that the lot of a man is more sure than the -lot of any god. For the deceit which you put upon me, O venerable and -subtle Æsred, I cry out my gratitude. There was the seeming of a home -and of a woman who loved and tended me and of a child. I may not speak -of my love for these illusions. Now they have perished. But my memories -remain: and they are more dear to me than is any real thing. - -“All, all, is perished! It may be that I have offended the two truths -which I did not esteem sufficiently august. And I who willed to be Lord -of the Third Truth have found no third truth anywhere. I have found only -comfortably colored illusions. But I am content with that which I have -found here upon Mispec Moor.” - -In the while that Gerald had been speaking, the mists rose thicker and -thicker from destroyed Antan. He had noted in the while that he spoke -how the first wavering thin billows crept tentatively up the hills and -along the roadway, creeping upon the ground, and under the low-swinging -tree branches, with, as it seemed, a pre-meditated furtiveness; and -then, as if emboldened by finding the way unopposed, these mists had -risen up from the ground, always swiftlier, until now they had eclipsed -all. Gerald, now that he ended his talking, could see nothing palpable -anywhere save the little patch of intermingled stone and grass -immediately beneath his feet; and about him everywhere were the cool -mists, lighted with a diffused gray radiancy which seemed to come from -all sides. - - - - - PART ELEVEN - THE BOOK OF REMNANTS - - “When Wages are Paid, Work is Over.” - - - - - 46. - The Gray Quiet Way of Ruins - - -GERALD now was wandering among thick luminous gray mists, on a gray -way which led through long quieted places. It led him to a -weather-beaten pavilion of badly stained and tattered cloth which once -had been flesh-colored. - -Within this pavilion was a masked skeleton. The gleaming bones sat -upright, and in unmarred order, in a gilded chair. A fan lay in the lap -of this skeleton, a fan that was painted with the gay amours of -Harlequin and Columbine, which Pierrot was observing, wistfully, through -a gap in a yew-hedge: and the skeleton wore a little black velvet -carnival mask, which covered all the upper front part of the skull, -about the eye-sockets. - -And beyond that was a castle, whose exterior was overlaid with cracked -and peeling black-and-gold lacquer work. This castle was empty -everywhere of any inhabitant. Gerald passed through its courtyard and -about many large rooms and corridors, all hung with faded, very ancient -tapestries. He encountered nobody. Then he came to the inmost tower, -builded of horn, and so into the room which had been the bedchamber of -the lord of that castle, and he perceived the reason why not even mice -nor spiders dared to dwell in that place. - -Afterward Gerald came to a dragon’s den. But the dragon was dead long -ago, and the cupboards of that den were as empty as had been the castle -of Vraidex, except for a pepper cruet and a salt cruet, both of -time-blackened silver, and a light golden semi-circular crown inset with -emeralds such as blonde princesses were used to wear in that dragon’s -heyday. - -Thence Gerald passed to a jousting ground, and that too was tenantless -and fallen into decay. In the paved place where knights had tilted -against one another lay at random nineteen broken spears and three -tarnished shields. In the ladies’ gallery Gerald found only a chamber -pot. The hangings of this gallery were discolored and torn, but you -could yet see that these hangings had been of black cloth embroidered -with small rearing silver horses. - -And Gerald came also to a green pasture through which flowed unruffled a -deep stream of still water. This pasture was strewn everywhere with many -curious objects. He noted a crozier, and a wheel, and a camel-hair -shirt, and a huge gridiron, and a copper dish containing the breasts of -a young woman. He found in that pasture also a porcelain box of -ointment, and a great saw, and a blue hat, and a large iron comb, which -like the saw had long-dried blood upon its teeth, and a palm branch, and -two enormous, very rusty keys marked with the monogram S. P. - -Then Gerald passed where three crosses lay overturned. - -And beyond that the way was yet more murky. To this hand and the other -hand Gerald could just dimly divine the ruined porticos and domes and -pylons of incredibly ancient buildings: he seemed to go among obelisks -and many-storied square towers. But all was very gray and dubious. He -wandered now in a cloudiness wherein not anything was indisputable. - -He passed across a narrow bridge beneath which showed a dark and -sluggish river. In that water Gerald could see moving, many-colored -figures which were not strange to him. For Evasherah was there, and -Evaine, and Evarvan, and Evadne also, smiling at him now for the last -time, and he could see how notably they had all resembled one another. -And yet one more woman was there, a blue-clad woman in a crown just such -as Maya had worn before she became his wife, but the face of this woman -Gerald could not clearly discern. - -And upon the farther bank of the dark river one sat among a herd of -black swine, and the eyes of all these swine gleamed meditatively at -Gerald through their ragged white lashes. The man arose: and Gerald saw -this swine-driver was that same young red-haired Horvendile who was Lord -of the Marches of Antan. - -Then Horvendile began to speak. - - - - - 47. - How Horvendile Gave Up the Race - - -HORVENDILE spoke of the race of Manuel, and of the joy, and the -vexation, too, which the antics of this so inadequate race had been to -Horvendile. And it was of Merlin that Gerald was thinking now, for it -seemed to him that here was yet another poet who did not any longer -delight to shape and to play with puppets, because Horvendile was -saying: - -“Now I abandon a race whose needs are insatiable. For tall Manuel lived -always wanting what he had not ever found, and never, quite, knowing -what thing it was which he wanted, and without which he might not ever -be contented. And Jurgen also, after Heaven’s very best had been done to -grant him what he sought for, could reply only that he was Jurgen who -sought he knew not what. And all their descendants have been like these -maddening two in this at least, all seeking after they could not say -what. Nobody can do anything for such a race! For their needs have -stayed insatiable: their journeying has been, in every land and in every -time, a foiled journeying: and in the end, in the inevitable unvarying -end, each one of you treads that gray quiet way of ruins which leads -hither and to no other place.” - -“Well, for that matter,” Gerald said, “it seems that you too, -Horvendile, have some engagement in this hog wallow.” - -“I endeavor, in point of fact, to become familiar with this last stretch -of limbo, against the time of my own possible need not ever to be -remembered anywhere.” - -“—And for my part, I came of my own choice and in self-protection,” -Gerald continued, with his chin well up. “For I must tell you, -Horvendile, that I have had little peace since our last meeting.” - -Then Gerald (putting out of mind those attendant, very hungry looking -pigs) related the epic of his journeying, without reserving anything out -of false modesty, now that he talked with a confrère. He told of how he -had descended into the underwater palace of the Princess Evasherah and -of the orgies which he had shared in. He spoke, a bit contritely, of the -amorous excesses he had been led into by the wives and the three hundred -and fifty-odd concubines of Glaum during their master’s absence. With -unconcealed embarrassment he told of how the people of Lytreia had -endeavored to detain him in their temple, to reign there as their tribal -god, because they found his nose to be so much more majestic than the -idol they hitherto had worshipped. He confessed to his dalliance with -the enamored Fox-Spirit. He frankly admitted that he had not behaved -well in seducing Evarvan and then deserting her after her marvelous -beauty had become to him an old story. He told of how Queen Freydis had -come repeatedly to him with the most generous proffers of her realm and -person; and he spoke of this matter with visible compunction, because he -could not deny that after three or four bouts he had repulsed the -infatuated poor lady rather rudely. - -In fine, said Gerald, since every man ought honestly to acknowledge his -own weaknesses, he could get no real peace in the Marches of Antan. So -at the last he had stolen away, into this quiet, gray untroubled place, -of his own accord, just to be rid of so many persons who took unfair -advantage of his over-amiable and fiery nature.... - -And Horvendile, at the end of Gerald’s repentant narrative, observed: “I -comprehend. You have been, in brief, the devil of a fellow and a sad rip -among the ladies.” - -“Oh, but you wrong me! Such a suspicion is very horrifying and quite -unjust! No, it is merely that not even Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and -Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, and the Well-beloved of Heavenly -Ones, is immune to over-constant temptation.” - -And at that, Horvendile shrugged. “A god with so many fine titles is not -to be argued with. In any case, do you be of good cheer, for even after -all these regrettable amours, and beyond the mire that my swine delight -in, the Princess still awaits you.” - -“But in what place?” said Gerald, “and how is she called?” - -“She awaits in every place so long as youth remains—” - -“Upon my word, now, Horvendile, but that is the truth, and a rather -plaguing truth!” - -“—However, this especial Princess is called, as it chances, -Evangeline—” - -“Oh, come!” said Gerald, “come now, but really, my dear fellow—!” - -“—And at your first sight of her you will be enraptured. For this -Princess Evangeline is so surpassingly lovely that she excels all the -other women your gaze has ever beheld—” - -“I know,” said Gerald. “Her face is the proper shape, it is -appropriately colored everywhere, and it is surmounted with an adequate -quantity of hair.” - -“—Nor,” Horvendile went on, with rising enthusiasm, “is it possible to -find any defect in her features—” - -“No: for, doubtless, the colors of this beautiful young girl’s two eyes -are nicely matched, and her nose stands just equidistant between them. -Beneath this is her mouth; and she has also a pair of ears.” - -“In fine,” said Horvendile, with his hands aflourish above his attendant -pigs, “the Princess is young, she exhibits no absolute deformity -anywhere, and your enamored glance will therefore perceive in her no -fault, because of that magic which in the Marches of Antan the Two -Truths exercise over all vigorous young persons.” - -“You very movingly depict a woman of extraordinary and, I have not the -least doubt, resistless charm. Nevertheless, I cannot any longer be -wandering about a place wherein there are only two truths, and where the -magic of these Two Truths is forever meddling with my young body, for -the gods of the Marches of Antan do not content me.” - -Then Horvendile replied: “Men have found many gods. But these gods pass. -They descend into Antan, and they do not return. One god and one goddess -alone do not pass. They remain eternally, if but to weave eternally a -mist about the seeing and the thinking of the young, and thus to secure -the existence of yet other young persons within a month or so.” - -“With observations to that same general effect,” Gerald answered, “I am -not unfamiliar. But let us make the thing complete! Do you now voice, -here in your murky pigsty, one or another long-winded restatement of the -fact that time disastrously affects all organic material. You will then, -I think, have summed up the entire philosophy of the Marches of Antan. -Perhaps it is a true philosophy. Nevertheless, that philosophy is a -morbid materialism such as does not amuse me, who am a self-respecting -citizen of the United States of America. No: I had far rather play with -a beautiful idea than with one utterly lacking in seductiveness. So I -prefer to think that the gods and the dreams of men pass to a noble and -a worthy goal—” - -It was then that Horvendile sighed, a bit despondently. “Ah, Gerald, but -how may you presume to speak of such matters, who did not attain to -Antan?” - -“My friend,” replied Gerald, affably, “I was too wise to risk any such -indiscretion. No: I did not enter into my appointed kingdom; and I have -destroyed it. Therefore it must remain, so long as I remain, whatever I -choose to imagine it. I retain the privilege of playing with a beautiful -idea, in just the proper half-remorseful frame of mind which begets the -most luxuriant fancies—” - -“But—” Horvendile began. - -“No, my dear fellow, you are quite wrong.” - -Horvendile said, “Still—” - -“Yes, there is something in that, at first glance, yet it does not -really touch the root of the matter.” - -Horvendile protested, “I was but going to say—” - -“I know! I perfectly comprehend your argument. And I admit that you -phrase it forcefully. The trouble is that you are wrong in your -underlying principle.” - -Horvendile said, “However—” - -“Yes, but not always,” Gerald stated. “For the one way for a poet to -appreciate the true loveliness of a place is not ever to go to it. No, -Horvendile, a poet is not to be fobbed off with facts. No matter what -the surrounding facts might be, all poets from Prometheus to Jurgen have -preferred a beautiful idea to play with. So a logical poet will always -destroy his appointed kingdom, because in this way only can he convert -it into a beautiful idea. Therefore for me, who am a poet of sorts, to -have entered into my appointed kingdom would have been woefully -shiftless. I would have had henceforward only one kingdom. But, as it -is, I can remake the destroyed place several times a day, in my -imaginings, and can every time rebuild it more beautifully. I have thus -a thousand kingdoms, each one of them more lovely than the other. To-day -it will be Evasherah who awaits me there, among all the splendor and the -perfume and the sunlit lewdness of the most ancient East: to-morrow the -sweet singing of feathery-legged Evadne will summon me to a quite -different Antan, which then will be a sea-engirdled, low-lying tropic -island: but the day after that, far more idyllic lures will be recalling -me to that pastel-colored, pastoral and rather populous Antan which is -inhabited by all the many dreams that I had in youth, and is to be made -my strictly personal heaven by the pure lips of Evarvan. Whereas, upon -yet other occasions,—when my turn of mind takes on a more scholastic -turn,—I shall know that in Antan awaits me each paragraph of the -profound, wide erudition of Evaine.... But more often, Horvendile, I -shall think of yet another woman and of a boy child, who were not -wonderful in anything, but who for a while seemed mine. And I shall -believe that these two wait for me, in a much more prosaic Antan; and I -shall know that no magic, howsoever mightier than the less aspiring -dreams of my manhood, can afford to me anything more dear.... For all -that one needs, Horvendile, I have had. Antan could boast of nothing -more desirable, to me, than that which I have had. So now not any power -can ever quell my thankfulness for those illusions which have made sport -with me for my allotted while. And I cry out defiantly, among your -waiting swine, in this gray place of endless ruining, I am content...!” - -Then Horvendile replied: “A fool with so many fine words at his tongue’s -tip, a fool also is not to be argued with. For it is a foolishness -beyond any describing, to believe that Antan can be destroyed by you or -by anybody else. Ah, no! your kingdom awaited you, poor Gerald: but you -faltered, you fell away into domesticity,—and you talked! Now it is the -Master Philologist who, through the might of that word which was in the -beginning, and which will be when all else has perished, has removed -your kingdom from your reach, and from your seeing, and even from your -quite whole-hearted belief, forever. Now it is your only comfort to -poultice your failure with such foolish phrases. And now also it is I -who tell you that for such faltering and for such failure, and for such -phrases, there is possible but one answer.” - -Thereafter Horvendile gave Gerald a queer word of power, and Horvendile -took out of his pocket a little mirror three inches square. You heard in -the duskiness a flapping of small vigorous wings. Then three white -pigeons stood among the swine, at the feet of Horvendile. He did what -was requisite: and Gerald thus came straightway into a place which was -not unfamiliar. - - - - - PART TWELVE - THE BOOK OF ACQUIESCENCE - - “Candor is no More Palatable than an - Oyster when Either is Out of Season.” - - - - - 48. - Fruits of the Sylan’s Industry - - -GERALD came thus into the library in which, no more than four months -ago, as it appeared to him, he had quitted his natural body. Lights -burned there, but the room was empty. - -Nor did he perceive any marked signs of change. Most of his books were -very much as he had left them. Upon the bookcases were still ranged his -porcelain and brass animals and birds and reptiles. Investigation, -though, revealed the addition to this diminutive fauna of a rather -charming china cat,—a black cat, fast asleep, with a red ribbon about -its neck,—and of a small ivory elephant, which also was black, but had -white tusks. - -The chairs, he saw, had been recovered, but it was with a figured stuff -of much the same design and color. The rug that once had been his -mother’s was still underfoot; and the curtains, while new looking, were -of just the same repulsive shade of green velvet that by candle light -turned yellowish. - -“It is a quite detestable color. I had always intended to change those -curtains so soon as I could afford it, for a green with some real life -in it. I can but deduce that my body has remained remarkably -conservative through all these thirty years which have seemed to me only -a month or two. My body has evinced commendable industry, also, for here -are dozens upon dozens of books by Gerald Musgrave.” - -It seemed a bit droll thus to be confronted with so much strange work -performed by his own natural body,—thought out in his own brain cells, -and written with his own hand,—during the time that these chattels had -been entrusted to the Sylan. Yet the results were gratifying. - -For here were not any folderol romances such as Gerald himself, he felt -uneasily, might have perhaps contrived with those brain cells and that -hand, romances which at best would have wasted his readers’ time, and at -worst might have incited unedifying and improper notions. Instead, these -quartos were all serious and learned and scholastic works. Gerald -therefore regarded these large quartos with a justifiable pride and with -profound respect. Their very bindings were in themselves as incompatible -with anything frivolous as were their contents with any unscientific -double meanings. These books had the fine clarity of a physician in -conference with a midwife. Moreover, Gerald’s admiring eyes found nearly -every page empedestalled upon the most impressive looking kind of -footnotes: upon tall footnotes in almost illegibly small type; upon huge -polyglottic footnotes very full of numerals and brackets, which -flatteringly assumed your acquaintance with all human tongues and your -possession of all printed books, so that you could be referred offhand -to such and such a page of an especial edition; and upon footnotes which -appeared to quote from the literature of every known language after -having abbreviated the title of each cited volume into -unintelligibility. - -For these quartos dealt with no romantic nonsense such as the phantasms -with which novels vitiate the intelligence and the morals of their -readers, Gerald observed, but with really worth-while ethnographic -matters like the marriage customs of all lands, and the ways of male and -female prostitution among the different races, and with the history in -each country of paederasty, and of lesbianism, and of bestiality, and of -necrophily, and of incest, and of sodomy, and of onanism, and of all -manifestations of the sexual impulse in every era. There, in a more -imaginative vein, were the _Tentative Restoration of the Lost Books of -Elephantis_, the handsomely illustrated _Seed of Minos_, the doctoral -thesis upon _Lingham Worship_, the _Fertility Rites of the Sabbat_, the -privately published _Myth of Anistar and Calmoora_, the _Study of -Priapos_, and the various other monumental works which, although Gerald -did not know this, had already made Gerald Musgrave’s name familiar to -the lecture halls of all universities and the pages of the more learned -reviews. - -These quartos were, in fine, the books which had made Gerald Musgrave -the most famous and widely read of American ethnologists; and by his -body’s industry and erudition and broad-mindedness Gerald was properly -impressed. Here seemed, indeed, to be at least one complete and -scholarly treatise devoted to the historical development and the -mechanics and the literature of every known manifestation of the great -forces which had created all life. - -“Yes, it is really edifying to note with what zeal and common-sense my -body—while I was a-gypsying with over-ambitious follies,—has -decorously set up as the recorder of historical and scientific truths.” - -Then Gerald found upon the next shelf some fourteen tall scrapbooks. -They were full of what the newspapers had printed in laudation and in -the most respectful criticism of the books of Gerald Musgrave. They -contained, also, accounts of the academic honors conferred upon Gerald -Musgrave. They were interleaved with the letters which had been -written—the majority, of course, by that strange race which writes -habitually to authors, but many of them, apparently, by persons of some -consequence,—to Gerald Musgrave about his books. - -“My body in my absence has become, thanks to my body’s books, a -reputable and even a looked-up-to citizen. My body is by way of being, -indeed, a personage. I note, too, with that interest appropriate to the -foibles of the great, that my body has also become a somewhat vain old -magpie, gathering up through thirty years every scrap of paper which -happens to display my name.” - -Next Gerald lighted on a black box with silver corners, and inside it -was a time-discolored manuscript. This Gerald carried to the -writing-table. And he found it that unfinished romance about his heroic -ancestor, Dom Manuel of Poictesme, just ninety-three pages of it, -precisely as Gerald had left it, with no word changed or added. - -“There was not in my natural body sufficient power to sustain the high -inspiration of my youth. So, very sensibly, my body has found other -pursuits, and through them it has become a personage. I do not complain. -Not every body becomes a personage. Even so, it seems a pity to have -denied to mankind the loveliness already created in this fragment.” - -But it was just then that the door opened. In the doorway stood a man in -late middle life. And Gerald now for one instant regarded his natural -body and all the dilapidations which time had performed upon that body. - -And Gerald somehow comprehended the penned-in and eventless and -self-sacrificing, arduous life of the famous scholar, the life which had -been lived so long by the natural body of Gerald Musgrave. That blinking -magpie, in this somewhat stuffy room,—in the midst of this childish -menagerie of small cats and elephants and dogs and parrots and chickens -and camels and other imbecile toys,—day after day compiled the valuable -and interesting matter in those quartos and the trivial magniloquence in -those scrapbooks. And that, virtually, was all he ever did. Such was his -living in a world profuse in so many agreeabilities,—to be tasted and -seen, to be smelt and heard and handled, at absolutely your own -discretion, in this so opulent world wherein anyone could live very -royally, and with never-failing ardor, upon every person’s patrimony of -the five human senses. - -Meanwhile, such self-devotion had paid, under time’s grasping -governance, an exorbitant tax. The impaired shrunk body was unhealthy -looking. Under each of the wavering dim eyes showed a peculiar white -splotch. The skin of the noted scholar was pasty and seemed greasy. He -had hardly any hair except those gray and untended whiskers. Everywhere -he was shrivelled and lean, except for the abrupt, the surprising, -protrusion of a large paunch. He self-evidently had inadequate kidneys, -and an impaired heart, and defective teeth, and a sluggish liver, and -approximately every other drawback to a sedentary person’s late middle -life. - -The body of this ornament to scholarship and letters was, in fine, a -quite disgusting bit of wreckage, in need of patching up everywhere; and -a fallen god, when thus confronted by the work of time and of much study -and of intramural living, might very well shake his red ever-busy head -over the one refuge now remaining to down-tumbled divinity. - -Nevertheless, Gerald spoke the queer word of power which Horvendile had -given him. There followed for Gerald an instant of dizziness, of a -moment’s blindness.... - -Then Gerald found that it was he who stood at the door of the library -peering into the quiet lamp-lit room. Before him waited a red-headed, -slim young man in a blue coat and a golden yellow waistcoat, with a tall -white stock and very handsome ruffles about his throat. And the young -fellow was smiling at Gerald Musgrave with a rather womanish mouth, and -in the eyes of the boy was a half-lazy, mildly humorous mockery. - -Old Gerald Musgrave adored him with an ardor which was half hatred. Then -he saw that the young fellow did not matter, and that Gerald Musgrave -had bargained well. - - - - - 49. - Triumph of the Two Truths - - -“THAT is a strange and glorious word for you to be telling me,” the -boy began. “That is a disastrous bargain for you to be seeking. For your -own will has spoken the revealing word which buys back your natural body -now that your outworn crumbling body is of no more worth.” - -Gerald answered: “I, who have left the Marches of Antan forever, have -bought freedom from the ever-meddling magic of the Two Truths. At my -first sight of no other female body which is not positively deformed -will I become enraptured. I have bought feet too old for errancy, ears -that are deaf to the high gods, and to the heart-stirring music of great -myths, and to the soft wheedling of women also, and I have bought eyes -too dim to note whether or not Antan still gleams on the horizon. It is -a good bargain.” - -Then he took up again the pages of that thirty-year-old romance. That -too remains, he reflected, unfinished, like all else which I have ever -undertaken.... - -Some day it will be completed by other hands than the thin wrinkled -hands before me. Somebody else,—not born, as yet, it may be,—will be -writing out,—intelligibly, anyhow,—the story of Poictesme and of the -Redeemer of Poictesme and of his fine followers and many children,—but -not half so splendidly as I was going to write it. Somebody else will, -by and by, be beleaguering and entering into—by means of the little, -yet the not wholly despicable, art of letters,—that wonder-haunted -province which—yes, that also,—was a part of my appointed kingdom.... -Somebody else will be laying open the fair ways to Bellegarde and to -Amneran and to Storisende, and will be making free these ways to every -person, so that, through the lean lesser art of letters, Poictesme may -become in some sort another Antan,—an Antan perhaps considerably abated -in splendor, but graced at least with easy accessibility.... - -Yet not even such slight triumphs were to be won by aged feet, and by -ears no longer acute, and by dimming eyes, and by pulses which would not -be riotous ever any more. He tore up the pages one by one, just as, he -recollected now, in the land of Lytreia, Evaine had torn up the sacred -fig-leaves. Glaum had said that the fig-leaf was the true symbol of -romance. Gerald meditatively dropped the destroyed fragments of his -romance into the waste-basket. - -Gerald spoke then without any too great hopefulness. “Has my body, -during your inhabitancy of it, my dear fellow, escaped from Evelyn -Townsend? and gone free from the unmerited blessing of a good woman’s -love?” - -The red-headed boy before him replied, discreetly: “Your body and the -body of your Cousin Evelyn have always been such good friends!” - -And Gerald smiled. “I recognize that phrase. So throughout thirty years -Lichfield has never once forgotten its polite formula for exorcising the -inadmissible!” - -“It has been generally felt,” the youngster answered, “that a prominent -man of letters was entitled to his Egeria. Of recent years, to be sure, -your friendship has not been—we will say,—so ardent nor so frequently -manifested. But there has been, to hold you two together, the boy -begotten by your body upon her body. There has been the long usage to -hold you two together. So your friendship has remained unshattered.” - -“I had forgotten,” Gerald said, “the boy. Yes, I remember hearing that -you had thoughtfully provided me with offspring during my absence. I -know not quite how to thank you, my dear fellow, for a favor so delicate -and so personal. We will therefore cough and drop the subject.” - -Then Gerald leaned back in the chair. He put together his finger-tips, -and smilingly he looked at them with rather tired, old eyes. - -“So I stay faithful to one woman, after all! I have been kept in -everything a model American citizen. I have gracefully adhered to the -code of a gentleman. In my private life I have evinced every proper -respect for the chivalrous sacrament of adultery between social equals. -In the field of my professional labors I have composed no puerile and -lascivious romances, but only serious and instructive works. I am, in -brief, in all respects, a credit to my native Lichfield, and, more -generally, to the United States of America.” - -He shrugged. He spread out those old-looking, futile hands. - -“Well, certainly I must not spoil the miracle. So I submit. I yield to -the demands of propriety. I accept my personal good behavior; I accept -my success; and I accept also my measure of actual famousness.” - -Then Gerald said: “Therefore I must, so long as my life lasts, continue -faithfully your work as the recorder of historical and scientific -truths, since it was such truths which brought my name into famousness. -Oh, yes, you may depend upon it, I shall henceforward honor these fine -truths within the limits advisable for anybody now nearing sixty. I -shall serve them, that is, with my pen rather than with other -instruments now perhaps more fallible. For the trained intelligence of -such a famous scholar as I have become cannot deny their proper -importance to those scientific and historical truths which brought him -into famousness,—nor would, of course, my admirers care to have me -abandoning my métier.” - -And Gerald said also: “Even in the private relations which you have -chivalrously preserved for me, my dear fellow, one must not ask -everything. Wheresoever a man lives, there will be a thornbush near his -door: and I can manage well enough, I daresay, to put up with the -continuance of this illicit love-affair,—in which, after all, my -advanced age now protects me from being put to any frequent or -far-reaching inconvenience. Meanwhile, the legend of a life-long illicit -love-affair is a very splendid preservative for the fame of any writer. -It would have been even better, of course, if in conjugating the verb to -love, you had managed to make a few mistakes in gender; that is more -piquant; that is infallible: still, I repeat, one must not ask -everything. I have my satisfying legend of private immorality, created -without any least trouble on my part. Men will remember it. So all ends -very well indeed. I am content with what I have found upon Mispec Moor. -I am content with what I have found in Lichfield. And I shall not bother -any more about Antan, wherein, for one reason and another, I have found -nothing.” - -“Do you not be speaking lightly of Antan! For I—do you not -understand?”—the young man spoke with an almost frightened -elation,—“it is I who am called to reign in Antan. You have brought me -the revealing word and the dreadful summons of Horvendile. Antan is my -appointed kingdom, into which I shall now be entering upon the silver -stallion famous in old prophecies.” - -“Oh, oh!” said Gerald, “so that is how it is! All ends, again, with that -rather hackneyed scoring _Da capo_. And the eternal quest of Antan -continues, for all that I have no part in it....” - -Yet the boy’s joyousness and proud faith appeared to old Gerald Musgrave -pitiable beyond thought. Gerald, now that he was fifty-eight, was of -course not really troubled by that pitiableness, because all actual -commiseration and sympathy for other persons had withered in him along -with the rest of youth’s over-upsetting emotions. Besides, Gerald saw -that, in logic, as a plain question of arithmetic, the boy did not -matter. A million or so other lads more or less like this enthusiastic -young fellow were at that instant preparing for the same downcasting and -failure; and by and by these lads also would be facing their own -unimportance with equanimity. For, as you—howsoever suddenly,—got -older, there was less bitterness, there was hardly any bitterness at -all, to be derived of the knowledge that in human living very much -amounted to nothing, because you saw even more clearly and more -constantly that nothing amounted to very much.... - -So Gerald said only: “You are young. At least, you are living in a young -body. So do you beware! For, so long as you go about the Marches of -Antan in any conveyance so perilous, the lying half-magic of the Two -Truths will beset that young body, and the Princess will await you at -every turn. She will encounter you under many names, for it is true -that, just as you said very long ago, women do vary in their given -names. She will encounter you in varying shapes. But in any case, she -waits for every young romantic everywhere, as a rather lovable and as an -interestingly formed and colored impediment.... I think it, therefore, -highly improbable that you will complete the journey to Antan. I, in any -case, am middle-aged. And I cry, not discontentedly, my personal -farewell to the half-magic of racing pulses and of distended nerves—” - -For an instant Gerald was silent. In his old eyes awoke that gleam which -anybody familiar with Gerald would have recognized at once. - -“You see,” he continued, with large affability, “while you have been -theorizing, my dear fellow,—oh, very charmingly, and with a -thoroughness which does you credit, great credit,—well, my -investigations meanwhile have taken a rather more practical turn. I am -not, of course, at liberty to speak of my love-affairs out yonder, with -any real explicitness. No, here, as always, _noblesse oblige_. Still, if -you only knew! If you but knew half as much as I do about that droll -escapade with the Lady Sigid of Audierne and her cousin the Abbess! -about what happened to me in the harem of Caliph Mizraim! about Beatrice -and Henriette and Madame Pamela and Vittoria and Elspeth! about the -three girls at the tanner’s! or if you knew the truth as to what her -Majesty and I were about that night we came so near being caught—!” - -“I see,” the boy said, rather wistfully. “You have been a devil of a -fellow and a sad rip among the ladies.” - -“Oh, dear me, not at all!” said Gerald. And the old fellow now wore the -expression which, sometimes, accompanies a blush. “It is merely that I -have talked a bit too freely. It is only that this rash tongue of mine -was running away with me. So I can but ask you to forget every word I -have uttered. For exalted names ought, really, not to be repeated thus -lightly. I shall therefore say nothing whatever about the eight other -queens with whom my name has been coupled,—with how good reason I, you -understand, must be the last person in the world to admit,—nor about -any of the empresses either. In fact, a great deal of the scandal about -my intimacy with one of them was exaggerated. No: I most certainly must -not voice any indiscretions about dear Caroline. So I merely point -out—without mentioning any names whatever,—that my experience has been -considerable: and I can assure you, my dear fellow, that in the end -these half-magics produce, after all, no very prodigious miracles.” - -“But—” said the boy. - -“No,” Gerald protested, “no, really, you must not tempt me with such -eloquence! It suffices that during the thirty years that you have sat -here theorizing,—and have, as it were, blossomed forth with all these -delightful books,—these half-magics have led me day after day from one -affair to its twin; they have led me into more or less jealously guarded -lowlands, which were not markedly dissimilar; they have led then from -one valley to another valley which looked and felt and, for that matter, -smelt very much the same; finally they led me to the fair breasts of -Maya. And I fell away into domesticity, I went no farther. But I was -wholly content there.... So I do not complain. I have lost through these -half-magics my appointed kingdom in Antan,—or so, at least, it appears -to me, in a world wherein perhaps nothing is indisputable except, of -course, historical and scientific truths. Yet the losing of my kingdom -has, none the less, been pleasant. I have had, under the harryings of -these half-magics—always, I mean, upon the whole,—an agreeable time. -To-night the half-magics whose appointed duty it is to keep all us -romantics from attaining to Antan have ceased bothering about me. After -to-night I am no longer formidable. I am, in a word, now that I approach -sixty, almost middle-aged. It follows that Antan does not concern me any -longer: and I shall think no more about Antan, wherein, for one reason -and another, I have found nothing.” - -With that, gray Gerald Musgrave dipped his pen. He put the boy quite out -of mind. And the well-thought-of old scholar began to write, just where -his natural body had left off a bit earlier in the evening, setting down -decorously the historical and scientific truth as to the rules governing -pre-nuptial intercourse in the bedchambers of New Guinea and the Tonga -Islands. - - - - - 50. - Exodus of Glaum - - -THE boy waited, looking down at this old fellow who sat there making -small scratches upon paper, the most of which he presently canceled with -yet other scratches, all the while with the air of a person who is about -something intelligent and of actual importance. Then the boy shrugged. -For, as always, to an onlooker the motions of creative writing revealed -that flavor of the grotesque which is attendant upon every form of -procreation. - -And besides, to him for whom the silver stallion waited without, and for -whom his appointed kingdom waited also, such time-wasting appeared -futile. He, who was young, and who retained as yet the untroubled faith -of every boy in his own abilities and in his own importance,—and who, -of course, might not foresee the fate which awaited him in the arms of -Evadne of the Dusk,—could not regard without impatience such -time-wasting. What made it even worse was that this dilapidated remnant -of a man was so plainly enjoying himself. For he chuckled as he wrote; -he had self-evidently found what he considered a rather beautiful idea -to play with, for now he had cocked his battered, so nearly bald, old -head to one side, and that which he had just written down was being -regarded by his dimmed and peering eyes with entire admiration: and it -was all somewhat pitiable to the young eyes of the observer. - -For it did not seem possible that anybody should sit here, thus stuffily -immured, and with no exercise more profitable than writing, when yonder, -as all youth knew, the way lay open to the unimaginable splendors of -Antan. It was, for that matter, an unthrifty wantonness for Gerald -Musgrave’s young observer to be lingering here, in the cold company of -books and china animals, when yonder (as all youth knew) along the -pleasant way to Antan were waiting so many dear, fond, loving women -eager to cheer and to inspire and to trust and to give all to speed the -high-hearted adventurer in that glorious journeying toward his appointed -kingdom. Decidedly, the old fellow was lost: for now he was infatuated -by the contentment to be got out of writing, which remained always, in -its own way, as bedrugging as the contentment to be got out of -domesticity; and there was no help for this preposterous, doomed, -chuckling Gerald Musgrave,—who would always now be finding one or -another rather beautiful idea to play with, and who must remain, so long -as life remained, a poet whose one real delight was to shape and to play -with puppets.... - -Yet it mattered very little, to any person who was already for every -practical purpose a reigning monarch, that all which pertained to this -Gerald Musgrave was somewhat droll, the smiling red-haired boy decided, -as he passed toward Evadne of the Dusk, and out of sight of that -gray-fringed bald head bent over that incessant pen scratching. - -[Illustration: THE END] - - - - - TRANSCRIBER NOTES - - -Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. - -Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOMETHING ABOUT EVE *** - -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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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Something about Eve</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>A comedy of fig-leaves</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: James Branch Cabell</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 13, 2023 [eBook #69779]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Delphine Lettau, Cindy Beyer, Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOMETHING ABOUT EVE ***</div> - - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0000' style='width:350px;height:auto;'> -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div class='lgc' style=''> <!-- rend=';' --> -<p class='line0' style='margin-top:1.5em;font-size:2em;'>SOMETHING ABOUT EVE</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0' style='margin-bottom:1em;font-size:1.5em;font-style:italic;'>A Comedy of Fig-leaves</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'>BY</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:1.2em;'>JAMES BRANCH CABELL</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0' style='margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:.8em;'>“I WAS AFRAID, BECAUSE I WAS</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:.8em;'>NAKED: AND I HID MYSELF”</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0' style='margin-top:6em;'>LONDON</p> -<p class='line0'>JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED</p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:.8em;font-style:italic;'>First Published in 1927</p> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:15em;font-size:.8em;font-style:italic;'>Made and Printed in Great Britain by</p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-size:.8em;font-style:italic;'>Tonbridge Printers Peach Hall Works Tonbridge</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div class='lgc' style='margin-top:12em;'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:1.2em;font-style:italic;'>To</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-size:1.2em;'>ELLEN GLASGOW</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0'>—very naturally—this book which</p> -<p class='line0'>commemorates the intelligence</p> -<p class='line0'>of women</p> -</div> <!-- end rend --> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:1em;font-size:1.5em;'>CONTENTS</p> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART ONE: THE BOOK OF OUTSET</p> - -<table id='tab1' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>1</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'>How the Tempter Came</td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch1'>3</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>2</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'>Evelyn of Lichfield</td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch2'>6</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>3</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'>Two Geralds</td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch3'>15</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab1c1 tdStyle0'>4</td><td class='tab1c2 tdStyle1'>That Devil in the Library</td><td class='tab1c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch4'>21</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART TWO: THE BOOK OF TWILIGHT</p> - -<table id='tab2' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle0'>5</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle1'>Christening of the Stallion</td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch5'>33</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab2c1 tdStyle0'>6</td><td class='tab2c2 tdStyle1'>Evadne of the Dusk</td><td class='tab2c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch6'>38</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART THREE: THE BOOK OF DOONHAM</p> - -<table id='tab3' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab3c1 tdStyle0'>7</td><td class='tab3c2 tdStyle1'>Evasherah of the First Water-Gap</td><td class='tab3c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch7'>51</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab3c1 tdStyle0'>8</td><td class='tab3c2 tdStyle1'>The Mother of Every Princess</td><td class='tab3c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch8'>65</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab3c1 tdStyle0'>9</td><td class='tab3c2 tdStyle1'>How One Butterfly Fared</td><td class='tab3c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch9'>72</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART FOUR: THE BOOK OF DERSAM</p> - -<table id='tab4' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab4c1 tdStyle0'>10</td><td class='tab4c2 tdStyle1'>Wives at Caer Omn</td><td class='tab4c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch10'>77</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab4c1 tdStyle0'>11</td><td class='tab4c2 tdStyle1'>The Glass People</td><td class='tab4c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch11'>83</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab4c1 tdStyle0'>12</td><td class='tab4c2 tdStyle1'>Confusions of the Golden Travel</td><td class='tab4c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch12'>86</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab4c1 tdStyle0'>13</td><td class='tab4c2 tdStyle1'>Colophon of a God</td><td class='tab4c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch13'>99</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab4c1 tdStyle0'>14</td><td class='tab4c2 tdStyle1'>Evarvan of the Mirror</td><td class='tab4c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch14'>102</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART FIVE: THE BOOK OF LYTREIA</p> - -<table id='tab5' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab5c1 tdStyle0'>15</td><td class='tab5c2 tdStyle1'>At Tenjo’s Court</td><td class='tab5c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch15'>113</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab5c1 tdStyle0'>16</td><td class='tab5c2 tdStyle1'>The Holy Nose of Lytreia</td><td class='tab5c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch16'>120</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab5c1 tdStyle0'>17</td><td class='tab5c2 tdStyle1'>Evaine of Peter’s Tomb</td><td class='tab5c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch17'>126</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab5c1 tdStyle0'>18</td><td class='tab5c2 tdStyle1'>End of a Vixen</td><td class='tab5c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch18'>142</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab5c1 tdStyle0'>19</td><td class='tab5c2 tdStyle1'>Beyond the Veil</td><td class='tab5c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch19'>146</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART SIX: THE BOOK OF TUROINE</p> - -<table id='tab6' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab6c1 tdStyle0'>20</td><td class='tab6c2 tdStyle1'>Thaumaturgists in Labor</td><td class='tab6c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch20'>155</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab6c1 tdStyle0'>21</td><td class='tab6c2 tdStyle1'>They That Wore Blankets</td><td class='tab6c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch21'>159</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab6c1 tdStyle0'>22</td><td class='tab6c2 tdStyle1'>The Paragraph of the Sphinx</td><td class='tab6c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch22'>164</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab6c1 tdStyle0'>23</td><td class='tab6c2 tdStyle1'>Odd Transformation of a Towel</td><td class='tab6c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch23'>176</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART SEVEN: THE BOOK OF POETS</p> - -<table id='tab7' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab7c1 tdStyle0'>24</td><td class='tab7c2 tdStyle1'>On Mispec Moor</td><td class='tab7c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch24'>183</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab7c1 tdStyle0'>25</td><td class='tab7c2 tdStyle1'>The God Conforms</td><td class='tab7c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch25'>190</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab7c1 tdStyle0'>26</td><td class='tab7c2 tdStyle1'>“Qualis Artifex!”</td><td class='tab7c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch26'>195</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab7c1 tdStyle0'>27</td><td class='tab7c2 tdStyle1'>Regarding the Stars</td><td class='tab7c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch27'>206</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART EIGHT: THE BOOK OF MAGES</p> - -<table id='tab8' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab8c1 tdStyle0'>28</td><td class='tab8c2 tdStyle1'>Fond Magics of Maya</td><td class='tab8c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch28'>215</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab8c1 tdStyle0'>29</td><td class='tab8c2 tdStyle1'>Leucosia’s Singing</td><td class='tab8c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch29'>220</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab8c1 tdStyle0'>30</td><td class='tab8c2 tdStyle1'>What Solomon Wanted</td><td class='tab8c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch30'>225</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab8c1 tdStyle0'>31</td><td class='tab8c2 tdStyle1'>The Chivalry of Merlin</td><td class='tab8c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch31'>229</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab8c1 tdStyle0'>32</td><td class='tab8c2 tdStyle1'>A Boy That Might As Well Be</td><td class='tab8c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch32'>238</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART NINE: THE BOOK OF MISPEC MOOR</p> - -<table id='tab9' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab9c1 tdStyle0'>33</td><td class='tab9c2 tdStyle1'>Limitations of Gaston</td><td class='tab9c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch33'>247</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab9c1 tdStyle0'>34</td><td class='tab9c2 tdStyle1'>Ambiguity of the Brown Man</td><td class='tab9c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch34'>255</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab9c1 tdStyle0'>35</td><td class='tab9c2 tdStyle1'>Of Kalki and a Döoppelganger</td><td class='tab9c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch35'>259</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab9c1 tdStyle0'>36</td><td class='tab9c2 tdStyle1'>Tannhäuser’s Troubled Eyes</td><td class='tab9c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch36'>263</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab9c1 tdStyle0'>37</td><td class='tab9c2 tdStyle1'>Contentment of the Mislaid God</td><td class='tab9c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch37'>270</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART TEN: THE BOOK OF ENDINGS</p> - -<table id='tab10' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab10c1 tdStyle0'>38</td><td class='tab10c2 tdStyle1'>About the Past of a Bishop</td><td class='tab10c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch38'>281</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab10c1 tdStyle0'>39</td><td class='tab10c2 tdStyle1'>Baptism of a Musgrave</td><td class='tab10c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch39'>294</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab10c1 tdStyle0'>40</td><td class='tab10c2 tdStyle1'>On the Turn of a Leaf</td><td class='tab10c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch40'>298</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab10c1 tdStyle0'>41</td><td class='tab10c2 tdStyle1'>Child of All Fathers</td><td class='tab10c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch41'>301</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab10c1 tdStyle0'>42</td><td class='tab10c2 tdStyle1'>Theodorick Rides Forth</td><td class='tab10c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch42'>305</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab10c1 tdStyle0'>43</td><td class='tab10c2 tdStyle1'>Economics of Redemption</td><td class='tab10c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch43'>310</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab10c1 tdStyle0'>44</td><td class='tab10c2 tdStyle1'>Economics of Common-Sense</td><td class='tab10c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch44'>319</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab10c1 tdStyle0'>45</td><td class='tab10c2 tdStyle1'>Farewell to All Fair Welfare</td><td class='tab10c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch45'>323</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART ELEVEN: THE BOOK OF REMNANTS</p> - -<table id='tab11' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab11c1 tdStyle0'>46</td><td class='tab11c2 tdStyle1'>The Gray Quiet Way of Ruins</td><td class='tab11c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch46'>329</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab11c1 tdStyle0'>47</td><td class='tab11c2 tdStyle1'>How Horvendile Gave Up the Race</td><td class='tab11c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch47'>333</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:.5em;font-size:1.2em;'>PART TWELVE: THE BOOK OF ACQUIESCENCE</p> - -<table id='tab12' class='center'> -<colgroup> -<col span='1' style='width: 1em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 25em;'> -<col span='1' style='width: 2em;'> -</colgroup> -<tr><td class='tab12c1 tdStyle0'>48</td><td class='tab12c2 tdStyle1'>Fruits of the Sylan’s Industry</td><td class='tab12c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch48'>345</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab12c1 tdStyle0'>49</td><td class='tab12c2 tdStyle1'>Triumph of the Two Truths</td><td class='tab12c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch49'>352</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='tab12c1 tdStyle0'>50</td><td class='tab12c2 tdStyle1'>Exodus of Glaum</td><td class='tab12c3 tdStyle0'><a href='#ch50'>362</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:4em;font-size:1.2em;'>THE ARGUMENT OF THIS COMEDY</p> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;font-style:italic;'>Set forth as clearly as discretion permits, for the convenience</p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:1em;font-style:italic;'>of the intending reader</p> - -<div class='blockquote'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';' --> -<p class='line0'>  <span style='font-size:x-large'>T</span><span style='font-size:x-small'>HESE</span> shadows here are subtle: for they wait</p> -<p class='line0'>Like usurers that briefly lend the sun</p> -<p class='line0'>Disfavor and a stinted while to run</p> -<p class='line0'>With flaunting vigor through life’s large estate</p> -<p class='line0'>Of fire and turmoil; or like thieves that hate</p> -<p class='line0'>No law-lord save the posturing of desire</p> -<p class='line0'>With genuflexions where dejections tire</p> -<p class='line0'>The fig-leaf’s trophy with the fig-leaf’s weight.</p> -<p class='line'> </p> -<p class='line0'>  Yes; they are subtle: and where no light is</p> -<p class='line0'>These tread not openly, as heretofore,</p> -<p class='line0'>With whisperings of that at odds with this</p> -<p class='line0'>To veil their passing, where a broken door</p> -<p class='line0'>Confronts the zenith, and Semiramis,</p> -<p class='line0'>At one with Upsilon, exhorts no more.</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART ONE</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF OUTSET</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“Wheresoever a Man Lives, There</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>Will be a Thornbush Near His Door.”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch1'>1.<br> <span class='sub-head'>How the Tempter Came</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>F</span></span>OR some moments after he had materialized, -and had become perceivable by human senses, -the Sylan waited. He waited, looking down -at the very busy, young, red-haired fellow who sat -within arm’s reach at the writing-table. This boy, as -yet, was so unhappily engrossed in literary composition -as not to have noticed his ghostly visitant. So the -Sylan waited....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And as always, to an onlooker, the motions of creative -writing revealed that flavor of the grotesque -which is attendant upon every form of procreation. -The Sylan rather uneasily noted the boy’s writhing -antics, which to a phantom seemed strange and eerie.... -For this mortal world, as the Sylan well remembered, -was remarkably opulent in things which gave -pleasure when they were tasted or handled,—the -world in which this pensive boy was handling, and -now nibbled at, the tip-end of a black pen. Outside -this somewhat stuffy room were stars or sunsets or -impressive mountains, to be looked at from almost -anywhere in this mortal world,—which would also -afford to the investigative, who searched in appropriate -places, such agreeable smells as that of vervain -and patchouli, and of smouldering incense, and of -hayfields under a large moon, and of pine woods, and -the robustious salty odors of a wind coming up from -the sea.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Likewise, at this very moment, you might encounter, -in the prodigal world outside this somewhat -stuffy room, those tinier, those mere baby winds -which were continually whispering in the tree-tops -about this world’s marvelousness now that April was -departing; or you might hear the irrationally dear -sound of a bird calling dubiously in the spring night, -with a very piercing sweetness; or, if you went adventuring -yet farther, you might hear the muffled delicious -voice of a woman counterfeiting embarrassment -and reproof of your enterprise.... Outside -this book-filled room, in fine, was that unforgotten -mortal world in which any conceivable young man -could live very royally, and with never-failing ardor, -upon every person’s patrimony of the five human -senses.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And yet, in such a well-stocked world, this lean, -red-headed boy was vexedly making upon paper -(with that much nibbled-at black pen) small -scratches, the most of which he almost immediately -canceled with yet other scratches, all the while with -the air of a person who is about something intelligent -and of actual importance. This Gerald Musgrave -therefore seemed to the waiting, spectral Sylan a -somewhat excessively silly mortal, thus to be squandering -a lad’s brief while of living in vigorous young -human flesh, among so many readily accessible objects -which a boy like this could always be seeing and -tasting and smelling and hearing and handling, with -unforgotten delight.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the Sylan reflected, too, a bit wistfully, that -his own mortal youth was now for some time overpast. -It had, in fact, been nearly six hundred years -since he had been really young, a good five and a -half centuries since young Guivric and his nine tall -comrades in the famous fellowship had so delighted -in their patrimony of five human senses and had -spent that inheritance rather notably. Yes, he was -getting on, the Sylan reflected; he had quite lost -touch with the ways of these latter-day young people.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet it was perhaps unavoidable that in the great -while since he had gone about this world in a man’s -natural body, the foibles of human youth had become -somewhat strange to him; and it was not, after -all, to appraise the wastefulness of authors that you -had traveled a long way, from Caer Omn to Lichfield, -at the command of another Author, to put this -doomed red-headed boy out of living.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Sylan spoke....</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch2'>2.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Evelyn of Lichfield</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>T</span></span>HE Sylan spoke. He spoke at some length. -And the young man at the writing-table, -after arising with the slight start which these -supernatural visitations invariably evoked from him, -had presently heard the Sylan’s proposal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Who is it,” said Gerald, then, “that tempts me -to this sacrifice and to this partial destruction?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Sylan replied, “The name that I had in my -mortal living was Guivric, but now I am called -Glaum of the Haunting Eyes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>That was a queer name, and it was a queer arrangement, -too, which this vague wraith in the likeness -of a man was proposing,—an arrangement, -Gerald Musgrave decided, which, at least, was -worth consideration....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For, as a student of magic, Gerald Musgrave in -his time had dealt with many demons: but never had -been made to him, before this final night in the April -of 1805, such a queer, and yet rational, and even -handsome offer as was now held out. Gerald pushed -aside the manuscript of his unfinished romance about -Dom Manuel of Poictesme; he straightened the -ruffles about his throat; and for an instant he -weighed the really quite alluring suggestion.... -Most demons were obsessed by the notion of buying -from you a soul which Gerald, in this age of reason, -had no sure proof that he possessed. But this Glaum -of the Haunting Eyes, it seemed, was empowered -and willing to rid Gerald of all corporal obligations, -and to take over Gerald’s physical life -just as it stood,—even with all the plaguing complications -of Gerald’s entanglement with Evelyn -Townsend.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was once human,” the Sylan explained, “and -wore a natural body. And old habits, in such trifles -as apparel, cling. I feel at times, even nowadays, -after five centuries of a Sylan’s care-free living, -rather at a loss for human ties.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I find them,” Gerald stated, “vast nuisances. -Candor is no more palatable than an oyster when -either is out of season. And my relatives are all -cursed with a very disastrous candor. They conceal -from me nothing save that respect and envy with -which they might, appropriately, regard my accomplishments -and nobler qualities.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That has been the way with all relatives, Gerald, -since Cain and Abel were brothers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Still, but for one calamity, I could, it might be, -endure my brothers. I could put up with my sisters’ -voluble and despondent view of my future. I might -even go so far in supererogation as to condone—upon -alternate Thursdays, say,—a chorus of affectionate -aunts who speak for my own good.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The first person, Gerald, that pretended to -speak for the real good of anybody else was a serpent -in a Garden, and ever since then that sort of -talking has been venomous.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet all these afflictions I might,” said Gerald,—“conceivably, -at least, I might be able to endure, if -only the pursuit of my art had not been hampered, -and the ease of my body blasted, by the greatest -blessing which can befall any man.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You allude, I imagine,” said the Sylan, “to the -love of a good woman?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is it, that is precisely the unmerited and too -irremovable blessing which may end, after all, in -reducing me to your suggested vulgar fraction of a -suicide.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now Gerald was silent. He leaned far back in his -chair. He meditatively placed together the tips of -his two little fingers, and then one by one the tips of -his other fingers, until his thumbs also were in contact; -and he regarded the result, upon the whole, -with disapprobation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Every marriage gets at least one man into -trouble,” he philosophised, “and it is not always the -bridegroom. You see, sir, by the worst of luck, this -Evelyn Townsend was already married, so that ours -had necessarily to become an adulterous union. It -is the tragedy of my life that I met my Cousin Evelyn -too late to marry her. Any married person of real -ingenuity and tolerable patience can induce his wife -to divorce him. But there is no way known to me for -a Southern gentleman to get rid of a lady whom he -has possessed illegally, until she has displayed the -decency to become tired of him. And Evelyn, sir, in -this matter of continuing her immoral relations with -me has behaved badly, very badly indeed—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All women—” Glaum began.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, but let us not be epigrammatic and aphoristic -and generally flippant about a perverseness which -is pestering me beyond any reasonable endurance! -You know as well as I do that every pretty woman -ought, by and by, to remember what she owes to her -husband and to her marriage vows, and to act accordingly. -Repentance when suitably timed in a -liaison makes for everybody’s happiness. But some -women, sir, some women stay more affectionately -adhesive than an anaconda. They weep. They reply -to their helpless paramours’ every least attempt at -any rational statement, ‘And I trusted you! I gave -you all!’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Glaum nodded, not unsympathetically. “I also in -my time have heard that observation without any -active enjoyment. It is, I believe, unanswerable.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald shuddered. “There is, for a Southern gentleman -at all events, no really satisfactory reply save -murder. And against that solution there is of course -a rather general prejudice. Therefore a woman of -this bleating sort exacts fidelity, she makes every nature -of unconscionable demand, and she pesters you -to the verge of lunacy, always upon the unanswerable -ground that her claim upon your gratitude, and upon -your instant obedience in everything, ought not to -exist. Oh, I assure you, my dear fellow, there is no -more sensible piece of friendly counsel existent than -is the Seventh Commandment!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your aphorisms are more or less true, and your -predicament I can understand. Nevertheless—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the Sylan hesitated.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You also understand us Musgraves perfectly!” -Gerald applauded. “For I perceive you are now -about to wheedle me forward in this business by -throwing obstacles in my way.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was but going to point out the truism that, -nevertheless, it may be wiser to put up with your -Eve unresistingly—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The name,” emended Gerald, “is Evelyn.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At that the Sylan smiled. “Yes, to be sure! -Women do vary in their given names. It might be -wiser, then, I was about to say, for you to put up with -your Evelyn unresistingly, rather than for a student -of magic, with so little real practical experience as -yours, to go blundering about the doubtful road -which leads to Antan.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, sir, I have the soul of an artist! Once”—and -Gerald pointed to his manuscript,—“once it -was the little art of letters. Then, through my -acquaintance with Gaston Bulmer, who is no doubt -known to you—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Sylan shook his spectral head, like smoke in a -veering wind. “I have not, I believe, that pleasure.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You astound me. I would have supposed the -name of Gaston Bulmer to be in all infernal circles -a household word, because the dear old rascal is an -adept, sir, of wide parts, of taste, and of sound judgment. -Then, too, since Mrs. Townsend is his daughter, -he has now for some while been my father-in-law -for all practical purposes—But, where was I? Ah, -yes! Through Gaston Bulmer, I repeat, I became -initiate into the greatest of all arts. Now I desire to -excel in that art. I note that I falter in the little art -of letters, that my prose is no longer superb and -breath-taking in its loveliness, because my heart is -not any longer really interested in writing, on account -of my heart’s ever-pricking desire to revive in -its full former glories the far nobler and—at all -events, in the United States of America,—the unjustly -neglected art of the magician. And from -whom else—just as you have suggested, my dear -fellow,—from whom else save the Master Philologist -can I get the great and best words of -magic? Do you but answer me that very simple -question!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“From no one else, to be sure—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So, now, you see for yourself!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet the Master Philologist is nowadays a married -man, and is ruled in everything by his wife. And -this Queen Freydis has a mirror which must, they -say, be faced by those persons who venture into the -goal of all the gods of men—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That mirror, too,” said Gerald, airily, “I may -be needing. Mirrors are employed in many branches -of magic.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Glaum now was speaking with rather more of -graveness than there seemed any call for. And -Glaum said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For one, I would not meddle with that mirror. -Even in the land of Dersam, where a mirror is -sacred, we do not desire any dealings with the -Mirror of the Hidden Children and with those -strange reflections which are unclouded by either -good or evil.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I shall face the Mirror of the Hidden Children,” -Gerald said, with his chin well up, “and -should I see any particular need for it, I shall fetch -that mirror also out of Antan. When a citizen of the -United States of America takes up the pursuit of an -art, sir, he does not shilly-shally about it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For my part,” the Sylan answered, “I wearied, -some centuries ago, of all magic: and I hanker, -rather, after the more material things of life. For -five hundred years and over, in my untroubled abode -at Caer Omn, in the land of Dersam, I have reigned -among the dreams of a god—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But how did you come by these dreams?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They forsook him, Gerald, when his hour was -come to descend into Antan.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That saying, sir, I cannot understand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is not necessary, Gerald, that you should. -Meanwhile, I admit, the life of a Sylan has no fret -in it, a Sylan has nothing to be afraid of: and there -is in me a mortal taint which cannot endure interminable -contentment any longer. You conceive, I -also was once a mortal man, with my deceivings and -my fears and my doubts to spice my troubled deference -to the ever-present folly of my fellows and -to the ever-present ruthlessness of time and chance. -And, as I remember it, Gerald, that Guivric, whom -people so preposterously called the Sage, got more -zest out of his subterfuges and compromises than I -derive from being care-free and rather bored twenty-four -hours to each insufferable day. Therefore, I repeat, -I will take over your natural body—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But that, my dear fellow, would leave me without -any carnal residence.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, Gerald, but I am surprised at such scepticism -in you who pay your pew-rent so regularly! We -have it upon old, fine authority that for every man -there is a natural body and a spiritual body.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald colored up. He felt that both his -erudition and his piety stood reproved. And he said, -contritely:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In fact, as a member of the Protestant Episcopal -church, I am familiar with the Burial Service—Yes, -you are right. I have no desire to take issue with -St. Paul. The religion of my fathers assures me that -I have two bodies. I can live in only one of them at a -time. It is, for that matter, a bit ostentatious, it has a -vaguely disreputable sound, for any unmarried man -to be maintaining two establishments. So, let us get -on!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Therefore, I repeat, I will take over your natural -body, just as that first Glaum once took over -my body; and I will take over all your body’s imbroglios, -even with your mistress,—who can hardly -be more tasking to get along with than are the seven -official wives and the three hundred and fifty-odd -concubines I am getting rid of.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You,” Gerald said, morosely, “do not know -Evelyn Townsend.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I trust,” the Sylan stated, more gallantly, “to -have that privilege to-morrow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was in this way the bargain was struck. And -then the Sylan who was called Glaum of the Haunting -Eyes did what was requisite.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch3'>3.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Two Geralds</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>T</span></span>HE Sylan who was called Glaum of the -Haunting Eyes, be it repeated, did that which -was requisite.... To Gerald, as a student -of magic, the most of the process was familiar -enough: and if some curious grace-notes were, perhaps, -excursions into the less wholesome art of goety, -that was not Gerald’s affair. It was sufficient that, -when the Sylan had ended, no Sylan was any longer -visible. Instead, in Gerald Musgrave’s library, stood -face to face two Geralds, each in a blue coat and -a golden yellow waistcoat, each with a tall white -stock and ruffles about his throat, and each clad in -every least respect precisely like the other.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nor did these two lean, red-headed Geralds differ -in countenance. Each smiled at the other with the -same amply curved, rather womanish mouth set -above the same prominent, long chin; and each found -just the same lazy and mildly humorous mockery in -the large and very dark blue, the really purple, eyes -of the other: for between these two Gerald Musgraves -there was no visual difference whatever.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>One half of this quaint pair now sat down at the -writing-table; and, fiddling with the papers there, he -took up the pages of Gerald Musgrave’s unfinished -romance, about the high loves of his famous ancestor -Dom Manuel of Poictesme and Madame Niafer, -the Soldan of Barbary’s daughter. Gerald had begun -this tale in the days when he had intended to endow -America with a literature superior to that of other -countries; but for months now he had neglected it: -and, in fact, ever since he set up as a student of magic -he had lacked time, somehow, with every available -moment given over to runes and cantraps and suffumigations, -to get back to any really serious work -upon this romance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the seated Gerald, smiling almost sadly, -looked up toward his twin.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Thus it was,” said the seated Gerald, “a great -while ago at Asch, when two Guivrics confronted -each other and played shrewdly for the control of -the natural body of Guivric of Perdigon. All which -I lost on that day, through my over-human clinging -to the Two Truths, I now have back, after five centuries -of pleasure-seeking in the land of Dersam. -And I find this second natural body of mine committed -to the creating of yet more pleasure-giving -nonsense, about, of all persons, that eternal Manuel -of Poictesme! I find this body also enamored of the -fig-leaf of romance!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It may be that I do not understand your simile,” -said the standing Gerald, “for in the United States -of America the fig-leaf is, rather, the nice symbol of -decency, it is, indeed, the beginning and the end of -democratic morality.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nevertheless, and granting all this,” replied the -now demon-haunted natural body of Gerald Musgrave, -“the fig-leaf is a romance with which human -optimism veils the only two eternal and changeless -and rather unlovely realities of which any science can -be certain.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, now I comprehend! And without utterly -agreeing with you, I cannot deny there is something -in your metaphor. Yet I must tell you, sir, that I am -perhaps peculiarly qualified to deal with Dom Manuel -because of the fact that this famous hero was -my lineal ancestor—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, but, my poor Gerald, was he indeed!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, through both the Musgrave and the Allonby -lines. For my mother’s father was Gerald Allonby—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald would have gone on to explain the -precise connection, of which the Musgrave family -was justifiably proud. But the unappreciative Sylan -who now wore good Musgrave flesh and blood had -remarked, of all conceivable remarks:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I honestly condole with you. Yet ancestors cannot -be picked like strawberries. And my luck was -even worse, for I was of Manuel’s fellowship. I -knew the tall swaggerer himself throughout his blundering -career. And I can assure you that, apart from -his unhuman gift for keeping his mouth shut, there -was nothing a bit wonderful about the cock-eyed, -gray impostor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This was surprising news. Still, Gerald reflected, -a demon did, in the way of business, meet many persons -in circumstances in which the better side of their -natures was not to the fore. Gerald therefore flew -to defend the honor of his race quite civilly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My progenitor, in any event, carried through his -imposture. He died very well thought of by his neighbors. -That you will find to be a leading consideration -with any citizen of the United States of America. -And I in turn assure you that my account of the great -Manuel’s exploits will be, when it is completed, an -exceedingly fine romance. It will be a tale which has -not its like in America. Loveliness lies swooning -upon every page, illuminated by a never-ceasing coruscation -of wit. It is a story which, as you might put -it, grips the reader. There is no imaginable reader -but will be instantly engaged, by my adroit depiction -of the hardihood and the heroic virtues of Dom -Manuel—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But,” said the really very handsomely disguised -Sylan, “Manuel had always a cold in his head. Nobody -can honestly admire an elderly fellow who is -continually sneezing and spitting—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In American literature of a respectable cast no -human being has any excretory functions. Should -you reflect upon this statement, you will find it to be -the one true test of delicacy. At most, some tears or -a bead or two of perspiration may emanate, but not -anything more, upon this side of pornography. That -rule applies with especial force to love stories, for -reasons we need hardly go into. And my romance is, -of course, the story of Dom Manuel’s love for the -beautiful Niafer, the Soldan of Barbary’s daughter—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Her father was a stable groom. She had a game -leg. She was not beautiful. She was dish-faced, she -was out and out ugly, apart from her itch to be reforming -everybody and pestering them with respectability—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Faith, charity and hope are the three cardinal -virtues,” said Gerald, reprovingly. “And I think -that a gentleman should exercise these three, in just -this order, when he is handling the paternity or the -looks or the legs of any lady.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And she smelt bad. Every month she seemed -to me to smell worse. I do not know why, but I think -the Countess simply hated to wash.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear fellow! really now, I can but refer you -to my previously cited rule as to the anatomy of romance. -A heroine who smells bad every month—No, -upon my word, I can find nothing engaging in that -notion. I had far rather play with some wholly other -and more beautiful idea than with a notion so utterly -lacking in seductiveness. For this, I repeat, is a romance. -It is a romance such as has not its like in -America. I therefore consider that I display considerable -generosity in presenting you with those -quite perfect ninety-three pages, and in permitting -you to complete this romance and to take the credit -for writing all of it. Why, your picture will be in the -newspapers, and learned professors will annotate -your fornications, and oncoming ages will become familiar -with every mean act you ever committed!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To that the Sylan replied: “I shall complete your -balderdash, no doubt, since all your functions are -now my functions. I shall complete it, if only my common-sense -and my five centuries of living among the -loveliest dreams of a god, and, above all, if my first-hand -information as to these people, have not ruined -me for the task of ascribing large virtues to human -beings.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I envy you that task,” said Gerald, with real -wistfulness, “but, very much as there was a geas -upon my famous ancestor to make a figure in this -world, just so there is a compulsion upon me. The -compulsion is upon me to excel in my art; and to do -this I must liberate the great and best words of the -Master Philologist.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the true Gerald went out of the room -through a secret passage unknown to him until this -evening.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch4'>4.<br> <span class='sub-head'>That Devil in the Library</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>Y</span></span>ET Gerald looked back for an instant at that -unfortunate devil, in the appearance of a sedate -young red-haired man, who remained in -the library. To regard this Gerald Musgrave, now, -was like looking at a droll acquaintance in whom -Gerald was not, after all, very deeply interested.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For this Gerald Musgrave, the one who remained -in the library, was really droll in well-nigh every respect. -About the Gerald who was now—it might -be, a bit nobly,—yielding up his life in preference -to violating the code of a gentleman, and who was -now quitting Lichfield, in order to become a competent -magician, there was not anything ludicrous. -That Gerald was an honorable and intelligent person -who sought a high and rational goal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But that part of Gerald Musgrave which remained -behind, that part which was already marshaling more -words in order the more pompously to inter the exploits -of Dom Manuel of Poictesme, appeared droll. -There was, for one thing, no sensible compulsion -upon that red-haired young fellow thus to be defiling -clean paper with oak-gall, when he might at that -very instant be comfortably drunk at the Vartreys’ -dinner, or he might be getting pleasurable excitement -out of the turns of fortune at Dorn’s gaming-parlors, -or he might be diverting himself in his choice of four -bedrooms with a lively companion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But, instead, he sat alone with bookshelves rising -stuffily to every side of him,—rather low bookshelves -upon the tops of which were perched a cherished -horde of porcelain and brass figures representing -one or another beast or fowl or reptile. Among -the shiny toys, which in themselves attested his -childishness, the young fellow sat of his own accord -thus lonely. And his antics, incontestably, -were queer. He fidgeted. He shifted his rump. He -hunched downward, as if with a sudden access of -rage, over the paper before him. He put back his -head, to stare intently at a white china hen. He -pulled at the lobe of his left ear; and he then rather -frantically scratched the interior of this ear with his -little finger.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Between these bodily exercises he, who was so -precariously seated upon the crust of a planet teetering -unpredictably through space, was making upon -the paper before him, with his much nibbled-at black -pen, small scratches, the most of which he presently -canceled with yet other scratches, all the while with -the air of a person who was about something intelligent -and of actual importance. The spectacle was -queer; it was unspeakably irrational: for, as always, -to an onlooker, the motions of creative writing revealed -that flavor of the grotesque which is attendant -upon every form of procreation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet it was upon a graver count that Gerald felt -honestly sorry for the inheritor of Gerald Musgrave’s -natural body. For Gerald was giving up his -life out of deference to the code of a gentleman with -rather more of relief than he had permitted the -Sylan to suspect. And the poor devil who had so -rashly taken over this life would—howsoever acute -his diabolical intelligence,—he too would, in the -end, Gerald reflected, be powerless against that unreasonable -Evelyn Townsend and that even more -unreasonable code of a gentleman.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nobody, Gerald’s thoughts ran on, now that he -had found a rather beautiful idea to play with, nobody -who had not actually indulged in the really -dangerous dalliance of adultery in Lichfield could -quite understand the hopelessness of the unfortunate -fiend’s position. For in the chivalrous Lichfield of -1805 adultery had its inescapable etiquette. Your -exact relations with the woman were in the small -town a matter of public knowledge familiar to everybody: -but no person in Lichfield would ever formally -grant that any such relations existed. Eyes might -meet with perfect understanding: but from the well-bred -lips of no Southern gentleman or gentlewoman -would ever come more than a suave and placid -“Evelyn and Gerald have always been such good -friends.” For you were second cousins, to begin with: -and—in a Lichfield wherein, as everywhere else in -this human world, most people unaffectedly disliked, -and belittled, and kept away from their cousins,—that -relationship was considered a natural reason for -you two being much together. Moreover, every -woman in Lichfield was, by another really rather -staggering social convention, assumed to be beautiful -and accomplished and chaste: it was an assumption -which needed hardly to be stated: it was merely -among all Southern gentry an axiom in the vast code -of being well-bred.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It followed that, when you were once involved in -a liaison, your one salvation was for your co-partner -in iniquity to become tired of you, and to cease dwelling -upon the fact that she had trusted you and had -given you all. That remained, of course, by the dictates -of Southern chivalry, at any moment her privilege: -but in this case the inconsiderate woman only -grew fonder and fonder of Gerald, and repeated -the dreadful observation more and more frequently.... -And it remained, too, the privilege of the technically -aggrieved husband to pick a quarrel with you, -provided only that the grounds of this quarrel in no -way involved a mention of his wife’s name. Then, -still by the set rules of Lichfield’s etiquette, there -would be a duel. After the duel you either were dispiritingly -dead or, else, if you happened to be the -more assuredly luckless survivor, you were compelled, -merely by the silent force of everybody’s assumption -that a gentleman could not do otherwise, to -marry the widow. To do this was your debt to society -at large, in atonement for having “compromised” -a lady, where, bewilderingly enough, she was -unanimously granted never to have been concerned -at all. For never, in either outcome, would the occurrence -of anything “wrong” be conceded, nor -would ever the possibility of a lady’s having committed -adultery be so much as hinted at in any speech -or act of the chivalrous gentry of Lichfield.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Meanwhile you were trapped. There was no way -whatever of avoiding that bleated “Oh, and I trusted -you! I gave you all!” You were not even privileged -to avoid the woman. It was not considered humanly -possible that you were bored, and upon some occasions -frenziedly annoyed, by the society of a beautiful -and accomplished and chaste gentlewoman who -honored you with her friendship. There was, instead, -compressing you everywhere, the tacit but vast force -of the general assumption that your indebtedness to -her could not ever be discharged in full. The deplorable—and -sometimes, too, the rather dear—fond -woman’s inability to keep her hands off you was -conscientiously not noticed. So your Cousin Evelyn -pawed at you in public without an eyebrow’s going -up: hostesses smilingly put you together: other men -affably quitted her side whensoever you appeared. -Her husband was no different: Frank Townsend, -also, genially accepted—in the teeth of whatsoever -rationality the man might privately harbor,—the -axiom that “Evelyn and Gerald have always been -such good friends.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Of course, Gerald granted, this was, in the upper -circles of the best Southern families, an exceptional -case. Time and again Gerald had envied the dozens -of other young fellows in Lichfield who were conducting -their liaisons with visibly such superior luck. -For the lady tired of them or, else, was smitten with -convenient repentance: and these gay blades passed -on high-heartedly to the embraces of yet other technically -beautiful and accomplished and chaste playfellows. -But Evelyn evinced an impenitence which -threatened to be permanent; Evelyn did not tire of -Gerald; she pawed at him; she slipped notes into his -hand; she bleated almost every day her insufferable -claim to upset his convenience and his comfort: and -he cursed in all earnestness that fatal charm of his -which held him in such desperate loneliness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>—In loneliness, because not even the lean comfort -of candor, not even any quest of sympathy, was -permitted you. A gentleman did not kiss and tell: -he, above all, might not tell that the kissing had become -an infernal nuisance. Not any of your brothers, -neither one of your sisters—not even when your -indolence and your general worthlessness had reduced -Cynthia to whimpering bits of the New Testament, -or had launched Agatha in a chattering millrace -of babbling maledictory vaticinations,—would -ever recognize to you in plain words that you and -Cousin Evelyn were illicitly intimate. Nor would any -of your kindred, either, ever contemplate the possibility -of you yourself acting or speaking here with -common-sense, or in any other manner violating the -formulas set for every gentleman’s conduct by the -insane and magnificent code of Lichfield.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For it was, after all, magnificent, in its own way, -the code by which those bull-headed Musgraves—who -shared the blood that was in your body, but no -one of the notions in your astonishingly clever head,—along -with the rest of this brave and stupid Lichfield, -lived day after day, and carried genial, never-troubled -self-respect into the graveyard. This code -avoided, so far as Gerald could see, no especial misdoing -or crime: but it did show you how, with the -appropriate and most graceful of gestures, to commit -either, when the need arose, in the prescribed fashion -of a well-bred Southern gentleman. Yes, really, Gerald -reflected, that code was rather a beautiful idea to -play with. It was an excellent thing to be a gentleman: -but it proved always fatal, too, in the end, -simply because no lady was a gentleman.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>However, it was that poor devil in the library who -was now involved in the dangerous task of carrying -through an adultery in Lichfield after the fashion of -well-bred persons. It was in his ears that a still rather -dear but too damnably adhesive Evelyn would be -bleating every day a reiteration of the fact that she -had trusted him and had given him all. And Gerald -himself, having decorously laid down his life rather -than violate this dreadful code of a gentleman, was -now fairly in train to become a competent magician.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Not ever again would he sit writing among those -bookshelves, engrossed, and rubbing at his chin or -forehead, or scratching his head, or sticking his little -finger into his ear, or restively shifting his weight -from one buttock to the other buttock, in his multiform -efforts to quicken, somehow, the flow of lagging -thought. He would pause no more to prop his -chin (with an unpleasantly moist hand, as a rule), -and thus to stare lack-wittedly at one or another of -the china and brass toys which he had, quite as idiotically, -collected to make vivid his bookshelves. All -these queer exercises, as Gerald, standing there, had -seen them in the last few minutes performed by the -natural body of Gerald Musgrave, did, manifestly, -not constitute an engaging or a sane way of spending -the evening, in a somewhat stuffy room.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No, he was now, forever, very happily done with -all these forlorn gymnastics. It was only the natural -body of Gerald Musgrave which henceforward -would, before this commensurately irrational audience -of small elephants and dogs and parrots and -chicken, go through these foolish writhing antics, in -that wholly nice looking young idiot’s endeavor to -complete the romance about Dom Manuel of -Poictesme.... Well, one could but wish the poor -devil joy of his bargain! and it no longer really mattered -that all which pertained to Gerald Musgrave -was rather droll, Gerald decided, as he passed out of -sight of that red head bent over that incessant pen -scratching.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART TWO</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF TWILIGHT</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“It is Not Well to Look a</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>Gift Horse in the Mouth.”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch5'>5.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Christening of the Stallion</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>G</span></span>ERALD descended nineteen steps; and in the -dusk he found waiting there, beside a tethered -riding-horse, yet another young man, with -hair as red as Gerald Musgrave’s own.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That you may travel the more quickly, along a -woman-haunted way, in your journeying toward your -appointed goal,” this stranger began, “I have -fetched a horse for you to ride upon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet the speaker was not wholly a stranger. So -Gerald now said, “Oh, so it is you!” As a student -of magic, Gerald had held earlier dealings with -this red-haired Horvendile, who was Lord of the -Marches of Antan.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald went on, gratefully: “Come now, -but this is kind! Even as a courtesy between fellow -artists, this is generous!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The amenities of fellow artists,” returned Horvendile, -“are by ordinary two-edged. And this one -may cut deeper than you foreknow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Meanwhile you have brought me this huge shining -horse, which cannot be other than Pegasus—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Whether or not this divine steed be that Pegasus -which bears romantics even to the ultimate goal of -their dreams, depends upon the horseman. It has been -prophesied, however, that the Redeemer of Antan -and the monarch who shall reign, after the overthrow -of the Master Philologist, in the place beyond -good and evil, will come riding upon the silver stallion -that is called, not Pegasus, but Kalki—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh! oh!” said Gerald: and for an instant he -considered this surprising turn of affairs. To reign -in Antan had, very certainly, been no part of his -modest plans; but he saw at once how much more -becoming it would be, and how much better suited -to his real merits, to enter into Antan as its heir apparent, -resistless upon the silver stallion famous in -old prophecies, rather than to come as a suppliant -begging for a few words.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Prophecies,” said Gerald, then, “ought to be -respected by all well brought up persons. Only, does -this horse happened to be Kalki? Because, you see, -Horvendile, that appears to be the whole point of the -prophecy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Rather oddly, Horvendile said, “Whether or not -this divine steed be that Kalki which bears romantics -even to the ultimate goal of all the gods, depends -upon the horseman.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald considered this saying. Gerald smiled, and -Gerald remarked:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, but now I comprehend you! The rider and -the owner of any horse is, quite naturally, entitled -to call the animal whatsoever he prefers. Very well, -then! I shall christen this riding-horse Kalki. Yes, -Horvendile, upon mature deliberation, I will accept -the throne of Antan, without considering my personal -preferences and my dislike of publicity and -ostentation, in order that the prophecy may be fulfilled, -because that is always a good thing for prophecies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Since that is your decision, Gerald, you have but, -after you have paid homage here, to mount intrepidly. -And the divine steed will carry you upon no -common road, but, since he is divine, along that way -which the gods and the great myths pursue in their -journeying toward Antan.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is appropriate, of course, that I should travel -on the road patronized by the best classes. Nevertheless, -it would, I think, be a rather beautiful -idea—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nevertheless, also,” said Horvendile, “and all -the while that you waste in talking about beautiful -ideas, there is a man’s homage to be paid here; and -moreover, at the first gap of the Doonham, the -Princess awaits you with some impatience. It would -not be going too far to say, indeed, that she hungers -for your coming.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come now, but the things you tell me steadily -become more palatable!” remarked Gerald, as he -approached the huge stallion. “Now that I have accepted -the responsibilities of a throne and of all the -great and best words of the Master Philologist, it -would be most unbecoming for a princess to be ignored -by anyone who already is virtually a reigning -monarch. There are amenities to be preserved between -royal houses. Very terrible wars have sprung -from the omission of such amenities. So do you lead -me forthwith to this impatient princess; but do you -first tell me the adorable name of her highness!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Horvendile answered, “The princess who just -now awaits you is Evasherah, the Lady of the First -Water-Gap of Doonham.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I admit that the information, now I have it, -means very little. Nevertheless, my dear fellow, do -you direct me to the water-gap of this princess!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet, I repeat, it would be wise for you, before -departing from this place, to render a man’s homage -to the ruler of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, Horvendile, the name of this tropical, -damp, and this rather curious smelling country is no -doubt better known to you than, I confess, it stays -to me!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This place has not any name in the reputable -speech of men. It is the realm of Koleos Koleros.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At that name Gerald bowed his head; and, as became -a student of magic, he courteously made the -appropriate sign.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald said: “Very dreadful is the name of -Koleos Koleros! Yet, quite apart from the fact that -I am a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, -I owe this Koleos Koleros no homage. And I, very -certainly, shall not linger to pay any, with a princess -waiting for me! Rather, do I elect to pass hastily -through this land of quags and underbrush, and to -leave this somewhat unsanitarily odored neighborhood, -in which, I perceive, misguided persons yet -live—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For these two young men were no longer alone -in this ambiguous valley. Through the twilight Gerald -now saw many women passing furtively toward -a dark laurel grove; and from out of that grove -came a queer music.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Horvendile spoke of these women.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch6'>6.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Evadne of the Dusk</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>N</span></span>OW all the while that Horvendile talked it -was to the accompaniment of that remote -queer music: and Gerald was troubled. He -came, at least, as near to being troubled as Gerald -ever permitted himself to do. For Gerald did not -really enjoy trouble of any kind, and said frankly -that he found it uncongenial.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But these,” said Gerald, by and by, “all these, -my dear fellow, I had thought to have perished a long -while ago.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You travel, Gerald, on the road of the greater -myths. Such myths do not perish speedily. And, besides, -nothing is true anywhere in the Marches of -Antan. All is a seeming and an echo: and through -this superficies men come to know the untruth -which makes them free. It follows, in my logic, that -to-day these women are the flute-players of Koleos -Koleros. They serve to-day, forever unsatiated, that -most insatiable divinity who is shaggy and evil-odored, -and who can taste no pleasure until after -bloodshed—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have read, also,” Gerald broke in, with the -slight smile of one who is not unpleased to display -his learning, “that this Koleos Koleros is a somewhat -contradictory goddess, producing the less the -more constantly that she is cultivated and stirred -up—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oho, but a most potent goddess is this Koleos -Koleros!” continued Horvendile. “She is wrinkled -and flabby in appearance, yet the most stout of heroes -falls at last before her. Infants perish nightly -in her gloomy vaults, and plagues and diseases -harbor there—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But again Gerald had interrupted him, saying: -“Yet I have read, moreover, that this modest and -retired Koleos Koleros, alone of eternal beings, is -ever ardent to quench the ardor of her servitors; -and that—still to praise merit where merit appears,—in -her untiring warfare with all men that -rise up to oppose her, she displays the magnanimity -to favor, and to embrace lovingly, the adversary -that attacks her most often and most deeply.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Horvendile thereupon held out his hand. He -showed thus the tip of his forefinger touching the -tip of his thumb so that they formed a circle. And -Horvendile said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She varies even as the moon varies. Yet equally -is this divine small monster the bestower of life and -of all joy; she charms in defiance of reason: and -whensoever Koleos Koleros appears, red and inflamed -and hideous among her tousled tresses, a -man is moved willy-nilly to place in her his chief -delight.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oho!” said Gerald, and, as became a student of -magic, he also made the needful sign, “oho, but a -most potent goddess is this Koleos Koleros!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now, then,” continued Horvendile, “all they -who in this place serve eternally this most whimsical -divinity are a loving and a peculiarly happy people. -Their amorousness, which here is not ever blighted -by shrill reprobation, has need at no time to fear -either the chastisement of human law nor the anathemas -of any other religion anywhere in the quiet -brakes and lowlands of the moist realm of Koleos -Koleros. For, you conceive, these feminine myths -who now are flute-players in and about the shrine of -the wrinkled goddess, and who through so many -centuries have been trained in all the arts of pleasure, -came by and by into a certain confusion—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But what sort of confusion, Horvendile, do you -mean? For I find your speaking another sort. And I -am rather more interested in that princess—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I mean that their religion, which ranks pleasure -above all else, permits no man to pass by unpleased.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, now I understand you!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—I mean that, through the duties of their religious -faith, their way of living has been given over -to an assiduous and an empirical study of all the -charms peculiar to a woman, the more particularly -as these charms are employed—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us say, in the exercise of their religion,” -Gerald suggested, “for I wholly understand you, -sir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It has followed that the taste of these ladies has -become more delicate. It has followed that, by force -of considering their own feminine loveliness, always -unveiled and in lively employment, and by comparing -it so intimately and so jealously with the loveliness -of their female rivals in the service of the -wrinkled goddess, they have become connoisseurs of -the beauties peculiar to their sex. They have acquired -a refinement of taste—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To be refined in one’s taste is eminently praiseworthy. -Ah, my dear fellow, if you but knew what -shocking examples of bad taste we kings are continually -encountering among our sycophants! And that -reminds me, you said something about a princess—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—They have learned to despise the hasty and -boisterous and, between ourselves, the very often -disappointing ways of men—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, yes, no doubt!” said Gerald. “Men are a -bad lot. But we were speaking of a princess—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And they have lovingly contrived more finespun -and more rococo diversions without the crude -assistance of any man. Then also they delight in -playing with many well-trained pets,—with goats -and large dogs and asses and, they tell me, with rams -and with bulls also. The surprising and mysterious -joys which blaze up among these flute-players are, -thus, very violent and delicious.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald said then that kindness to dumb animals -was generally reckoned a most estimable trait in the -United States of America. Whereas, in all quarters -of that enlightened and hospitable republic, Gerald -estimated, a princess—</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet,” Horvendile went on, “these learned -women do not forget, in mere pleasure-seeking, their -religious duty of permitting no man to pass by unpleased. -Go to them, therefore, you will be welcome. -Yonder at this instant a religious festival is preparing. -Yonder sweet-voiced Leucosia, who hereabouts -is called Evadne, waits for you—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I have not the honor of knowing this -Evadne—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She is easily known, by her violet hair and her -sharp teeth. Moreover, Gerald, her wise sisters—Telês, -and Parthenopê, and Radnê, and Ligeia, and -Molpê,—all these will greet you with ardor. They -will deny to you no secret of their pious rites; -they will share with you esoteric joys religiously. -They will incite you to perform among their choir, in -the most secret shrine of Koleos Koleros—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, really now, my dear fellow! I have no -talent whatever for music. I would be quite out of -place in any choir.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“These flute-players are very ingenious. They -will find for you some suitable instrument. And there -will be strange harmonies and much soft laughter at -this festival: each reveller will pour out libations -copiously: cups will be refilled and emptied until -dawn. There will be for you perfumes and rose garlands -and the most exquisite of wines and the most -savory of dishes and other delicacies. Due homage -will be paid to Koleos Koleros.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nevertheless,” said Gerald, “there is a phrase -which haunts me—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That dusky grove of laurels yonder is the hall -of this pious feast. Nothing will be lacking to you at -this feast if you attend it with proper religious exaltation; -and you will discover abilities there which -will surprise you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, as to that now, Horvendile—! Yes, I have -a man’s proper share of ability, I have quite enough -ability for two persons. Nevertheless, there is a patriotic -phrase which haunts me, and that phrase is -<span class='it'>E pluribus unum</span>. For I have compunctions, Horvendile, -which are translating that same phrase, a little -freely, as ‘One among so many.’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It seems to me a harmless phrase even in your -paraphrase. More harm may very well come of the -fact that these learned ladies will endeavor to cajole -you out of the divine steed, so that he may be added -to their trained pets—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh! oh, indeed!” said Gerald. “But that is -nonsense. The rider upon Kalki, and none other, has -to fulfil that estimable old prophecy: and a deal of -good such wheedlings will do any woman breathing, -with a fine kingdom like that of mine set against a -mere kiss or, it may be, a few tears!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That matter remains to be attested in due time. -Meanwhile, I can but repeat that if you do not -render a man’s homage to the ruler of this place -there is no doubt whatever that the slighted goddess -will avenge herself.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sir,” Gerald now replied, with appropriate dignity, -“I am, as were my fathers before me, a member -of the Protestant Episcopal church. Is it thinkable -that a communicant of this persuasion would -worship a goddess of the benighted heathen? Do -you but answer me that very simple question!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In Lichfield,” Horvendile retorted, “to adhere -to the religion of your fathers is tactful, and in this -place also, as in every other place, tactfulness ought -to be every wise man’s religion. Otherwise, you will -be running counter to that which is expected of the -descendants of Manuel and of Jurgen; and you may -by and by have cause to regret it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Gerald thought of his church, and of its handsome -matters of faith in the way of organ music and -of saints’ days and of broad-mindedness and of delightful -lawn-sleeved bishops and of majestic rituals. -He thought of newly washed choir-boys and of his -prayer-book’s wonderful mouth-filling phrases, of -rogation days and of ember days and of Trinity -Sunday. He thought about pulpits and hassocks and -stained glass and sextons, and about the Thirty-nine -Articles, and about those unpredictable, superb -mathematics which early in every spring collaborated -with the new moon to afford him an Easter: -and these things Gerald could not abandon.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So he said: “No. No, Horvendile! I pay no -homage to the wrinkled goddess.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Horvendile warned him again, “You may -find that decision costly.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is as it may be!” said Gerald, with his -chin well up. “For a good Episcopalian, sir, finds in -the petulance of no heathen goddess anything to -blench the cheek and make the heart go pitapat.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still, he looked rather fondly through the dusk. -And now his shoulders also went up, shruggingly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet I concede,” said Gerald, “that, howsoever -firm my churchmanship, and even with a princess -waiting for me, I am tempted. For yonder flute-player -who still delays to join her companions—who -are now, no doubt, already about their merry -games with one another and with their trained pets,—has -charms. Yes, she has charms which give my -thoughts, as it were, a locally religious turn, and make -the notion of joining her a rather beautiful idea. I -deplore, of course, her feathered legs. Even so, she -displays, as you too may observe, in her so leisurely -retreat, an opulence in that most engaging kind of -beauty which once got for Aphrodite the epithet of -Callipygê. I contemplate, with at least locally pious -joy, the curving of those reins, the whiteness and the -fineness of the skin, and the graciousness of those superb -contours, designed without any stinting or exaggeration, -into the perfection of those fair twin -moons of delight—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But in a moment Gerald said, “Still, there is -something vaguely familiar, a something which chills -me—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald said also: “Or, rather, in their so -gentle undulations as she walks unhurriedly away -from us, in their so amiable convulsions,—in their -heavings, their twitchings, their ripplings and their -twinklings,—rather, do the bewitching and multitudinous -movements of those silvery spheres resemble, -to my half dazzled eyes, the unarithmeticable -smiling of the sunlit sea, to which, as you will -remember, Horvendile, old Æschylos has so finely -referred. I feel that I could compose a not discreditable -sonnet to that most beautiful of backsides. -There is nothing more poetical than is the backside -of a naked woman who is walking away from you. -Its movements awaken the yearnings of all elegiac -verse.... And I do not doubt, sir, that the front -of this feathery-legged lady is fully as enchanting as -the rear. Yes, I imagine that the façade too has its -own peculiar attractions: and I admit, in a word, -that I am tempted to confront her—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Horvendile glanced toward the woman who alone -remained within reach. “That is Evadne, who in the -days of her sea-faring was called Leucosia. And it is -plain enough that she waits for temptation to inflame -and to uplift you into raptures somewhat more -practical than all this talking.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She waits,” said Gerald, “in vain. At this distance -she is a rather beautiful idea: nearer, she -would be only another woman with her clothes off. -Moreover, sir, I am a self-respecting member of the -Protestant Episcopal church: and besides that, as I -now perceive, it is of Evelyn Townsend’s figure that -this woman’s half-seen figure reminds me. That resemblance -makes for every sedentary virtue. I have -learned only too well what comes of permitting any -female person to trust you and to give you all. Then, -too, I am called to duties of more honor and responsibility -in my appointed kingdom. And for the -rest, I prefer to disappoint these ladies by failing in -ardor at such a distance as will not provoke my -blushes. No, Horvendile: no, I am still haunted by -that patriotic phrase <span class='it'>E pluribus unum</span>; and I shall -not just now presume to render a man’s homage to -Koleos Koleros, among quite so many flute-players. -Moreover, you assert that a princess is waiting for -me, to whom I prefer to present the member of another -royal house in the full possession of all faculties. -So I do not elect, just now, to share in these—if -you will permit the criticism,—somewhat un-American -methods of religious exercise. I ask, instead, -that you conduct me to the impatient princess -about whom you keep talking so obstinately that, I -perceive, there is no least hope of my stopping you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was in this way that Gerald began his journey -by putting an affront upon Koleos Koleros.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART THREE</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF DOONHAM</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“Though a Woman’s Tongue be but Three</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>Inches Long, It can kill a Six-foot Man.”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch7'>7.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Evasherah of the First Water-Gap</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>“A</span></span> GOOD-MORNING to you, ma’am,” Gerald -had begun. His horse was tethered to a -palm-tree, and Horvendile was gone, so that -there now was only the Princess to be considered. -“And in what way can I be of any service?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet his voice shook, as he stood there beside the -alabaster couch.... For Gerald was enraptured. -The Princess Evasherah was, in the dawn of this -superb May morning, so surpassingly lovely that she -excelled all the other women his gaze had ever beheld. -Her face was the proper shape, it was appropriately -colored everywhere, and it was surmounted -with an adequate quantity of hair. Nor was it possible -to find any defect in her features. The colors of -this beautiful young girl’s two eyes were nicely -matched, and her nose stood just equidistant between -them. Beneath this was her mouth, and she -had also a pair of ears. In fine, the girl was young, -she exhibited no deformity anywhere, and the enamored -glance of the young man could perceive in -her no fault. She reminded him, though, of someone -that he had known....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Such were the ardent reflections which had passed -through Gerald’s mind in the while that he said decorously, -“A good-morning, ma’am: and in what -way can I be of any service?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the Princess, in her impetuous royal fashion, -had wasted no time upon the formal preliminaries -which were more or less customary in Lichfield. And -while Gerald’s patriotic republican rearing had been -explicit enough as to the goings-on in monarchical -families, he was whole-heartedly astounded by the -animation and candor which here confronted him. -There was no possible doubting that the Princess -Evasherah was prepared to trust him and to give -him all.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, oh, indeed, ma’am,” Gerald said, “you -quite misunderstand me!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For he had it now. This woman was uncommonly -like Evelyn Townsend.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald sighed. All ardor had departed from him. -And with a few well-chosen words he placed their -relationship upon a more decorous basis.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now the Princess Evasherah, that most lovely -Lady of the Water-Gap, was lying down even when -Gerald first came to her, just after sunrise. She was -lying upon a couch of alabaster, which had four -legs made of elephants’ tusks. Upon this couch was -a mattress covered with green satin and embroidered -with red gold; upon the mattress was the -Princess Evasherah in a brief shirt of apricot -colored silk; and, over all, was a saffron canopy -adorned with fig-leaves worked in pearls and -emeralds.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This couch was furthermore shaded by three -palm-trees, and it stood near to the bank of the river -called Doonham. And by the sparkling ripples of -that river’s deep waters—as the Princess Evasherah -explained, some while after she and Gerald -had reached a friendly and clean-minded understanding, -with no un-American nonsense about it,—was -hidden the residence of the Princess, where presently -they would have breakfast.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But,” Gerald said, a little dejectedly, “I have -just now no appetite of any kind.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That will not matter,” said the Princess: and -for no reason at all she laughed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And to live under the water, ma’am, appears -a virtually unprecedented form of royal eccentricity—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, but I must tell you, lord of the age, and -most obdurate averter from the desirer of union -with him, that very long ago, because of a girlish -infatuation for a young man whose name I have -forgotten, I suffered a fiery downfalling from the -Home of the Heavenly Ones, into the waters of this -river. For I had offended my Father (whose name -be exalted!) by stealing six drops of quite another -kind of water, of the water from the Churning of -the Ocean—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Eh?” Gerald said, “but do you mean the -divine Amrita?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Garden of my joys, and summit of sagacity,” the -Princess remarked, “you are learned. You have -knowledge of heavenly matters, you have traversed -the Nine Spaces. And I perceive that you who travel -overburdened with unresponsiveness upon this road -of the gods are yet another god in disguise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, no, ma’am, it is merely that, as a student of -magic, one picks up such bits of information. I am -the heir apparent to a throne, I cannot honestly -declare myself any more than that: and I am upon -my way to enter into my kingdom, but it is not, I am -tolerably certain, a celestial kingdom.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Princess was not convinced. “No, my preceptor -and my only idol, it is questionless you are a -god, all perfect in eloquence and in grace, a temptation -unto lovers, and showing as a visible paradise to -the desirous. Here, in any event, out of my keen -regard for your virtues, and in exchange for that -great gawky horse of yours which reveals in every -feature its entire unworthiness of contact with divine -buttocks, here are the five remaining drops, in this -little vial—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald inspected the small crystal bottle quite as -sceptically as the Princess had regarded his disclaimer -of being a god. “Well, now, ma’am, to me -this looks like just ordinary water.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She placed one drop of the water upon her finger-tip. -She drew upon his forehead the triangle of the -male principle, she drew the female triangle, so that -one figure interpenetrated the other, and she invoked -Monachiel, Ruach, Achides, and Degaliel. -No student of magic could fail to recognize her employment -of an interesting if uncanonical variant of -the Third Pentacle of Venus, but Gerald made no -comment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After that the Princess Evasherah laughed merrily. -“Now, then, companion of my heart, now that -you have promised me that utterly contemptible -horse of yours, I unmask you. For I perceive that -you, O my master, more comely than the moon, are -the predestined Redeemer of Antan—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That much, ma’am, I already know—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In short,” said the Princess, “you are Fair-haired -Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord of -the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly -Ones, thus masked in human flesh and in human forgetfulness -and in peculiarly unhuman coldness. Yet -very soon the power of the Amrita will have bestowed -unfailing vigorousness upon your thinking, -and presently the hounds of recollection will have -run down the hare of your inestimable glory.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is well said, ma’am. It is spoken with a fine -sense of style. And I conjecture that, although the -better stylists usually omit this ingredient, it has -some meaning also.... Yes, you do allude to my -having red hair, but the hare of my inestimable -glory, which you likewise mention, is not capillary, -but zoölogical,—in addition to being also metaphorical.... -You state, in brief, in a figurative Oriental -way, that by and by I shall recollect something -which I have forgotten.... But just what is it, -ma’am, that you so confidently expect me to recollect?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My lord, and acme of my contentment, you will -recall, for one matter, the love that was between us -in this world’s infancy, when you did not avert from -me the inspiring glances of fond affection. For you, -the bright-tressed, the resplendent, are unmistakably -the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones. I perfectly remember -you, by your high nose, by your jutting chin, -and by the eminence of yet another feature whose -noble proportions also very deeply delighted me during -my visit to your Dirghic paradise, and which I -perceive to remain unabatedly heroic.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald, gently, but with decision, took hold of her -hand. It seemed to him quite time.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the fair Lady of the Water-Gap, she who -would have been so adorable if only she had not reminded -Gerald more and more of Evelyn Townsend, -began to talk about matters which Gerald as yet -really did not remember.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She spoke of Gerald’s golden and high-builded -home, in which, it seemed, this Princess had trusted -him and had given him all: and she spoke also of -the unresting love for mankind which had led Gerald -to quit that exalted home, among the untroubled -lotus-ponds of Vaikuntha, upon nine earlier occasions, -and of his nine fine exploits in the way of redemption.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She spoke of how Gerald had visited men sometimes -in his present heroic and elegant form, at other -times in the appearance of a contemptible looking -dwarf, and upon yet other occasions as a tortoise -and as a boar pig and as a lion and as a large fish. -His taste in apparel seemed as fickle as his charitableness -was firm. For over and over again, the Princess -said, it had been the power of Gerald, as -Helper and Preserver, which had prevented several -nations and a dynasty or two of gods from being -utterly destroyed by demons whom Gerald himself -had destroyed. It was Gerald, as he learned now, -who had preserved this earth alike from depopulation -and from ignorance, when during the first great -flood the Lord of the Third Truth, in his incarnation -as a great fish, had carried through the deluge seven -married couples and four books containing the cream -of earth’s literature: whereas, later, during a yet -more severe inundation, Gerald had held up the -earth itself between his tusks,—this being, of -course, in the time of his incarnation as a boar pig,—and -swimming thus, had preserved the endangered -planet from being as much as mildewed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Evasherah spoke also of how when Gerald -was a tortoise he had created such matters as the -first elephant, the first cow, and the first wholly amiable -woman. He had created at the same time, she -added, the moon and the great jewel Kaustubha and -a tree called Parijata, which yielded whatever was -desired of it, and it was then also that Fair-haired -Hoo, the Well-beloved Lord of the Third Truth, -had invented drunkenness. There had been, in all, -Evasherah concluded, nineteen supreme and priceless -benefits invented by Gerald at this time, but she -confessed her inability to recall offhand everyone of -them—</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is sufficient,—oh, quite sufficient!” Gerald assured -her, with wholly friendly condescension, “for -already, ma’am, it embarrasses me to have my modest -philanthropies catalogued.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet Gerald, howsoever lightly he spoke, was -thrilled with not uncomplacent pride in his past. He -was not actually surprised, of course, because logic -had already pointed out that the ruler of Antan -would very naturally be a divine personage with just -such a magnificent past. To be a god appeared to -him a rather beautiful idea. So he first asked what -was the meaning of that skull over yonder in the -grass: the Princess explained that it was not her skull, -but had been left there by a visitor some two months -earlier: and then Gerald, after having agreed with -her that people certainly ought to be more careful -about their personal belongings, went on with what -was really in his mind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In any event, ma’am,” he hazarded, with the -brief cough of diffidence, “it seems there have been -tender passages between us before this morning—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I trusted you! I gave you all!” she said, reproachfully. -“But you, disposer of supreme delights, and -fair vase of my soul, you have forgotten even the -way you used to take advantage of my confidence! -For how can the modesty of a frail woman -avail against the brute strength of a determined -man!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, Evelyn, not to-night—I beg your pardon, -ma’am! My mind was astray. What I meant to say -was that I really must request you to desist.” Then -Gerald went on, tenderly: “To the contrary, my -dear lady, our love stays unforgettable. I recall every -instant of it, I bear in mind even that sonnet which -I made for you on the evening of my first respectful -declaration of undying affection.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, yes, that lovely sonnet!” the Princess remarked, -with the uneasiness manifested by every -normal woman when a man begins to talk about -poetry.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And to prove it, I will now recite that sonnet,” -Gerald said.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And he did.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet his voice was so shaken with emotion that, -when he had completed the octave, Gerald paused, -because it was never within Gerald’s power to resist -the beauty of a sublime thought when it was thus -adequately expressed in flawless verse. So for an instant -he stayed silent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He caught up the lovely, always straying hands -of the Princess Evasherah, of this impulsive and -investigatory lady, who so troublingly resembled -Evelyn Townsend, and Gerald pressed these hands -to his trembling lips. This lovely girl, returned to -him almost miraculously, it might seem, out of his -well-nigh forgotten past, was not merely intent once -more to trust him and to give him all. She trusted -also, as Gerald felt with that keen penetration which -is natural to divine beings, to delude and to wheedle -him into some material loss. What the Princess desired -to cajole him out of was, perhaps, not wholly -clear. Nevertheless, he felt that, in some way or another -way, Evasherah was attempting to deceive him. -It might be that neither her explanation as to that -skull nor even her so candid seeming adoration of -his wisdom and his comeliness was entirely sincere. -For women were like that: they did not always mean -every word they said, not even when they were addressing -a god. And so, the gods had over-painful -duties laid upon them, Gerald decided.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After that he sighed: and he continued the reciting -of his sonnet with an air of lofty resignation, with -which was intermingled a certain gustatory approval -of really good verse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Light of my universe, that is a very beautiful -sonnet,” the Princess remarked, when he had finished, -“and I am proud to have inspired it, and I am -almost equally proud of the fact that you (through -whose supreme elegance and amiable aspect my heart -is once more rent with ecstasy) should remember -it so well after these thousands of years.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Years mean very little, ma’am, to Fair-haired -Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord of the -Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones: -and centuries are, quite naturally, powerless to dim -my memories of any matter in any way pertaining to -you. Yet affairs of minor importance do rather tend -to become a bit ambiguous as the æons slip by.... -For example, what, in the intervals between my redemptory -exploits—upon mere week days, as it -were,—what do I happen to be the god of?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That,” said the Princess, “O my master, and -pure fountain-head of every virtue, is a peculiarly -silly question to be coming from you, who are, as -everybody knows, the Lord of the Third Truth.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, yes, to be sure,—of the Third Truth! My -divine interests are invested in veracity. Well, that -is highly gratifying. Yet, ma’am, there are a great -many gods, and it is a rather beautiful idea to observe -that, even where their professional spheres -are the same, these gods differ remarkably. Thus, -Vulcan is the lord of one fire, and Vesta of another, -but Agni and Fudo and Satan rule over yet other -fires, each wholly individual. Cupid and Lucina traffic -in the same port, but not in the same way. Æolus -controls twelve winds, and Tezcatlipoca four winds, -and Crepitus only one wind—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Director of my life, and comely shepherd of my -soul, I know. Few gods are strange to me or to my -embraces. Many a Heavenly One has invited me to -love, and I have yielded piously: my kisses have written -the tale of my religious transports upon many -divine cheeks.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And I imagine that this water from the Churning -of the Ocean was not intended, in the first place, -to further my apotheosis. I mean, ma’am, I do not -suppose you went to the trouble of stealing six drops -of the Amrita in order just to recall to me that -divinity which, in the press of other affairs, I had -somehow permitted to slip my mind?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Disposer and sole archetype of the seven magnanimities, -you speak the truth. For the five remaining -drops, as I was trying to tell you when you kept -interrupting me, O my lord, and beloved of my heart, -and joy of both my eyes, were intended for the five -human senses of the young man about whom I was -then rather foolish; and upon whom I meant to bestow -immortality and eternal youth. The first drop, -inasmuch as the Amrita confers a never-ending vigorousness, -I had of course already placed. So my Father -(whose name be exalted!) smote us both with -lightnings, in his impetuous way, and tumbled us both -from out of the Home of the Heavenly Ones into -this river. My young man was thus drowned before -I had the chance to confer upon him any of the -favors which I greatly fear your superior strength -and your pertinacity are now about to force from -me—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald replied: “I really do think you would get -on far more quickly with your story if you were to -keep both of these like this. The position, you see, -is much more American: it lacks that earlier air of -such personal freedom as a democracy does not think -well of.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Light of the age, I hear and I obey. Yet all my -tale has been revealed to your consideration—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” Gerald assented, “but your history interests -me far more—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Far more than what, O cruel and resplendent -one?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, far more than I can say, of course. So -let us get on with it!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But my sad history is now as refined glass before -your discerning glance. It suffices to add that -the immortal part of my young man was happily removed -from the waters of this river, and is now -worshipped as a god in Lytreia. But for me, alas! -the squirrel of calamity continued to revolve in the -cage of divine wrath. For, so perfectly ridiculous is -the way my Father (whose name be exalted!) behaves -when the least thing upsets him, that I was -condemned through the length of nine thousand -years to assume certain official duties in the -waters of this river, in the repugnant shape of a -crocodile.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But with that statement Gerald took prompt issue. -“What may be your official duties as the guardian -of these waters I can no more guess than I can guess -how your visitors happen to be so careless about -leaving their skulls behind. That really is a sort of -slapdash and inconsiderate behavior which I cannot -condone without considerable reflection. But I do -know that the shape which I have beheld, and still -see a great deal of, in nothing resembles the shape of -a crocodile.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Epitome of every excellence, and exalted zenith -of my existence, that is because the nine thousand -years of my doom have now happily expired. The -proof of this is that already my luckless substitute -arrives. We shall now behold her encounter with the -terminator of delights and the separator of companions. -Thereafter, when we have had breakfast, -O vital spirit of my heart, whom my unmitigated love -incites me to devour out of pure affection, I shall -ride hence upon the horse with which you have so -gallantly presented me, to enter again into the Home -of the Heavenly Ones.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that, the Princess pointed.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch8'>8.<br> <span class='sub-head'>The Mother of Every Princess</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>W</span></span>ITH that, the Princess pointed. And Gerald -also now looked toward the river.... -He viewed an unsolid-seeming world of -dimly colored movings. Directly before him the deep -river sparkled and rippled eastward with unhurried, -very shallow undulations. But, under the sun’s -warmth, mists rising everywhere above the waters -streamed eastward too, unhastily, and in such unequal -volume that now this and now another portion -of the wide landscape beyond the river was irregularly -glimpsed and then, gradually but with a -surprising quickness, veiled. Very lovely medallions -of green lawns and shrubbery and distant hills thus -seemed to take form and then to dissolve into the -mists’ incessant gray flowing, toward the newly risen -sun....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald also saw that, some fifty feet away -from him, an unusually unclad elderly woman was -approaching the river bank, carrying in her thin -arms a child. The woman trudged forward toward -the river like a drugged person, because of the doom -which was upon her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now this woman seemed to stumble, and she fell -into the water, but in falling she cast the child from -her, so that it remained safe in the coarse tall-growing -grass.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The woman whom divine will had led hither to -serve as a scapegoat for the Princess Evasherah -proceeded to drown satisfactorily, and with indeed -a sort of decorum. She sank twice, with hardly any -beating or splashing of the waters, because of that -doom which was upon her. The child, though, whom -no long years of living had taught to accept a preponderance -of unpleasant happenings, screamed continuously, -in candid, mewing disapproval of divine -will.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Out of the near-by reeds came a bright-eyed -jackal; and it furtively approached the child.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Princess rose from the alabaster couch and -from Gerald’s partially detaining arms. She stood -for an instant irresolute. In her lovely face was -trouble. Her mouth, a little open, trembled. Gerald -liked that. Here was revealed the ever-tender heart -of womanhood and the quick generous sympathy with -all afflicted persons which living had taught him to -look for only in the best literature.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Princess quitted Gerald. She hastened to the -river bank. The jackal backed from her, crouching in -a half-circle, with bared teeth, and the reeds swallowed -the beast. The Princess leaned down, and with -a lovely gesture of compassion the Princess caught -the drowning woman by one hand and assisted her -ashore.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was then that the Princess Evasherah cried out -in wordless surprise. Then too her raised hands -clenched, and her little fists jerked downward in a -gesture of candid exasperation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And then also the woman whom the Princess had -just saved from drowning unfastened the small copper -bowl and the knife which hung by copper chains -about her waist. The Princess took these, she approached -the wailing child, she stooped, and the crying -ceased. The Princess returned to the strange -woman, calling out, “Hrang, hrang!” To the gray -lips of this woman Evasherah applied the blood -which was now in the copper bowl, and the remainder -of the child’s blood she sprinkled over the woman’s -unveiled breasts and between the woman’s legs, which -were held wide apart for this fecundation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hail, Mother!” said Evasherah. “All hail, O -red and wrinkled Mother of Every Princess! Hail, -patient and insatiable Havvah! A salutation to thee! -Spheng, spheng! a salutation to thee, and all delight -to thee for a thousand years of thy Wednesdays! -Drink deep, beloved and wise Mother, for an oblation -of blood which has been rendered pure by holy -texts is more sweet than ambrosia.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At first the elder lady had seemed peculiarly red -and inflamed and hideous among her tousled tresses. -Now she was placated, she panted, and her eyes -rolled languorously. She began, with aggrieved -reproach, “But, O my dearie! you have relapsed -into a masculine display of clemency such as has flung -away your allotted chance of redemption.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sorrow and mourning reside in my heart, O -my Mother: my limbs are rendered infirm by remorse. -For I had no least notion it was you. I -thought only that some mortal woman was to take -over my duties in the repulsive shape of a crocodile; -and I could not bear to hear the small voice of the -little child crying out as the sharp jackal teeth drew -nearer, and to reflect that I was destroying two lives -in order to purchase my freedom from this endless -love-making and over-eating.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But it was a boy child. Dearie, you are talking -as though these sons of Adam were of real importance. -And to hear you, nobody would ever give you -your due credit for having piously ended the ambitions -of so many hundreds of them, since you have -protected the entrance to the road of gods and myths -against the impudence of these romantics.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet, refuge of the uplifted, and asylum of the -vigorous, the persons whose blood has nourished my -exile were all young men aflame with impure intentions. -And a child is different. It is not right that the -stainless flesh of a little boy, which is an offering acceptable -to all our exalted race, should be torn by the -long teeth of an undomesticated dog.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is true. That is alike a truthful and a pious -reflection. A child is different from all other afflictions, -because a child alone can always be an endless -and a quite new sort of trouble. That nobody knows -better than I who am the Mother of Every Princess, -with my daughters everywhere policing the wild -dreams of men so inadequately. Yet a thing done has -an end. And it may be that by and by I can get around -your Father—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Whose name be exalted!” remarked Evasherah.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That also, dearie, is a wholly proper observation,—though, -as I was saying, you know as well as -I do how pig-headed he is. Meanwhile, there is -nothing left for you, for the present, save another -incarnation, and another century or two of seductiveness -upon the verge of Doonham.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I have been,” observed the Princess, “a -crocodile professionally for nine thousand years, for -all that my chest is so delicate. The cats of conjecture -are therefore abroad in the meadows of my meditation -purring that this time I would prefer something -a little less damp.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dearie, since your next incarnation is but a matter -of form, do you by all means please yourself, so -that you stay a destruction to young men and to -their upsetting aspirations. You have been wholly -inadequate this morning, I observe—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, but—” said the abashed Princess.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Her voice sank as she went on rather ruefully with -a talking which to Gerald was now inaudible. He -could merely see that the elder lady had hazarded -a suggestion which Evasherah at once dismissed -with an emphatic toss of her lovely head. He saw -too the Princess place together the palms of her -hands and then draw them about seven inches apart.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, fully that, at first!” she stated, in the raised -tones of mild exasperation, “so that, altogether, this -unresponsive person (within whose ancestral tomb -may all goats propagate!) remains quite incomprehensible.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The old woman replied: “In any event, you have -failed; but that does not really matter. He travels, -you assure me, with his assured betrayer. And the -road he follows, that also, is lively enough and long -enough to betray him in the end. For he will meet -others of my daughters; and if all else fails, he will -meet me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The ship of my enduring resolution is not yet -wrecked upon the iceberg of his indifference; and I -am not through with him, by any means. I am returning -to this unremunerative occupier of my couch,—for -breakfast, O my Mother,” the Princess added, -with a merry laugh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And the old lady answered her with a mother’s -ever-responsive tenderness. “That is my own child. -One has to persevere with these romantics, no matter -how hard the task may seem. For none of us knows -yet what these romantic men desire. My daughters -prepare for them fine food and drink, my daughters -see to it that their homes are snug, and at the end of -each day my daughters love them dutifully. All things -that men can ask for, my daughters furnish them. -Why need so many of these men nurse strange desires -which do not know their aim? for how can any -of my daughters content such desires?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“One can but summon, O my Mother, the terminator -of delights and the separator of companions -and the ender of all desires.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There are other ways, my dearie, which are -more subtle. That way is of the East, that way is old -and crude. Still, that way also quiets over-ambitious -dreaming; and that way serves.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald blinked. He was a bit troubled by the -matter-of-fact occurrence before his eyes of a perfectly -incredible happening.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For the elder lady became transfigured. She became -larger, all ruddiness went away from her, and -she took on the black and livid coloring of a thunder -cloud. In her left hand she now carried a pair of -scales and a yardstick. Her face smiled rather terribly -as she steadily grew larger. Her necklace, you -perceived, was made of human skulls, and each of her -earrings was the dangling corpse of a hanged man in -a very poor state of preservation. Altogether, it was -not a grief to Gerald when the Mother of Every -Princess had attained to her full heavenly stature, -and had vanished.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the Lady of the Water-Gap was changed in -quite another fashion. Where she had stood now -fluttered a large black and yellow butterfly.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch9'>9.<br> <span class='sub-head'>How One Butterfly Fared</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>S</span></span>O it was in the shape of a large butterfly that -Evasherah returned toward Gerald, to careen -and drift affectionately about him, in a bewildering -medley of bright colors. He cried to her adoringly, -“My darling—!” He grasped at her: and -she did not avoid him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald now held this lovely creature, by the -throat, at arm’s length. He began the compelling -words, “Schemhamphoras—” And in Gerald’s face -was no adoration whatever.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Instead, he continued, rather sadly, “—Eloha, -Ab, Bar, Ruachaccocies—” and so went through -the entire awful list, ending by and by with “Cados.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His prey was now struggling frantically. The unreflective -girl had not allowed for her lover’s being -a student of magic. And her restiveness was—well, -it might be, pardonably,—a bit interfering with -Gerald’s æsthetic delight, now that he paused to admire -the splendor of the trapped Princess’s last incarnation, -before he used the fatal Hausa charm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For Evasherah’s wings were of a wonderful velvety -black and a fiery orange color, her body was -golden, and her breast crimson. He noted also that -Evasherah, in her increasing agitation of mind, had -thrust out from the back of her neck a soft forked -horn which diffused a horrible odor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And those curved, strong, needle-sharp fangs -which were striking vainly at him were so adroitly -designed that Gerald fell now to marveling, still a -little sadly, at their superb efficiency. A yellowish oil -oozed from their tips. They had, he saw, just the -curve of two cat claws: whensoever such fangs struck -flesh, their victim’s recoil would but clamp fangs -which were shaped like that more deeply and more -venomously; it was a quite ingenious arrangement. -It perfectly explained, too, how the visitors of this -soft-spoken, cuddling and utterly adorable Princess -happened to leave their skulls in the thick grass -around her alabaster couch.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald said: “O Butterfly, O Gleaming -One, your breakfast this day is disappointment, your -fork is agony, and your napkin death. O Butterfly, -repent truly, abandon falsehood, put away deceit and -flattery, cease thinking about your deluded lovers -even remorsefully. Repent in verity, do not repent -like the wildcat which repents with the fowl in its -mouth without putting the fowl down. Where now is -the artfulness which was yours, where are the high-hearted, -tricked lovers?—To-day all lies in the -tomb. This world, O Butterfly, is a market-place: -everyone comes and goes, both stranger and citizen. -The last of your lovers is a pious friend, he assists -the decreed course of this world.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still, it was rather strange that the body she had -chosen appeared to belong to the species <span class='it'>Onithoptera -crœsus</span>,—Gerald decided, as his foot crushed the -squeaking soft remnants and rubbed all into a -smeared paste of blood and gold-dust,—because, of -course, this kind of butterfly was more properly indigenous -to the Malay Archipelago than to these -parts, over and above the fact that for any butterfly -to have the fangs of a serpent was false entomology.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>However, the geography and local customs and all -else which pertained to the Marches of Antan were -tinged with some perceptible inconsequence, Gerald -reflected, as he returned to his tethered stallion. He -mounted then, cheered with the yet further reflection -that he had got from Evasherah the rather beautiful -idea of being a god, and had got also the four remaining -drops from the Churning of the Ocean. The -properties of this water were sufficiently well known -to every student of magic.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART FOUR</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF DERSAM</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“What Has a Blind Man</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>to Do with Any Mirror?”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch10'>10.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Wives at Caer Omn</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>N</span></span>OW Gerald mounted on the stallion Kalki, -and Gerald traveled upon the way of gods -and myths, down a valley of cedar-trees, -into the realm of Glaum of the Haunting Eyes. The -land of Dersam was already falling away into desolation, -because of the disappearance of its liege-lord -into mortal living. And at Caer Omn, which formerly -had been the Sylan’s royal palace, and where -Gerald got his breakfast, the three hundred and -fifty-odd concubines of Glaum were about their cooking -and cleaning and nursing, but the seven wives of -Glaum sat together in a walled garden.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Six of these wives were young and comely, but -the seventh seemed—to Gerald’s finding,—as wrinkled -as a wet fishnet, and as old as envy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>By the half-dozen who retained their youth, however, -Gerald was enraptured. As he looked from one -of them to the other, each in her turn appeared so -surpassingly lovely that she excelled all the other -women his gaze had ever beheld.... But, no! -Glaum was his benefactor. Glaum at this instant, -in Lichfield, was toiling away at that unfinished -romance about Dom Manuel of Poictesme which by -and by was to make the name of Gerald Musgrave -famous everywhere. It would, therefore, never do to -encourage these so shapely and chromatically meritorious -dears to follow out the dictates of womanly -confidence and generosity to the point where they -could bleat about it. No, to permit them all to deceive -one husband would be an unfriendly and injudicious -pleonasm, Gerald reflected. And Gerald -sighed whole-heartedly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The seven women had sighed earlier. “What else -is now come to trouble us?” said the wives of the -Sylan when Gerald came.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He answered them, with a great voice: “Ladies, -I am Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and the Preserver, -the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved -of Heavenly Ones. Yet, I pray you, do not -be unduly alarmed by this revelation! I am not a -ruthless deity, I deal fiercely with none save my misguided -opponents. I, in a word, am he of whom it -was prophesied that I, my dear ladies, or perhaps I -ought to say that he—although, to be sure, it does -not really matter which pronoun a strict grammarian -would prefer, since in any case the meaning is unmistakable -and very sublime,—would at his or at my -appointed season appear, in unexampled and appropriate -splendor, to reign over Antan, riding upon the -silver stallion Kalki.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the wives of Glaum seemed unimpressed. -“Your meaning, sir,” said one of them, “may be -terrible, but certainly it is not plain.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This wife had reddish golden hair, uncovered: -she wore a blue gown, so fashioned that it left her -right breast wholly uncovered also; and, doubtless -for some sufficient purpose, she carried an iron -candlestick with seven branches.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald asked, with indignation tempered by her -good looks: “And do you doubt my divine word? Do -you dispute my Dirghic godhead?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Another wife answered him, a glorious dark sultry -creature in purple, who wore a semi-circular crown -and had about the upper part of each bare arm two -broad gold bands.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She said: “Why should we question that? Gods -by the score and by the hundreds, gods in battalions, -have passed through the land of Dersam, going -downward toward Antan, to enter into well-earned -rest after their long labors in this world.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, so it appears that Antan is the heaven of -all deserving gods, and that I am to rule a celestially -populated kingdom well worthy of me!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We have not ever been to Antan. We thus know -nothing of its customs. We know only that many -gods have passed us, traveling upon all manner of -steeds as they went down into Antan. Bes rode upon -a cat, and Tlaloc upon a stag, and Siva upon a bull: -we have seen Kali pass upon the back of a tiger: -above our heads Zeus has gone by upon the back of -an eagle, as he traveled abreast with Amen-Ra upon -the back of a very large beetle. We therefore think -it likely enough that you who pass upon this shining -horse are yet another one of these gods. What are -the gods to us, in this our season of unexampled -trouble?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the seven wives fell into a lamentation, and -their complaining was that, since Glaum of the -Haunting Eyes had left them, the sacred mirror reflected -only the person who stood before it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And is not such the nature of all mirrors?” Gerald -asked.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, sir,” replied the wife who carried a bunch of -keys, and who wore that unaccountable tall bifurcated -orange-colored headdress, “but until yesterday -ours was the mirror which showed things as they -ought to be.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And what did one discover in it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now the old wife spoke. Her head was wrapped -in a white turban; her face had no more color than has -the belly of a fish; and a sprinkling of white hairs, so -long that they had grown into spirals and half-circles, -glittered upon her shaking chin. “To the aged, such -as I have now become, the Mirror of Caer Omn reveals -nothing any more: but to the young, such as we -all were before Glaum left us, it was used to reveal -that which may not be described.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then why do you not place before it some young -person—?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Alas, sir, but there is no longer any co-respondent -youth in the mirror!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The speaker was the brown-haired and alluringly -plump wife who wore nothing at all anywhere, and -whose delicious body had been depilated in every -needful place.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the seven wives of Glaum of the Haunting -Eyes raised a lament; and now the pallid sharp-nosed -wife who was far gone in pregnancy, and who -wore that maroon-colored headdress shaped like a -cone, began to speak of the young fellows who had -been used to come to them out of the sacred mirror.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She spoke of very handsome, tall, brisk, nimble, -impudent young fellows, that had been always jolly -and buxom and jaunty, and not ever grumpish like -a husband; of over-rash young fellows who must -have their flings, who stuck at nothing, who went to -all lengths, who had a finger in every pie, who kept -the pot a-boiling; of what forward, eager, pushing, -plodding, thwacking, negligent of no corner, business-like, -never-wearying, soul-stirring workmen they -had been at every job they undertook; of what great -plagues they had been, too, without the least bit of -any patience or of any modesty; and of how unreasonably -you missed these sad rapscallions now that -there was no longer any co-respondent youth remaining -in the sacred Mirror of Caer Omn.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald replied: “Your plaint is very moving. I -regard a mirror which begets any such young fellows -as a rather beautiful idea. It is true that I am a -bachelor who therefore object to no reasonable mitigation -of matrimony. But I am also a god, dear -ladies, a god who brings all youth with me here in -this vial.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At that the last wife spoke. Her hair was flaxen; -her body was everywhere engagingly visible through -her gown, of a transparent soft green tissue; she carried -a small golden-hilted sword. And this wife said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You differ, then, from those other gods who -have passed this way. No youth went with these -gods, who had themselves grown old and tired and -more feeble, and who journeyed toward a resting -from all miracles and away from a world wherein -they were no longer worshipped.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I,” said Gerald, “I am a god who is, moreover, -a citizen of the United States of America, -wherein every sort of religion yet flourishes as it can -never do in an effete and sophisticated monarchy. -So do you show me the way to the temple of the -sacred Mirror of Caer Omn!”</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch11'>11.<br> <span class='sub-head'>The Glass People</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>T</span></span>HE seven wives conducted Fair-haired Hoo, -the Helper and the Preserver, to the Temple -of the Mirror. It was the old wife who -now lifted from the mirror a blue veil embroidered -with tiny fig-leaves worked in gold thread. -You saw then that this mirror was splotched and -clouded and mildewed. It reflected sallowly a distorted -and rather speckled Gerald: it glistened with -an unwholesome iridescence.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thereafter Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, -the Lord of the Third Truth, when he had -announced his various titles, with such due ceremony -as befits an exchange of amenities between divine -powers, moistened his finger-tip with one drop of -water from the Churning of the Ocean. Upon the -sacred Mirror of Caer Omn he drew with his finger-tip -the triangle of the male and of the female principle, -so that the one interpenetrated the other: and -he invoked Monachiel, Ruach, Achides, and Degaliel.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then there was never a more inconsequent rejoicing -witnessed anywhere than was made by the seven -wives of Glaum of the Haunting Eyes, now that the -sacred mirror was altered, for these seven ungrateful -scatter-brained women were now singing a sort of -hymn in honor of the charitableness and the vigorous -procreative powers of the sun.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But what under the sun has the sun,” said Gerald, -a little flustered, “to do with the not inconsiderable -favor which I have conferred upon this -country? And do you think such anatomical details -as you are singing about quite the proper theme for -an opera?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They replied: “Sir, it is obvious that you are a -sun god, of the clan of Far-darting Helios and Freyr -the Fond Wooer and the Elder Horus and Marduk -of the Bright Glance, all of whom have ridden this -way as they passed down toward Antan. Sir, it is -clear that the Lord of the Third Truth, also, is a -god whose mission it is to awaken warmth and humidity -and a renewal of life in all that he touches—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But,” Gerald said, “but with my finger!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—Just as,” they concluded, “you have done -to this mirror. Therefore, sir, we are praising your -charitableness and your vigorous procreative powers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, now I comprehend you! Still, let us, in these -public choral odes, let us adhere strictly to the charitableness! -Those other solar traits I would describe -as far better adapted to chamber music, in some duet -form. Meanwhile, since this somewhat un-American -hymn is intended as a personal tribute, I accept your -really very personal arithmetic in the proper spirit, -dear ladies, as a pious exaggeration. For of course, -just as you say, it does seem fairly obvious I am a -sun god.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet Gerald, after all, was now more deeply interested -in that huge mirror than in anything else. He -saw that the mirror which they worshipped in the -land of Dersam was not in any way dreadful. If only -the mirror of Freydis was like this, then every inheritance -which awaited him in his appointed kingdom -might well be pleasant enough.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For now the Mirror of Caer Omn shone with a -golden clear glowing, and in its depths he viewed -with lively admiration a throng of strange and lovely -beings such as he had not known in Lichfield.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch12'>12.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Confusions of the Golden Travel</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>B</span></span>UT when three huge men beckoned to him, -and Gerald had moved forward, he found, -with wholly tolerant surprise, that this mirror -was in reality a warmish golden mist, through which -he entered into the power of these three giant blacksmiths, -and into the shackles of adamant with which -they bound him fast to a gray, lichen-crusted crag, -the topmost crag above a very wide ravine, among a -desert waste of mountain tops; and he entered, too, -into that noble indignation which now possessed -Gerald utterly. For it was Heaven he was defying, -he who was an apostate god, a god unfrightened by -the animosity of his divine fellows. He had preserved, -somehow,—in ways which he could not very -clearly recall, but of which he stayed wholly proud,—all -men and women from destruction by the harshness -and injustice of Heaven. He only of the gods -had pitied that futile, naked, cowering race which -lived, because of their defencelessness among so -many other stronger animals, in dark and shallow -caverns, like ants in an ant-hill. He had made those -timid, scatter-brained, two-legged animals human: he -had taught them to build houses and boats; to make -and to employ strong knives and far-smiting arrows -against the fangs and claws with which Heaven had -equipped the other animals; and to tame horses and -dogs to serve them in their hunting for food. He -had taught them to write and to figure and to compound -salves and medicines for their hurts, and even -to foresee the future more or less. All arts that were -among the human race had come from Prometheus, -and all these benefits were now preserved for his so -inadequate, dear puppets, through the nineteen books -in which Prometheus had set down the secrets of all -knowledge and all beauty and all contentment,—he -who after he had discovered to mortals so many -inventions had no invention to preserve himself. -Prometheus, in brief, had created and had preserved -men and women, in defiance of Heaven’s fixed will. -For that sacrilege Prometheus atoned, among the -ends of earth, upon this lichen-crusted gray crag. He -suffered for the eternal redemption of mankind, the -first of all poets, of those makers who delight to -shape and to play with puppets, and the first of men’s -Saviors. And his was a splendid martyrdom, for the -winged daughters of old Ocean fluttered everywhere -about him in the golden Scythian air, like wailing seagulls, -and a grief-crazed woman with the horns of -a cow emerging from her disordered yellow hair -paused too to cherish him, and then went toward -the rising place of the sun to endure her allotted -share of Heaven’s injustice.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But he who was the first of poets burst Heaven’s -shackles like packthread, ridding himself of all ties -save the little red band which yet clung about one -finger, and rising, passed to his throne between the -bronze lions which guarded each of its six steps, and -so sat beneath a golden disk. All wisdom now belonged -to the rebel against Heaven, and his was all -earthly power: the fame of the fine poetry and the -comeliness and the grandeur of Solomon was known -in Assyria and Yemen, in both Egypts and in Persepolis, -in Karnak and in Chalcedon, and among all -the isles of the Mediterranean. He sported with genii -and with monsters of the air and of the waters; -the Elementals served King Solomon when he began -to build, as a bribe to Heaven, a superb temple which -was engraved and carved and inlaid everywhere with -cherubim and lions and pineapples and oxen and the -two triangles. There was no power like Solomon’s: -his ships returned to him three times each year with -the tribute of Nineveh and Tyre and Parvaam and -Mesopotamia and Katuar; the kings of all the world -were the servants of King Solomon: the spirits of -fire and the lords of the air brought tribute to him, -too, from behind the Pleiades. His temple now was -half completed. But upon his ring finger stayed always -the band of blood-colored asteria upon which -was written, “All things pass away.” These glittering -and soft and sweet-smelling things about him, -as he knew always, were only loans which by and by -would be taken away from him by Heaven. He -turned from these transient things to drunkenness -and to the embraces of women, he hunted forgetfulness -upon the breasts of nine hundred women, he -quested after oblivion between the thighs of the most -beautiful women of Judea and Israel, of Moab and -of Ammon and of Bactria, of Baalbec and of Babylon: -he turned to wantoning with boys and with -beasts and with bodies of the dead. These madnesses -enraptured the flesh of Solomon, but always the undrugged -vision of his mind regarded the fixed will -of Heaven, “These things shall pass away.” The -temple which he had been building lacked now only -one log to be completed. He cast that gray and -lichen-crusted cedar log into the Pool of Bethesda: -it sank as though it had been a stone: and Solomon -bade his Israelites set fire to the temple which all -these years he had been building as a bribe to -Heaven.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But when the temple burned, it became more than -a temple, for not only the flanks of Mt. Moriah were -ablaze, a whole city was burning there, and its name -was Ilion. He aided in the pillaging of it: the golden -armor of Achilles fell to his share. In such heroic -gear, he, like a fox hidden in a slain lion’s skin, took -ship to Ismaurus, which city he treacherously laid -waste and robbed: thence he passed to the land of the -Lotophagi, where he viewed with mildly curious, cool -scorn the men who fed upon oblivion. He was captured -by a very bad-smelling, one-eyed giant, from -whom he through his wiles escaped. There was no -one anywhere more quick in wiles than was Odysseus, -Laertes’ son. He toiled unhurt through a nightmare -of pitfalls and buffetings, among never-tranquil seas, -outwitting the murderous Laestrigonians, and hoodwinking -Circe and the feathery-legged Sirens and -fond Calypso: he evaded the man-eating ogress with -six heads: he passed among the fluttering, gray, -squeaking dead, and got the better of Hades’ sullen -overlords and ugly spectres, through his unfailing -wiliness,—he who was still a poet, making the supreme -poem of each man’s journeying through an -everywhere inimical and betraying world, he who was -pursued by the wrath of Heaven which Poseidon -had stirred up against Odysseus. But always the wiles -of much-enduring Odysseus evaded the full force -of Heaven’s buffetings, so that in the end he won -home to Ithaca and to his meritorious wife; and -then, when the suitors of Penelope had been killed, -he went, as dead Tiresias had commanded, into a -mountainous country carrying upon his shoulder an -oar, and leading a tethered ram, for it was yet necessary -to placate Heaven. Beyond Epirus, among the -high hills of the Thesproteans, he sat the oar upright -in the stony ground, and turning toward the ram -which he now meant to sacrifice to Poseidon, he -found Heaven’s amiability to remain unpurchased, -because the offering of Odysseus, who was a rebel -against Heaven’s will to destroy him, had been refused, -and the ram had vanished.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But in his hand was still the rope with which he -had led this ram, and in his other hand was a bag -containing silver money, and in his heart, now that -he had again turned northerly, to find in place of the -oar an elder-tree in flower, now in his heart was the -knowledge that no man could travel beyond him in -hopelessness and in infamy. He remembered all that -he had put away, all which he had denied and betrayed, -all the kindly wonders which he had witnessed -between Galilee and Jerusalem, where the -carpenters of the Sanhedrin were now fashioning, -from a great lichen-crusted cedar log found floating -in the Pool of Bethesda, that cross which would be -set up to-morrow morning upon Mt. Calvary. Then -Judas flung down the accursed silver and the rope -with which he had come hither to destroy himself, -because an infamy so complete as his must first be -expressed with fitting words. It was a supreme infamy, -it was man’s masterpiece in the way of iniquity, -it was the reply of a very fine poet to Heaven’s proffered -truce after so many æons of tormenting men -causelessly: it was a thing not to be spoken of but -sung. He heaped great sheets of lead upon his chest, -he slit the cord beneath his tongue, he tormented -himself with clysters and with purges and in all other -needful ways, so that his voice might be at its most -effective when he sang toward Heaven about his -infamy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But when he sang of his offence against Heaven, -he likened his hatefulness to that of very horrible -offenders in yet elder times, he compared his sin to -that of Œdipus who sinned inexpiably with his -mother, and to that of Orestes whom Furies pursued -forever because he had murdered his mother. -But it was not of any Jocasta or of any Clytemnestra -he was thinking, rather it was of his own mother, of -that imperious, so beautiful Agrippina whom he had -feared and had loved with a greater passion than -anyone ought to arouse in an emperor, and whom he -had murdered. Nothing could put Agrippina out of -his thoughts. It availed no whit that he was lord of -all known lands, and the owner of the one house in -the world fit for so fine a poet to live in, a house -entirely overlaid with gold and adorned everywhere -with jewels and with mother of pearl, a house that -quite dwarfed the tawdry little Oriental hovel which -Solomon had builded as a bribe to Heaven, because -this was a house so rich and ample that it had three-storied -porticos a mile in length, and displayed upon -its front portico not any such trumpery as an Ark -of the Covenant but a colossal statue of that Nero -Claudius Cæsar who was the supreme poet the world -had ever known. Yet nothing could put Agrippina -out of Nero’s thoughts. From the satiating of no -lust, howsoever delicate or brutal, and from the -committing of no enormity, and from the loveliness -of none of his poems, could he get happiness and -real peace of mind. He hungered only for Agrippina, -he wanted back her detested scoldings and intermeddlings, -he reviled the will of Heaven which -had thwarted the desires of a fine poet by making -this so beautiful, proud woman his mother, and he -practised those magical rites which would summon -Agrippina from the dead.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But when she returned to him, incredibly beautiful, -and pale and proud, and quite naked, just as he -had last seen her when his sword had ripped open -this woman’s belly so that he might see the womb in -which he had once lain, then the divine Augusta drew -him implacably downward among the dead, and so -into the corridors of a hollow mountain. This place -was thronged with all high-hearted worshippers of -the frightening, discrowned, imperious, so beautiful -woman who had drawn him thither resistlessly, and -in this Hörselberg he lived in continued splendor -and in a more dear lewdness, and he still made songs, -only now it was as Tannhäuser that the damned acclaimed -him as supreme among poets. But Heaven -would not let him rest even among these folk who -had put away all thought of Heaven. Heaven troubled -Tannhäuser with doubts, with premonitions, -even with repentance. Heaven with such instruments -lured this fine poet from the scented Hörselberg into -a bleak snow-wrapped world: and presently he shivered -too under the cold wrath of Pope Urban, bells -rang, a great book was cast down upon the pavement -of white and blue slabs, and the candles were being -snuffed out, as the now formally excommunicated -poet fled westerly from Rome pursued by the ever-present -malignity of Heaven.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But from afar he saw the sapless dry rod break -miraculously into blossom, and he saw the messengers -of a frightened Bishop of Rome (with whom -also Heaven was having its malicious sport) riding -everywhither in search of him, bearing Heaven’s pardon -to the sinner whom they could not find. For the -poet sat snug in a thieves’ kitchen, regaling himself -with its sour but very potent wines and with its -frank, light-fingered girls. Yet a gibbet stood uncomfortably -near to the place: upon bright days the -shadow of this gallows fell across the threshold of -the room in which they rather squalidly made merry. -Death seemed to wait always within arm’s reach, -pilfering all, with fingers more light and nimble than -those which a girl runs furtively through the pockets -of the put-by clothing of her client in amour. Death -nipped the throats of ragged poor fellows high in -the air yonder, and death very lightly drew out of -the sun’s light and made at one with Charlemagne -all the proud kings of Aragon and Cyprus and Bohemia, -and death casually tossed aside the tender -sweet flesh which had been as white as the snows -of last winter, and was as little regarded now, of -such famous tits as Héloïse and Thaïs and Queen -Bertha Broadfoot. Time was a wind which carried -all away. Time was preparing by and by (still at the -instigation of ruthless Heaven) to make an end even -to François Villon, who was still so fine a poet, for -all that time had made of him a wine-soaked, rickety, -hairless, lice-ridden and diseased sneakthief whose -food was paid for by the professional earnings of a -stale and flatulent harlot. For time ruined all: time -was man’s eternal strong ravager, time was the flail -with which Heaven pursued all men whom Heaven -had not yet destroyed, ruthlessly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But time might yet be confounded: and it was -about that task he set. For Mephistophilus had allotted -him twenty-four years of wholly untrammeled -living, and into that period might be heaped the -spoilage of centuries. He took unto himself eagle’s -wings and strove to fathom all the causes of the -misery which was upon earth and of the enviousness -of Heaven. That which time had destroyed, Johan -Faustus brought back into being: he was a poet who -worked in necromancy, his puppets were the most -admirable and lovely of the dead. Presently he was -restoring through art magic even those lost nineteen -books in which were the secrets of all beauty and all -knowledge and all contentment, the secrets for which -Prometheus had paid. But the professors at the university -would have nothing to do with these nineteen -books. It was feared that into these books restored -by the devil’s aid, the devil might slily have -inserted something pernicious: and besides, the professors -said, there were already enough books from -which the students could learn Greek and Hebrew -and Latin. So they let perish again all those secrets -of beauty and knowledge and contentment which the -world had long lost. Now Johan Faustus laughed at -the ineradicable folly with which Heaven had smitten -all men, a folly against which the clear-sighted -poet fought in vain. But Johan Faustus at least was -wise, and there had never been any other beauty like -this which now stood before him within arm’s reach -(as surely as did death), now that with a yet stronger -conjuration he had wrested from all-devouring time -even the beauty of Argive Helen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But when he would have touched the Swan’s -daughter, the delight of gods and men, she vanished, -precisely as a touched bubble is shattered into innumerable -sparkling bits, and over three thousand -of them he pursued and captured in all quarters of -the earth, for, as he said of himself, Don Juan Tenorio -had the heart of a poet, which is big enough to -be in love with the whole world, and like Alexander -he could but wish for other spheres to which he might -extend his conquests, and each one of these sparkling -bits of womanhood glittered with something of that -lost Helen’s loveliness, yet, howsoever various and -resistless were their charms, and howsoever gaily he -pursued them, singing ever-new songs, and swaggeringly -gallant, in his fair, curly wig and his gold-laced -coat adorned with flame-colored ribbons, yet he, the -eternal pursuer, was in turn pursued by the malevolence -of Heaven, in, as it seemed, the shape of an -avenging horseman who drew ever nearer unhurriedly, -until at last the clash of rapiers and the -pleasant strumming of mandolins were not any -longer to be heard in that golden and oleander-scented -twilight,—because of those ponderous, unhurried -hoofbeats, which had made every other noise -inaudible,—and until at last he perceived that both -the rider and the steed were of moving stone, of an -unforgotten stone which was gray and lichen-crusted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But when fearlessly he encountered the overtowering -statue, and had grasped the horse about -its round cold neck, he saw that the stone rider was -lifeless, and was but the dumb and staring effigy of -a big man in armor which was inset with tinsel and -with bits of colored glass. It was the bungled copy -and the parody of a magnanimous, great-hearted -dream that he was grasping, and yet it was a part -of him, who had been a poet once, but was now a -battered old pawnbroker, for in some way, as he incommunicably -knew, this parodied and not ever comprehended -Redeemer and he were blended, and they -were, somehow, laboring in unison to serve a shared -purpose. He derided and he came too near to a mystery -which he distrusted, and which yet (without his -preference having been consulted in the affair) remained -a part of him, as it was a part of all poets, -even of a cashiered poet, and a part very vitally -necessary to the existence of a Jurgen. A Jurgen had -best not meddle with such matters one half-second -sooner than that dimly foreseen, inevitable need -arose for a Jurgen also to be utilized in the service -of this mystery, without having his preference in the -affair consulted. The aging pawnbroker was a little -afraid. He climbed gingerly down from the tall pedestal -of Manuel the Redeemer, he descended from -that ambiguous tomb upon which he was trampling, -he stepped rather hastily backward from that carved -fragment of the crag of Prometheus. He stepped -backward, treading beyond the confines of the golden -mirror which was worshipped at Caer Omn; and he -was thus released from its magic.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch13'>13.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Colophon of a God</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>N</span></span>OW before him the mirror still glowed -goldenly, and now a hunchback held out -both his hands toward Gerald, whom he -was trying to allure into the form and mind of this -sardonic, cracker-jawed, sly knave who had such melancholy -eyes. Gerald was much tempted to become -this Punch, and to relive for a little the rascal’s -defiant and ever-restless life. And then too, behind -Punch waited tall Merlin, crowned with mistletoe, -he that created all chivalry, and that, being himself -the great fiend’s son, first taught men how to live -as became the children of God. It would be quite -entertaining to enter into Merlin’s dark heart. Moreover, -to the other hand of Punch, stood a glittering -suave gentleman with a blue beard, in whose uxoricides -it might be vastly interesting to share....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet Gerald, facing these three rather beautiful -ideas, was of two minds. “For I am a god, with a -throne awaiting me in Antan, where all the other -gods will be my lackeys,—and, for that matter, with -no doubt a whole cosmos of my own twirling and -burning to unheeded clinkers somewhere in space, -which I ought at this moment to be looking after and -embellishing. And in this particular small world -which I am quitting, the powers of Heaven do quite -honestly seem—when you look at them from a perhaps -biassed standpoint, that is,—and only to a -certain extent, of course,—and if you are so ill-advised -as to consider matters in a pessimistic, morbid, -wholly un-American way—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald paused. He smilingly shook his red head. -“No. It is far better for us gods not to criticize the -handiwork of one another. So I shall without one -word of reproof permit my fellows to play as they -like with this planet called Earth. I shall of course, -very probably, make new planets a bit more conformable -to my personal fancy. But I shall say nothing -about the planet I am now quitting at all likely to -hurt anybody’s feelings. No: I shall, rather, rely -upon the appealing eloquence of a dignified silence -reinforced by a decisive departure.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald said also: “As for this mirror which -is worshipped in the land of Dersam, it pleases me -as a toy. But I who am a Savior and a sun god with -nine such very fine exploits behind me, in the way of -swimming and of decimating devils, and of restoring -warmth and making moons, and of really remarkable -broad-mindedness as to what particular -animal I may happen to look like,—I, the Helper -and the Preserver, who am called to reign over the -goal of all the gods of men,—why, I must necessarily -lose by exchanging such a tremendous destiny -for anything to be found in this mirror.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald said: “No. I must never forget that, -whether I am a Savior or a sun deity, or whether -I am habitually used to discharge both functions, I -in any case remain Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and -Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, and so on. -I am a most notable figure, of some sort or another -sort, in Dirghic mythology. I am the appointed rider -of the silver stallion. I am destined to inherit from -the Master Philologist the great and best words of -magic, and after that poor hospitable fellow’s downfall -to reign in his stead over the place beyond good -and evil which is the goal of all the gods of men and -the reward of their meritorious exertions. I cannot -forsake such a majestic destiny in order to play with -the droll and pretty figures that move about in the -depths of this mirror. And whether or not this is a -mirror which I may require hereafter, when I have -come into my kingdom and have resumed my exalted -divine estate in my appropriate mythology, is a matter -which I shall settle in due time who have all -eternity wherein to do whatever I may prefer.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch14'>14.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Evarvan of the Mirror</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>T</span></span>HEN Gerald perceived that the wives of -Glaum were not yet through with their -wonder-workings, for these seven women -were now about a ceremony which they called Asvamedha. -They led into the temple a brown horse. Before -the mirror they struck down this horse with -pole-axes. The tail was cut off by the flaxen-haired -wife in green, and the naked wife carried it away, -Gerald did not know whither. The horse’s head also -was severed from the body, by that wife who was -with child; the head was then adorned with a chaplet -made of small loaves of bread. This head was afterward -impaled upon a stake and thus was set upright -before the mirror, but not facing it. Then the six -wives of Glaum who yet remained in the temple -mixed the blood of the horse with the blood of unborn -calves; they turned the stake: and they showed -Gerald what he must do.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>When he had obeyed, and when they had all -invoked Evarvan, then the golden glowing of the -sacred mirror was turned into a paler haze like that -of moonshine. Out of this silvery mistiness came a -crowned woman. She was clothed in white, and about -her head shone an aureole.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald was enraptured. For this Evarvan -of the Mirror was so surpassingly lovely that she -excelled all the other women his gaze had ever beheld. -Yet somehow it was not the coloring nor the -placing of her features that he was noting. Rather, -he was observing himself and the thing which was -happening to this careful, this well-poised, fastidious, -parched, rather pitiable Gerald whom for so many -years he had known. The creature had not for a -great while, not since, indeed, the days of his first -insanity about Evelyn, been visited by any real emotion: -now, momentarily at least, he was ablaze: he -was caught perhaps: and it was this imminent personal -peril that Gerald was noting, aloofly, with a -drugged sense of derisory exultation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For this Gerald, as it seemed to him, had known -quite well, a great while ago, before his lips had -touched for pastime’s sake the lips of any woman -anywhere, that this woman who, it seemed, was -called Evarvan, existed in some place, and waited -for him, and would by and by be found. That very -important fact, which a boy had known, a thriftless, -very silly young man had let slip out of mind. -Throughout all the twenty-eight years of his living, -it seemed to Gerald, this Evarvan had been the true -and perfect love of his heart’s core.... To the -extreme romanticism of this phrase he conceded a -smile: that he should have concocted a phrase so -abominable showed him just now to be neither fastidious -nor well poised.... Nevertheless, here was -the woman whose existence he, even in Lichfield, -had always dimly divined, and of whom—he had -it now,—of whom Evelyn Townsend had been a -parodying shadow in human flesh. The likeness had -been just sufficient to get him into a great deal of -trouble. He saw that likeness now, quite plainly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And this woman too is going to get me into -trouble, I very much fear. For all my being cries out -to her. Eh, Gerald, one needs caution here, my lad, -you who find trouble uncongenial!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Evarvan spoke. And she was speaking, oddly -enough, as it seemed to him, of that Evelyn who went -about Lichfield immured in the body which was a -poor copy of Evarvan’s body. Yet Gerald was listening -hardly at all. He did not like the strong, insane -and over-youthful emotions which this woman -roused in him. They endangered his welfare. For this -woman was awakening in him those old, unforgotten -fervors which he had once felt for Evelyn Townsend, -and which had betrayed him into the horrid bondage -of an illicit love-affair. This Evarvan was ensnaring -him, he knew, into the insanities appropriate to youth -and inexperience: and such nonsense had to be controlled.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So it was half dazedly Gerald protested that—quite -apart from the claims of his divine duties as a -Savior and a sun god, and apart too from the obligations -he was under to ascend the throne of Antan,—he -could no longer endure the stupidities and the -fretfulness and the jealousies of the Evelyn who had -made adultery wholly unendurable.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If she were but a bit like you, ma’am,” Gerald -gallantly remarked,—with somewhat increasing -composure now that this woman reminded him the -more closely that he observed her yet more and more -of Evelyn,—“the case would be different.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I,” said Evarvan of the Mirror, “will remain -with you always, if you indeed desire to become -my lover. For there is a way, Gerald, there is -for you through my mirror’s aid an open way to contentment. -You shall know an untruth, and that untruth -will make you free: the doings of the world, -and all the bustling that is made by merchants and -by warriors and by well-thought-of persons talking -about important matters, will then run by you like a -little stream of shallow, bickering waters: and you -will heed none of these things, but only that loveliness -which all youth desires and no man ever finds -save through my mirror’s aid. You will live among -bright shadows very futilely: yes: but you will be -happy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald replied hoarsely: “I desire only you. I -cannot think of thrones, nor of any gods, now that -you stand here within arm’s reach. All my life-long -I have desired you, as I know now, my dearest, -throughout the dreary while of over-much playing -and laughter that I have lived in ever-dwindling -faith I would yet win to you by and by. But now I -am again as Johan Faustus,—or, rather, I am as -Jurgen in that other old story, when he had come at -last to Helen, the delight of gods and men: only I -am more favored than was Jurgen, for my Helen -speaks....”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, and I speak for your own good, my darling, -for there is a condition to be fulfilled before I may -trust you and may give you all.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald answered: “No, Evelyn, not to-night—But -indeed I entreat your pardon, my dear. My mind -must have been wandering. Yes, yes! as I was saying, -the difference is that Helen speaks!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For your own good, my dearest.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes; you speak, naturally, of a condition for my -own good, just as Glaum hinted that so many more -or less friendly persons would be doing in these -parts.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I speak, though, of a very easy condition. You -must yourself perform a tiny Asvamedha; and you -must immolate before my mirror, not any really valuable -horse, of course, nor even a good-looking horse, -but only that hideous and wholly worthless horse -which you have brought with you into the land of -Dersam.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald said: “And that is a small price to -pay for the attainment of the one thing which my -heart quite earnestly desires, is it not? For all my -life I have hungered, as I believe that all poets -hunger, for that unflawed beauty, seemingly not ever -to be found upon this earth, which now stands revealed -in the form of a woman, and which now -speaks to me with the voice of a woman—oh, quite -with the voice of a woman!—and speaks, too, for -my own good. Yes, it is a small price, such as any -boy of nineteen or thereabouts would pay gladly. -For I must tell you, who are the delight of gods -and—well! of adolescent boys, at least, in every -quarter of the world,—that all this very strongly -reminds me of that first sonnet which I made about -you when I was a boy of nineteen.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Evarvan did not wholly conceal her uneasiness -over the prospect of hearing this sonnet. But there -was none the less in her voice a tenderness almost -motherly now that she asked of Gerald, “And -did you make verses, then, about me, dear, so -early?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To prove it,” Gerald replied, “I will now recite -to you that identical sonnet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And he did.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But his voice was so shaken with emotion that, -when he had completed the octave, he paused, because -it was never within Gerald’s power to resist -the beauty of a sublime thought when it was thus -adequately expressed in flawless verse. So for an instant -he stayed silent. He caught up the lovely hands -of Evarvan of the Mirror, and he pressed them to -his trembling lips.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For this beguiling bright dream was now become -a snare to delay him in journeying onward to his -appointed kingdom, and to betray him again into -bondage to the rather beautiful ideas and tinsel -notions of youth. Presently he would be seeing no -more of this traitorous dream woman, who was preparing -to trust him and to give him all, and who -none the less was more lovely and more dear than -any real thing anywhere. Afterward he would regret -her, he knew: always he would regret Evarvan, -among whatsoever delights they were which awaited -Gerald in his appointed kingdom. Nevertheless, this -dream was an impediment in the way of a Savior -and a sun deity, with whose appropriate functions -this dream was interfering: and the most painful -duty which confronted Gerald was not precisely to -be discourteous to a lady, but to discourage sacrilege.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Dismissing these cursory reflections, Gerald -sighed: and he continued the reciting of his sonnet -with an air of lofty resignation intermingled with a -gustatory approval of really good verse.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That,” said Evarvan of the Mirror, when he -had ended, “is a very beautiful sonnet, and I am -proud to have inspired it. But we were talking about -something else, I have quite forgotten what—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I,” Gerald said, “have not forgotten.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, yes, now I do remember! We were talking -about the lucky chance afforded you to get rid of that -dreadful horse of yours.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald looked for one instant at the most lovely -of all the illusions he had found in the Mirror of -Caer Omn. Then he began to recite the multiplication -tables.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>You saw that she was frightened. She said, “Oh, -and I trusted you! I gave you all!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She bleated now; her beauty was dimmed: and -she seemed just the Evelyn Townsend who had pestered -Gerald beyond any reasonable endurance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Gerald, howsoever heavy was the heart of -Gerald who quite honestly objected to being troubled -by anything, went on inexorably to exorcise Evarvan -with the old runes of common-sense. He spoke of -the elephant that is the largest of beasts, and of the -very dissimilar household economy practised by a -King of Israel and by Elijah the Tishbite, and of the -straight line that is the shortest distance between -two points; and the old magic was potent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Before his eyes Evarvan of the Mirror was -changed. Of the degradation which was put upon -her, it suffices to report that this lovely lady went -backward in the course of every mortal woman’s -living. She passed from girlhood into a lank-legged -childhood, and thence into drooling and feebly -puking infancy, and after that into the shapes she -had worn in her mother’s womb. In the end there -remained of the most dear illusion which Gerald -had found in the Mirror of Caer Omn only two pink -figures in the form of a soft throbbing egg and of -a creature like a tadpole darting lustfully about it: -and these melted back into the moonshine of the -Sacred Mirror of Caer Omn.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nor was that all. The wives of Glaum and the -Temple of the Mirror and all that was about Gerald -began to waver. All the material things about him -showed now like paintings on a gauze curtain which -was moving and crinkling in a very gentle breeze. -The shaping of the six wives became longer and -more attenuated: they were shaped like the shadows -of women in a fine sunset. These so prettily tinted -shadows strained toward the mirror and entered it -precisely as you may see smoke drift toward and -out of an opened window. Then all the temple followed -them collapsingly, as if colored waters were -running into a hole. The mirror swallowed all. Caer -Omn was gone: the land of Dersam was a ruined -land without inhabitants. Afterward the pale glass -blinked seven times like summer lightning, and the -mirror was not there.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald stood alone in a cedar-shadowed way. He -was weeping quite unaffectedly. His very deepest -poetic sensibilities had been touched by the rather -beautiful idea that he had loved this woman all his -life-long, and that now he had lost her forever: but -a little way behind Gerald the silver stallion stayed -unimmolated, and grazed placidly.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART FIVE</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF LYTREIA</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“Whether You Boil or Roast Snow,</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>You Can Have but Water of It.”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch15'>15.<br> <span class='sub-head'>At Tenjo’s Court</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>G</span></span>ERALD passed on, riding upon the stallion -Kalki, down a valley of cedar-trees, into -the realm of Tenjo of the Long Nose. This -was the land of Lytreia, they told him. But, here too, -dejection overbrooded all, and the atmosphere was -elegiac, for people everywhere were lamenting that -vigor and resiliency and liveliness had gone out -of their noses, so that no man in Lytreia was able to -sneeze or to employ his nose in any other normal -way.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, now, suppose you take me to this king of -yours,” said Gerald, “for it may be I can re-awaken -hereabouts all the lost joys of influenza.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And who shall we say to him has come into Lytreia, -red-headed and riding upon the back of this -huge and sparkling horse with the splendid nose?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You will say to your king that this land is -honored by a visit from Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper -and Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, the -Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones, as he passes toward -his appointed kingdom in Antan, riding in -very terrible estate upon the back of his famous -silver stallion Kalki, a beast which, strictly speaking, -has no nose, but only nostrils at the tip of his long, -noble head.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They also seemed unimpressed. “No god is -of terrible estate except the Holy Nose of Lytreia; -nor do we concede the existence of any kingdom not -his. Nevertheless, you may come with us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Upon my word,” thought Gerald, “but in these -parts the people pay very inadequate homage to us -gods and are little better than heretics.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But he went with these over-sceptical persons -quietly to their King Tenjo.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Tenjo received the Well-beloved of Heavenly -Ones more affably. First, though, the grave, -white-bearded King shared with the visiting god a -quite excellent dinner, which was handsomely served -to them by ten pages in ermine and a seneschal in -vermilion silk: not until dinner was over, and the -two sat drinking their spiced wine out of gold goblets, -would the King talk about his troubles. Then -Tenjo complained that his nose was fallen and -flabby. It was no longer worshipful. That was in all -ways deplorable, said the King, refilling his goblet, -inasmuch as his people worshipped a nose, and could -respect no male creature who had not a large and -high-standing and robust and succulent nose.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald was a little puzzled, because this seemed -to him a queer sort of calamity to be befalling anybody, -unless it was caused by the magic of the wu. -But Gerald made no comment. He asked only how -this sad state of affairs had come about.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was told that all the youth and vigor had been -taken out of the Holy Nose of Lytreia, and out of -Tenjo’s nose, and out of the nose of every man in -the kingdom, by the blighting magic of a sorceress -who had lately established her residence in the tomb -of King Peter the Builder.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is there,” said Tenjo, “the veiled Mirror of -the Two Truths is hidden: but not even of that does -this sorceress seem afraid.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nor, for that matter, am I: for I am Lord of -the Third Truth. Well, it is fairly evident this -woman is a wu.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You may be right. I confess that dreadful possibility -had not ever occurred to me—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Only we gods are omniscient, my dear Tenjo,” -said Gerald, kindlily. “So there is no need for any -mere king to be ashamed of his human blindness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—Because, as I must tell you, before this -minute I had not ever heard of a wu.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You have been lucky. The less one hears of such -creatures, the better for everybody. So, how is this -woman called?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She is called Evaine,” said Tenjo; “and she is -called also the Lady of Peter’s Tomb, now that she -has taken possession of it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald finished his fourth goblet, and Gerald -hiccoughed, and Gerald said: “Your case, my -dear fellow, while perplexing, is not wholly desperate. -For I bring youth with me, and I will renovate -your withered noses. I am competent to deal with -any wu. I give you, in fact, my divine word that -you shall be rid of this wu. Yes, Lytreia shall be -rid of her, even though it is necessary that to -undo her hoodoo I do with due to-do woo the wu, -too—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Would you be so kind,” said Tenjo, looking -troubled, “as to repeat that, rather more slowly?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald obliged him, and continued: “Yes, I assure -you, upon the most sacred oath of our Dirghic -heaven,—known only to the gods, my dear fellow, -so that you will, I trust, pardon my not repeating it,—that -I will subject this wu and this mirror also to -my divine inspection—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, but I must tell you,” said Tenjo, seeming yet -more troubled, “that the man who looks into that -mirror straightway finds himself transformed into -two stones. For that reason it is hidden away in -Peter’s Tomb, and it is kept veiled, and of course -no man has ever dared go near it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How, then, did this mirror ever manage to -change anybody into two stones if nobody ever dared -go near it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, but the mirror was compelled to change -them into two stones because that was the law. It -was not at all the mirror’s fault. Surely, you who -are a god and are omniscient, and who are now -nearly drunk enough to see everything double, can -see that much?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So far as your explanation goes, I can see the -mirror’s blamelessness in the face of an obdurate -physical law. Nor does any god object to a physical -law which concerns other people.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And they kept away from the mirror because -they knew about this law. Surely, that too was -natural?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In a way, yes. But how could they be certain -about this law?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How could they help it, how could anybody be -ignorant of one of our very oldest and most famous -laws, which comes down to us, indeed, from sources -so august and venerable that they antedate all history?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, then, who enacted this law?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How should I know, when, as I was just telling -you, this law is older than any recorded history?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But in a thousand pounds of law there is not an -ounce of pleasure, and there are entirely too many -laws,” said Gerald, shaking his red head above his -golden goblet rather despondently. “There is common, -statutory, international, maritime, ecclesiastical, -and martial law. There is the law of averages, -the Salic law, and Grimm’s law of the permutations -of consonants. There is Jewish sacred law; there -is prize law; there is the law of gravity; there is -John Law, who first developed the natural wealth -of the Mississippi, and William Law, who was a -great mystic. There are, in logic, the laws of -thought, just as in astronomy and physics and political -economy there are, severally, the well-known -laws of Kepler and Prevost and Gresham. In fine, -there are laws everywhere, and they are very often -a nuisance. He that goes to law loses time and money -and rest and friends. Law is a lottery, law is a bottomless -pit, law is an ass which slaps his tail in every -man’s face. So it very well may be, my dear fellow, -that in a world so legally overstocked this law of -yours is superfluous, and therefore wrong.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Tenjo was not convinced by Gerald’s relentless -logic. Tenjo said only:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I do not any more know what you are talking -about than you do. But I do know that”—here -Tenjo hiccoughed, with judicial graveness,—“that -it does not alter the principle of the thing. So this -mirror will continue to transform into two stones -all men who look into it, although I cannot see how -it matters the worth of one box of matches in hell, -because so long as the law is such, no man will ever -look into this mirror.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet, do you but answer me this very simple question! -What if some intelligent, unsuperstitious person -were to look into this mirror,—and were to -come back not changed into stone, and not hurt in -any way,—would that not prove to you the insanity -of this law?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course it would not! That would only prove -the man was a liar. The plain fact of his not being -changed into two stones would be legal proof in any -of our courts or in any law-respecting place anywhere -that he had not ever looked into the Mirror -of the Two Truths.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, very well!” said Gerald. “No, thank you, -my dear fellow, not another drop! Let us go to the -temple! And let us each lean upon the other’s arm, -for your most excellent wine does not seem to have -clarified anything exactly.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch16'>16.<br> <span class='sub-head'>The Holy Nose of Lytreia</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>N</span></span>OW, when the grave, white-bearded King -and the red-headed god had come to the -Temple of the Holy Nose, they entered it -arm in arm, followed by the King’s court. And when -they approached the adytum, the head priestess -came toward them exhibiting a cteis, or large copper -comb, which she offered to Tenjo. The King accepted -it, he parted her hair in the middle, and he -spoke the Word of Entry.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Said Tenjo: “I enter, proud and erect. I take my -fill of delight imperiously, irrationally, and none -punishes.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The head priestess replied, “Not yet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Tenjo said then, “But in three months, and in -three months, and in three more months, the avenger -comes forth, and mocks me by being as I am, and by -being foredoomed to do as I have done, inevitably.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This ceremony being discharged, they all entered -the adytum, and then the three priestesses led Gerald -toward the collapsed and shrivelled idol which -was in the adytum. And Gerald whistled.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—For do you call this,” said Gerald, “a -nose?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Sir,” replied the priestesses, “we do. As, likewise, -do all other well-conducted persons.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet, I would call it,” said Gerald, whose naturally -fine color was now perceptibly heightened by -Tenjo’s excellent wine, “another member.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Such, sir,” they answered him, “is not our custom.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nevertheless,” said Gerald, waggling very -gravely his red head, “nevertheless, it is written in -the scriptures of the Protestant Episcopal church -that, even as great ships are turned about in the -sea’s roaring main with a very small helm, even so -is every man guided in the main by a small member—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They said, “Yet, sir—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And this member is not well spoken of by the -Apostolic Fathers. This member has ruined virgins: -its conquests are stained with blood: it has caused -the widow to regret: it has deceived the wisest and -most elderly of men. It is, in fine, a member whose -blushing hue is wholly proper to its iniquitous history.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They replied, “Still, sir—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is an over proud and wild member. Most -justly is it written that every kind of beasts and of -birds and of serpents and of things in the sea is to -be tamed, and has been tamed, by human kind; but -that this member can no man tame; for it is an unruly -member, seeking ruthlessly its prey; a rebellious -member, prominent in uprisings; a member very -often full of deadly poison.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They said, “None the less, sir—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I deduce that this member here represented is -not worshipful. I deduce that it is not well for you -of Lytreia to worship this shrivelled image of a -tongue, for all that you call it a nose.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, sir, while there is much piousness and -erudition in what you say, you must understand that -the word ‘nose’ is a word with connotations and -with a reputed correspondence in anatomy—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I do not at all understand that saying, and so I -cannot quite see your point of view. I merely know -that, in consonance with the words of St. James the -Just, and according to the scriptures of the Protestant -Episcopal church, this member is a tongue. -And I admit that this tongue, which your heathenish -upbringing induces you to call a nose, is in a -peculiarly bad way. But the divine word of Fair-haired -Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord of -the Third Truth, has been pledged to help and to -preserve this idol. So we will see what can be done -about it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald moistened his finger-tip with a drop -of the water from the Churning of the Ocean. As -the Lady of the First Water-Gap had done to Gerald’s -forehead, so Gerald did to the shrivelled idol -of Lytreia.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was changed. Its limpness departed; its coloring -quickened; corded large blue veins, very intricately -forked and branched, arose about its now -glowing surface, which revealed also many tiny veins -that were brightly red and astonishingly tortuous. -It became enormous and high-standing and robust -and succulent. It throbbed and jerked. It was hot -to the touch: and the roughened cartilage of its -erect tip-end now glistened with imperial purple.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And everywhere at that same instant the magic -of Evaine was lifted from Lytreia, and the nose of -every man regained its proper proportions and -vigor. Young couples to the right hand and to the -left could be seen withdrawing to sneeze in private: -the girls were already producing their handkerchiefs. -And the three priestesses began to bathe the -rejuvenated idol with refreshing water: they -wreathed it with leaves of the Indian wood-apple; -they placed before it flowers and incense and sweetmeats. -Meanwhile they chaunted a contented song -in honor of the Holy Nose.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Tenjo and all the older lords and dowagers of -Tenjo’s court had kneeled in worship. Gerald only -remained standing as arrogantly erect as was the -idol which people worshipped in Lytreia.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I honor in a civil way,” said Gerald, “the spirit -of this tongue—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But this,” said Tenjo the King, now speaking -almost peevishly, “is not a tongue. It is the Holy -Nose of Lytreia.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you not be flying, my dear fellow, upon the -wings of bad temper, into the face of scripture -and of logic! In a civil way, I repeat, I honor this -member. I personally am rather fond of talking. -Nevertheless, as being myself a member of the Protestant -Episcopal church, and as being also a self-respecting -member of the Dirghic mythology, I must -decline to worship this so restive and inflammable -member of any man’s body.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Tenjo at that got up from off his knees. He came -toward Gerald: and the white-bearded, grave King -then spoke with rather less of peevishness than of -compassion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You will regret such sayings. For that also is a -law of Lytreia. However, do you now ask what you -will for the vigor which you have restored to our -noses, and we will gladly pay that price. Yet for the -blasphemies which you have uttered in this temple -the spirit of the Holy Nose will by and by be asking a -price: and that price nor you nor any other lad will -ever pay gladly.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald replied, “For the renovation of your -noses, and as a propitiatory trap for the doomed -wu in Peter’s Tomb, you will pay me the price of -one black rooster.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But what,” asked Tenjo, “is a rooster?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, a rooster is the herald of the dawn, it is -the father of an omelet, it is the pullet’s first bit of -real luck, it is the male of the <span class='it'>Gallus domesticus</span>.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We do not call a male chicken that—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” Gerald assented, “no, but you ought to. -And not to do so is wholly un-American.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet why do you Americans call this particular -bird a rooster, when everybody knows that all birds -except ostriches and cassowaries roost, and that -every flying bird everywhere is thus a rooster?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, I admit that we do not reason about it as -you reason in Lytreia. I admit that the word -‘rooster’ is a word without connotations and without -any correspondence in anatomy. Nevertheless, every -nation has its customs. And it is as much our well-established -American custom to call the male of the -chicken a rooster as it is your custom to call that -thing a nose.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But we call that a nose because it is, in point of -fact, a nose. It is, as we have told you I do not know -how many times, the Holy Nose of Lytreia.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald was honestly exasperated by the obstinacy -of the people of this kingdom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Even so,” said he, “if you want the truth—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He spoke then the truth about that tongue, as it -appeared to him. But his remarks were lost to history -through the circumstance that none of his -hearers ever thought of setting them down in writing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Instead, his hearers shuddered. They gave him a -black cock, and they drove him out of that temple. It -was in this way that Gerald put an affront upon the -Holy Nose of Lytreia.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch17'>17.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Evaine of Peter’s Tomb</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>N</span></span>OW Gerald rode upon the silver stallion -toward the immemorial, moss-overgrown -tomb of King Peter the Builder, and Gerald -carried under his left arm the black cock. Gerald -noted, with an interest natural to any student of -magic, the glorification tree which grew beside this -tomb. He once more whistled meditatively. Then -he hitched his shining stallion to an over-candidly -carved and painted post which stood at the door of -the tomb, and he went in.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The interior of this spacious tomb was lighted -with nineteen iron lamps swung from the ceiling. -Gerald thus saw, first of all, the great four-square -mirror covered with a flesh-colored cloth. Before it -fumed a smoking brazier; and beside this stood the -appearance of a woman. To her left hand was a -broad bed, and to her right, a gilded pig-trough -heaped with fig-leaves. These leaves this woman was -crumpling and tearing into little pieces one by one -before she destroyed them in the fire of the brazier.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She heard Gerald’s civil cough. She turned: and -Gerald was enraptured.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For Evaine of Peter’s Tomb was so surpassingly -lovely that she excelled all the other women his gaze -had ever beheld. The colors of this beautiful young -girl’s two eyes were nicely matched, and her nose -stood just equidistant between them. Beneath this -was her mouth, and she had also a pair of ears. The -girl was young, she exhibited no deformity anywhere, -and the enamored glance of the young man -could perceive in her no fault. There was, to be sure, -a puzzling likeness to somebody he had once known, -but Gerald’s quick wits soon unriddled the mystery. -This woman reminded him of Evelyn Townsend.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nor was this all. He observed now that this -woman was, just as he had suspected, a Fox-Spirit, -for now from Evaine of Peter’s Tomb emanated the -power of her magic. That magic which overmasters -all animals now smote at Gerald; and in a mildly -amusing way he found its assaults really quite interesting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For this is the goety of beasts,” he reflected. -“This is the brutish half-magic of the wu which -maddens men, along with all other animals in their -rutting season, and robs them of self-control. This -magic persuades me, almost, that I, too, am only a -bundle of cellular matter upon its way to becoming -manure. Yes, my life, too, at just this moment, seems -but a grudged brief season of bewildered appetites -and of baffled surmise such as is the life of a mortal -man. I, too, seem a mere human being passing from -the forgotten to the unforeseeable. Under the assaults -of this small carnal magic, I seem again to go -in that continuous masked loneliness which mortal -persons in Lichfield and elsewhere call living. I -long to put out of mind the frailness and the transiency -of my hold upon living. The nonsensical notion -has occurred to me that such forgetfulness may -be hired by bringing the epidermis which masks me -into superficial contact with the homogenous animal -matter in which hides this Fox-Spirit.... Yes, I -am being, as it were, maddened with desire; I am -very rapidly becoming the prey of this Fox-Spirit’s -irresistible powers of fascination, so to speak. And -I find it really quite interesting to observe how this -half-magic which destroys so many men now impiously -strikes beyond its proper arena, at that which -is divine; and how this foolish magic attempts to -deceive even me, who am a Savior and a sun god.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Such were the cursory reflections which passed -through Gerald’s mind in the while that he said, -aloud, “Good-evening, ma’am!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Fox-Spirit Evaine, without replying to him -directly, took out of her bosom a white gem about -the size of an orange. She tossed this up into the -air, and caught it again. Gerald conjectured that -this was her soul, but he made no comment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He displayed to her his cock, saying, as was needful, -“I entreat you to accept my rooster—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But what,” asked learned Evaine, “what did -you call this tamed descendant of the wild Bankiva -fowl,—whose original habitat was in Northern -India from Sindh to Burma, and in Cochin China, -and in many of the Malay Islands as far as Timor, -and in the Philippines?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, in the United States of America, ma’am, -we, rather more briefly, and for a variety of reasons, -call this bird a rooster.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It has been well observed,” she replied, “by -Pliny the Elder—a celebrated Roman naturalist, -born 23 <span style='font-size:smaller'>A.D.</span>, perished in the eruption of Vesuvius -79 <span style='font-size:smaller'>A.D.</span>,—that every nation has its customs.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the Fox-Spirit dexterously cut off the head -of Gerald’s cock with the sacrificial ax, and turning -toward the East, she spoke the needed words three -times. One entered now in a scarlet coat, a yellow -vest, and pale green knee-breeches. His head was -like that of a mastiff, with the addition of two horns -and the ears of an ass, but he had the legs and hoofs -of a calf. Such was he who carried off the black cock -which Gerald had brought for the Fox-Spirit’s -master, as a propitiatory offering and a trap.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald smiled. Gerald shook hands, politely, with -Evaine the learned Fox-Spirit.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am,” said Gerald, “a god.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She replied: “I am one who serves all gods. I -honor every tribe of those divine beings whose existence -scholars have so variously accounted for as -the products of physical and ethical and historical -and etymological blunders abetted by homonymy and -polonymy. But I require for my piety a honorarium.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And what is that honorarium?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She told him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And as she spoke, Evaine drew near to him, and -yet nearer, and she was remarkably desirable. If -only she had not now reminded Gerald more and -more of Evelyn Townsend, she would have been -resistless.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Very well, then!” said Gerald, affably: “you -shall have that honorarium to-morrow morning if -you still care to demand a reward so trivial.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Immediately afterward he said, “But, indeed, -ma’am, you quite misunderstand me!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then with a few well-chosen words he placed -their relationship upon a more decorous basis.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Evaine the Fox-Spirit laughed. Such unresponsiveness -she declared to be, when manifested by -a god, wholly surprising, and comparable to the -Seven Wonders of the World, namely: (1) the -Pyramids of Egypt; (2) the Hanging Gardens of -Babylon; (3) the Tomb of Mausolos; (4) the -Temple of Diana at Ephesus; (5) the Colossus of -Rhodes; (6) the Statue of Zeus by Phidias; and -(7) the Pharos at Alexandria. Yet, Evaine continued, -she perceived that she might trust him—</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You may do nothing of the sort!” said Gerald, -decisively. “You may not even give me all. No, -ma’am, it would be quite unadvisable, because, as I -am forced to point out, you in your unfading youth -and omniscient learning are many thousands of years -older than I am in my present incarnation. Beside -you, I am a mere boy. Now, it is often a great disadvantage -to a boy, it is by and by a curse to him, to -succumb to the loving confidence and generosity of -a woman much older than himself. It is unwholesome. -It is un-American.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Is it, then, inconsistent with the manners of a -continent in the Western Hemisphere—first named -America by Waldseemüller, a teacher of geography -in the college of Saint-Dié among the Vosges, in a -treatise called <span class='it'>Cosmographia</span>, published in 1507,—for -me to like you so much that I just want to touch -you and be near you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, ma’am, that, I regret to say, is universal. -Besides, I did not particularly mean you. I only mean -that there are such women, as we both know, dear -lady, who prey upon young boys. They employ for -this purpose all their confidence and generosity -without the least scruple. And many a hard, bitter, -cynical man has originally had his faith in and his -regard for everything good and holy blasted in his -very first boyhood by the confiding nature and generosity -of some middle-aged woman or another and -her subsequent references to the advantage he took -of her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is possible that you speak with the clearness -recommended by Quintilian as the chief virtue of -speech,—born in Spain about 25 <span style='font-size:smaller'>A.D.</span>, died about -95 <span style='font-size:smaller'>A.D.</span>, patronized by Vespasian and Domitian,—but -it is certain that I do not understand one word of -your speaking.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—However,” Gerald continued, “when a boy -has a nice, clean friendship with an older woman it -is one of the most valuable and helpful experiences -that can come into his life. A friendship such as this -appears to me a rather beautiful idea. The older -woman—particularly when she is older by many -thousands of years,—can teach him, as his mother -out of the superficial knowledge of a callow half-century -or so cannot possibly do, about women. She -can inspire and direct him. She can fire his ambition. -She can encourage him. She can be to him in every -way a liberal education.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now, certainly, I shall never understand your -American way of uttering so many platitudes—derived -from the Greek word <span class='it'>platys</span>, meaning -‘flat,’—when I was attempting to do all these -things!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, but we must keep the education entirely -oral, and we must keep, too, your little hands—So, -now, that is very much better!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is better still to permit a wilful person to have -his way,—a remark attributed to Periander, an -ancient sage, and Tyrant of Corinth during the -sixth century <span style='font-size:smaller'>B.C.</span>,—since you elect to give me my -honorarium for nothing,” Evaine said, rather -sulkily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald elected to do nothing of the sort. But, -since his real intentions would have been an awkward -matter to explain, he kept silent about them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After that Gerald questioned the learned Fox-Spirit. -She explained to him willingly enough the -laws of Lytreia and described the basket they were -found in, and she made it plain just how these laws -were enforced by a committee of midwives and -stonemasons. She spoke of the magic she had put -upon Lytreia. She spoke of Tenjo, telling how in -the prime of his youth he came to be called Tenjo of -the Long Nose; and her statistics were remarkable. -She talked then about the wind between the stars, -and about the grandeur that was Greece, and about -Hobson’s choice, and about Davey Jones’s locker, -and about the cause of volcanoes, and about the -curate’s egg, and about the best cures for baldness. -For no information anywhere was hidden from the -wisdom of Evaine, who knew all things, and who -served all gods.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I perceive,” said Gerald, “that you have knowledge, -and I like your reflections extremely. So do you -speak yet further out of the stores of your omniscience!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had been glancing all the while toward the -veiled Mirror of the Two Truths. But he of course -said never a word about this mirror. His present task -was simply to lure on this cultured and malefic creature -to her complete ruin.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For the Fox-Spirit, as Gerald saw, was still about -the brutish magic of the wu, which drives men mad, -and she now spoke of more and yet more evil matters -such as were very well adapted to incite Gerald to -brutality. She spoke of the battle of life, and of -the feast of reason, and of the irony of fate, and of -the lap of luxury. She talked of the writing on the -wall, and of the scroll of fame, and of the lexicon -of youth, and of the cloud that had a silver lining. -She touched upon the two seas, of troubles and of -upturned faces. She discussed the durance that was -vile, and the hours that were wee and sma’, and the -consummation that was devoutly to be wished for, -and the light that was dim and religious, and the -heat which was not the humidity. She indicated the -balm in Gilead, the place in the sun, and the safety -in numbers. She afterward gave succinctly the recipes -for making a mountain out of a molehill, a silk -purse out of a sow’s ear, and a virtue out of a necessity. -For no evil phrase of any sort was hidden from -the wisdom of Evaine, who knew all things, and who -served all gods, and who was now intent to exercise -upon Gerald the magic of the wu, which drives men -mad.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Gerald only smiled, almost approvingly. This -woman was reminding him more and more of Evelyn -Townsend, and his pulses had not ever been calmer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I perceive,” said Gerald, “that you have a great -deal of knowledge, with the vocabulary of a dear -friend to back it devastatingly. Therefore, ma’am, -to avail myself of your knowledge alone may serve -my divine ends much better than your really most -flattering proffers in other fields.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For now it was Gerald’s turn to speak. So now -he revealed to the baffled Fox-Spirit the fact that he -was Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, -the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of -Heavenly Ones, a very potent god who had temporarily -mislaid his mythology. He told the omniscient -Fox-Spirit, who knew all things excepting only how -and at what hour her knowledge would end, of Gerald’s -adventures during the rather crowded twenty-four -hours since he had left Lichfield.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And now she was smiling over his obtuseness. For -to all-wise Evaine it was at once apparent that Fair-haired -Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord -of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly -Ones, was a culture hero like Quat or Quetzalcoatl -or Cagn or Osiris or Dionysos. All these were -former acquaintances of hers: she knew, she said, -every inch of them, for each one of these had -stopped to visit her who served all gods, as each had -passed downward toward Antan. Evaine, if anybody, -would thus know a culture hero wherever she -saw a culture hero.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Every mythology contained one of these glorious -philanthropists, born of a mysterious and superior -race, just as Gerald had been born in the United -States of America, a philanthropist, as the learned -Fox-Spirit said, very usually theriomorphic, who -came in the appearance of a jackass or of some other -animal among less favored peoples to teach them -strange new arts and mysteries, and to endow them -with every kind of cultural advantage and prosperity, -just as Gerald had benefited the people of -Dersam and of Lytreia, and was preparing to benefit -Antan.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She pointed out, furthermore, that a culture hero -was in no way un-American. There had been, for -example, Quetzalcoatl. She also remembered quite -clearly Yetl,—because a deity in the form of a bird -was always, she said, rather difficult,—and Poshaiyankya, -and Coyote, and Esaugetuh, and that -other waggish Indian deity—his name at present -evaded her,—who had traveled incognito in the -shape of a large spider. For all these aboriginal -American culture heroes had visited Evaine as they -passed downward toward Antan, and every one of -them had been in a somewhat earlier generation Gerald’s -fellow countryman.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In the light of your forceful logic, ma’am, I concede -that, over and above being a Savior and a sun -god, it seems probable I must be a culture hero too.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But yet, in any case,—dear, unresponsive, -frigid child,” said the Fox-Spirit, speaking far more -simply than she had done before,—“do you not -know that all mythologies are controlled by the -Master Philologist, so that he alone may say in -which one of them and in what capacity you belong?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I find that saying obscure.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It means only that sooner or later all gods save -only Koleos Koleros and the upright spirit of the -Holy Nose pass down into Antan.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, for, as they told me at Caer Omn, Antan -is the heaven of all deserving gods, where they rest -from their divine labors.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the Fox-Spirit shook her head, rather forebodingly. -“I, certainly, would not say that.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you, then, but answer me this very simple -question! What becomes of them there? what fate -befalls in that place all which men have found most -beautiful and most worshipful?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How can one say, when no god has ever returned? -It is known only that, in one way or another -way, the Master Philologist disposes of every deity -that men have served, save only the two supreme -gods of all mammals,—a class of vertebrates embracing -bats, the warm-blooded quadrupeds, seals, -cetaceans, man, and sirenians.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald drew a long face. “Your account of the -matter, ma’am, suggests that my predecessor upon -the throne of Antan lacks piety. You imply that the -creature is deficient in true religious feeling. That is -a fault I would have to requite when I take from -him his throne and all the great and best words of -magic.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To do that, child, needs power such as has not -been shown by any god among the many millions of -gods that men have worshipped since the first infancy -of Chronos,—a Greek personification of -Time, usually depicted as carrying a sickle and an -hourglass.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, but, my dear lady, I, who am at once a -culture hero and a sun deity and a Savior, must be -a peculiarly powerful god. And, besides, ma’am, -from what you tell me—Why, but, really now, it -appears probable that the Master Philologist has -damaged the Dirghic mythology to which I myself -belong! No god can patiently endure such usage; -and my divine wrath will, thus, redouble my power.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, still,—but, still, you dear, nice-looking -and vainglorious baby—!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Evaine had paused. She was regarding him almost -compassionately: and Gerald felt he could never -get used to the flighty way in which people everywhere -in the Marches of Antan seemed to pity the -high gods. It was a quite friendly way they had of -looking at you, but to extend commiseration where -reverence was the proper thing savored almost of -irreligion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald shrugged. He said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I shall therefore be resistless. I shall compel -him to restore into general circulation the Dirghic -mythology, after having amply repaired whatsoever -damage he may have done to it, and then I shall assume, -in addition to his throne, my proper station -as a culture hero and a sun deity and a Savior in -that mythology. So the affair is, virtually, settled: -we may now turn to other matters: and in return -for the gracious aid afforded by your large wisdom, -I will make in your honor a sonnet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is a very beautiful sonnet,—consisting of -fourteen decasyllabic lines, expressing two phases of -a single thought or sentiment,” said Evaine the Fox-Spirit,—“and -I am proud to have inspired it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You forget,” said Gerald, “that I have not yet -recited my sonnet. I will now do so.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And he did.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But his voice was so shaken with emotion that, -when he had completed the octave, he paused, because -it was never within Gerald’s power to resist -the beauty of a sublime thought when it was thus -adequately expressed in flawless verse. So for an instant -he stayed silent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He caught up the lovely hands of Evaine the Fox-Spirit, -and as he pressed them to his trembling lips -he noted that these hands smelled like hops drying -in the sun. It seemed to him exceedingly pitiful he -had given that promise to Tenjo. It seemed to him -there was a certain sameness in the dear women who -made colorful the Marches of Antan, and, to some -extent, a similarity in their more intimate love -passages with Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver. -He found it depressing to reflect that destruction -waited, so very near, for so much loveliness. -He found it perfectly dreadful to foreknow that he -would often regret this omniscient Evaine and her -fine stores of useful information, once he had kept -the divine word given to Tenjo, and had put an end -to her living before she could do any further damage -to the men of Lytreia.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gods ought to abstain from all love-affairs: for -through love alone might a god look to be wounded,—upon -rainy Sunday afternoons, perhaps, or after -drinking a bit more than was good for one,—to be -wounded, at such unavoidable seasons of low vitality, -with recurrent, plaguing memories of his -mortal playthings, so dear, so very dear, and so soon -reft away from his immortal arms, irrevocably....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After these cursory reflections, Gerald sighed, -and—with the thoughtful commentary that, since -this was a Miltonic sonnet, his poem here went on -with the same sentence,—he continued his reciting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And when he had ended, the Fox-Spirit sighed -contentedly. She spoke with acumen and authority as -to the main events of Milton’s life and as to his -principal works, and she added:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is a very beautiful sonnet,—a verse form -of Italian origin, first used in English by Sir Thomas -Wyatt in 1557,—and I am proud to have inspired -it. That is the sort of poetry which would incline -any living woman to trust you and to give you all -the very moment you stopped reciting it. So now will -you not come to bed?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, Evelyn, not to-night—I beg your pardon, -ma’am! My thoughts were wool-gathering. What I -had meant to say was but that if you insist upon yet -further displays of your great-hearted womanly -confidence and generosity you shall be walloped with -a broomstick—severely. No, do you retire now, -my dear lady, by all means, and with my apologies -for keeping you up so late because of the delight I -have got from your instructive way of talking. But -I shall pass the remainder of the night in the aloofness -appropriate to a god, in this quite comfortable -armchair.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And this he did.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch18'>18.<br> <span class='sub-head'>End of a Vixen</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>W</span></span>HEN Evaine was asleep, though, then -Gerald rose softly from his chair. He approached -the bed. Very carefully he inserted -his hand between the young breasts of Evaine, -and lightly he drew out the strange white gem. He -waited now, looking down compassionately at this -really very lovely girl....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But at his touch the learned Fox-Spirit had moved, -so that she now lay flat upon her back, with her -mouth a little open. Evelyn slept thus. And that was -why Evelyn snored....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald shrugged. He took up the sacrificial ax.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now that the dawn was at hand, he went out from -the tomb, to the glorification tree, and he began to -fell the tree with this ax. At the first stroke blood -gushed out of the gray bark copiously, and Gerald -heard a wailing noise. Gerald looked upward. The -appearance of a young child dressed in blue garments -was to be seen in a cleft in the side of the tree. -It had the seeming of a boy child about seven or -eight years old, a freckled boy, with tousled red hair, -and with as yet only one upper front tooth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>This child wailed broken-heartedly: “A blasphemer -is come up against the Two Truths; a vainglorious -fool derides the pair that endure where all -else perishes; and life is denied to me by his wrongheadedness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald had put down the ax. He was trembling. -He did not like the love and the great yearning -which had awakened in his heart. He folded his -arms very tightly: he seemed tense and rather -frightened looking as he waited there peering sidewise -toward this boy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Child,” Gerald said, “what is your will that you -cry out for life from the glorification tree?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My father, I demand the life which you have -not given me, that life which you owe to me, and -that life which is denied me so long as you deny the -Two Truths.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I serve the demands of my appointed kingdom, -child. I serve the needs of no other truth and the -needs of no pawing women who would keep me out -of that kingdom.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My father, your kingdom is a doubtful dream, -but the flesh of my mother is real.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dream is lovelier than any woman. Oh, and -a doubtfulness also is more lovely than the body of -a woman, for I know the shaping of that body over-well.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My father, you refuse the pleasures which will -not ever be returning.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am a god. I serve the needs of my own will.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The gods also pass, my father, they also pass -without any returning, upon the road which you now -tread.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us pass, then, unhindered! But no woman -permits it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is because these women, O my father, have -a very rational wisdom.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Such is, perhaps, the case. But a god has his -irrational dream. And that is better.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is well enough, my father, for that dream to -end contentedly in the arms of some woman.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is well enough. It is customary. But I am Fair-haired -Hoo, the Helper and the Preserver. I go to -my appointed kingdom: and I am Lord of a Third -Truth, whose mightiness I must help and preserve.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald hewed on: and as the tree fell, the -child vanished.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now Gerald set fire to the tree: and when a tidy -blaze was crackling, he spoke the needed words, -and into the heart of this fire he tossed the strange -white gem. Straightway you heard a loud screeching. -Out of the tomb of Peter the Builder came a vixen -fox, screaming and shuddering quite horribly, but -not ever ceasing to approach the fire. She entered -the flames. Silence followed, and the dawn of a -superb May morning which was marred only by an -unpleasant odor of singed hair and burning flesh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald after that went back into the tomb from -which the omniscient Fox-Spirit had been dispossessed. -He looked rather sentimentally upon the -empty disordered bed: then he passed beyond the -brazier, in which the ruins of fig-leaves yet smouldered, -toward the Mirror of the Two Truths.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The fact no longer mattered, perhaps, that any -man who looked into this mirror straightway found -himself transformed into two stones: but it very -greatly mattered what effect this mirror would have -upon a sun god and a Savior and a culture hero. So -he removed the flesh-colored veil.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch19'>19.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Beyond the Veil</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>B</span></span>UT he was not turned into two stones. Nor -was there confronting him any mirror. Beyond -the flesh-colored veil he found only an -ancient painting very carefully done, but upon an unhuman -scale which made this painting monstrous. -The subject of the picture, however, is not known, -because Gerald never told anybody.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But it is known that Gerald shook his head at this -painting.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Laborious daub of prevaricating pigment!” -he remarked. “O futile painting, which so many -foolish believers in Lytreia think to be the Mirror -of the Two Truths! I question your arithmetic. For -I myself am the Lord of a Third Truth, for all that -I have just at present no precise idea as to its nature. -In consequence, I know the two objects which you -magnify are not all which exists. And I deny -that their never-ending search of each other is the -one gesture of life. No: I at least, I feel assured, am -destined to take part in some quite other gesture, -of a more graceful and more cleanly and more dignified -nature,—a gesture of, it well may be, eternal -importance....”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet Gerald glanced about him a little forlornly. -This place was now rather lonesome and ambiguous -looking. In the crypt immediately beneath him, Gerald -knew, lay all that remained of King Peter and -the most of his numerous family; dozens upon -dozens of peculiarly ugly objects were there, all -that remained of a great conqueror and of the -queens who had delighted him, all that attestedly -remained now anywhere of a strong hero’s pride -and famous warfaring and of his many women’s -loveliness....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, yes, it may be,” Gerald conceded, half frettedly, -because he did not like to be troubled with -such reflections, “it may be that I am wrong in this -belief. And that seems to me yet another reason for -adhering to this belief. I, standing here alone upon -the remnants of so many utter strangers, admit -indeed to some depression of spirits. It seems to me, -at this exact instant, that just conceivably I may be -neither a Savior nor a sun god nor a culture hero, -but merely another bull-headed Musgrave, for -whom death waits, and after death, perhaps, oblivion. -Nevertheless, I find it a more beautiful and -a much more entertaining idea to believe in than to -deny the immortality even of a mere Musgrave. -There is to my mind nothing at all interesting in the -idea of my own extinction. And it appears that my -belief in this matter, with no assured knowledge anywhere -to go on, must be simply a question of -personal taste. Modesty even suggests that my belief -is an affair of irrelevance.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald said also: “Therefore it furthermore -appears to me, O peculiarly unimaginative -painting, a sheer waste of opportunity to assume -that anything is ever going to end even for a mere -Musgrave all conscious experience. I had far rather -play with a beautiful idea than with one utterly lacking -in seductiveness. I very much prefer to believe -that I at least am, in one way or another, reserved -to take part in some enduring and rather superb -performance,—somewhere, by and by,—in a performance -concerned with some third truth, more august -and æsthetically more pleasing than are the -only ever-enduring truths apparent to us here. We -copulate and die, and that is all?—Well, perhaps! -But, then again, perhaps not! One must, you see, be -broad-minded about the matter.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He for a moment kept silence. That regrettably -candid painting and all the other adjuncts of this -place were certainly very depressing, now that the -learned diableries of the Fox-Spirit no longer enlivened -this tomb. Nevertheless, Gerald kept his -long chin well up.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, every man ought to be broad-minded about -this matter, and ought to cherish always, if only as -a diverting and inexpensive plaything, this pungent -notion of being immortal. It is really inexpensive, -because, should your notion prove ungrounded, you -run no risk, no tiniest risk, of being twitted, by and -by, for credulity, or even of ever discovering your -error. Meanwhile this faith in your own durability -and potential importance is in some sense a cordial; -and is in sundry ways a fine toy. It renders life, and -dying too, endurable: and it offers against all vacant -half-hours a variety of diverting speculations... -as to that possible third truth.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Again Gerald paused. For it seemed to him, as he -unwittingly repeated the age-old self-persuasions of -so many of his ancestors, that he had found now -another facet in this jewel of an idea that he was -playing with; and this fact considerably cheered -Gerald.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then, too,” said he, “then, too, that rather -wide-spread expectation of an oncoming triumph—somewhere, -in some hazed roseate arena, beyond -the discomforts of death and the incredible impudence -of the mortician’s titivating,—that triumph -which is to be a perpetual triumphing of justice and -of rationality and of kindliness and of all the other -canonical virtues, this rumored triumph yet cows -many persons, not infrequently, into one or another -thrifty-minded practice of these generally beneficent -virtues.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald said then: “It thus makes for, at any -rate, terrestrial ease and stability and repose: it -gives people, as the phrase runs, something to go -by, in that it supports the most of every nation’s -social and legal rules of thumb. And it tends appreciably -to limit men’s common greed and viciousness, -and all the harsher lusts of human beings, to -exercises through which there seems some quite tangible -gain within tolerably safe reach.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald said also: “Yes: it is much better for -men to believe in some third truth which will be revealed -to them after the death of their bodies; and -a general faith in the immortality even of mere Musgraves -appears to me, thus, very plainly, because of -its happy blending of the functions of a narcotic and -of a policeman, a generally desirable assumption. -It remains in all ways a desirable faith, no matter -whether or not there be any grounds for it. And if -this careful painting presents the entire truth, that -fact is but another excellent reason for paying no -attention to it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald now felt quite comfortable through having -listened so respectfully to his own relentless logic.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For these reasons, O foolish painting of the Two -Truths, I deny your fleshly significance. Whether I -happen to be a sun god or a Savior or a culture -hero or just another bull-headed Musgrave, I deny -that you present to me any truth whatever. I snap my -fingers at your materialism; I turn up my nose at -your indecorous anatomical studies; and I send the -divine foot of the Lord of the Third Truth smashing -through your ancient canvas. These things I do to -proclaim the majesty of the Third Truth. And I -depart from this Peter and this Peter’s Tomb, to seek -my appointed kingdom.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was in this way that Gerald yet again put an -affront upon Koleos Koleros and upon the Holy -Nose of Lytreia.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART SIX</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF TUROINE</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“Weathercocks Turn more Easily</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>when Placed very High.”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch20'>20.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Thaumaturgists in Labor</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>G</span></span>ERALD passed on, still riding upon the -silver stallion, which Evaine the Fox-Spirit -had not, after all, demanded of him that -morning as her promised honorarium. And the next -place he came to, and where he got his breakfast, -was Turoine. This was a small free city given to -sorceries of two colors.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To every side of him the inhabitants of Turoine -were about their arts: and Gerald, as a former student -of magic, quite naturally observed their various -activities with interest.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now the first sorcerer that he encountered was -making a figure out of pink wax with which was -mixed baptismal oil and the ashes of a consecrated -wafer. The next sorcerer was murmuring charms -over a very fat toad which was imprisoned in a net -rudely woven out of the golden hairs from the head -of some luckless, unresponsive woman, who was now -about to meet a not wholly desirable doom after that -toad had been buried at her threshold. And the -third sorcerer huddled over a small fire wherein -burned cypress branches and broken crucifixes and -portions of a gibbet. In his hand was a skull filled -with dark wine which had been seasoned with hemp -and with the fat of a girl child and with poppy seed: -and his familiar, in the shape of a large dun-colored -cat, was lapping up that bitter drink.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No sorcerer anywhere in Turoine was idle upon -this fine May morning. And in this small, ever-busy -city—where all the buildings were quaintly marked -with stars and pentagrams and the signs of the zodiac -and the two kinds of triangles, and were cozily overgrown -with honeysuckle and arum lilies and black -poppies and deadly nightshade,—these sorcerers -were about a bewildering variety of studies.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I,” one of them told Gerald, “am learning the -secrets which proceed from Saturn, that ashy lord -of the greater infortune. I have especial power over -all husbandmen and beggars, over grandfathers and -monks of every order and ministers of the gospel, -over all potters, and miners, and gardeners, and cow-tenders. -I have learned how to make men envious, -covetous, slow of thought, suspicious, and stubborn. -And I am also able to afflict whatsoever person I -elect with toothache and dropsy and black jaundice -and leprosy and hemorrhoids, either severally or in -unison.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Another said: “I study to divine and to make -smooth the approach of every evil fortune,—with -smoke and arrows and wax, with an egg, with mice, -and with the simulacra of dead persons;—but, above -all, as you may perceive, I have been most successful -with the head of an ass in a brazier of live coals. And -my guide is not any bow-legged, swarthy eunuch, -but Leonard, the Grand Master of the Sabbat.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I,” said a third, “have found in Turoine the -Great Juggle Bag, for my guide is Baalberith. So -have I mastered all kinds of unheard-of, secret, merry -feats and mysteries and inventions—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But what,” asked Gerald, “what purpose does -your knowledge serve?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“By means of it, sir, those who are favored by -my lord Baalberith, the Master of Alliances, may -make real the sin performed in a dream; may open -the locked door of any jail or bedchamber or counting -house; may smite a husband with embarrassing -weakness; may inspire strange maids and married -women with flaming desires; may increase his natural -height here by seven ells and here by three inches; -may make himself invisible or invulnerable; may -change his form into that of a cat or a hare or a -wolf; may control thunder and lightning; may collect -and talk with snakes; and”—here the sorcerer -coughed,—“and may perform five other advantageous, -extravagant and authentic devices.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Gerald shrugged. “These sciences are well -enough for a sorcerer; and I perceive that the industrious -may pick up much useful information in -Turoine. But I am a god who travels toward his appointed -kingdom, and toward the mastery of secrets -rather more vital than any of these. For your arts -are of that black magic which hurts but cannot help; -your guides are devils; and you deal only in misfortune -and destructiveness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then perhaps, sir, you may be better pleased by -the enchanters who live at the other end of this city. -For these enchanters have no guides save restlessness -and foiled desires and impotence; they get no -direct aid from hell, but from somewhat less ancient -intellectual centres; and they work all their magic, -such as it is, with words.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And what does the magic of these same enchanters -create?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It creates, sir, a comfortable sense of equality -with your betters wherever there is least reason for -it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I find that saying obscure. Nevertheless, I will -visit these enchanters,” said Gerald.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And he rode on.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch21'>21.<br> <span class='sub-head'>They That Wore Blankets</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>T</span></span>HUS Gerald came to the enchanters who -were used to perform all their magic with -words. And they greeted his coming with a -very cordial enthusiasm for creatures so gray and -vague and bedraggled looking as they sat huddled -there, each one of them clothed in a blanket, and -thoroughly drenched as though with sour smelling -rain.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now the first enchanter to speak wore a violet -blanket. He arose; and dripping bilge-water everywhere -about him in the while that he smiled with -wholly friendly condescension, he observed:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here is another rider on the silver stallion. Here -is yet another figure of papier mâché which Horvendile -has despatched upon a profitless journeying.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I—” said Gerald.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Without at all heeding Gerald, a second enchanter, -in a well soaked green blanket, laid down his scissors; -and he addressed the first enchanter with some -fervor, saying:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us not speak harshly of our good Horvendile’s -magic, for everybody ought to respect the -impotence of the aging. We must concede, of course, -that his magic is no longer fresh. It is not possible -to deny that a woefully infirm magic has set this papier -mâché figure on a hackneyed journeying. Candor -compels us to grant that this journeying crosses once -sparkling rivers which have long ago run dry. We, -as intelligent enchanters, must admit that a wearying -fog lowers thickly about this journeying, that above -it the sun of romance shines very pale and cold, and -that this journeying is sterile and empty of gusto. -Nevertheless, this journeying, as we ought not to -ignore, is no doubt an afterthought, it is the belated -invention of a tired mind, and a desperate and ill-advised -proceeding. For these reasons, howsoever -sorrowfully we, as Horvendile’s fellow artists and -well-wishers, must always deplore among ourselves -the kindergarten notions of this poor Horvendile, -and his ponderous playfulness, and the limitations of -his few and unenterprising ideas, still we must be -careful not to apply to his magic one single harsh -word.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet—” Gerald stated.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nodding in profound and entire approbation, -with which Gerald was not in any way connected, -an enchanter in a sopping yellow blanket now -remarked:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I, too, am always ready to defend the magic of -our fellow practitioner. My conscience forces me to -grant that his magic is not faultless. In mere honesty -I have to confess that his magic is stupid and stilted -and silly; that it is sniggering and sly and nasty; that -it wallows in a morass of self-satisfaction; and that -it is steeped and soaked in ever-fretful egoism, in -spite of our friendly candor in all dealings with him -from the very first. Nor can I dispute that our confrère -behaves too much like a decadent small boy -who is proud of having been haled into the police -court for chalking dirty words on a wall. Apart, -though, from his stinking filth and his vileness and -his tinsel cynicisms, and aside from his bestiality and -his vulgar frippery and his dabblings in cesspools -and his vapid sophistries, I stand always ready to -defend the magic of Horvendile, because it is not, -after all, as if he were a mage of any real importance, -and one ought always to be indulgent to persons of -third and fourth rate ability.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Even so—” Gerald pointed out.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But now an enchanter in a thoroughly drenched -scarlet blanket was saying, as he meditatively unclosed -his pastepot:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I quite agree with you. Nobody admires the -merits of our esteemed confrère more whole-heartedly -than I do. It would be merely silly to deny -that he has weakened his always rather wishy-washy -magic potions by too frequent blendings. It is impossible -to ignore that his magic has become a cloying -weariness and a mincing indecency. We are forced -to acknowledge that Horvendile is insincere, that he -very irritatingly poses as a superior person, that he -is labored beyond endurance, that he smells of the -lamp, that his art is dull and tarnished and trivial -and intolerable, but, even so, we ought also to admit -that he does as well as could be expected of anybody -who combines a lack of any actual talent with -ignorance of actual life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“However—” Gerald explained.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The fifth enchanter to interrupt Gerald wore a -black blanket; and he, too, appeared to drip with -wisdom and bilge-water and judicious amiability in -the while that he said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is, in fact, alike our duty and our privilege to -be most lenient with this laborious bungler who, after -all, is probably doing the best he can. So I, for one, -I never dwell even fleetingly upon the awkward fact -that the banality of his magic is no excuse for the -way he botches its execution. Indeed, I do not know -but that a person of very lively imagination might -conceive of our confrère’s turning out worse work -than he does. Nor do I think I am being over-charitable. -For, upon my word,—while I can see -that his magic is morbid, that it is sophomoric, that -it is malignant, that it is plagiarized, that it is intolerably -insipid, that it is sacrilegious, that it is naïve, -that it is pseudo whatever or other may happen to -sound best, that it is over brutal in cynicism, that it -is incurably sentimental, and that it bores me beyond -description,—yet otherwise I can, at just this -moment, think of no especial other fault to find with -his magic.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So it was that these dripping and affable enchanters -went on defending Horvendile with such generous -volubility that Gerald could get in no word.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then each took off the single garment which he -wore, and so vanished, because without their wet -blankets these enchanters were in no way noticeable. -And Gerald rode away from that place contentedly, -because it was a natural comfort to know that he -traveled with a guide and a patron who was so well -thought of by the best judges.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch22'>22.<br> <span class='sub-head'>The Paragraph of the Sphinx</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>N</span></span>OW upon the outskirts of Turoine, after -Gerald had ridden through this city, Gerald -paused to talk with the Sphinx who -lay there writing with a black pen in a large black-covered -book like a ledger. The monster had so long -couched in this place as to be half-imbedded in the -red earth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This partially buried condition, ma’am,” Gerald -began,—“or perhaps one ought to say ‘sir’—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Either form of address,” replied the Sphinx, -“may be applicable, according to which half of me -you are considering.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—This semi-interment, then, madam and sir, is -untidy looking, and cannot be especially comfortable.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet I may not move,” replied the Sphinx, “in -part because I have my writing to complete, in part -because I know all movement and all action of every -kind to be equally fruitless. So do I retain eternal -bodily as well as mental poise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Such acumen borders upon paralysis,” Gerald -said: “and paralysis is ugly.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you not despise ugliness!” the Sphinx exhorted, -“who have traveled thus far upon the road -of gods and myths. For what things have you found -stable upon this road save only Koleos Koleros and -the Holy Nose of Lytreia? and what is there more -ugly than these two?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald replied: “That nose I found it my Christian -duty to describe as a tongue; and the lady whom -they call Koleos Koleros I have not yet seen. But, -in any case, you, ma’am—for, after all, it is not -quite nice for me to have your loins upon my mind—No, -really, it does seem more becoming for me to -treat you as a lady—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So, and do you find me ugly?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You mistake my meaning. I was about to observe -that you, ma’am, also appear tolerably stable. -And the Mirror of Caer Omn, that likewise remains -in worship.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dreams pass eternally varying through that -golden mirror. Thoughts pass eternally varying -through my wise head. But all these dreams and -thoughts stay barren, as barren as they are irresolute. -For we create nothing. We control no material -thing. And we aspire toward no goal. That is -why we are permitted to endure powerlessly in -realms wherein two powers alone are never barren; -wherein they control all; and wherein neither may -ever be uncertain of its goal so long as the other -survives.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald found this wholly incomprehensible and -of no striking interest. So he only shrugged.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nevertheless, in my worlds,” Gerald said, -“there shall not be any ugliness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you, then, possess many worlds?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not as yet, ma’am. I allude to the worlds I shall -create by and by, when I have come into my kingdom -yonder, in the place beyond good and evil, and have -regained my proper station as the Lord of the Third -Truth in the Dirghic mythology.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now the Sphinx frowned. “I perceive you are -only another downfallen god upon your journey to -the Master Philologist. I might have guessed it, for -Thor and Typhon and Rudra and the Maruts and -all the other storm gods who have gone blustering -downward into Antan, all had red hair.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald slapped his thigh.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Upon my word, ma’am, but that is a real clue! -The storm gods did, in every mythology known to -me, have red hair. I incline to believe that the wisdom -of the Sphinx has solved the mystery of my -being. I am no doubt a storm god also; I am rapidly -becoming a complete pantheon upon two legs; and at -this rate my waistcoat will end by embracing pure -monotheism. Meanwhile I really do wonder, ma’am, -at your offhand way of speaking about the gods, and -I wonder, too, what grudge you can have against us -gods?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For one thing, it is said that the gods created -those men who interrupt me in my writing to plague -me with just such silly questions.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Men naturally seek wisdom from you, ma’am, to -whom the whole story of human life is familiar.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But the story of human life is not one story. -There are three stories of human life.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, ah! And what are they?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, there was once a traveling man who came -one night to an inn—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I believe I have heard of his indecorous adventures -there. So do you spare my blushes, ma’am, and -tell me the second story!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It seems, then, there were once two Irishmen—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That anecdote also, in all conceivable variants, -I am quite certain I have heard. So what is the third -story?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There was once a young married couple. And it -seems that on the first night—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet that story, in a great number of versions, is -equally familiar to me. And really, ma’am, I question -if these intolerably hackneyed tales sum up all human -wisdom.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But the young married couple in the outcome got -pleasure for their bodies in the service of those two -powers which I was just talking about. The Irishmen -found an unlooked-for drollness in the mechanics -of those two powers, which they preserved in a neat -and nicely memorable phrase, getting pleasure for -their minds. So, by the way, did the two Jews and -the two Scotchmen. And the traveling man, upon -the next morning, after those same two powers had -obtained their will of him, went away from that -inn, traveling nobody knows whither; and so got, -through a darker night, unbroken and uncompanioned -sleep, unbothered any longer by those powers. -Thus these three stories really do sum up all the gains -which it is possible for a man to acquire through human -living and all the wisdom that it is salutary for -any man to know about.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, that is as it may be! I am persuaded that -in the goal of all the gods there is a more august -power than any which men know of hereabouts assuredly. -For I note the sympathy and compassion -and love and self-denial which human beings display -toward one another, after all, rather copiously. -I reflect that every art is a form of self-expression. -And I deduce that the artist who created human -beings was prompted in his embodiment of all these -qualities by sheer egotism. He observed these qualities -in his own nature: he approved of them: and so -he embodied them. No actually reflective person, -therefore, will ever imagine that human life does not -go forward toward some kindly winding-up, since -none who finds philanthropy in his own heart can -doubt that philanthropy exists in the heart of his -creator.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And does that stuff which you are now talking -really seem to you,” the Sphinx asked, “sensible?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear lady, it seems to me something far better: -it seems to me a rather beautiful idea. So I play -with it sometimes. Now I dismiss that idea, out of -deference to your proverbial wisdom: and I ask what -far more gratifying and uplifting wisdom, ma’am, -you may be writing in your black-covered book?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, yes, my book!” said the Sphinx, with the -livelier interest natural to an author. “You find me -just now in some difficulty with my book. You conceive -there has to be an opening paragraph. It would -not be possible to leave out the first paragraph—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I can see that. I can recall no book in which there -was not a first paragraph.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And this paragraph ought to sum up all -things, so to speak—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That likewise is a familiar rhetorical principle—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And it is with the composition of this paragraph -that I am just now having trouble.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, you could not possibly have consulted a -more suitable person. I, too, used to dabble in the little -art of letters before I became a god with four aspects. -I am familiar with all rhetorical devices. I am -a past master of zeugma and syllepsis; at hypallage, -and chiasmus also, I excel; and my handling of -meiosis and persiflage and oxymoron has been quite -generally admired. So do you read me your rough -draft: and I have no doubt I can arrange all difficulties -for you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Sphinx for a moment considered this suggestion, -and, before the prospect of a connoisseur’s -efficient criticism, the monster seemed rather shy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do not be vexed unduly,” the Sphinx then said, -“if you can find no meaning in this paragraph—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I shall not be excessively censorious, I assure -you. No beginner is expected to excel in any art.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—For this paragraph was placed here simply -because there happened to be a vacancy which needed -filling—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I quite understand that. So let us get on!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But there was no hurrying the diffident Sphinx. -“The foolish, therefore,” the Sphinx continued in -shy explanation, “will find in it foolishness, and will -say ‘Bother!’ The wise, as wisdom goes, will reflect -that this paragraph was placed here without its consent -being asked; that no wit nor large significance -was loaned it by its creator; and that it will be forgotten -with the turning of the one page wherein it -figures unimportantly—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No doubt it will be!” said Gerald, now speaking -a little impatiently, “but let us get on to this famous -paragraph!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—So do you turn the page forthwith, in just the -care-free fashion of old nodding Time as he skims -over the long book of life: and do you say either -‘Bother!’ or ‘Brother!’ as your wits prompt.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I will, I assure you, the moment your book is -published. But why do you keep talking about your -paragraph? why do you not read me what you have -written?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have just done so,” replied the Sphinx. “I have -not been talking. I have been reading ever since I -said, ‘Do you not be vexed’ and now I have read -you the whole paragraph.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald said, “Oh!” He scratched his long chin a -bit blankly. He approached the monster, and leaning -over one forepaw, he read for himself in that -black ledger the paragraph of the Sphinx.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald said, “But what comes next?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Were I to answer that question you would be -wiser than I. And of course nobody can ever be wiser -than the Sphinx.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But is that as far as you have yet written?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is as far as anybody has written,” said the -Sphinx, “as yet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In all these centuries you have not got beyond -that one paragraph?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now, do you not see my difficulty? I needed an -opening paragraph which would sum up all things, so -to speak, and all the human living which men keep -pestering me to explain. And when I had written it -there was not anything left over to put in the second -paragraph.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, oh, dear me! This is materialism! this is -flat sacrilege committed in the actual presence of a -god! I am embarrassed, ma’am. I hardly know -which way to look before the spectacle of such conduct. -For you fill your page, with your ambiguous -paragraph—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you not be vexed unduly if you can find no -meaning in this paragraph—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—Which has not anything to do with my exalted -duties in this world—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This paragraph was placed here simply because -there happened to be a vacancy which needed filling—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I am not a paragraph, ma’am! I am no less -a person, I may tell you in confidence, than Fair-haired -Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord of -the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly -Ones, upon a journey,—quite incognito, and therefore -unattended by my customary retinue,—toward -my appointed kingdom. And I confess that to my -divine mind your writing has not any valid significance—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The foolish, therefore, will find in it foolishness, -and will say ‘Bother!’—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And conveys no valuable lesson—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The wise, as wisdom goes, will reflect that this -paragraph was placed here without its consent being -asked; that no wit nor large significance was -loaned it by its creator; and that it will be forgotten -with the turning of the one page wherein it figures -unimportantly—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quite honestly, ma’am, I am not a paragraph! -No, I assure you that I really am the Lord of the -Third Truth, upon my way to rule over Antan. I am -the predestined conqueror who will force that irreligious -Master Philologist to refrain from any further -evil-doing, and to turn over a new leaf—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you turn the page forthwith, in just the care-free -fashion of old nodding Time as he skims over -the long book of life—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, yes!” said Gerald, smiling, “I was thinking -you could bring in that bit, neatly enough, if I gave -you the simile to start on. And I know, of course, -how all you authoresses love to quote your own -works. So now, ma’am, if I were to remark, in a -half puzzled way, that I hardly know what to say -about your irrational paragraph—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you say either ‘Bother!’ or ‘Brother!’ as -your wits prompt.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Quite so! And that finishes it. You have now -had the privilege of quoting in the course of one conversation -your complete collected works, from cover -to cover: and that ought to leave any authoress in a -fairly amiable frame of mind. My complaint, then, -ma’am, is that you have exhausted my time rather -than your subject. There should be by all means a -second paragraph. You see, dear lady,—and I am -speaking now from the professional knowledge of a -god,—it is the gist of every religion that—still to -pursue your bibliomaniacal metaphor,—one has but -to turn over that page in order to begin upon the -most splendid of romances.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What kind of romance can any dead man be -getting pleasure out of in his dark grave?” the -Sphinx asked, in frank surprise.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, I must not speak over-hastily. I cannot -supply offhand your second paragraph until I have -learned what the Dirghic religion states to be the -nature of this second paragraph.... For, you conceive, -ma’am, in the opinion of many wise and virtuous -persons that paragraph deals with a voyaging in -the great sun boat, to a hidden land very far down -in the west, after the heart of each passenger has -been weighed against a feather, and forty-two judges -have passed favorably upon his claims to free transportation. -But dissenters, just as wise and virtuous, -and just as numerous, declare the subject of that -paragraph to be a pleasure garden in which properly -behaved persons will recline in continuous tipsiness -upon golden couches covered with green cushions, -cosily shaded by lotus- and banana-trees, and will -have no other occupation than perpetually to remove -the virginity of large-eyed celestial ladies. Yet, other -sages declare that paragraph to deal with the crossing -of a bridge—in which transit a peculiarly obliging -dog will serve as the guide,—into the presence -of the bright Amshaspands. Whereas, still other estimable -people contend that your second paragraph -should treat of a four-square city builded of gold -and jasper, upon a twelve-fold foundation of various -precious stones, and irrigated by its own private -crystal sea.... For, I repeat, ma’am, the best-thought-of -religions vary quite noticeably as to the -nature of this second paragraph: and it would be -wholly a sad thing if by speaking over-hastily I were -to run counter to my own mythology. But, in any -case, I have no sympathy whatever with the mental -morbidity of such materialism as would deny the -existence of any kind of second paragraph.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald frowned, and he rode on.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch23'>23.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Odd Transformation of a Towel</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>G</span></span>ERALD now passed beyond Turoine, and, -crossing Mispec Moor, he came thus to the -tumbled-down hut of a decrepit old woman.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And how are you called, ma’am?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is that to you?” she answered, peevishly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And this wrinkled creature seemed to Gerald remarkably -red and inflamed and regrettably hideous -among her tousled tresses.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, ma’am,” replied Gerald, pleasantly, “a -name is a word: and words are my peculiar concern.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If it matters to you, young Carrot-top, I have -had many names. And under one name or another -I was used to deal with every man. Now my powers -fall into decay, and one month is like another month, -with never any changing in it. All about me is -bleached, dearie, all is colorless. There is no more -employment for me: and I am an old worthless -flabby white-haired creature, still palely quivering -with desire for the good ever-busy days—oh, and -for the nights too, dearie,—that are overpast. Eh, -dearie, though you would not ever think it, once I was -Æsred, a mother of the Little Gods and of much else. -And I fared handsomely then, taking liveliness and -color out of all things, and turning men into useful -domestic animals. But now the world is old, and I -am the world’s twin: and all vigorousness has gone -from me, and one month is like another month, with -never any changing in it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am a god who bring with me all vigor and all -youth,” said Gerald: for he remembered what the -Sphinx had said about not despising ugliness.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald spoke the appointed words: and he baptized -the old whining trot after the rite of the Lady -of the First Water-Gap. He straightway saw the -dingy towel about her shaking head transformed. -This towel had now become a crown composed, a -bit surprisingly, of the four suits from a pack of playing -cards. There were four clubs set upright, like the -strawberry leaves in a duke’s coronet, and alternated -with four spades: and the band of this crown was -moulded in bas-relief with eight hearts and with sixteen -diamonds.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In fact, everything near Gerald was changed. To -Gerald’s right hand and to his left were seen neat -fields and green things growing pleasantly, and the -tumbled-down hovel was now a spruce new cottage. -But what seemed even more interesting to Gerald -was the circumstance that the wrinkled angry looking -old woman had become a quite personable creature, -not young and callow, but in the very prime of -life: and the name of Æsred now, as she told him, -and as he noted at least two other reasons for believing, -was Maya of the Fair Breasts.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But she said also, forthwith: “Now that I am -young, and have not any chaperon in the house, it -would look better for you to be getting on with your -journey, because you know how people talk. Yes, and -how quick they are to be talking about all widow -women anyhow—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh! oh!” said Gerald: “are you not, then, prepared -to trust me?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—With or without,” continued Maya, “the -least provocation. As for trusting you or any other -young fellow living, I never heard before of such -nonsense. It is only the elderly men that any woman -can depend on, just as far as she can see them, in -broad daylight, a good while after they can be depended -on at night.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You are not even ready to give me all?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Maya was reasonable. “I will give you your dinner, -and on top of that your hat. For I can have no -vagabond god hanging around my neat cottage when -I am trying to get the dishes washed, and have the -name of a widow to keep respectable.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Here,” Gerald stated, with conviction, “is an -unusual woman. I search the pages of history in vain -to find any parallel to the strange behavior of this -woman.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald reflected. Very certainly this Maya -of the Fair Breasts did not excel all the other women -his gaze had ever beheld. Yet the colors of her two -eyes were nicely matched, and a fairish nose stood -about equidistant between them. Beneath this was a -tolerably good mouth, for all that the lips were sullen: -and the indefinitely brownish hair, which was -queerly arranged in nineteen formal braids, no -doubt concealed a pair of well-enough ears. This -rather heavy-visaged woman was reasonably young, -she seemed hardly more than thirty-seven or thereabouts: -she exhibited no deformity anywhere: her -figure was acceptably preserved, her breasts were -positively alluring.... In fine, the appraising -glance of the young man could with the kindly eyes -of twenty-eight perceive in her no really grave fault.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Moreover, she reminded him of no woman that he -had ever seen anywhere before this morning.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So Gerald said: “I am satisfied. I shall stay for -dinner. I shall thankfully accept all the refreshments -you proffer, of every kind.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Maya answered: “But, indeed, you sauce-box, -you quite misunderstand me. So do you keep -your proper distance! For I am not the sort of -woman that you seem only too well acquainted with.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald said, with a caressing thrill in his voice, -“Yet, do you but answer me this very simple question—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Maya replied, “Oh, get away with you!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thus speaking, she boxed the jaws of the predestined -ruler over all the gods of men; and with a few -well-chosen words she placed their relationship upon -a more decorous basis.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART SEVEN</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF POETS</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“He Goes Farthest That Knows</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>Not Where He is Going.”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch24'>24.<br> <span class='sub-head'>On Mispec Moor</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>G</span></span>ERALD, after they had dined, persuaded -Maya of the Fair Breasts to permit him to -rest over for supper also, now that his journeying -was virtually complete. For beyond the home -of the wise woman upon Mispec Moor the way lay unimpeded -to the ambiguous lowlands of Antan, where -Queen Freydis and her consort the Master Philologist -ruled in, it was said, a very old, red-pillared -palace which had once belonged to still another -queen, named Suskind.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But, as to this Antan, Gerald could not, even now, -learn anything quite definite, because of all the gods -and myths who had passed down into Antan none ever -returned. It thus stayed, as yet, regrettably dubious -whether these glorious beings now all lived together -in unimaginable splendor, as Gerald had gathered at -Caer Omn; or whether, as ran the gloomier report -which prevailed in Lytreia, they had each been destroyed -by the Master Philologist.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In any case, from Mispec Moor you clearly saw -Antan. Thus, there remained for Gerald hardly more -than an hour’s ride, and perhaps a morning’s spirited -work, in order to complete his predestined conquest -of his appointed kingdom. Gerald therefore rested -until to-morrow, with this not over-hospitable hostess,—who -viewed him with such uncalled-for suspicion -that (as he found toward midnight) the -woman had actually bolted the door to her room, -out of a foolish notion that he might be trying to -enter this immovable door, from which he was, instead, -with entire dignity tiptoeing away. He rested -so as to be in his very best fettle when he approached, -to-morrow, the climax of his superb -achievements.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Meanwhile he questioned Maya of the Fair -Breasts as to his future kingdom; and she told him -it was a poorly thought-of place. Nobody ever went -there, Maya said, except such trash as poets and -threadbare myths and over-inquisitive persons and -such celestial riffraff as had lost their station in human -esteem and their priests and their temples, said -Maya, nodding her head rather gravely. That curious -crown of hers sparkled cheerily with every movement -of her head, for she sat at the window in a -patch of sunlight, about her darning. And as to what -became of such worthless people, Maya continued, -after they reached Antan, that, certainly, was a question -of no importance—</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, but what is the general opinion hereabouts, -among the sorcerers and enchanters of Turoine?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Our opinion is that the matter is not worth -bothering about.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, but what do you think—?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Maya looked up from her darning, in mild but -candid surprise. “You really do ask the silliest questions! -For one, I do not think at all about those outcast -tramps and vagabonds except to see that they -steal nothing as they go by.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So then Gerald questioned her about Freydis.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have heard of the woman,” said Maya, rather -absent-mindedly, as she went on with the darning -upon which stayed fixed her actual attention,—“of -course: but nothing to her credit. They report, for -example, that she has a mirror—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I, too, have heard continually of that mirror, -but never of exactly what she does with it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For that matter, Gerald, I also have a mirror, -if that is all which is needed. Everybody has a mirror. -In fact, I have a number of mirrors.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know. I have noticed them everywhere about -the cottage. But all your mirrors, dear lady, are rose-colored.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>—To which Maya replied irrelevantly, and without -looking up from her darning: “But did you not -know from the first that I was a wise woman? In -any case, it is said that Queen Freydis holds her mirror -up to nature, and that she does not scruple to -hold this mirror up to her disreputable visitors, too. -For they really are, you know. It is all very well being -a god while it lasts. Only, it never does. And then -where are you? Why, exactly! That is why the overlords -of Turoine have always seemed to me more -business-like. And there is no flaw in it, people say,”—now, -though, as Gerald deduced, Maya was talking -about the Mirror of the Hidden Children,—“no -distortion of any kind, no flattering in it, and -no kindly exaggeration. It is not in anything like -my more sensible rose-colored mirrors. And nobody -could of course be expected to approve of such a -mirror.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nevertheless, if there indeed be any such mirror, -I mean to face it, when to-morrow I enter into my -kingdom, and liberate the great words of the Master -Philologist, and restore the Dirghic mythology, for -in that mythology, I must tell you, I am a god with -four aspects.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What nonsense you do talk!” said Maya, comfortably, -as she slipped the darning-egg into another -stocking.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald confided in her. Then Gerald told -Maya of how he, howsoever unmeritorious, was heir -to all the unimaginable wonders which harbored -yonder. He told her that he and none other was Fair-haired -Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord -of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly -Ones. He told her of everything that had happened -in his triumphant expedition, thus far. He told her -of somewhat more than had happened, for under -Gerald’s expansive handling of the rather beautiful -idea of his own invincibility the tale became an epic. -And Gerald told her, too, of how he intended to -rule in the goal of all the gods. He briefly indicated -his summer and winter palaces, the probable personnel -of his harem, the deities who would serve in -his immediate household, and, in a general way, the -worlds which he would create: and he promised to -remember Maya, liberally, after he had come into -his kingdom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Maya all this while went on darning placidly. -She admitted that men—</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, as I was telling you, I am a god,—a god -with no less than four aspects.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>That did not really matter, Maya considered. The -gods, as near as she had been able to judge those -scatter-brained ne’er-do-wells that went tramping by, -were just the same, and, if anything, more so. It was -simply incredible, she continued, how little wear there -was in a stocking nowadays. She then admitted that -male persons did have these notions, even about such -unlikely places as Antan. And Gerald would, in any -event, be finding out for himself all about Antan to-morrow, -because if he for one solitary instant -thought she was going to have him hanging about -her cottage forever—!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come now, my dear, but hospitality is a very -famous virtue: and, besides, you owe it to me -that you are now the handsomest woman in these -parts.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But that, Gerald,—even if it were the truth, of -course, for you need not think you are fooling me, -you scamp,—that is just why people will be imagining -things if you continue to stay here.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Then let us take good care not to be suspected -unjustly, because that would be unfair to everybody—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, get along with you! and do you pick up -every one of those stockings, too, now you have -scattered them all over the floor. And really, you -red-headed pest, I am not joking, either. That horse -of yours—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, yes, that horse of mine! I admit that to the -discerning eyes of a woman it is not the handsomest -beast in the world. And I suppose you are about to -point out that this horse is unworthy of me, and that -I ought to dispose of it, in one way or another—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But whatever nonsense are you talking, now! -It is an extremely handsome horse. There is some -sort of prophecy about it, too, is there not? So you -would be even more foolish than you seem to be, to -part with that horse.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, to be sure, there may be something in what -you say.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And what I was attempting to tell you is that, -if you will simply permit me to talk for one minute -without interrupting—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hereafter I remain as quiet, my dear, as a belch -in polite society; and you may go on.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, then, I was trying to say that your horse -can get you to Antan within an hour. You can find -out for yourself all about the place. And I daresay -this Queen Freydis, from all I have heard of her, -will not have the least objection to your rude way of -grabbing and pawing at people and interfering with -my housework and generally misconducting yourself. -It is the sort of thing she is quite used to. But I do -not like it: I feel you would not do it if you really -respected me. And I am sorry if anything I have said -or done has given you any such wrong notions about -me. And if you stuck yourself with that needle it was -simply your own fault. And that is all there is to it.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald replied: “You are regrettably lacking, my -dear, in the confidence and the generosity peculiar to -your sex. It is impossible for the mind to conceive of -anything more dreadful than your conduct. Nevertheless, -I must stay until Wednesday, for otherwise -I cannot possibly judge of your magics.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, very well, then!” Maya answered, with unconcealed -regretfulness over the fact that she would -have to put up with Gerald for yet another day.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch25'>25.<br> <span class='sub-head'>The God Conforms</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>F</span></span>OR Gerald, upon reflection, had decided it -would be really amusing to remain upon Mispec -Moor until Wednesday, since only upon -Wednesday could Maya show the perfection of her -thaumaturgy. Thursday, though, as the wise woman -forewarned him candidly, was her cleaning day; and -she simply could not be bothering over company with -the house all topsy-turvy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And I also warn you well in advance, my darling,” -said Gerald, “that the performance must be -gratis, since I have no material possessions, save possibly -my riding-horse, to barter for the privilege of -witnessing your parlor magic.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, but what in the world would I be needing -with another horse, who already have dozens of them -eating their heads off all over the moor? and when in -the world, you pest, I became ‘your darling’ I would -really like to know!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now, but have you, indeed? The very first moment -I saw you, my dear.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I do wish you would sometimes, just for a -change, talk half rationally. And of course it has -always been my custom to further the true happiness -of the men with whom I was particularly intimate by -turning them into domestic animals of one kind or another. -Quite a number of them came out horses—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I do not altogether approve of such a custom. -Still, women have incalculable fancies: and all men -find out sooner or later that it is less trouble to indulge -these fancies than to thwart them. At any rate, -a god has no concern with these minor sorceries.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Of course not!” Maya agreed. “A scatter-brained, -talk-you-to-death, carrot-topped, and generally -good-for-nothing god is not concerned with anything -except with getting on to that minx Freydis.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald waved aside the insinuation. He continued -to talk about more immediate matters, and he -said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nevertheless, your story interests me. It would -be droll to have a horse like that. So suppose, now, -my dear, suppose that I trade my divine steed for -one of those unusual horses of yours?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, Gerald, really I would rather not. For the -men that I put my magic upon used once to be fine -knights or barons or even kings,—and, for that -matter, there were a couple of emperors, though -only in a small way,—and I confess to a certain -sentiment about them still.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then in a clay chafing-dish Maya of the Fair -Breasts burned fig-leaves with benzoin and macis and -storax. And she showed Gerald how one might master -mercurial things. She displayed to him the small -magics which are Wednesday’s. She revealed to him—cursorily, -since they had only a morning at their -disposal,—the secrets of remunerative mediocrity -in the learned professions, in truth-telling, in upholstering, -in the removal of mountains into the sea, -in the erection of bridges over any unpassable place, -in the preparation of rose-colored mirrors, in criticism, -in oratory, in jurisprudence, and in the safe interpretation -of Holy Writ. As himself a former -student of magic, Gerald found these formulæ of -interest: but, as a god, he regarded Maya with profound -respect, as one who, with no native divine advantages, -had yet mastered this quite reputable stock -of knowledge and ability.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet the workings of these magics were not apparent -until Gerald had put on the spectacles which -Maya gave him. He found these glasses so soothing -to the eyes that he retained them, just for the remainder -of his visit to her cottage.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For, after all, Gerald decided to stay over the -week-end, since Maya was so unflatteringly eager to -be rid of him. It was an eagerness troubling to his -self-respect. Here was he, a god whom women had -always run after, and had pestered beyond reasonable -endurance, here was he, of all persons, being -treated with unconcealed indifference by a mere -hedge-sorceress, by a creature who had not even any -remarkable good looks or wit to justify her impudence. -This Maya of the Fair Breasts needed taking -down quite a large number of pegs. So Gerald fell -to wooing her with an ardor that somewhat surprised -him. For it was eminently necessary, it was, -indeed, a rather beautiful idea, to win the woman, -and then to jilt her, so as to teach her, once for all, -not ever again to make free and easy with the will of -a god.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Meanwhile, Maya had suggested that he conceal -the fact he was a god; and that she should introduce -him to the local gentry of Turoine as a visiting sorcerer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For I must tell you, Gerald,” Maya said, “all -the best-thought-of people hereabouts are in one or -another branch of sorcery. We have, thus, never had -any relations with Heaven. All our connections have -been with another quarter. And it is not that we are -unduly conceited and exclusive, it is simply that it -has just happened so. Nevertheless, so many gods -have straggled by, on their way to an ambiguous end, -as they went down to encounter the Master Philologist, -and whatever it is that he does to them, that -there is a tendency among the best people hereabouts, -as I will not conceal from you, to regard them as not -quite the sort that one meets socially.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I—!” said Gerald, in uncontrolled indignation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know, my poor boy, you are entirely different. -And I am perfectly broad-minded about it, myself. -But other people are not. And it would sound much -better.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald spoke with dignity and firmness. Gerald -said that not for one moment would he stoop to -such a subterfuge. Not for an instant would he who -was a lord of all exalted white magics pretend to be -a sorcerer soiled with infernal traffics and patronized -by mere devils. After that, Gerald passed as a visiting -sorcerer.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch26'>26.<br> <span class='sub-head'>“Qualis Artifex!”</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>A</span></span>ND Gerald used to amuse himself by talking -with the travelers who passed by the -neat log and plaster cottage of Maya the -wise woman, upon their way to the court of Queen -Freydis and her consort the Master Philologist. For -it was a good and shrewd policy, Gerald felt, for a -monarch to familiarize himself with his future subjects: -so he would sit by the wayside, in the shade of -a conveniently placed chestnut-tree,—incognito, as -it were,—and would artfully allure them into conversation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hail, friends! And what business draws you to -the city of all marvels?” said Gerald, on the first -morning that he fell into this long-sighted course.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was told—by the big-bellied, yellow-haired -man, whose skin was so curiously spotted,—that -they were two poets upon their way to Antan, the -goal of all the gods, and the friendly haven of true -poets, where poets might hope to find at last that -loveliness which they desired and could nowhere discover -in their everyday life upon earth. To Gerald -this was excellent news, since it increased the number -of his future subjects very gratifyingly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But he said nothing, while the big-bellied, spotted, -thin-legged gentleman in the purple robe adorned -with golden stars, went on in his answer to Gerald’s -first question, by explaining that the speaker was -Nero Claudius Cæsar, the king of all poets, and that -his scrawny companion, in a brown doublet of which -both elbows needed patching, was an artist of considerable -talent from out of the Gallic provinces, -who was called François Villon.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald found this also of some interest, in view -of what he remembered about the Mirror of Caer -Omn. Not often did you thus come face to face with -two discarded personalities. But Gerald said nothing -about this either. Instead, he questioned Nero -yet further, and he thus learned that these two poets -were on their way to the court of Freydis, because -there alone in the universe was art properly regarded: -for there, indeed, true artists were manufactured -out of common clay, and were informed -with the fire of Audela.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was one or another old hero from out of Poictesme, -Nero had heard, who had first modeled these -earthen images; and Freydis, as occasion served, -gave life to these images and set them to live upon -earth, as changelings. But, above all, said Nero, in -Antan the true poets of this world fared happily -among the myths and the gods who once had afforded -to these poets such fine themes, so that to-day -of course these poets wrote even more splendid -poems now that they composed with the eye upon -the object.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet, Nero thought, playing idly with the emerald -monocle which hung upon a green cord about his -scrawny neck, this Queen would not be very likely -ever to create in clay, or to find coming to her court, -such another artist as Nero himself had been in the -days of his Roman pre-eminence. No other person -known to him had ever excelled in all the polite arts. -For in dancing and in oratory, in wrestling (even -with such dreadful adversaries as lions) and in music -both vocal and instrumental,—alike as a charioteer -and as a tragic actor,—but, above all, as a poet, and -equally as a dramatic, a lyric and an epic poet,—Nero -had been unanimously awarded the first prize -in every contest. He did not care to appear boastful: -yet, by all canons of criticism, one had to consider -the list of his overwhelming triumphs, in Rome, in -Naples, in Antium, in Alba,—at the Parthian -games, at the Isthmian games, at the Olympic games,—and, -in fine, in each contest which Nero had ever -entered anywhere in all the kingdoms of which he -was Emperor. No other artist had a record to compare -with that: no other of the world’s great geniuses -had ever been confessedly supreme in every polite -form of æsthetic endeavor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Of course, as a student of history, Nero conceded -that the elect artist was not to be placed, not permanently, -by his ranking in the eyes of his contemporaries, -who might often be swayed by such matters, -really extraneous to enduring art, as the artist’s -ingratiating manners and his personal beauty. As a -man of the world, he even conceded the judges of -the sacred games in awarding all the first prizes to -Nero might furthermore have been influenced by the -large sums of money which the Emperor always conferred -upon his acclaiming judges after such occasions, -as well as by the dexterity of the tortures -which would have followed any decision less -just.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the indisputable fact, the fact of superb importance, -was that Nero had made of his life a poem -which was wholly a unique masterpiece in the way -of self-expression: he, above all other men, had -served the one end of every poet’s art, by revealing -the true nature of man’s being; for Nero had embodied, -with loving carefulness, each trait which he -found in himself, through some really memorable -action,—rearing, as it were, among marshes and -quicksands, and in yet other places which other persons -feared to visit, those strange and passionately -colored orchid growths which alone could express -the highly complex nature of every man’s desires—</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That jargon becomes somewhat senescent,” said -Gerald. “Still, as a museum piece,—yes, even now, -sophistication does display something of the quaint -beauty of thorough obsoleteness. It has acquired the -charm, and, as it were, the patina, of sedan chairs -and of full-bottom wigs and of girdles of chastity -and of suits of armor, and of all other things, once -useful enough, which are nowadays endeared to -every poet’s heart by the fact that they are forever -outmoded. So let us grant it, O Cæsar, in the days -that are gone you were a devil of a fellow and a sad -rip among the ladies—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, but, for that matter—” Nero began.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know. You broad-mindedly despised neither -sex. You were in amour a Greek scholar. You were -something of a surgeon also. I concede it, I blush, -and I urge you to omit all embarrassingly personal -details.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So Nero went on, saying that other emperors, -with very much his chances, had lacked the genius -necessary to develop these chances. There had, of -course, been minor artists. Caligula, for example, -among so much hackwork in the way of throat-cutting, -had shown at least one jet of rather lovely -inspiration when he attempted a criminal assault -upon the moon; that was a really finely imagined bit -of work. Then, also, Domitian and Commodus and -Tiberius had displayed praiseworthy ambitions; -quite neat little things had been done by Tiberius, -in an amateur way, at Capri; Caracalla too had been -so-so: but they had all tended to wallow unimaginatively -in cut and dried executions; merely to chop -off anybody’s head was not art, no matter how often -you did it. Besides, work done upon a public scaffold -inevitably coarsened one’s touch. And Heliogabalus, -whatsoever the lad’s thin vein of undeniable talent -in the way of lyric lechery, had lacked the stamina -and gusto for any sustained masterpiece in Nero’s -copious epic style.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For Nero alone had been, in every branch of self-expression, -the sincere, skilled artist, enriching his -handiwork always with that continual slight novelty -which art demands. He had builded his appropriate -stage, in the Golden House—</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“A house entirely overlaid with gold,” said Gerald, -reminiscently, “and adorned everywhere with -jewels and mother of pearl, a house so rich and -ample that it had three-storied porticos a mile long, -and huge revolving banqueting halls, and ivory ceilings -which perpetually scattered perfumes and red -rose-petals—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nero, at that, had out his emerald monocle; and -through it he now regarded Gerald with the childlike -amiability of a sincere artist whensoever his vanity -is flattered.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yes, Nero admitted, he had endeavored to express -himself in that house also. The Golden House -had been (to play with metaphor) the handsome -binding of that poem which was his life, when in a -setting such as the world had never known, before -or since, he had given to his every human trait its -full color value. In the Golden House he had reared -his orchids, he had labored to open many frank and -incisive and utterly unstinted avenues of self-expression -to that somewhat complex thing called human -nature....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But here he entered rather explicitly into details. -Gerald felt the style of this emperor to be growing -woefully un-American; and Gerald fidgeted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Let us, I again urge you,” said Gerald, “speak -of less personal matters, and diversify the vividness -of these orchids with a few fig-leaves!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Perhaps, of course, the Emperor continued, he, -like every other really great artist, had been somewhat -the anthologist, in that he had invented outright -none of the art forms among the many in which -he had distinguished himself. He had taken over -from his predecessors a number of inspirations and -a formula or two, as he would be the very last to -deny: but the fine craftsmanship was all his, as well -as that distinguishing, that peculiarly Neronic, touch -of romantic irony, by virtue of which this artist had -slain with suavity, had destroyed with a caress, and -had ennobled all that was most dear to his human -nature by killing it. He spoke now of the deaths of -his wives, of Octavia and Poppæa, and of others -who had been his wives just for the evening; he -spoke of Sporus, of Aiëtes, of Narcissus, and of -that other exceedingly beautiful boy, Aulus Plautinus....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And again Gerald raised a protesting hand. “Let -us still,” said Gerald, “avoid these quite un-American -personalities! Meanwhile, you do not -speak of your mother Agrippina.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He surprised in the spotted face of Nero something -very like terror. But Nero said only, “No.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And besides, the Emperor continued, with rising -animation, that happy chronological accident, the -fact that Christianity began in the days of Nero -its advance toward world supremacy, had enabled -him, by pure luck, to lend to the great poem of his -life just the needful felicitous touch of working in a -new medium. To burn well-thought-of taxpayers -and putative virgins as the torches at your supper -parties was a device which, out of a natural desire -to surprise and to amuse one’s guests, might have -occurred to almost any host in quest of that continual -slight novelty which the art of hospitality also -demands. But that these flambeaux should later become -the brightest glories of a triumphant church -had made these supper parties, which were really -quite modest affairs, unforgettable. Nero had expressed -himself—not merely, as he thought at the -time, through persons supposed to be deficient in -patriotism and more or less suspected of being -(here again, to play with metaphor) not one hundred -per cent Roman,—but, as it had turned out, -through saints and apostles, and through consecrated -religious martyrs, such as not every artist -could get for his themes and raw material. So, -the succeeding discouragements of Christians had, -æsthetically, fallen flat, in their impression upon -posterity: their authors had come into this field too -late, to find that tragic vein worked out, and all its -most striking possibilities exhausted, by the great -artist that was Nero. It was hardly remembered -that Marcus Aurelius and Diocletian and many -others had broken and flayed and mutilated and -burned to the very best of their ability: these plodders -were but the epigoni and the unimaginative -plagiarists of Nero.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So had it come about that of all the emperors -Rome had known, and of all the tyrants and despots -in every land and era, who had followed the fine -art of self-expression, and who had shown what -human nature really is—in, as it were, the nude, -when any man is released from time-serving and is -made omnipotent,—of all these, there had remained -just one whose name was remembered everywhere; -just one whose fame was imperishable; just -one who had become a never-dying myth: and that -one was Nero. The legend of Nero was, in a world -wherein every other man stayed more or less unwillingly -an unfulfilled Nero, the supreme type of the -literature of escape. The legend of Nero was a poem -which men would not ever forget: it was a poem -current in all languages: and it was a poem which, -now, everybody could cordially admire and delight -in, because time had removed the need of considering -any current moral standards or one’s own physical -safety in judging this poem, now that Nero was -only a character in a book, like—as the Emperor -said, with a quaint revealment of his retained interest -in literature,—like Iago or Volpone or Tartuffe. -For whether you called any particular book -a history or a poem or a drama did not, of course, -effect the impressiveness and vigor and complexity -of the character drawing in it, nor the value of the -author’s apt and edifying revelations as to any eternal -verities of man’s being.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For, certainly,” said Nero, “my life presented, -as no other artist has ever done, the gist of all human -nature as that nature actually is, when freed of such -inhibitions as constrain it in but too many baffled -lives. My life was, thus, a connoisseur’s production, -and a work of art which escaped even the grave risk -of anti-climax. For there was not anything lacking in -the ending of it, either. My fall and the circumstances -of my death were so æsthetically right that, -as an artist, I never in my life enjoyed anything -quite so much. Nothing could conceivably have -been in better taste. For, overnight, as you may remember, -I passed from the throne of the world, to -hide in a tumbled-down out-house, under a ragged, -very faded blue coverlet, and to perish thus by my -own hand,—with an appropriate tragic verse upon -my lips,—and without any friend remaining anywhere. -No tragedy could have been more boldly -proportioned, with all the Aristotelian unities so -exactly preserved. And it was most gratifyingly led -up to, too. For just as I was about to approach the -dénouement of my poem, the statues of my Lares -tumbled down miraculously, the hind quarters of -my favorite riding-horse were transformed into -the hind quarters of an ape, and the doors of the -mausoleum of Augustus having unclosed of their -own accord, there issued from the tomb a divine -voice which summoned me to destruction. These -incidents, I repeat, were gratifying, for they showed -that the exercise of my art had been viewed by -Heaven appreciatively. Ah, yes, in all I was peculiarly -favored.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch27'>27.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Regarding the Stars</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>V</span></span>ILLON spat meditatively between his yellow -front teeth. He fingered, in the while -that he continued his reflections, his scarred -and puckered lower lip. Then he confessed that he -dissented from a great many of his predecessor’s -remarks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You were impressive. Your life was a competent -job, boldly executed, and nobody denies its merits -on their own melodramatic plane. Yet it lacked the -indispensable touch of tenderness, without which -no work of art is of the first class. No: it was I who -was truly favored; and I made of my life a flawless -poem without dragging in such gaudy accessories -as thrones and burning cities and the wasting of a -lovely, mother-naked virgin on a mere lion.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And this François Villon went on to speak of the -great blessings which had been accorded him. He -had been granted irresolution, and lewdness, and -poverty, and cowardice, and a large weakness for -drink, and an ingrained dishonesty, and a disease-wrecked -body, and everything else which was needed -to make him a knave as contemptible as any man -could hope to be.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was, in brief, gentlemen, as I have elsewhere -remarked, a hog with a voice. And there was no -voice like my voice.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For out of the mire that wallowing, lustful and -cowardly beast had sung. Now he sang jeeringly, -and made fun of the whole world with satire and -mockery and invective, and with plain filth-flinging,—which -was all quite good art, because it pleases -people to see a man superior to his fate. Now he -sang piercingly of the great platitude that death -conquers and ruins everything: and to that sentiment -nobody can ever turn a deaf ear, because it is the -only sentiment with a universal personal application. -But, above all, he sang of his regret for his past indiscretions, -and of his yearning for spiritual cleanliness, -and—“soaring,” as Villon now quoted, with -admirable complacency, “to the very gates of -Heaven upon the star-sown wings of faith and song,”—he -had proclaimed his trust in that divine love -which, ultimately, would redeem all properly repentant -persons from the logical outcome of their doings -in this world, and would give to the marred life of -every properly repentant person a happy ending -in a fair-colored paradise agreeably full of harps -and lutes. And people liked that, too, of course, because -such a philosophy made everybody feel muggily -consoled and, for no especial reason, magnanimous.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So had Villon become a very great poet whose art -was a fine blending of mirth and of pathos and of -faith, and so might he hope to win to high honors in -Antan, where, if anywhere, poets were properly rewarded. -And the squalor and degradation of his -terrestrial living were, now, but so many picturesque -ingredients in the superb poem of his life, now that -Villon too was—just as his Roman confrère had -pointed out,—to be regarded as a character in a -book. The difference was that Villon had become a -never-dying myth of vagabondage with its heart in -the right place, and a parable which revealed how -much of good always survives in the most vile and -abandoned of criminals and even in persons unsuccessful -in business life. The legend of Villon thus -proved exactly the contrary to that which was proved -by the legend of Nero: as the one demonstrated -the real nature of man to aspire only to lust and -cruelty the moment that inhibitions were removed, -so did the other legend show the real fundamental -nature of every man to be incurably good and lovable -under all possible surface stains. And the legend of -Villon, Villon repeated, had in it tenderness,—that -indispensable flavor of tenderness and of a sentimentality -as wholesomely nourishing as molasses, -without which no work of art can ever really be of -the first class so far as goes its popular appeal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For my life, gentlemen, was truly a superb parable. -And it has been properly appreciated, it has -ever been paid the fine compliment of being plagiarised -by Holy Writ. Why, what the devil! if the parable -of the Prodigal Son be good art in the New -Testament, is it the less good art for being acted out -with the vigor and the brio I brought to that task? -For I too wasted all my substance, with some feminine -assistance, and went down among the swine and -the husks, without ever forgetting that by and by I -was to be comforted with never-failing love and -veal cutlets. In brief, although I lived perforce in -the gutter, yet my eyes were upon the stars.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald remarked, to this one of his discarded -personalities: “You move me, Messire François. -You sound upon my heart-strings a resounding chord, -through your employment of a figure of speech which -is always effective. I do not know why, but any imaginable -bit of verse conveying a statement manifestly -untrue can be made edifying and sublime through -ending it with the word ‘stars’. We poets have convinced -everybody, including ourselves, that there is -some occult virtue in the act of looking at the stars. -So, when you said just now, ‘Although I lived perforce -in the gutter, yet my eyes were upon the stars’, -I was moved very mightily. I seemed to hear the -yearning cry of all human aspirations, foiled but -superb. Yet if you had asserted your eyes to have -been habitually, or at least every clear night, upon -the planets—or, for that matter, upon the comets -or the asteroids,—I would not have been moved in -the least.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is sufficient that you were moved without -knowing why,” observed Nero. “That is the magic -of poetry. Very often when I recited some of my best -poems, to commemorate the sorrows of Orestes or -Canace or Œdipus, I myself could not quite understand -the springs of that terrible misery which convulsed -my hearers. They wept; they fainted; a number -of the women entered prematurely into the labors -of childbirth; and I was compelled to have the doors -and windows guarded by my Praetorian soldiers because -so many of the audience invariably attempted -to escape from the well-nigh intolerable ecstasies -which my art provoked. Such is the magic of great -poetry, a thing not ever wholly to be explained even -by the poet.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald said: “Yet, you two poets who have -traveled through the Marches of Antan, wherein -only two truths endure, and the one teaching is that -we copulate and die,—do you not look to find when -you have reached Antan, which is the goal of all -the gods, some third truth?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And it seemed to him that the faces of the two -myths had now become evasive and more wary.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nero replied, “For a poet, there exist always just -as many truths as he cares to imagine.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Villon remarked: “I would phrase it somewhat -differently. I would say there exist more truths -than any poet cares to imagine. But it comes to the -same thing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes,” Gerald assented,—“for it comes to an -evasion. Yet I, who also am a poet, I retain my faith -in the rather beautiful idea of that third truth.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And then Gerald told them that he himself had -long dabbled in the art of poetry. “Indeed,” he -added, generously, “I will now recite to you one of -my sonnets which appears appropriate to the occasion.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Dog,” Villon replied, taking up his hat, “does -not eat dog.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Nero very hastily stated that, howsoever unbounded -their regret, they really must be hurrying -on to the city of marvels.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So these myths departed, traveling together, with -an intimacy somewhat remarkable in the light of -their flatly diverse teachings. And Gerald warned -them to make the most of the present state of affairs -in Antan, because the day after to-morrow the Lord -of the Third Truth, a deity with several not uninteresting -aspects, would be descending upon Antan, to -take over all the powers of the Master Philologist, -and to deal with Queen Freydis afterward as his -divine inclinations might prompt.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thereafter Gerald went back to Maya and to his -dinner quite jauntily, now that he knew in his appointed -kingdom the true poets of this world were -assembling to purvey his amusement: and he felt -himself to be afire with impatience to reach that city -of all marvels, yonder behind him, as he walked away -from Antan, leisurely ascending to the trim cottage -of Maya the wise woman, who went as a -crowned queen, and would have none of his love-making, -and yet was such an excellent cook, in her -plain way.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART EIGHT</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF MAGES</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“Not Every Good Scholar</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>is a Good Schoolmaster.”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch28'>28.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Fond Magics of Maya</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>G</span></span>ERALD delayed his departure until Friday, -because Gerald was cordially amused by the -fond magics of Maya of the Fair Breasts. -He regarded them, as he did her, through those -roseate spectacles which the wise woman had loaned -him to be an unfailing comfort to his eyes: and he -found all very good.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He had known many lovelier and more brilliant -women, alike in the relinquished world of Lichfield -and in his journeying through the Marches of Antan. -But Maya contented him: he had really not the heart -to disappoint his Maya by not forcing upon her—after -four prolonged and tender arguments,—those -physical attentions which all women seemed to expect.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After that, she put aside her crown; and Gerald -never saw it any more.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And after that, also, the date of his departure -from her neat cottage was postponed until after Sunday, -though it was quite understood that, the very -first thing after a particularly early breakfast on -Monday, he would pass on to enter into his appointed -kingdom, and to possess himself of the Master Philologist’s -great words, and to reanimate the Dirghic -mythology in which he was a god, and would come to -know the third truth over which he exercised celestial -authority.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Meanwhile he stayed upon Mispec Moor, to regard -with indulgence, and even with some pity, his -predecessors in Maya’s affection, those beguiled men -whom she had converted into domestic animals. His -divine steed was for the while turned out to graze -with those docile geldings that had once been knights -and barons and reigning kings: all wandered contentedly -enough about the neat cottage, along with a -number of steers and sheep and three mules, who, -also, had once been noblemen and well-thought-of -monarchs.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald saw that these animals seemed not dissatisfied -with their transfiguring doom. Yet it appeared -a bit wanton—even to him, who had once -been a tortoise and a lion and a fish and a boar pig,—that -these gentlemen should have been snatched -from positions of responsibility and worldly honor, -from thrones and tournaments and large bank accounts, -and set to eating grass in a field. And Gerald -sincerely pitied them for their ignorance as to the -correct way in which to deal with the small magics -of Maya.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The dear woman herself you could not blame. She -could not help trying, out of pure kindliness and -affection, to hold men back from daring and splendid -exploits, because she really thought they would be -much safer, and more happy, as domestic animals.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And, in fact, she justified her charitableness with -a logic which was plausible. She argued that all men -were better content after they had become domestic -animals. She pointed out that her lovers, in particular—Why, -but Gerald could see for himself how -little vexed were her steers and geldings, now, by -affairs of the heart. Upon every imaginable moral -ground they had been made better by their double -transformation. They did not run after lewd females, -they were not bloodthirstily jealous of one another, -and they were asleep every night at a respectable -hour. If Gerald had only known them, as she had -known them, when they were gentlemen of high distinction -and reigning monarchs, he would never argue -about an improvement so obvious.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Besides, domestic animals were spurred by magnanimity -and altruism into no devastating wars, -thrift did not often make them covetous of money, -neither did self-respect induce them to spend money -foolishly: religion did not lead mules to bray in any -pulpit, nor did the conscientiousness of a sheep ever -make of him an ever-meddling and pernicious pest. -In fine, the domestic animals were undisfigured by -any human virtues, and were quite easy to get along -with. Whereas, if any woman attempted to have that -many men about the house—! Maya, who had lost -so many husbands (at least partially) did not complete -the statement. But her expression made the -aposiopesis eloquent.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald had no smallest doubt but that, if he himself -had not been divine and beyond her arts, Maya -of the Fair Breasts would long ago, out of pure -kindliness and affection, have transformed him too -into a sheep or an ox or some other useful quadruped, -and would thus have held him back from his appointed -inheritance in Antan. And he did not blame -her. The placid, stupid, rather lovable woman simply -did not understand that to be contented was not all: -she did not comprehend the obligations which were -upon a god to live with generous splendor and to perform -very tremendous feats in the way of heroism -and of philanthropy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Of course, just as she said, the exploits of a champion -who came to enlighten and improve any place—even -to redeem it from what, by the standards of -the United States of America, was iniquitous and -backward and probably undemocratic,—did of necessity -upset the routine to which the inhabitants had -grown accustomed. Antan, as Gerald looked down -upon it from the porch of Maya’s cottage, seemed a -contented and tranquil realm. No matter by howsoever -un-American standards people might be living -there, to redeem the place from those standards -would bring upsetment and confusion. And it did -seem almost a pity—just as Maya said,—to be -bothering people who were contented enough, when -you too were contented.... Even so, there was an -obligation upon a god. To be contented, to have no -cares to worry you by day, to lack for nothing by -day, and every night to induce decorously through -connubial affection a profound and refreshing slumber,—that -was not everything a god desired. Yonder -there was a third truth. Yonder was Gerald’s appointed -kingdom, and not here upon Mispec Moor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Besides, Gerald had begun to wonder more and -more about Freydis. By all reports, it was she who -really ruled those hills and lowlands yonder, which -to-morrow—or at least, next week,—would be -Gerald’s hills and lowlands; and it was she who controlled -in everything the Master Philologist, whom -Gerald was appointed to overthrow. It had not been -prophesied, however, so far as Gerald knew, how he -would deal with Freydis. That, to every appearance, -was a matter left to his divine election. Well, one -would not be over-harsh with any woman whom -rumor declared so beautiful, Gerald decided, half -drowsily, as he sat there so utterly comfortable in -the spectacles and the dressing-gown and the brown -carpet slippers which Maya had provided, and so -pleasantly replete with Maya’s excellent cooking.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch29'>29.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Leucosia’s Singing</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>A</span></span>ND upon another day, as Gerald sat by the -roadside beneath his chestnut-tree, and -waited for supper to be ready, three persons -passed toward Antan, traveling together. They were -all notable looking men; and Gerald greeted them -with the sign which is known only to supreme mages. -They returned his greeting, but they shaped signs -that were of an older magic than any which was familiar -to Gerald.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And then the first of these men said, “I was Odysseus, -Laertes’ son.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald thus knew that before him stood yet another -of his discarded personalities. But Gerald made -no comment.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Odysseus continued: “I had wisdom. My prudent -wisdom was to men of every calling an object -of considerable attention, and the fame of it reached -Heaven. I ruled in Ithaca, an island kingdom, well -situated toward the west. I went unwillingly with the -other well-greaved Greeks to besiege Ilion: the enterprise -to me seemed rash, and unlikely to be remunerative: -yet, being engaged, I dealt prudently, and -in the end, where so many merely brave persons had -failed, it was through my prudence that the enterprise -succeeded. For ten years Ilion defied the strength of -Achilles and of Ajax; Ilion derided all the endeavors -of auburn-haired Menelaus and of godlike Agememnon: -but the cunning of Odysseus felled Ilion in one -night. I took my share of the spoils; I left the glory -to them that wanted it. I returned across the world -to that which I more prudently desired, toward the -quiet comforts of my home in craggy Ithaca. The -prayer of the blinded Cyclops, the wrath of earth-shaking -Poseidon, the white thunder of offended -Zeus, and the twelve winds of Æolus, all fought -against me. I prevailed. The sea-witch Scylla, an exorbitant -lady with twelve arms, a ravening monster -whom none might pass and live, I passed. Charybdis, -which devoured all, did not devour me, for I clung -prudently to a fig-tree.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Indeed,” said Gerald, “the leaves of that tree -are very often a great protection,—O much-enduring -and crafty Odysseus,” Gerald added hastily, as -became a Greek scholar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Moreover, the sun’s daughter, fair-haired Circe, -and bright Queen Calypso, the divine one of goddesses, -these also detained me rather more amiably. -I embraced them; they did not find me slothful in -their beds. For they were goddesses, as quick in anger -as they were in lust. It is not prudent to deny a goddess. -From the fond arms of these immortals I -passed on toward my desired goal. Yet nobody is -always prudent. When my ship approached the island -of the man-devouring Sirens I caused the ears of my -sailors to be stopped with wax; but I caused myself -to be bound to the mast, so that I might hear the -song which Leucosia sang in the while that Parthenopê -and Ligeia made a sweet music. I desired to -hear without any hurt that song which was so lovely -that it drew less prudent men to the arms of its -singer, wherein, as they well knew, dark death -awaited them. I heard that song. It did not matter -to me that I saw how the low beach about those -music-makers gleamed, like silver, where a thin sunlight -fell upon the scattered bones of many men whom -they had slain. I struggled to cast myself into the -gray sea-water, so that I might go to Leucosia. But -my bonds held me. I was bound, both my hands and -feet were bound, with very strong cables. The black -ship passed onward, whitening the water with its -polished blades of fir-wood; and I wept as I too -passed onward, away from my own ruin, and drawing -nearer to the goal which my prudent wisdom had -desired.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Truly, the enchantment of her singing must have -maddened you. Yet such is the magic of great poetry,” -Gerald remarked, “a thing not ever wholly -to be explained even by the poet.... Yet your -goal, nevertheless, was reached, they tell me, O much-contriving -Odysseus. Your goal was reached, as I -remember it, in the many-pillared hall of your home -in Ithaca, and in a fine slaughter of those suitors who -were pestering your wife because they believed that -she was your widow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Very naturally my goal was reached. I was Odysseus. -Very naturally I made an end of those wasters -of my substance who had been eating and drinking -for nine years at my expense. There arose, as one -by one their heads were smitten off, a hideous moaning. -The floors ran with blood. It was wholly plain -that Odysseus faced those imprudent persons who had -made over-free with his flocks and his wine jars and -his wife and the other goods of his household. Yet -I knew, by and by, that what I now desired was not -to be found in craggy Ithaca nor in the calm embraces -of Penelope nor in the tranquillity of my well-ordered -home. I gave laws. I heard cases. I decided -squabbles between one shepherd and another shepherd. -I who had contrived the burning of Ilion now -oversaw the branding of my cattle. War did not -trouble Ithaca, of whose king all other kings were -afraid. For I was very famous. I lacked for nothing -in wealth. I lived at ease. But no man hears the singing -of Leucosia except at a great price. I heard -Leucosia no more. I heard, instead, the voices of -fools praising my strength and my prudent wisdom, -and the voice of my wife talking sensibly about I -never noticed exactly what. I lacked for nothing -which prudent men desire, in my snug, sleek, well-ordered -Ithaca. But I had seen too much in my voyaging -about a world which was more lewd and riotous -than I permitted anybody to be in my Ithaca. I remembered -too many things. No, I did not regret -Calypso nor Circe nor that fine girl Nausicaä. I could -at will have returned to them. But I remembered the -singing of Leucosia, to whom I dared not return. For -no man hears the singing of Leucosia except at a -great price.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But of what did she sing, O much-planning Odysseus?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She sang of that which haunted me, and which -derided the rewards of my prudent wisdom. She -sang of the one way to that which I truly desired.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That, O noble son of Laertes, is not a remarkably -explicit reply.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now the wise Greek regarded Gerald sombrely. -Odysseus said, by and by:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She sang of that which troubles a prudent person’s -soul and despoils his rational living of all fat -contentment. Let it suffice that she sang, I think, of -Antan. That is why I must travel to Antan, wherein—it -may be,—is my desire.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>—It was only then that Gerald recollected something. -He recollected that Evadne of the Dusk, that -feathery-legged Evadne, who, Horvendile had said, -was called Leucosia in the days of her sea-faring. But -Gerald said nothing about what, after all, was none -of his affair....</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch30'>30.<br> <span class='sub-head'>What Solomon Wanted</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>A</span></span>ND then the second traveler spoke. He -spoke of that which had been his in the days -when all riches and all pleasures and all -power had been accorded to Solomon because of his -sixfold wisdom. To no other being that ever lived -among mankind was given such mightiness as was -granted to King Solomon in the time that he reigned -over Israel and ruled this world.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For Solomon had sexanary wisdom. Solomon -knew the six words which were not known to any -other men. He understood the speaking of these -words.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The word of the beasts. It was spoken, and there -assembled in the sight of Solomon a pair of every -creature that walks or creeps upon earth, from the -elephant to the smallest worm. Upon the neck of -each was pressed the seal of Solomon, so that the -race of each must henceforth be subject to him. They -revealed to him the wisdom of the beasts that perish -and do not bother about it. He feasted them at a -table of silver and iron which covered four square -miles; and at that banqueting Solomon the King -served as the pantler, bringing with his hands to -every beast and reptile its food according to its kind, -from the elephant to the smallest worm.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The word of Morskoï. It was spoken, and all manner -of fishes rose to the surface of the sea’s water -near Ascalon. Upon the neck of each was pressed -the seal of Solomon. Then came a hundred thousand -camels and a hundred thousand mules laden with -new corn, and all the creatures of the water were -fed, and after that they served King Solomon, -and they revealed to him the wisdom of the Sea -Market.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The word of the fowls. It was spoken, and the -sky was hidden by the birds who came to render -fealty and to instruct King Solomon in the wisdom -of the Apsarasas. The peewit alone did not come. -But he came afterward, crying, “He that hath no -mercy for others, shall find none for himself.” And -it was the peewit who fetched to Solomon wise Balkis, -and who taught Solomon to look through the -surface of this earth as a man peers through a sheet -of glass.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The word of the Adversary. It was spoken, and -the entire citizenry of hell kneeled before King Solomon, -saving only Sachr and Eblis. The female Djinns -were shaped like dromedaries with the wings of a -bat; the male Djinns were like peacocks with the -horns of a gazelle. The Mazikeen and the Shedeem -came also. To the neck of each was pressed the seal -of Solomon: and they revealed to him both the black -and the gray wisdom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The word of Arathron. It was spoken, and -there came to King Solomon the Seven Stewards of -Heaven. The eyes of Solomon were closed, and his -hand had shaken a little, as he pressed to the neck of -each kneeling Steward the seal of Solomon, for he -was troubled by the exceeding glory of the supreme -Princes of Heaven. Of these the most terrible were -Ophiel and Phul, whose reign is not yet. But these -seven Stewards also served King Solomon; and they -revealed to him the white wisdom.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The word of the mirror. It was spoken, and before -him stood a wicker cage containing three pigeons. -Beside this cage lay a small mirror three inches -square.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>All these six words were known to the wise King. -It was the power of these six words which made him -lord over the wild beasts and the birds of heaven, -and over the devils and the elemental spirits and the -ghosts of the dead, and over the sea-depths, and -over the cherubim. All creatures upon earth trembled -before King Solomon because of these six words: -no other king withstood Solomon, nor sent forth -his chariots against the army of Solomon. For the -soldiers of Solomon were the beasts of the field -and of the wild wood; the birds of prey were his -horsemen; the little birds were his very cunning spies. -His admirals were the huge whales and sea serpents, -and Leviathan also served in the navy of King Solomon. -His lieutenants were the overseers of hell; the -supreme angels were his counsellors. He had also -his mirror. The power of these six words was exceedingly -great.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet there remained one other word, that word -which was in the beginning, and which will be when -all else has perished. There stayed yet unrevealed that -word which is spoken by the Master Philologist to -all the gods of men. That word alone was not known -to King Solomon. His little mirror showed him that -word, as it showed every other thing; but the word -was written in a language which he could not read.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What need is there for you to be bothering about -that word?” said all the women who loved and cherished -him. He answered, “I do not know.” The wives -and concubines then stated, speaking with nine hundred -voices in unanimity, that no one of them had -ever before heard of such nonsense. And he answered -them again, “I do not know....”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For this reason King Solomon must pass down -into Antan, to hear the speaking of the last great -word of power.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch31'>31.<br> <span class='sub-head'>The Chivalry of Merlin</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>T</span></span>HEN said the third of these wise men: “I -was Merlin Ambrosius. The wisdom that -I had was more than human, for it came -to me from my father. But I served Heaven with -it. The land was starved and sick and frightened. -Many little chieftains fought in its wild naked -fields, and murderously waylaid one another in -its old forests, causelessly. I made the land an ordered -realm. I gave the land one king, a king whose -sword was as bright as thirty torches. That sword -flashed everywhither about the land to enforce justice -and every other virtue commendable to Heaven. -Arthur Pendragon and the knights who served him -all served my whims. They were my toys.... I in -my playing gave to the gaping, smooth-chinned boy, -and to his shaggy followers, a notion to play with in -their turn. This notion was that each one of them, -and that every other man, was the child of God and -his Father’s vicar upon earth; and that each human -life was all a journeying home, toward a not ever -ending happiness, and that it was a journeying which -should be performed in a style appropriate to -Heaven’s heir apparent. Those savages believed me. -They were joyous both night and day. They learned -to be envious of no one, to love God, and to support -no unjust cause. They learned to speak seasonably -and graciously, to be generous in giving, to clothe -themselves neatly, and to sing and dance, and to war -fearlessly against evil. It all quite upset my father.... -Yet my notion was, I still believe, a very beautiful -notion. It created beauty everywhere, because, as -I have said, the heir apparent of Heaven must journey -homeward in an appropriate style. Yes, the results -were eminently picturesque. Caerleon arose; -there was no city more delectable upon earth than -was the pleasant town of Caerleon, builded upon Usk -between the forest and the clear river. Arthur sat -there upon a daïs over which was spread a covering -of flame-colored satin. Under his elbow was a cushion -of red satin. The lords and princes and the knights -sat about King Arthur Pendragon, each in his order -and degree. The oppressed and the unhappy came to -Arthur. He was to the young a father, to the old a -comforter. Wrong was loathsome to him, the right -was very dear to Arthur, and he knew not what it -was to fear. My father did not think at all well of -him.... But I was pleased with my toys, for now -I found in every part of the land a romantic strange -beauty. The knights rode at adventure upon enormous -stallions. They clanked as they rode. They -went masked in blue armor and in crimson armor -and in silver-speckled green armor. Upon their heads -were brightly colored lions and leopards and griffins -and sea horses, and very often their helmets were -wrapped about with a woman’s sleeve. The giants -that these knights fought against were mighty giants -who ate at one meal six swine: the dragons that they -fought against were marvelous huge worms with -shining scales and wattles and magnificent whiskers. -The maidens whom they rescued were each more -lovely than the day. These maidens had blond curling -hair and frontlets of red gold upon their heads. -About each tender and rose-tinted body was a gown -of yellow satin. Upon the feet of these maidens were -shoes of variegated leather fastened with gilt clasps.... -In fine, the heirs of Heaven discharged their -moral and constabulary duties quite picturesquely -as they rode homeward. It was in this way I who was -Merlin Ambrosius played with heroic virtues: it was -thus that I who was the son of my father made, for -my amusement, men that were more virtuous and -colorful than Heaven had ever been able to make -them. Still, still, it really was a rather plainly outrageous -notion upon which all this was founded: and -by and by the dear and droll, and heart-breakingly -beautiful antics of my flesh and blood toys did not -content my desire.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald remarked, now that the old gentleman had -paused in his meditative speaking, “Your desire, -Messire Merlin, as I remember it, was for an enchantress -who outwitted and betrayed you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Men,” Merlin answered, with a grave smile, -“have made a mistake in that report. Is it likely -that I could be outwitted? No: I was Merlin Ambrosius.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And then Merlin told Gerald about the child -Nimuë, who was the daughter of the goddess Diana, -and of how old, wearied, over-learned Merlin had -come to her in the likeness of a young squire. He told -of how they played for a long while with his ancient -magics, there in the spring woods, beside a very clear -fountain in which the gravel shone like powdered -silver. To make this twelve-year-old child laugh, as -she did so adorably, the mage had turned into prettiness -and drollery every infernal device. He created -for the child Nimuë, there in the April woods, an -orchard full of all those fruits and flowers, howsoever -unseasonably mingled, which have the liveliest -sweetness and flavor. Phantoms danced for her wide-eyed -amusement, in the shaping of armed knights -and archbishops and crowned ladies and goat-legged -fauns: and it was all quite excellent fun.... Then -Merlin told to Nimuë, because she pouted so adorably, -the secret of building a tower which is not made -of stone or timber or iron, and is so strong that it -may never be felled while this world endures. And -Nimuë, the moment that he had fallen asleep with -his head in her lap, spoke very softly the old runes. -In the while that she continued to caress her lover, -she imprisoned Merlin in an enchanted tower which -she had builded out of the magic air of April above -a flowering white hawthorn-bush, so that Nimuë -might keep her wonderful, so wise, dear lover utterly -to herself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And I was happy there for a long while,” said -Merlin. “My toys, now that I played no more with -them, began to break one another. Dissension and -lust and hatred woke among them. They forgot the -very pretty notion which I had given them in their -turn to play with. The land was no longer an ordered -realm. My toys now fought in the land’s naked fields, -and they murderously waylaid one another in its old -forests. Arthur was dead, at the hands of his own -bastard son begotten in incest. It was an awkward -ending for the heir apparent of Heaven. The Round -Table was dissolved. The land was starved and sick -and frightened.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now Merlin, the old poet who did not any longer -delight to shape and to play with puppets, had -paused: and he sat gazing thoughtfully, with wholly -patient, tired eyes, at nothing in particular. Then -Merlin said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I heard of all these things. They did not matter. -I was happy. Yes, I suppose that I was happy. My -ways were utterly domestic. They stayed thus for a -long while.... There was no variety. In that small -heaven which a child had builded out of the magic -air of April there was no variety whatever. There -was no enemy, no adversary for me to get the better -of through some cunning device. There was only happiness.... -Nimuë stayed always young and kind -and beautiful and contented just because I was there. -The child loved me. But there was no variety. No son -of my father stays forever a domestic animal. So in -the end I who was Merlin Ambrosius found my desire -was not in that tower of April air. There was only -heaven. There was only just such a never-changing -happiness as I had once talked about to the gaping, -smooth-chinned boy and to his shaggy followers.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet how could you escape from the blessings of -a happy home-life, Messire Merlin, if that tower -was truly enchanted?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It does not seem reasonable that I should tell -you all my secrets,” Merlin replied, drily, “any more -than it seemed reasonable that the son of my father -should share every secret with Nimuë. The child -loved me utterly. And I loved her. Yes, I loved -Nimuë as I have loved no other creature fluttering -about earth. She did not seem to walk.... Even -so, I was Merlin Ambrosius. So in the end I left my -child mistress. I quitted the small heaven which a -child’s pure-mindedness had contrived. And I go now -into Antan to get, it may be, my desire.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then there was silence, now that the three mages -had all spoken.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald shook his head. “You gentlemen have -talked with gratifying candor. You have expressed -yourself, with chaste simplicity, in very plain short -sentences. You have reasoned powerfully. You imply -that neither a wife nor a mistress, or even a harem, is -able to dissuade a wise man from this journeying toward -the goal of all the gods. I infer that, to the -contrary, the domestic circumstances of no one of you -were wholly satisfactory in the old time. Well, that -is a situation still to be encountered more frequently -than is desirable, even in Lichfield, and it is the reason -that I too am on my way to Antan. I am stopping -here just for the week-end. Yet I still do not know -what in the world you gentlemen really desire.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For one, I desire nothing that is in this world,” -replied Odysseus.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet, do you but answer me this very simple question! -What do you three expect to find in Antan? Because -I can assure you that, after the impending -changes to be made in the government and other civic -affairs of Antan by the Lord of the Third Truth,—a -deity, gentlemen, with several not uninteresting aspects, -a deity with whom I may without boasting say -that I have considerable influence,—why, then, the -moment everything is in tolerable working order, it -will be a real pleasure to afford you three gentlemen -all possible courtesies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the three mages did not seem impressed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was wise,” said Solomon. “I knew all things -save one thing. I did not know that word which was -in the beginning, and which will be when all else has -perished. And that word no god knows until he has -heard it spoken by the Master Philologist.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My desire,” said Merlin, “was for the maid -Nimuë and for the love of my child mistress. When -I had my desire it did not content me. So I now go -into Antan to find, it may be, something which I can -desire. But my father’s son does not go asking favors -of any god.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald said: “Yet, you three mages who -have traveled through the Marches of Antan -wherein only two truths endure, and the one -teaching is that we copulate and die,—do you not -look to find in the goal of all the gods some third -truth?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And it seemed to him that the faces of these myths -had now become somewhat evasive and more wary.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But they said only, speaking severally: “A wise -man knows that no truth is affected either by his beliefs -or by his hopes.”—“A wise man accepts each -truth as it is revealed to him.”—“A wise man will -risk nothing upon the existence of any truth.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Still, gentlemen, these are enigmas! These sayings -are not a plain answer to a plain question: and -I do not quite understand these sayings.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>They answered him, “There is no need that you -should understand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then these three passed down toward the sunset -statelily. And Gerald, gazing after them, once more -shook his red head. These wise myths seemed to him -in a bad way: it would not be easy to content the -more eminent sages among his future subjects, -because these three at least, for all their wisdom, appeared -never to have found out what they wanted.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald shrugged. He, in any event, perfectly well -knew what in this bracing country air he wanted -at once. So Gerald went in at once to supper with -his Maya who was such an excellent cook in her -plain way.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch32'>32.<br> <span class='sub-head'>A Boy That Might As Well Be</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>“W</span></span>HAT more is needed,” Maya had asked, -“to make this last day with me pass -pleasantly?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>—For this, again, was the very last day which -Gerald could possibly spend in the trim log and plaster -cottage. Maya had decided, without any reticence, -that it was high time he attended to whatsoever -foolishness he seemed to think himself committed to, -in that disreputable low place down yonder, and that -to keep putting it off in this way looked like shirking, -and that, for her part, she simply could not understand -why he did not get his nonsense over with....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald said, “It would be nice if we had a -son.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Maya at once dissented, as, it seemed to Gerald -she nowadays dissented, at least in part, from -everything that Gerald proposed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, Gerald,” said Maya. “For you would grow -far too fond of him. You would be foolish about him. -You would be unwilling to leave him, you probably -never would leave him. And it would end in your -being in my way, and bothering me in the night -season, and being under my feet all day, for the rest -of your life—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I am a god—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, Gerald, to be sure, you are. I had forgotten. -I apologize. Now, do not be upset about it! Stop -pouting! You are a god, that is quite understood. -You are immortal, you are going to outlive me indefinitely, -and you are going to perform wonders in -Antan, and it is all going to be very nice. I hope so, -anyhow. I was only saying it would be much better -for us to have no son.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Gerald answered: “Do not keep contradicting -me in that maddening way! If you again fly out -at me like that, Maya, you will rouse my temper. -Then I shall rage and roar and, quite possibly, ramp. -I will bluster and speak harshly. I will huff, I will -puff, I will blow the house down. For I insist it would -be quite nice if we had a son.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, very well, then!” said Maya; and she turned -with that sulkiness which she ever and again displayed—nowadays,—toward -a large basket of -magics.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—I mean, though, once he were old enough. -Babies are too limited in conversation, they are too -vocal, and they are too leaky.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Maya had lifted from an amber basin a small -shining lizard. She held it toward her mouth, breathing -softly upon the creature, in the while that she -answered Gerald.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I think, myself,” said Maya, “that, since you insist -upon having a son, he might as well be seven or -eight years old to begin with.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Maya took off the top of the basket, she -reached far into the blue basket with the hand in -which she held the shining lizard, and out of this -basket, clinging to Maya’s hand for support, climbed -a freckled red-haired boy, about eight years old, in -blue garments, and having as yet only one upper -front tooth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We have now got a splendid son,” said Gerald, -contentedly. “But who is to christen our son? For I -shall of course call him Theodorick Quentin, just as -my father and my oldest brother were called.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The boy was, thus, named Theodorick Quentin -Musgrave, and Gerald delighted in the child. For -the Lord of the Third Truth put off once more his -entry into his kingdom....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I told you so!” said Maya.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, really now, my darling, would you have -me lacking in all proper paternal feeling! It is necessary -I give the child a fair start in life; and I -ask you, candidly, could any parent discharge that -duty, with any real thoroughness, in less than a -week?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That, though, is not at all what I said. And for -any full-grown man to be talking such nonsense—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So now you see for yourself! Therefore I shall -be leaving you both next Tuesday, and it is quite useless -for you to implore me to stay a half-second -longer than that. Besides, I rather like him.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet the child showed peculiarities. For one thing, -his tongue had no red in it, but was formed of perfectly -white flesh. When Gerald noticed this odd fact -he said nothing about it, though, because Gerald comprehended -the limitations of gray magic. And for -another thing, on the third day of Theodorick’s existence, -Gerald happened to lay aside his rose-colored -spectacles while he was playing with his son. Then -the boy was not there. Gerald shrugged, just in time -to avoid shuddering. He replaced his spectacles, and -all was as before, to every freckle and each red hair.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After that, Gerald wore his spectacles always.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For Theodorick Quentin Musgrave had become -very dear to him. No more than any other father -could Gerald rationally explain this dearness or -justify it by any common-sense logic. He only knew -that the brat aroused in him a tenderness which came -appreciably near to being unselfish; that it worried -him to have the brat go unchristened in this neighborhood -so full of sorcerers and wizards; that when -he touched the brat it pleased him, for no assignable -reason; and that when the brat displayed the mildest -gleam of intelligence, it at once seemed quite brilliant -and profound, and inexpressibly beyond all other -people’s children.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For Theodorick noticed everything. And Gerald -delighted particularly in the child’s intelligence and -powers of observation, because, since no sort of -cleverness could possibly be inherited from poor dear -stupid Maya, all the boy’s more excellent mental -traits were obviously paternal.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For example, “There is a lady,” Theodorick had -stated, pointing toward Antan.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, any number of ladies, my son,” Gerald assented, -as he thought of the many beautiful goddesses -and feminine myths who (for all that, he reflected, -he had never seen any female creature pass -toward Antan) must be aiding to make yet more -glorious that kingdom over which Gerald would by -this time next week be ruling.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald’s hand went to the shoulder of the -freckled brat whom, after next week, he would not -ever be seeing any more: and Gerald wondered at -the wholly illogical pleasure he derived just from -touching this child.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, yes, there are no doubt a great many ladies -in Antan,” said Gerald, “and the coincidence is -truly quaint that I have not yet seen any woman -traveling in that direction.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the boy explained he meant the very large lady -lying down over yonder as if she were dead, but not -dead, because her heart was breathing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald saw that, in point of fact, the hills -toward the southwest had, from this station, the -shaping of a woman’s body. She seemed to lie flat -on her back, with her long hair outspread everywhither -about her head, of which the profile, now -that you look for it, was complete and quite definitely -formed. Also you saw her throat and her high breasts, -whence the hills sloped downward into the contour -of a relatively smallish, flat belly. Just here the outline -of the vast violet-tinted figure was broken by -the nearer green hill immediately across the road -which led to Antan, but all that you could see of -this womanlike figure was complete and perfectly -moulded. Moreover, Gerald noted that, near where -the heart would have been, a forest fire was sending -up its languid smoke, which was, of course, what -Theodorick Quentin Musgrave had meant by saying -that the lady’s heart was breathing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald was very proud of Theodorick’s cleverness -in noticing the shaping of these hills, which Gerald -himself had not ever observed, in the entire three -weeks he had spent upon Mispec Moor. But when -this odd accident of nature was pointed out to Maya, -she only said that she saw what you meant of course, -but that, after all, it was only two hills, and that hills -looked much more like hills than they looked like -anything else.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART NINE</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF MISPEC MOOR</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“To Tame the Wolf You Must Marry Him.”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch33'>33.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Limitations of Gaston</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>I</span></span>T WAS at this time, toward the middle of June, -that Gaston Bulmer came from Lichfield. Gerald -was sitting, as was his daily custom now, under -the chestnut-tree beside the road which led to Antan. -He waited there to engage in conversation the next -of his future subjects who might pass by in that perpetual -journeying toward Antan. Gerald, under this -same chestnut-tree, had by this time talked with many -such unearthly wayfarers: and if the rather interesting -things they had told him were all written down, -it would make a book unutterably enormous and utterly -incredible.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In such circumstances it was, just after two not -unfamiliar mountebanks had gone by carrying with -them the paraphernalia of their Punch and Judas -show, that Gerald noticed a small sulphur-colored -cloud sweeping rapidly from the east. It descended: -and when it was near to Gerald, it unclosed. Gaston -Bulmer then stepped, a bit rheumatically, from its -glowing depths, and he laid down a rod of cedar -wood tipped with an apple carved in blue-stone.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was not in all this anything in itself astonishing, -since Gaston Bulmer was an adept in the arts -of which Gerald, in the strange days before he knew -that he was a god, had been a student. But to note -how Gaston had aged in the last week or so was -astounding. Yet Gerald, in any case, was wholly delighted -to see again his old friend and preceptor, and -a person who had for so long been virtually his -father-in-law.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gaston would not come up to the cottage, though, -for dinner, because, as he confessed, he preferred -not to encounter Maya. Rather, it was his wish, and -it seemed, indeed, to be his errand, to free Gerald -from what Gaston Bulmer, surprisingly enough, -described as the wise woman’s pernicious magic.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald said: “Oh, bosh! For really now, Gaston, -if such nonsense were not heart-breaking it would be -side-splitting. I am inexpressibly shocked by your -hallucination, which is, I trust, of a most transitory -nature. However, let us not discuss my wife, if you -please. Instead, do you tell me how my body is -faring.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So they sat down together under the chestnut-tree. -And Gaston Bulmer answered, “That body, -Gerald, since you quitted it, has become a noted -scholar and a man of letters.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah! ah!” said Gerald, greatly pleased, “so -my romance about Dom Manuel of Poictesme has -been completed, and is now being admired everywhere!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, for your body has become, just as I said, -a scholar. Scholars do not write romances.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet you referred to a man of letters—?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Your body is now a rather famous ethnologist. -Your body deals with historical and scientific truths. -Your body thus writes large quartos upon topics to -which no romance, howsoever indelicate, could afford -to devote a sentence.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald fell to stroking that long chin of his. -“Still, I recall that the present informant of my -body once informed me there were only two truths -of which any science could be certain.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And what were these two truths?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald named them.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gaston said then: “The demon is consistent. For -these two are precisely your body’s scientific specialty. -To-day your body writes invaluable books -in which the quaint and interesting customs that accompany -an interplay of these two truths, and the -various substitutes for that interplay, are catalogued -and explained, as these customs have existed -in all lands and times. Lichfield to-day is wholly -proud of the scholarship and the growing fame of -Gerald Musgrave.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I am glad that my body has turned out so splendidly. -And I trust that all goes equally well with -your daughter Evelyn?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Gerald,” the older man replied, looking more -seriously troubled than Gerald ever liked to have -anybody seeming in his company, “Gerald, it is an -unfair thing that your Cousin Evelyn, without knowing -it, should be living upon terms of such close -friendship with a demon-haunted body.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, so that friendship continues!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It continues,” said Gaston, “unaltered. It may -interest you, Gerald, by the way, to hear that your -Cousin Evelyn has now a son, quite a fine red-headed -boy, born just a year after you relinquished your -body to that treacherous Sylan.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald answered affably: “Why, that is perfectly -splendid! Frank always wanted a boy.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My son-in-law, in fact, is much pleased. It is -about my daughter I was thinking. It seems to me -the situation is hardly fair to her, Gerald.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald replied: “My body is all of me that she -was ever acquainted with, Gaston. So I fail to perceive -that anything is altered.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yet, when I reflect that a beautiful and accomplished -and chaste gentlewoman, Gerald—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, ah! But, yes, to be sure! you speak in the -time-hallowed terms of Lichfield. And I really do -not know why I interrupted you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—When I reflect that, without knowing it, a -gentlewoman is living upon terms of such close -friendship with a mere demon-haunted body—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And is, in fact, trusting and giving all?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All her friendship and the natural affection of a -kinswoman. Yes, that is a sad spectacle. It is an unsuitable -spectacle. So it seems to me your duty as a -Musgrave, and as a Southern gentleman, to return -forthwith to mortal living and to your mortal obligations, -and in particular to the obligations of your -life-long friendship with your Cousin Evelyn.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald said, for the second time, “Oh, bosh!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For the notions and the chivalrous assumptions of -Gaston Bulmer all now appeared to Gerald out of -reason, in view of the divine predestination which -was upon him. A god had no concern with such slight -imbroglios as the code of a merely terrestrial gentleman -and the proper maintenance upon Earth of -polite adultery. It would, indeed, be positively ill-bred -for a Dirghic god to meddle with any of the -affairs of a planet which, according to Gerald’s -Protestant Episcopal faith, had been created and -was controlled by an Episcopalian deity; for Gerald -had of course retained, provisionally, that religion -in which he was a communicant until he could find -out something rather more definite about the religion -in which he was a god.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald therefore said: “My good Gaston, that -your meaning is excellent, I do not doubt. And it is -not your fault of course that, in your merely human -condition, you do not quite understand these matters, -and certainly cannot view them with an omniscient -eye.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The older man said: “I understand, in any event, -that through all these years you have stayed here -bewitched with terrible half-magics, and that your -own eyes are blinded with the woman’s rose-colored -spectacles. And I seek to preserve you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You would preserve me for the provincial life -of your little Lichfield! You would make me just -another chivalrous, bull-headed, rather nice-looking -and wholly stupid Musgrave! In fine, you would -urge me to become genteel and to deny my glorious -destiny. Yet to do that would be cowardly, Gaston: -for, whether I like it or not, there is upon me the -divine obligation to fulfil some very ancient prophecies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What sort of prophecies are these?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They are Dirghic prophecies. But, then, it is -not the language in which a prophecy is uttered that -matters, rather it is—Well, it is the spirit of the -thing! For you must know—although, in view of -my wife’s social position, I have compelled her, -after some little argument, to introduce me hereabouts -as a visiting sorcerer,—yet I may tell you, -in strict confidence, Gaston, it is decreed that, as the -Lord of the Third Truth, I am to reign in Antan.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And who told you any such unlikely nonsense?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Some people that I met upon the road. Oh, -quite honest looking people, Gaston!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And who told you that you were the Lord of -any Third Truth?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There my authority is unimpeachable. For I -had it from the lips of a beautiful and accomplished -and chaste gentlewoman, Gaston, who was speaking -with all the frankness begotten by our being in bed -together at the time.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And how can you reign in Antan, or anywhere -else, when you do not ever go there? Through all -these years, I gather, you have loitered here within -a man’s arm’s reach of Antan!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald said, with the slight frown of one who -finds trouble uncongenial: “I am puzzled, my dear -friend, by your continued references to all these -years. And I admit that various matters have a bit -hindered my technical and merely formal entry into -my kingdom. Yet I shall be leaving Mispec Moor -the instant that this week’s washing is in, on Thursday -afternoon—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, my poor Gerald! you will not go, either -forward to Antan or back to Lichfield, on what you -think to be next Thursday. You have lost here all -sense of time, you do not even know that the days -you have spent in this place have counted as four -years in Lichfield. I tell you that the wise woman, -with her half-magics and her accursed spectacles, -holds you here bewitched. And I now perceive that -nothing whatever can be done for you, who are ensnared -by the most fatal of all the magics of the -wrinkled goddess.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>—To which Gerald, for the third time, replied: -“Oh, bosh! No sorceress has any power over a god. -And so completely do you misunderstand my wife, -Gaston, that I must tell you hardly a day passes -without her urging me to hurry on to Antan.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gaston Bulmer was still regarding him with that -extraordinary and wholly uncalled-for look of compassion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How completely,” he remarked, “she understands -you Musgraves! Yes, you are lost, my poor -Gerald.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—It follows that your notions are preposterous. -Oh, that is not your fault, my dear fellow, and -not for an instant am I blaming you. Your conduct, -from your human point of view, is very right, very -friendly, very proper. So your rather laughable -blunder does not offend me in the least. And if, as -you declare, I have lingered here for some four -years as you human beings estimate time, what do -four years amount to with an immortal who has at -his disposal all eternity? Come now, Gaston, do you -but answer me that very simple question!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Gaston answered only: “You are content. -You are lost.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch34'>34.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Ambiguity of the Brown Man</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>A</span></span>ND Gaston said no more about the matter, -because just here their talking was interrupted. -For now, as these two still sat at -the roadside, they were joined by a brown man, -dressed completely in neat brown, who was journeying -toward Antan.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hail, friend!” said Gerald, “and what business -draws you to the city of all marvels?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And the brown man, pausing, said that, in point -of fact, it was upon a slight matter of business -routine that he desired to consult with Queen Freydis. -All gods, he said, had rather speedily passed -downward to encounter the word which was in the -beginning,—for it was thus that the brown man -spoke, very much as King Solomon had spoken,—all -gods, that is, save only one, who so bewilderingly -altered his tenets that there was no telling where to -have him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The brown man thought that, nowadays, in a -comparatively enlightened nineteenth century, was -perhaps the appropriate time for something to be -done about this celestial chameleon. And in any case, -he said yet further, he always enjoyed his little conferences -with Freydis, who was rather a dear—</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So, so!” said Gerald, “you, sir, have previously -visited Antan?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, very often. For I am the adversary of all -the gods of men.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald viewed with natural interest the one -person who pretended to know at first-hand anything -about Gerald’s appointed kingdom: yet, even so, -if this brown gentleman, as Gerald had begun to -suspect, happened to be the Father of All Lies, there -was no real point to questioning him, inasmuch as -you could believe none of his answers.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—For, I infer,” said Gerald, “that you who -travel on the road of gods and myths are that myth -not unfamiliar to my Protestant Episcopal rearing; -and that I have now the privilege, so frequently anticipated -for me by my nearer relatives, of addressing -the devil?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I retain of course in every mythology, including -the Semitic, my niche,” replied the brown man, -“from which to speak to intelligent persons in somewhat -varying voices.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gaston Bulmer arose, and the aging adept -shaped a sign which to Gerald was unfamiliar.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I suspect, sir,” said Gaston Bulmer, “that my -mother’s father, who was called Florian de Puysange, -once heard the speaking of that voice.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is a tenable hypothesis. I in my day have -spoken much.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—As did, I believe, yet another forebear of -mine, the great Jurgen, from whom descends the -race of Puysange, and who once encountered someone -rather like you in a Druid wood—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I cannot deny it. The Druids also knew me. I, -who am the Prince of this world, meet however, as -you will readily understand, so many millions of -people during the course of my efforts to keep them -contented with my kingdom that it is not always -possible for me to recollect every one of my beneficiaries.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Still,” Gerald said, “you have played in large -historical events a strange high part; you have -known all the very best people: and you must have -much of interest to tell me about. You, sir, at least -shall dine with me, since my friend here is obdurate. -My wife avoids the usual run of gods, but to devils -I have never heard her voice the slightest objection. -So, if you will do me the honor to accompany me to -my temporary home, in that cottage—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the brown man smiled. And he excused himself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For your wife and I are not wholly strangers. -And the circumstances in which we last parted were, -I confess, a bit awkward. So I really believe it would -be more pleasant, for everyone concerned, for me -not to meet your wife just now. Do you present, -none the less, my compliments.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And whose compliments shall I tell her that -they are?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you say a friend of her earliest youth passed -by, one somewhat intimately known to her before -she first became a mother; and I make no doubt that -Havvah will understand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But my wife’s married name is Maya, and before -our marriage it was Æsred—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Ah, yes!” the brown man said, precisely as -Glaum had done, “women do vary in their given -names. Do you present my compliments, then, to -your wife: for that word, by and by, means the -same thing to every husband.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I will convey the message,” Gerald promised: -“but the aphorism I would prefer to have delivered -by somebody else.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And he so parted with both his guests.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For Gaston Bulmer embraced Gerald and then -went sorrowfully back to Lichfield, in a cloud which -the aging adept’s despondency made quite black: -and the brown man leisurely strolled on toward -Antan, with the ease of one who was well used to -walking to and fro about the earth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He did not hurry, nor did he look inquisitively -about him, Gerald noticed, as has done the other -travelers toward the city of all marvels. The brown -man, alone of the many that had passed toward -Antan, appeared to travel upon a road with which -he was thoroughly acquainted, toward a familiar -goal.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch35'>35.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Of Kalki and a Döppelganger</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>S</span></span>O IT was that Gerald stayed yet a while longer -upon Mispec Moor. July passed uneventfully. -Each pleasant summer day found Gerald sitting -beneath his chestnut-tree at the roadside: and -he talked there with many wayfarers who have no -part in this tale. For almost all these travelers told -the same story. Nine out of every ten of them had -yesterday been a god whom human beings served; -each had been worshipped by mankind in one or -another quarter of the world: to-day their human -concerns were over, and they journeyed toward the -goal of all the gods. What did they look to find -there? Gerald would ask: and—to this very simple -question,—every one of them replied evasively. -They went to hear that word which was in the beginning, -and which would be after everything else -had perished, that word which was unknown to all -the gods of men. They would say no more: and -Gerald did not deeply bother about the matter, because -he was nowadays quite well contented, and -when he went to Antan would soon be clearing up -every mystery for himself.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And the divine steed Kalki also appeared content -enough, nor was his aspect altered by inaction. The -horse retained that uniform strange shining and -that metallic glitter which made him seem actually -to be made of untarnished silver. Of course when -you saw him grazing upon Mispec Moor just -after a rain-shower his back would be dark and -sleek, and his broad sides would be streaked with -wavering, oily-looking bands. But at all other -times he kept his glowing silver color, which was -unlike that of any other horse Gerald had ever -seen.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Meanwhile the divine steed grazed with the geldings -who once had been the human lovers of Maya. -He went as they did, lifting each hoof with somewhat -droll carefulness as he grazed forward on the -sloping ground about the cottage. For Gerald would -often watch this grazing. And to him these horses -as they moved slowly and irregularly windward -seemed continually to pick up and to replace their -hoofs upon the ground as though they believed each -hoof to be a rather fragile parcel. The pendulous, -stretched, heavy necks of these horses, each neck -staying always monotonously parallel to all the -other necks, appeared to him too heavy ever again -to be lifted erect. To wonder in the drowsy summer -afternoon how this lifting could possibly be achieved -aroused an unpleasant sensation in Gerald’s collarbone.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So Kalki fed all day among the geldings, and on -windy nights he huddled with them in the lee of the -cottage. Each day Kalki went looking downward, -grazing interminably, and without ever ceasing to -move those wobbling, dark, prehensile, rotatory, -snuffling lips as the divine steed fed upon the sparse -grass of Mispec Moor. He, just as greedily as the -geldings, would contort his lips and twist his head -when he attempted to get at the longer and more -luscious grass which grew almost inaccessibly about -the fence posts. And to reflection there was something -of the incongruous in the spectacle of a divine -steed engrossed by this problem.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Now and again, as Gerald noted also, the stallion -would raise his superb head, and Kalki would look -almost wistfully toward Antan. But soon he would -be back at his grazing: and, upon the whole, he -seemed content enough with the pleasures appropriate -to ordinary horses. And Gerald thought too -that, nowadays, Kalki looked less often toward the -goal of all the gods.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet Kalki turned out to be not wholly unique. -For, one morning, as Gerald went toward his -chestnut-tree, he noted the approach from afar of -a traveler who rode upon a horse that had very -much the appearance of Kalki. And when Gerald -had reached the roadway he saw that the newcomer -was in fact mounted upon a steed which might well -have been Kalki’s twin.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Hail, friend!” said Gerald, “And what business -draws you to the city of all marvels?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then a regrettable thing happened; for the young -horseman pretended not to have heard Gerald, and -as the boy passed he looked investigatively about -Mispec Moor, and he pretended not to have seen -Gerald, who stood within a few feet of him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He was a notably handsome boy, too, in a blue -coat and a golden yellow waistcoat, with a tall white -stock and ruffles about his throat. His hair seemed -red: and Gerald noted, moreover, the lazy and -mildly humorous, half-mocking gaze with which this -boy regarded Mispec Moor, as he rode by unhurriedly -toward Antan, without any pausing, and Gerald -noted in particular the very lovely smiling of this -boy’s so amply curved and rather womanish mouth, -as the boy went by upon the horse which was astonishingly -like Kalki.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yes, he had quite the air of a gentleman: and it -was a great pity that this young whippersnapper had -not the manners of a gentleman also, Gerald reflected, -as Gerald stood there, feeling unwarrantably -snubbed, and blinking behind his rose-colored spectacles.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch36'>36.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Tannhäuser’s Troubled Eyes</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>A</span></span>ND upon yet another day Gerald talked with -the comely but now aged knight Tannhäuser, -as this famous myth passed by, in full armor, -upon his journey into Antan.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There,” said Tannhäuser, “there I may find -again, it may be, the fair Dame Venus and all the -brave and high-hearted sinners who would not compromise -with the narrow and cruel ways of respectable -persons.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My friend,” said Gerald, mildly, “there is considerable -virtue to be found, here and there, among -respectable persons. There is even a virtue in compromise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Tannhäuser shouted: “That I deny! All -my life denies that, and so long as my name lives I -am that lie’s denial! For it was the good and the -respectable who betrayed me. I found pride and -worldliness and a lack of cordiality to exist among -the bourgeoisie and even among those professional -churchmen who should have been the first to sustain -and guide a repentant sinner. And so I turned again -to that frankly pagan beauty which is hateful to -pious and small-minded persons.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then this resplendent gray-haired myth spoke -heatedly of his own life history and of how his love -for this frankly pagan beauty had led him into the -hollow mountain called the Hörselberg, to live there -as the lover of Dame Venus in all manner of frankly -pagan pleasure-seeking; and of how, after seven -years of frankly pagan recreations, when repentance -smote him, abetted by the frailties of middle age, -it was among the leading church members, and in -the heart of the very head of the church, that he -had found no sympathy. Therefore Tannhäuser was -returning to those frankly pagan recreations, so far -at least as they were consistent with late middle life, -because he was disgusted by those whining and hypocritical, -cruel church members.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald listened. He remembered how in the -Mirror of Caer Omn he for a while had been Tannhäuser. -Yet it was a queer thing, and a circumstance -which made Gerald suspect time to be changing him, -somehow, who used to be such a tremendous iconoclast, -that now this old rebellious myth,—which -represented yet another of Gerald’s discarded personalities,—appeared -to Gerald remarkably over-colored -and rather pitiably foolish. For here was -a story which led to wrong conclusions. It ended by -depicting a god at loggerheads with the head of his -own church: and it begot, somewhat inevitably, -those loud sneers at the bourgeois virtues, and those -denunciations of people who, after all, had done -nothing worse than to live quiet and common-sense -lives which Tannhäuser was now declaiming, and -which to Gerald appeared unutterably childish. -There was no conceivable reason why a well-thought-of -pope should be hobnobbing with and -coddling a broken-down old lecher just come out of -a superior brothel. In fact, in reproving Pope Urban -so publicly, Heaven had been, to Gerald’s finding, -rather tactless, and had violated the <span class='it'>esprit de corps</span> -which ought to be preserved among the fellow -workers in every church. And in any case, Tannhäuser’s -present reflections upon religion were not -such as Gerald, now that he had become a god, could -listen to with approval.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Still, Gerald did listen: and Gerald smiled, friendlily -enough.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know, I know!” said Gerald. “I know, friend, -all about you. When you repented of evil-doing,—and, -really, you did take your time about that,—then -you turned hopefully to religion, but, alas! you -were repelled by its ministers. You found them to be -human beings subject to human frailties. You found -that—in Heaven’s eyes, anyhow,—even a pope -might make a mistake. And so, quite naturally, you -proceeded to drown the surprise and horror -awakened by this discovery in out-and-out debauchery -and in cutting reflections upon all pew-renters. -For your discovery was revolutionary; no -doubt the stars were shaken in their courses, to -observe a human being making a mistake; and you -also must have found the spectacle extremely trying. -Still, you in this way became useful to romantic art.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald said: “Lord, man, but what a following -you have had! and what a number of people -have got harmless pleasure out of developing the -discovery which Tannhäuser first made, that inconsistency -and mean-spiritedness may be found among -the clergy and the churchgoers! You will thus continue -to be a benefactor of your kind for centuries, -I have not a doubt. Yet I sometimes fancy that inconsistency -and mean-spiritedness may be found even -among recognizedly depraved persons who do not -go to any church at all. I find that every religion -cows a number of its devotees into a thrifty-minded -practice of generally beneficent virtues. The average -of desirable qualities in the congregation of -every church appears to me, after all, quite perceptibly -higher than is that average among the regular -customers of any brothel or the clients of the public -hangman. I do not deny that my discovery also is, -from any æsthetic standpoint, revolutionary. I confess -that it is nowhere represented in romance, as yet, -and that no conceivable realist can ever regard such -a grotesque fancy with anything save loathing. But -I believe that some day an intrepid handling of this -daring theme will prodigally repay some very great -innovator, and will become useful to romantic art.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald said also: “Moreover, you remain -quite invaluable as a pretext and a palliation whenever -youth hungers for its fling. Only, I must dare -point out, my dear sir, that your second century-long -fling was, by the best people, unavoidably, felt -to be excessive. All of us, more or less, have had our -flings: even so, a fling needs to be conducted, and -above all to be wound up, with some discretion. It -ought to be high-hearted and lyrical in every feature: -it ought especially to have the briefness of the -lyric. And it ought not, no, it really ought not, to -wind up in the Hörselberg. Now I, too, my friend, -for example, have had my fling. But I have had it -in a quiet, self-controlled and gentlemanly way, -without overdoing the thing. Thereafter I settled -down,—just temporarily, to be sure, but still I have -settled down,—in no lewd and feverish Hörselberg, -but here, where a contented husband risks no further -chance of becoming useful to romantic art.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is possible for one to exist, but not for anybody -to live, here!” replied Tannhäuser, scornfully, -as his wild gaze swept over the still stretches of Mispec -Moor.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Allow me!” said Gerald, with the tiniest of -smiles; and he perched his rose-colored spectacles -upon the beaked high nose of Tannhäuser.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>There was a pause. And Tannhäuser sighed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I see,” said the knight then, “a quiet little -home of your own, in the country, with your wife -and with the kiddies, too, I daresay. And with -fresh vegetables, of course, right out of your own -garden.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In just such a home, Messire Tannhäuser, as is -the cornerstone of every nation, the cradle of all -the virtues, and the guiding-star of I forget precisely -what. It is also the brightest jewel in the crown of -something or other, and it assists other desirable -abstractions in the capacity of a bulwark, a spur, -and an anchor. It is, you may depend upon it, the -proper place in which to end one’s fling.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And I! I might, if only I had married that dear -fine sweet girl Elizabeth, I, too, might have had -such a home! For, after all, there is nothing like -marriage and the love of a good woman. An endless -round of perpetual pleasure-seeking rings hollow -by and by, and one hungers for the simple sacred -joys of home-life. I must, oh, very decidedly, I must -settle down. I, too, must have just such a home as -this.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the thought of all which he had been missing -so affected Tannhäuser that he took off the spectacles -and unaffectedly wiped his eyes. After that -the aging, comely knight sat for a while silent and -rather frightened looking. He stared again at the -cottage and at the moor, and then he stared at -Gerald.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And you live in this hole, with a muddy brat and -a dull-witted, middle-aged, not at all good-looking -woman for your only company! I marvel at the -enchantment which controls you. At least Dame -Venus held me with an intelligible sort of sorcery.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That,” Gerald replied, as he contentedly put on -his rose-colored spectacles again, “is nonsense.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is a very dreadful nonsense. It is a soul-destroying -and besotting nonsense, from which I -flee to look for the less terrible enchantments of the -Hörselberg.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald put his question. “You, who have -traveled through the Marches of Antan, wherein -only two truths endure, and the one teaching is that -we copulate and die,—do you not look to find in the -goal of all the gods some third truth?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the comely knight seemed not to have heard -this question, in his frank terror of domesticity. -Tannhäuser had mounted his horse, and he now rode -galloping like a madman toward Antan.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch37'>37.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Contentment of the Mislaid God</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>N</span></span>OW life contented Gerald as he lived it -through this recognized parenthesis in his -divine career. Very soon this little episode -of his stay upon Mispec Moor would be ended: it -would even be forgotten, perhaps, in the press of -regal and superhuman affairs. Meanwhile he lived -in quite tolerable ease. He had nothing to trouble -him. Hardly a morning passed without his finding -some more or less interesting celestial outcast to -talk to under his chestnut-tree. Maya continued to -be an excellent cook, in her plain, unpretentious -way: and she saw to it that the cottage was kept -comfortable and efficient in all appointments.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Maya was dear to him. She nowadays found -fault with virtually everything that Gerald did. And -whenever he ventured any suggestion, as to Theodorick -or the economics of the cottage or their social -engagements in Turoine,—or even if Gerald as -much as suggested opening or closing a window,—Maya -at once produced at least nine grounds upon -which the suggestion was plainly very foolish and -would never have occurred to anyone of real intelligence. -And she cherished the most imaginative views -as to the extent of Gerald’s selfishness and lack of -consideration for other people, and of his habit of -never doing anything whatever for her pleasure.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Sometimes, though, she would go for as much as -an hour without dwelling, at especial length, upon -what a trial Gerald was to her in one way or another. -And in all respects she was a capable woman who -made him an excellent wife, and treated him far -better than she could have found any excuse for doing -in what she said about him.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald loved Theodorick Quentin Musgrave, -also, with an affection which rather troubled -Gerald. The child, he knew, displayed no extraordinary -charm nor talent: no course of reasoning -could justify any extreme fondness for Theodorick -upon the ground of his physical or mental gifts. -Theodorick Quentin Musgrave was not brilliant, -he was not lovely, he was not especially amiable: he -was, indeed, by way of being a particularly selfish -small tyrant, continually adding to the disorder of -the cottage, to the dismay of Gerald’s finicky liking -for neatness, and continually devising unneeded -trouble and commandeering manual tasks from his -parents because of the droll pleasure which Theodorick -appeared to derive from seeing his parents -fetch and carry in his service.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet, whensoever Gerald put his arm about the -small, warm, yielding, sturdy, but so helpless body, -it was as though Gerald’s own body were melting in -a grateful glow of what was—bewilderingly—a -sort of panic terror. He loved this freckled, fragile -creature with an unwisdom which was, as Gerald -knew, an assuredness of more or less future discomfort -and, it well might be, of anguish, for him who -quite honestly disliked trouble of any kind. Since -this child had been created, Gerald’s well-being was -not any longer a matter which Gerald could hope to -control or even to protect: his happiness was now -risked upon what might befall this imp. It was the -helplessness of the child which frightened Gerald -with a sense of his own helplessness. Life was so -cruel to children. Life damaged and hurt children in -so many ways inevitably. And every hurt to this -child, now, would be an anguish to Gerald, who -could avoid none of them. He could not even manage -to get the child properly christened, in this neighborhood -so profuse in sorcerers and wizards, who used, -as everybody knew, unchristened children in horrible -ways which it was not comfortable to think -about....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then, too, Gerald was not certain Theodorick -Quentin Musgrave was real. Gerald remembered -always, at the back of his mind, that frightful instant -when he had removed his spectacles, to find -the child had vanished. Gerald assured himself that -the cause was a slight indigestion, and that the -moment’s blur of vision came from a disordered -stomach. But he was wholly careful not ever again -to look at Theodorick except through the rose-colored -spectacles which made visible the magics of -Maya. He kept resolutely out of his full attention -the fact that Theodorick might be an illusion which -Maya had created. And he grew accustomed to that -unusual milk-colored tongue, which showed like a -white snake within the red moist little mouth whenever -the child laughed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald sometimes wondered if Maya had -over-ambitiously designed to make permanent this -mere parenthesis in his career. She had attempted, -to be sure, no magic such as that with which she had -transformed his predecessors. No sorceress would -dare, for that matter, thus to presume against a -god.... Gerald knew that, instead, it was his -Maya’s wholesome simplicity and the prosaic human -comfort which he did get, after all, from living with -this middle-aged and fault-finding and not in the -least beautiful woman that had detained him, just -for the while of this parenthesis in his career. He -of course would pass on, to enter into his kingdom, -by and by. And there was no conceivable hurry about -it, now that his journeying to Antan was for every -practical purpose finished, and now that whensoever -he elected he might within the next half-hour or so -be taking over the realm and all the powers of the -Master Philologist.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Meanwhile, though, Gerald would now and then -wonder amusedly if his dear, stupid Maya could -perhaps have struck upon the device of detaining -him by not using any magic whatever: if she in secret -flattered herself that this device was succeeding: and -if she actually cherished the delusion that she was -hoodwinking omniscient Fair-haired Hoo, the -Helper and Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, -the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones?</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Anyhow, his life here very amiably contented him -for the while. The local circles of sorcerers and -wizards were pleasant enough, barring only that -haunting memory as to how they used unchristened -children. Gerald and Maya did not go out a great -deal; but they were on friendly terms with the neighbors; -they attended an occasional Sabbat; and they -kept in touch generally with the affairs of Turoine. -And for the rest, the little happenings of his home -life temporarily contented the Lord of the Third -Truth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And he began to reflect that, just possibly, Antan -might be to him, after he had entered into his kingdom, -a disappointment. From here Antan seemed -uniformly wonderful. It was astonishingly pleasant -to sit upon the western porch of the small cottage, -especially toward evening, when your shoes propped -up before you on the porch railing reflected a pinkish -glow from the sunset, and to imagine what was going -on in that broad expanse of yet unvisited fields and -hills which now were turning into gray and purple -mists directly beneath the gold and crimson of the -sunset. The trouble was that you, who were gifted -with the imagination of a god, were very certainly -imagining more wonderful happenings for that mysterious -theatre than could by any chance be enacted -there.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For one matter, after dark, Antan always displayed -eight lights, six of them grouped together in -the middle of the vista with the general effect of -a cross, and the other two showing much farther -off to the northwest. About those never-varying huge -lights Gerald had formed at least twenty delightful -theories, all plausible as long as you remained upon -Mispec Moor, whereas if you went to Antan not -more at most than one of these theories could prove -true.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>To go to Antan thus meant the destruction of no -less than nineteen rather beautiful ideas as to those -lights alone. However, Gerald felt, there was no -help for this: and he whole-heartedly meant to take -over his appointed kingdom without any unpleasant -criticizing, no matter what might be the deficiencies -of the place, by and by. Meanwhile, there was no -great hurry: and it was, indeed, a prudent and long-sighted -course for him to be pausing here to enjoy -these fine scenic effects, because by and by he -would not ever again be seeing Antan from this -distance.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>After nightfall those eight lights never varied. -But by day there was always a different and, as it -seemed, a more lovely display of rounded, parti-colored, -cleared hills, which here and there were -darklier streaked, no doubt with orchards. Beyond -them many flat-topped mountains showed, yet farther -to the west, like a sleeping herd of gigantic blue -crocodiles all couched across the west and facing -north. And above so much terrestrial graciousness -moved an incessant pageant of clouds, not a bit like -the flat clouds which you looked up at from Lichfield, -because the clouds which brooded over Antan were -seen, from Gerald’s station upon Mispec Moor, as -on a level with you: and, when they were thus considered -sidewise, they resembled moving walls and -crags and drifting curtains through which the sunlight -smote in slanting and huge and pallid and quite -tangible looking shafts.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Always, too, you noticed, nowadays, that vast and -violet-shrouded, high-breasted woman’s figure lying -yonder, motionless, with that ever-burning heart; and -you were visited by an odd fancy. You fancied that -Queen Freydis, the as yet unwon-to queen of your -appointed kingdom, was like that woman. And this -fancy came to you none the less often because of your -plain perception of its illogic.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Come, now!” said Gerald, “a mistress of that -size would be unsuitable. Charms of so diffuse an -acreage would create, even in a god, a sense of inadequacy. -Nevertheless, I am falling rather ardently -in love with those two hills. I begin to adore the casual -play of lights and shadows upon yonder piled-up -dirt, which when seen from any other station than -this would not in the least resemble a woman. And -such amorous notions, apart from their insanity, are -not befitting in a contentedly, if temporarily, married -person.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The transience of his comforts made them very -dear. It was well worth the inconvenience of sleeping -in his spectacles (as Gerald, for his own reasons, -did) so that in the night season he could awaken, to -see Maya’s tranquil brown head yonder beside the -smaller and tousled and livelily red head of Theodorick -Quentin Musgrave,—both visible yonder because -of the lamp which the child demanded at night, -and because of his insistence that Mother was to -sleep with him instead of with Father.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Outside, Gerald would hear those of his transformed -predecessors who now were horses, shuffling -and restively stamping, and at times snorting and -whinnying, in the chill outer darkness; or a misguided -gentleman who lived nowadays as a steer would low, -much farther off; or Gerald would hear yet another -one of Maya’s former husbands coughing, with the -far-reaching and morose scornfulness peculiar to a -sheep. And then the difference between the estate of -Gerald’s predecessors and the snug warmth of his so -comfortable soft bed, and his knowledge of that unmarred -bodily ease which, just now, was his through -every hour of the day, would trouble Gerald, because -he knew it all to be so satisfying and so transient.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART TEN</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF ENDINGS</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“Trust Nobody but Thyself, and</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>None Other will Betray Thee.”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch38'>38.<br> <span class='sub-head'>About the Past of a Bishop</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>S</span></span>O GERALD stayed content enough, all -through those pleasant summer days. It was -odd to reflect that these days were counting as -he did not know how many years in Lichfield. He -would now and then contrast himself with his great -ancestor Dom Manuel, the same about whom, in -that quaint far-off time when Gerald had believed -himself merely human, and was interested in such human -nonsense, Gerald had intended to write a romance,—because -the Redeemer of Poictesme, as -Gerald remembered it, had passed a month with the -wood demon Béda, in the forest of Dun Vlechlan, -where the company consisted entirely of evil principles, -and where the passing of each day left Manuel -a year older.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald would reflect how much more sensible and -pleasant was the course which he was following, surrounded -with every domestic virtue, where the days -did not count at all. For Gerald was content, and -certainly he had grown no older in body. He had become -used to living upon Mispec Moor: he wondered -sometimes if Antan could afford any splendor which -he personally would find more to his taste; and he -felt that he would honestly miss the simple wholesome -ways of Maya’s log and plaster cottage after -he had entered forever into the red-pillared palace -of his kingdom beyond good and evil,—next week, -perhaps, or at all events not later than September.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And it stayed diverting to observe those persons -who almost every day passed beyond Mispec Moor -in their journeying toward the goal of all the gods of -men. Then by and by one of these wayfarers turned -out to be a stalwart, white-bearded old gentleman -dressed as a bishop. And the sight of him delighted -Gerald: for here at last was somebody who could -properly christen Theodorick Quentin Musgrave.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Meanwhile this traveler was asking hospitality of -Maya. She, who disliked travelers, prepared the -white and tender flesh of a calf, she kneaded cakes -of fine meal and baked them upon the hearth, she -fetched milk and butter. All these she set before the -seeming bishop upon the front porch of her cottage -quite affably. For this old gentleman, it appeared, -had known Maya of the Fair Breasts a great while -ago, at the very beginning of a career confessedly -so populous in husbands that Gerald always felt a -certain delicacy in asking questions about it.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But there was never any reasoning with you, my -dear,” said the old gentleman, as they all ate amicably -together upon the porch. “So you eluded my -purpose, and you preferred to content that first man -of yours for his loss of the over-wilful beauty and -the rebellious wisdom of your predecessor—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Maya replied: “I do wish you would try just one -more of those cakes, for I made them myself, exactly -as you used to like them in the plains of Mamrê, -when you were up to your nonsense with Sarah. Yes, -I believe that a girl, a really nice girl, that is, should -keep her caresses for her husband. Oh, I am casting -no reflections upon either of your sweethearts. It is -a matter every woman must decide for herself. I -merely say that, for my part, I think a love-affair -with a god while he is still in power is ostentatious -and can only end in unhappiness—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But—!” Gerald had begun indignantly.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She patted his hand. “No, Gerald, I did not mean -you. Your power is limitless, and you are quite different -from all other gods, and nobody knows that -better than I do. So please do not start any pouting -while we have company! He thinks that he is a god, -too,” Maya then stated, casually, to her visitor. -“That is why his feelings are upset. He believes he -is the Fair-haired Hoodoo, the Yelper and the Pretender, -or something of that sort. As for that woman, -Adam was very lucky to get rid of her.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I wonder,” said the white-bearded gentleman, -smiling reminiscently, “I wonder if he always -thought so?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My dear old friend! but you and I know quite -well what the creatures are! Of course he cherished -the memory of her for the rest of his life, long after -the worthless piece had gone, just literally, to the -devil. She was not bad looking: that much, anyhow, -one can say in her favor: and so the poor fellow had -always his memories of that beauty which he had -known, once. He used to say it was too lovely to be -retained by any man. And I agreed with him. No -man had the least chance, with infernal connoisseurs -about.... And his sons,” said Maya, as she reflectively -scratched at her nose, “have, somehow, all -preserved that memory. There is no one of them but -now and then finds my daughters rather inadequate, -and half remembers that woman and gets lackadaisical -over her. It is just another thing about the creatures -which my daughters have to put up with.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She too is yonder, they tell me,”—and the old -gentleman nodded toward Antan. Then he continued: -“And I suspect there is no one of your daughters -but is jealous of this ever-living memory of that -Lilith who stays always the first, never quite forgotten -love of every son of Adam; and who prevents -more of them than you would care to acknowledge, -my dear, from ever utterly giving over their hearts -to any of your daughters.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“We are jealous, within limits,” Maya replied, in -the while that she hospitably refilled his glass with -fresh milk. “No woman likes playing second fiddle, -even in the moonstruck brain of a poet. Yet my -daughters know it does no real harm. And if men -were not up to something, they would be up to something -else. Besides, it gives them their nonsense to -be romantic over in private, without pestering their -poor sweethearts, and their wives too at first, to be -romantic along with them, which is a thing no nice -woman really feels comfortable about—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the old gentleman had sighed. “You touch -upon a somewhat harrowing subject. For I fancy that -no other luckless being has ever had to cater to the -shifting needs of popular romance so arduously or -so variously as I.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Maya now was beaming upon him quite -fondly. “Yes, but how clever you have been about -it! In fact, I suppose that nobody anywhere has ever -had a more wonderful career than yours. And it -seems only yesterday—does it not?—that we were -all young together in the Garden, and your reputation -was merely local. But you Jews are so adaptable!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I was not even a Jew, my dear, to begin with. -Perhaps that is why I never quite got on with them. -I was a storm deity of the Midianites. But the Jews -kidnapped me, in some way or another, when I was -just a godling playing happily with my thunderbolts -upon the flanks of Sinai.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Even so, when I think of what a position you -have attained in the best Christian circles, and of the -perfect respectability of the church to which you now -belong, and of all the splendid poetry you have -inspired, and of how generally famous you have become -everywhere, I am wholly proud that you once, -when we were both younger”—and Gerald saw -that Maya had colored up rather prettily,—“had -other plans for me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You,” said the old gentleman,—who, as Gerald -now observed, was really quite Jewish looking,—“were -the first of my disappointments. Yes, I suppose -that in many respects my career has been unusual. -Yet it has ended by placing me in a most -awkward position: and nothing ever turned out in -accordance with my plans, somehow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the stalwart, white-bearded old gentleman -who was dressed as a bishop spoke of his first family, -and of how his descendants through a son named -Isaac went astray. He spoke of his efforts to retain -the affection of his family, through the vigorous -methods appropriate to a storm god. But nothing -had seemed to avail. There had been fine plagues -and deluges and captivities and decimations and devastating -miracles by the score. He had sent the -swords of Babylon and of Philistia and of dozens of -other kingdoms to slay them, and huge dogs to tear -their corpses, and many birds of prey and all the wild -beasts of earth to devour and to destroy them, without -arousing one ray of real affection. He had laid -waste their cities; he had made their widows as the -sands of the sea; he had starved them, and had smitten -them with leprosy, and had burned them with -lightnings; he had afflicted them with the most voluble -and pessimistic prophets: he had, in a word, done -absolutely everything he could think of as likely to -requicken their waning affection. But the more he -annoyed his descendants, the less they had seemed -really to love him. Upon the heels of every warning, -and immediately after each paternal correction, the -survivors of it seemed only the more inclined to -prefer some other patron: and it was all very discouraging.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And of his second son he spoke also. Here he -became remarkably vague, and he talked as if muddled -by the whole affair. There had been a great -sacrifice and an atonement, the workings of which -the old gentleman could not pretend to understand. -He could not yet say just who had been put in a more -amiable frame of mind by that atonement, since personally -he imagined any father would have found it -most distasteful and upsetting. Anyhow, the affair -had resulted in a church with which he had felt it -rather his duty to associate himself. And, awkwardly -enough, after he had thus been persuaded by them -formally to commit himself to a policy of peace and -forgiveness and general loving-kindness, his incomprehensible -servants had gone on squabbling and -murdering, only much more often than before, because -now they did it on high moral grounds. They -had fought over transubstantiation, and over Greek -diphthongs, and over the respective merits of complete -and frontal baptism, and over infant damnation, -and over redemption through faith alone, and -over a number of other recondite matters which no -Arabian storm god, very simply reared in the country -during the really formative years of his life, and -with no regular academic training, could well be expected -to understand: and it was all very discouraging.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nor to-day was his position much happier. He -found himself ranked rather high in the church with -which he was associated professionally. Yes, the old -gentleman admitted, with plain bewilderment, his -name was honored. But all his actions—even such -quite notable actions as holding a conference with -his disciples in a fiery furnace, and affording his messengers -inter-urban transportation by means of a -whale, and of causing the sun itself to stand still,—all -these fine exploits, along with his every natural -exhibition of the irascibility and truculence appropriate -to a storm god, had been reduced to poetic inventions. -His very existence had been complicated -with a triplicity which, since the mind could not -grasp it, prevented his existence from being, actually, -believed in by anybody. That had seemed, from the -first moment he heard of it, a doctrine a bit difficult -for him personally to accept, after having been an -undivided deity in regular practice for so many thousands -of years. And eighteen centuries of pondering -upon that doctrine of his triune nature, to which -he was through his official position committed, had -showed a matter so abstruse and puzzling to be far -beyond the comprehension of any country-bred Arabian -storm god, howsoever faithfully he had broadened -his mind, at the courts of various Christian -monarchs and in the larger nunneries, since the commencement -of his religious training among the farming -element of Seir and Sinai. Nor could he honestly -say that he had ever been able to take quite kindly -to the notion that his being was confessedly a mystery -not to be understood by prelates graduated -from the best seminaries, and that his actions were -all poetic inventions. For that left of him, so far as -could be seen by a plain-thinking Arabian storm god, -nothing which the human mind could grasp as an actuality; -it made every one of his really thorough-going -servants who accepted utterly the teachings of his -church, so far as he could infer, a devotee of vacuousness: -and it was all very discouraging.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Altogether,” said the old gentleman who was -dressed as a bishop, “I feel that my present ranking -in the Christian church is a perplexing and, in some -sense, a false position for an Arabian storm god. I -have aged under it. Oh, I have tried to be quite fair -about the matter. Sometimes I even go so far as to -concede that people who have never met a particular -person might, just possibly, believe that person to be -three persons whose actions were all poetic inventions. -The human imagination is vigorous. I must -point out to you, though, my friends, that nobody -could conceivably believe that about himself. These -very curious theories about me thus postulate the existence -of at least one sceptic, and they hinge indeed -upon the existence of that sceptic, in me. Now, I feel -instinctively there must be an error in any such logic. -I feel it unfair that I alone of all the persons connected -with my church should be inevitably doomed -to remain an atheist. And I have aged steadily under -the injustice and unreason of it all. Otherwise, if I -yet retained the vigor of my youth, I might yet, in -my frank way, attempt to clean the slate, as it were, -with whirlwinds and thunderbolts and another deluge -or so, and to make a fresh start all around. But, alas, -I have aged, my dear Havvah, since the days of our -first acquaintance. The inexplicable theology and the -rationalization, as they call it, to which I have been -subjected by my incomprehensible servants, now for -some eighteen centuries with ever increasing rigor, -have brought me to the point that I cannot logically -believe in my own existence. The things they tell me -simply do not hold together. And so—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He comprehensively waved his hand toward -Antan.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But Gerald rose, and Gerald put aside his glass of -milk and his veal sandwich.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald said, beamingly: “You who have traveled -through the Marches of Antan, wherein only -two truths endure, and the one teaching is that we -copulate and die,—you at least, I know, must, as a -leading official of the Protestant Episcopal church, -look confidently forward to finding in the goal of all -the gods a third truth. The fact emboldens me to ask -that you do but answer me this very simple question—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Alas, my friend,” the badgered looking old gentleman -broke in, “professionally, of course, my faith -is all that it should be. But in my private capacity, as -a plain-thinking Arabian storm god, now that I am -retiring from active churchwork, I suspect that when -anybody anywhere once understands the nature of -any two truths, that will be quite time enough for -him to be requiring a third truth to exercise his wits -upon.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That truism, sir, is not to be denied,” said Gerald, -rather crestfallen. “Yet that is likewise an evasion.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In fact,” said the bewildered old gentleman, -shaking sadly his white head, “in fact, ever since I -acquired triplicity, I have been accused of duplicity -also. The Gnostics, I remember, said very unkind -things about that: the Valentinians were no more -charitable: whereas I would really hesitate to repeat, -my friends, the remarks of the Priscillianists.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And in any case,” Gerald said, emphatically, -“howsoever you may evade me, it would not do for -you to evade your duties to the Protestant Episcopal -church. The world as yet has need of bishops and of -all that they signify. I must point out to you, sir, that -the wild talking of bishops yet frightens many persons -into a thrifty-minded practice of generally beneficent -virtues. Indeed, sir, bishops remind me -rather of calomel in the effect which they have upon -the run of men, because I find their effect also to be, -ultimately, beneficial. There are also other points of -resemblance. And if the strange ways of episcopal -action now and then unavoidably upset you, sir, you -ought to remember that it is, after all, for the general -good. I, moreover, must point out that it absolutely -would not do for you to go into Antan and be -one of my subjects—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“He thinks,” Maya once more explained, parenthetically, -to her guest, “that he is a god, you -understand.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I am!” said Gerald. “These continual interruptions -are really very awkward, my dear. And -the present situation also is awkward, in view of my -Protestant Episcopal upbringing. It is a situation -which must at any cost be avoided. This gentleman -simply must not go into Antan.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But what is to be done about it?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, do you not be uneasy! Your age, sir, and its -attendant delusions, such as wanting to go into Antan, -are matters quite easily remedied by any competent -Dirghic deity. You could not possibly have -pursued a wiser course than to come to me for assistance. -So, if you will permit me, sir—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thereafter Gerald, still in something of a flutter, -baptized the old gentleman who was dressed as a -bishop with the last remaining drop of water from -the Churning of the Ocean.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch39'>39.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Baptism of a Musgrave</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>F</span></span>ORTHWITH the old white-bearded gentleman -became a most personable looking youngish -Oriental, who shone with a fiery radiance, -and about whose head played a continual flashing -like small lightnings. And he said, approvingly:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is a fine magic which has restored to me my -youth and the vigorousness I had in Midian before -I was kidnapped by those stiff-necked and unaffectionate -Jews.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And will you now be going into Antan?” asked -Gerald, rather anxiously.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Not yet, my friend,” replied the merry, strong, -young Arabian storm god. “Oh, very certainly, not -yet! No, I have had quite enough of my illogical -position as a Christian and of the worries of being -rationalized by incomprehensible foreigners. I shall -thankfully return to my Midianites and to my little -shrines upon Seir and Sinai and Horeb, and to the -quiet living of a local godling. I shall be hearing again -my own people’s sane and intelligible prayers for -rain, and I shall be snuffing up the smoke of such -rational offerings as kids and goats and an occasional -prisoner of war, just as I used to do, where I was -given due credit for my actions, and where you heard -no unpleasant personal scandal circulated about my -being triplets. In the meanwhile, my benefactor, is -there not any favor which, in my turn, I can do -you?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Indeed, my dear sir,” Gerald answered, harking -back to that worriment which in a neighborhood so -full of sorcerers and wizards stayed always in the -rear of Gerald’s mind, “there is a small one, now -you mention it. For we have a boy, as you perceive. -And it occurs to me that this is the first chance to -have Theodorick Quentin Musgrave properly christened -according to the rites of the Protestant Episcopal -church—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The storm god asked of Gerald, in good-humored -surprise. “But do I now look to you much like an -Episcopalian clergyman?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, sir, I admit the situation is perplexing. -Nevertheless, you remain, so far as I can see, one -of the three official heads of the Christian church, in -every denomination. And as such, you must be wholly -competent to administer the sacred rites of that baptism -to which we Musgraves are accustomed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He who had been a bishop laughed again. For -an instant he glanced sidewise at Maya, rather impishly. -Then the god called to him Theodorick Quentin -Musgrave.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The boy came forward without speaking. There -had never been any dearer brat since time began, -Gerald reflected, than was this sturdy droll red-headed -jackanapes who waited there holding his -small chin well up in order to look with politely -puzzled interest at the storm god’s glittering face -and the tiny lightnings which played about it. Gerald -was abeam with the most fatuous sort of pride -in Theodorick’s perfect behavior. Gerald glowed all -over, now that awkward matter of the boy’s christening -was being at last attended to, by the very highest -authority. And Gerald nodded smilingly and with -some inconsequence at his dear stupid Maya, so that -she too might note how splendidly Theodorick was -behaving. The boy was displaying the composure and -the excellent manners of a true Musgrave.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the storm god dipped his fingers in his unfinished -glass of milk, and upon Theodorick’s lifted -forehead he drew a sign. Gerald was not wholly certain, -afterward, that it was the sign of a cross.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This is another sort of baptism than that which -restored my youth. For youth this child already has,—to -every seeming,” the god said, a bit unaccountably. -“Therefore I now release this child whom I did -not create, I release him from the bondage of the -woman and of the Adversary who caused him to live -upon this earth. I decree a forgiveness for the seven -crimes. I cry a remission of the seven punishments.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I must say, though, you have been long enough -about it,” Maya placidly observed....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>As for Gerald, now that the ceremony was over, -he was unaffectedly hugging Theodorick, and telling -him that he was far too big a boy to be kissing people, -and the vaguely puzzled, clinging child was asking, -But who started it, Father?...</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And the storm god was saying to Maya, “Do you -forget, my dear Havvah, that it is from your service -I am releasing him?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She answered, still quite placidly: “So far as that -goes, the imp has well earned a holiday; and it is not -as if I were dependent upon him. No, but I confess -to wondering—and not for the first time, either,—just -what you may be up to.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch40'>40.<br> <span class='sub-head'>On the Turn of a Leaf</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>S</span></span>O THE Oriental storm god went back into the -world of everyday, to look for his old shrines -upon Sinai and Horeb: and Gerald was happily -rid of a future subject whom, he could not but -feel, it would have been a bit awkward to have as a -subject. And the evening passed tranquilly, although -it seemed to Gerald that Theodorick was rather -moody and quiet after his christening.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But it was not until the next day that Theodorick, -just after breakfast, spoke with a voice which seemed -to Gerald not quite the voice of a child: and Theodorick -told his parents he wanted to go down into -Antan.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald was troubled. Yet he suggested, with very -careful levity, “If—?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“If you please,” the but half-smiling, ugly, so -dear brat now added, docilely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, it must be as your father says,” Maya replied. -She had paused in her sweeping off of the -porch, and for a moment she held the broom slantwise -as she meditated over the boy’s notion. “But, -for one, I see no great harm in your having a little -outing, for I will put a protection on you. Only, you -must promise to be back in good time to have your -face and hands washed for supper.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald said forlornly, “But what are those small -yellow things you are sweeping from the porch, my -dear?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“They are fallen leaves from a sycamore-tree, left -here last night by that wind, Gerald: and I really do -wish you would not ask such silly questions, when I -was talking about something quite different.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But that means summer is ending, Maya. It -means an end of all growing. It means that not -anything now will become any larger or more -lovely.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Upon my word, but I never did hear of any such -nonsense as you do talk sometimes, for a grown man, -Gerald, as if summer did not always end!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That is it, precisely. It always ends: and the -warmth and comfort of it perish. Yes, there is death -in the air. I do not find that cheering. And that is -all, my darling.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, then, Gerald, if you are quite through with -that up-in-the-air sort of talking—which may be -very deep and clever indeed, only I happen not to understand -it, and certainly have no wish to,—why, -then, I was asking you about something entirely -different.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, yes, you were speaking of Theodorick! -Well, boys do get restless without any playmates, -I suppose. I will talk to him about his notion while -you are making up the beds.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nothing could have been more prosaic. Yet Gerald -was troubled. He could hear Maya inside the -cottage, already thumping at the pillows. All about -him seemed matter of fact, and comfortable, and -familiar, and stable. And yet everything, as he somehow -knew, was about to change. There awoke in him -as yet no real unhappiness, but just a faint uneasiness -mixed with resentment, now that he noted the fall of -the first leaf in autumn, and knew he was powerless -to stay the beginning change in everything about his -small, snug home.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch41'>41.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Child of All Fathers</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>T</span></span>HEN Gerald followed the child down to -the roadside. And they talked together under -the chestnut-tree, just where Gerald had -talked with so many strange beings who had passed -beyond Mispec Moor in that continuous journeying -toward Antan.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>First Gerald performed that needful rite which -would reveal the truth. The child watched quietly. -By and by Theodorick began to smile. But he said -never a word until his father was through with these -droll doings.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald questioned his small son. Theodorick -replied. The appearance of a little child still sat -there, and the soft red lips of a child were moving, -but that curious tongue which was like a small white -serpent was speaking about matters never known to -any child.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>No one of Gerald’s excursions into the darker -magics had prepared him for what was now in part -revealed. Something of the spaces outside the world -apparent to human senses Gerald knew, and of the -realms beyond Earth’s orbit he, as a former student -of magic, was not ignorant. But now he understood -from what remote abyss his wife had drawn the being -which seemed his child: a bit unwillingly, he could -even surmise with what kind of enchantments Maya -had fetched this seeming into the happier superficial -world which is apparent to human senses.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald was moved: he was, as so many husbands -have been, before and since, now almost frightened -by this glimpse of the unswerving and whole-hearted -and unscrupulous love which women nourish -for that man whom marriage has given them to look -after. He was not worthy, he contritely felt, of being -thus idolized and of being coddled at the fearful -price of such unearthly indiscretions. And Gerald was -sincerely touched, now that he comprehended to what -lengths Maya had gone to gratify his whim of wanting -a son, out of hand. She had warned him, too, that -he was contriving for himself grief. Yes, her womanly -intuition had, somehow, foreseen that to which all -his cleverness had been blind. And yet, even so, Maya -had not denied him his desire, because poor Maya -pampered him in everything, to the accompaniment -of a commentary howsoever tart.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald thought too of how, a moment since, -his worst dread had been that the boy was an illusion. -He looked at his beloved son, knowing now what inhabited -that freckled and droll, sturdy little body. -The boy had of a sudden become strange; he was -now a threat of unimaginable danger, and a creature -worse than evil: yet Gerald knew, with a dull wonder, -that he loved Theodorick Quentin Musgrave even -now....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald by and by put yet another question to this -dreadful parody of a child’s innocence and helplessness, -to the being whom Gerald invoked as Abdel-Hareth.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But I have served her purpose,—my father,” -the child replied, with a rather perturbing smile. -“Oh, but I know! She has had many husbands. Most -of them desired a son. I have always been that son.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then, after an instant of silence, the being who -was speaking through the child’s dear lips told of -the bonds from which the Midianite storm god’s -touch and absolution had released him. Gerald found -this part of the story particularly unpleasant. And -Theodorick Quentin Musgrave, whom Gerald still -addressed as Abdel-Hareth, went on to tell why he -must now go downward into Antan, to encounter, -not the Master Philologist, but Queen Freydis.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald asked, What was needed of Queen Freydis? -The child told him. Then Gerald shivered. He felt, -if only for the instant, physically cold and nauseated. -Still, that this creature should desire to return to its -unearthly home was natural enough.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I comprehend,” said Gerald. “I comprehend a -great deal which was unknown to me ten minutes ago. -I confess to being surprised by much that I have -learned from you. Nevertheless, my son,—if you -will pardon the force of habit, sir, and the love I -had for my own little, so dear son—! But I drift -into emotional remarks which would be wholly out -of place. My voice, as I note with sincere regret, -evinces a distressing tendency—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald paused. He gulped. He spoke now in a -voice that was light and high-pitched and rather hysterical.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In fine, my dear Abdel-Hareth, as you see, I incline -somewhat to blubber like a badly whipped baby. -I can but ask you to respect the emotions of a suddenly -bereaved parent, without bothering to understand -his confused utterances. No: you have given -me my desire, and my great happiness. A part of that -dies now. But I have had it, utterly. I am content. -I will see to it that you, in your turn, sir, get what -you desire.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch42'>42.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Theodorick Rides Forth</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>I</span></span>T WAS after using his handkerchief a bit -that Gerald returned to Maya. Nor did it surprise -him she had already prepared a neatly -wrapped up lunch for Theodorick Quentin Musgrave -to be eating that day in Antan.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald said, with painstaking carelessness, “Well, -my dear, after talking the matter over, I have decided -we may as well let the boy go.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Why, to be sure!” said Maya. “And a great -deal of bother, too, there has been made this morning -over nothing, as if I did not already have quite -enough to bother me!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And with that, she summoned from among her enchanted -geldings the handsomer of the pair who -formerly had been emperors.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For a child of mine must go in proper state,” -said Maya.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald said: “No. An imperial steed is well -enough, but a divine steed is better. Let him take -Kalki!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now, really, Gerald, your unreasonableness -sometimes surprises even me! For you know perfectly -well that Kalki is your own horse, and that -you will be needing him yourself when you ride down -to the appointed kingdom you are always talking -your stuff and nonsense about.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald looked at her for some while. He was conscious -of a hushed great exultation that in a world -wherein all else seemed doubtful and unstable he had, -somehow, through blind luck, won to his Maya and -her snappishness and her unswerving and whole-hearted -and quite unscrupulous love for him. She was -not pretty, she was not brilliant, she was not even -easy to live with. But Gerald knew now that he and -this woman were one person; and that any living -without Maya would be a maimed business; and that -there could be nothing in Antan which could conceivably -content him for the loss of this dear, ever-wrangling, -dull-witted woman.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald said: “But it is prophesied that the -power of Antan shall pass to the rider upon Kalki. -No harm can befall the rider upon Kalki. So we will -let—we will let our son take Kalki. For in this way -we will secure his protection, and we will remove the -one chance of my ever leaving you, who are worth -all the kingdoms that have ever been.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Maya said, “But—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald, smiling, replied, “Nevertheless!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then the illusion called Theodorick Quentin Musgrave -was lifted up by Gerald to the back of Kalki, -and it was Gerald who adjusted the stirrups for his -successor upon the divine steed. And the seeming of -a child rode down toward the goal of all the gods, -a rather quaintly pathetic little figure perched up -there so high upon the back of the huge shining -stallion.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald watched the two pass out of his sight. His -arms lifted after them ever so slightly. His arms -seemed to ache as he recalled the feel of that small -body and the warmth and yieldingness of it, which -were now lost forever. Theodorick Quentin Musgrave -was only an illusion contrived by forces which -it was not comfortable to think about. Gerald knew -that now with certainty. And it did not matter. Nor -did it cheer him to reflect—as he did,—that he was -in no worse case than all other fathers, no one of -whom might ever retain the child that was little and -helpless, and was loved for no reason at all, as nobody -could quite love the hobbledehoy thumping -schoolboy or even the estimable young man into -whom that warm and yielding, sturdy, so small body -might develop....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald turned to Maya. “I have only you. -But that which I have suffices me. I have been lucky, -O my dearest, very far beyond my merits.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>She was regarding him with a sort of troubled -fondness; and her speech now was hardly snappish at -all. “You really are, my poor Gerald, quite too -ridiculous about the child! You talk, you actually do -talk, as though he were not ever coming back,—and -in good time for supper, too, unless he wants a spanking.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>At that, Gerald raised a protesting hand. “Do -you not trick me into optimism, also! Too much ambition -and high dreams and that which was perhaps -divine have now departed forever. The illusion -which you created to be our son has departed, forever. -But use and wont and a great deal of honest -love remain. I do not say these things are heroic. I -do say that these suffice. So do you let the strong -bonds which are about me content you, my darling, -without wreathing them in the paper flowers of -optimism.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But are you, also,” Maya said, “content?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald answered: “I am well content. Day in, -day out, let there be between us faith, and aid, and a -great fondness, O my dear, and no parting! For -I am content and very contrite. I know that any life -without you would be a maimed business. I know that -I desire only to continue in our quiet way of living -upon Mispec Moor. For the middle way of life is -best. What need have I to be a god or to be seeking -unfamiliar places so that I may rule over them? -That way is troubled, and too full of noise and striving. -It is better to be content. It is better to be content -with the dear, common happenings of human -life, shared loyally with the one woman whose love -for you is limitless and does not change, for all that -it is blind to none of your failings; and to know that -these things are enough and very far beyond your -deserts; and not to be insanely hankering after any -more high-hearted manner of living which is out of -your reach or, at any rate, is attained through -more trouble than it is probably worth. Ah, yes, the -middle way of life is best.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“At least it is some comfort,” Maya said, “to -hear you talking almost sensibly.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then she reached up, still with a grave and rather -tender smiling upon her beloved, homely face; and -she took away from Gerald’s eyes the rose-colored -spectacles.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In fact,” said a male voice, “the woman’s task -is ended.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch43'>43.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Economics of Redemption</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>F</span></span>OR now had come to them, traveling back -from Antan, the brown man. This brown man -came, he said, to summon Maya to her appointed -task of transforming yet other men into domestic -animals.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—For women,” he said, also, “have always -their fond task and their beneficent labor. Here, I -repeat, the woman’s task is ended. But yonder many -men go untamed and unbroken to the sane ways of -compromise.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Maya a bit absent-mindedly assented, as she -put away those spectacles of hers for future use, that, -in point of fact, she supposed she had done everything -that was actually necessary in Gerald’s case, -although nobody ever would really know what a trial -he had been to her.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald for one instant looked at his wife. He -found in his wife’s face that which it is the doom of -most husbands to find there at one time or another. -And it caused Gerald to laugh a little.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Nevertheless,” Gerald said, quietly, “I am -Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and the Preserver, the -Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones. I am Lord of the -Third Truth, in this world which knows of only two -truths and of the compromises which they beget.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The brown man greeted that with a thin smile. -“You have been long expected. Oh, very long have -scepticism and despair, with somewhat varying -voices, invoked your name, saying, ‘Who will overthrow -the Master Philologist!’ ”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, and now,” said Gerald, with the outline -of a swagger, for he was getting himself more -in hand, “now that prophecy is about to be fulfilled, -for I am Hoo, and none other.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But, really, friend, I do not see how you can be -an interrogative pronoun.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To a god, and more particularly to a Dirghic -god, all incarnations are possible. There is no reason -whatever why I should not be an interrogative pronoun. -It is merely a matter of divine election.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And the brown man civilly inclined his grave brown -head, as he remarked:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you have it your own way! Indeed, my people -have very often derived their deities from less -promising locations than the pages of a grammar. -And upon the whole, your epiphany is most gratifying. -For I try to keep my people content: yet it has -been lamented, from the beginning, that no mythology -revealed a god who might answer that word -which the Master Philologist speaks to all the gods -of men. And so, between despair and scepticism, -those of my people who were so unwise as to exercise -their minds in fields wherein thinking does not -make for happiness, have very long been saying, -‘Who will redeem the goal of all the gods of men -from the Master Philologist?’ Now it appears that -this word also has become flesh; and that this interrogative -pronoun Who? stands here before us. Yes, -I consider that quite gratifying; for it is desirable -that the sceptical and the despairing also should be -contented, by being justified in their faith.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You quibble,” Gerald replied, “you quibble very -tediously and frivolously, in the divine presence of a -god who is about to take over his appointed kingdom, -and to make known that Third Truth which is not -known upon Mispec Moor, where the one teaching is -that we copulate and die.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But uncelestial common-sense has always been -my failing. So I must tell you, friend, that it seems to -me, now that you have abandoned the Redeemer’s -steed to a small freckled illusion, Antan has nothing -to expect even from the mysterious awfulness of an -interrogative pronoun. And yet, for one, I abandoned -the place when your dwarfed deputy approached -it—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And you acted wisely, sir,” Gerald replied, with -simple dignity. “No matter how potent may be the -impious sorceries of the Master Philologist, a child -has entered into his domain, fearing nothing and -loving all. The fact that the powers of evil cannot -prevail against this conjunction is well known to -every citizen of the United States of America.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But the brown man still seemed rather moody. “I -cannot say.... No, you and my friend Jahveh have, -between you, loosed against Antan a power which is -not of my kingdom. I therefore do not pretend to say -what may come of the experiment. I merely await -with lively interest, and at a reassuring distance, the -upshot of this experiment, now that—of all the -beings from beyond Earth’s orbit,—Abdel-Hareth -has been deputed to ride upon the Redeemer’s steed.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“And, in any case, it is always very certain, -dearie,” Maya said, “that no real comfort can ever -come of such foolish notions as I have ridded you of -a little by a little. And in exchange for those toplofty -dreams, I have trusted you as far as seemed expedient, -and I have given you all that was really good for -you. I have given you a season of content and every -wholesome joy of domesticity now for some thirty -years of mortal time. No man gets more from life, -my poor dearie. None attempts to get more without -ending in disappointment and discontent: and so no -sane man tries to get any more than you have had. -And the end finds even the most wise and reasonable -son of Adam—though, to be sure, that is not saying -much,—if he but lives rationally enough to survive -all thirty of those quiet happy years, with a wife who -is just as I am, whatever she may have seemed to -begin with.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald saw, without any grief or horror, that he -had now lost both his child and his wife. For Maya -had become old. She was again the shrivelled and -wrinkled creature, red and inflamed and hideous -among her tousled tresses, that he had first found -upon Mispec Moor. And fleetingly he reflected that -she spoke the truth: all women, howsoever dear and -beautiful, did become like that, provided they did -not first die and become even more repulsive carrion.... -But Gerald lacked time to discuss these generalities -just now: for he had been looking toward -Antan....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“To this chatter about domesticity and pessimism -and content,” Gerald replied sternly, “I answer that -the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones is above all aphorisms. -I answer that I am Hoo, the Lord of that -Third Truth whose nature is unknown to you. Now -that Third Truth is loosed. Do you look now upon -Antan!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The woman and the Adversary had turned when -Gerald pointed, quite as majestically as though he -knew just what he was talking about. In the midst of -Antan they could see, as Gerald had already seen, a -flaring green flame. Now this great flaming sunk -earthward, much as the waters of a fountain descend; -the flame spread evenly to every side, sweeping outward -in an ever-widening circle; and now this flaming -was no longer green, but red and glowing. You -saw this flood of fire pass equably and swiftly, surging -outward toward the horizon, where at once the -mountains collapsed and disappeared. All that remained -was flat and black and bare. Antan no longer -existed.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was from such a miracle that the woman and the -Adversary looked back toward Gerald, with every -sign of sincere respect.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald’s bewilderment was rather more profound -than theirs. He could surmise only that the -dreadful being to whom he had given Kalki had held -to its plan, as voiced by the lips of a child, and had -loosed elemental fires of a nature incomprehensible -to Gerald, since they were drawn from beyond -Earth’s orbit. Yet that seemed to Gerald no real reason -for marring a fine attitude or for failing to -preserve his self-respect before the woman and the -Adversary. Tricked he might have been: that was a -wholly different thing from ever admitting that he -had been tricked. Gerald knew at least that the illusion -which had appeared to be his son had entered -the perhaps equally illusory place where Gerald now -might never enter; and that, whatever had befallen -the best loved but one of his illusions, the rider -upon the silver stallion had destroyed Antan. And it -seemed obvious, too, that Abdel-Hareth had returned -homeward....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Therefore Gerald claimed with a clear conscience -the miracle which Gerald had, in fact, actually performed, -at one remove. And Gerald kept his long -chin, resolutely, well up....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So that,” observed the brown man, quietly, “that -is the end of Antan. I do not complain.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I had forgotten,” then said the wrinkled old -woman who had been Maya of the Fair Breasts, “I -had forgotten how wilful is that Abdel-Hareth who -got his being upon Earth from me. Something of this -sort was to be looked for, the first moment that the -headstrong wretch was freed from my control. Still, -Jahveh has gained less than we have gained through -Jahveh’s meddling. Abdel-Hareth has served me -even at the last by removing Antan from the horizon. -Earth will be quieter now; and my daughters will not -be so hard put to it to keep men in reasonable order.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I forget nothing,” the brown man remarked, -drily. “And so I did not await the coming of your -first-born in the likeness of a child whose fearless -innocence surmounts all evil. For it was the seeming -of a little child who rode up against Antan, you conceive, -with every appearance of that faith against -which the snares of no sorcerer and of hardly nine -women in ten can prevail. Such innocence is a quite -dangerous counterfeit. For one, I do not meddle with -it nor with any other unearthly phenomenon. I have -my realm. It suffices me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The woman asked, “But what, what, Janicot, do -you suppose has happened?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“How shall we ever know, dear Havvah, when -manifestly there are no survivors of that happening? -Antan, in any case, is no loss to us.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Here Gerald broke in upon their talking; and Gerald -shook at them his red head lordlily.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You little creatures guess in vain at the means -which I have employed. And equally in vain will you -supplicate me to reveal those means. For I shall tell -you nothing. It is sufficient that the Well-beloved of -Heavenly Ones has accomplished the mission of his -tenth incarnation with a thoroughness not customary -in interrogative pronouns. I came to redeem my appointed -kingdom from the rule of usurpers. I came as -the Lord of that Third Truth which is unknown to -those who teach only that we copulate and die. That -Third Truth has been loosed. No, I shall tell you -nothing of its nature, for you are not fit to comprehend -the Third Truth. But the mightiness of it -your own eyes have witnessed. So Antan is now redeemed—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>His voice broke here. But Gerald presently continued:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Antan is now redeemed at a great price. That -woman and that child to whom my heart was given -have perished. I remain. I know that these two were -illusions. Nevertheless, I remain. There is no bond -upon the Lord of the Third Truth to be happy: there -is a strong bond upon every Helper and Preserver -not to evade the full discharge of his mission. What, -you may ask of me, is the mission of the Lord of the -Third Truth? And I will reply to you out of my -divine wisdom. It is the mission of the Lord of the -Third Truth, howsoever he may palter or struggle -against his doom, to destroy that which he most -loves.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch44'>44.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Economics of Common-Sense</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>N</span></span>OW Gerald sat with his head bowed. He -heard a talking between the old woman who -had been his Maya and the brown man who -was the Adversary of all the gods of men.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“What is it men desire?” said the woman. “My -daughters prepare for them fine food and drink, my -daughters see to it that their homes are snug, and at -the end of each day my daughters love them dutifully. -All things that men can ask for, my daughters -furnish them. Why need men cherish strange desires -which do not know their aims? for how can any of -my daughters content such desires?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I also marvel at the desires of men,” replied the -Adversary. “I, too, am ready to accord whatsoever -a man can ask for sensibly and in plain words. I, -who am the Prince of this world, remain a generous -and ever-indulgent monarch. I will to make my people -happy. My curious opulence awaits at every hand -to afford my subjects whatsoever they can ask. But -men want more. They desire that which was never -in my kingdom. They have followed after impalpable -gods: they have been enamored of phantoms. They -have believed that their desire was in Antan, in part -because they did not know what was their desire, and -in part because they did not know what was Antan. -Yes, it is well that Antan has perished.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This world is well enough,” the woman said. “It -is well to be born into this world of an ever-loving -mother. It is well to be a young man in this world -wherein one may follow after young women and be -cherished by them. There is soft living in this world -when you have come as near discretion as men ever -get and have had the wit to find a wife to take care of -you. And at the end it is well to fare out of this world -quietly and incuriously, with a deft-handed woman -to nurse you and to wash your body afterward. But -men want more.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“This world is very good. My kingdom is a wholly -sufficing kingdom,” agreed the Adversary. “The wise -man, as goes human wisdom, will be content with -the inexhaustible goodness of those material things -which all are mine. For the five senses are an endless -comfort; the five senses are an endless store of -anodynes. A man may purchase bodily ease and a -drugged brain with his five senses. But men want -more.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So they have passed beyond my daughters,” the -woman said. “One by one, a many have passed, perversely -and so lonely, from all my daughters could -contrive to content them: and one by one a host of -demented romantic men have struggled toward -Antan, and toward what befalls all mortals and immortals -there. Yes, it is very well that Antan has -perished.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“One by one,” said the Adversary, “they have -derided my kingdom. They have followed after impalpable -gods. These gods passed futilely. But they -drew many of my subjects from me, all to be lost forever -in that beguiling Antan.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Men are great fools, and my daughters can -hardly hamper their folly. That which my daughters -can do they perform willingly. But not all men could -my daughters preserve from the madness which drew -men toward Antan and into ruinous desires to judge -the goal of every god. At last, Antan has fallen: it is -very well.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The Adversary said, more leniently: “Men are, -beyond doubt, great fools. But they are my people; -and those that I can save I save. Yet many evade me. -And their dreaming troubles all my realm and me, -too, they trouble now and then. But Antan has fallen: -and after that foolishness at least my people -will not be following any more.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“The daughters of Eve are not troubled now and -then, they are troubled at every moment, by the -dreams of men. Such of these blundering men as fond -and eternal laboring may save, my daughters win -away from their toplofty dreams. But the work -is hard; the work is endless; and our losses are -many.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And then the Adversary said: “We two who began -in the Garden to contrive for the happiness of -men, and to be speaking always for the real good of -men,—yes, certainly, our work is hard and endless. -For men stay romantically minded creatures who -aspire beyond my kingdom. Yet we do not despair.”</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch45'>45.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Farewell to All Fair Welfare</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>W</span></span>HEN Gerald raised his head he was alone -on the naked moor, for the brown man -had departed, and Maya had gone away -with the first of all her lovers, and her illusions had -vanished, including the neat log and plaster cottage. -And mists were creeping up from the ruined kingdom -of Antan, in billows of ever-thickening gray which -seemed to be the smoke from that great burning.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald said:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I have come out of my native home on a gain-less -journeying with no profit in it: yet there has been -pleasure in that journeying. I do not complain. Let -every man that must journey, without ever knowing -why, from the dark womb of his mother to the dark -womb of his grave, take pattern by me!</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“For all that every pleasure is departed from me, -I have had pleasure. I do not grieve because I have -gained nothing in my journeying. The great and -best words of the Master Philologist stay unrevealed; -that supreme word which was in the beginning, -and which will be when all else has perished, -I may not surmise: but I have played with many -words which were rather pretty. In the art of magic -which I chose to be my art I have performed no -earth-shaking wonders, yet in small thaumaturgies -I have had some hand. I did not ride the divine -steed to my journey’s end: but a part of the way I -rode quite royally.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“That which I heard of from afar I have not -won to in my foiled journeying. So I now cry farewell -to that Queen Freydis whom, I suspect, I might -have loved with a great love if lesser women had -not solicited me. I cry farewell to the Mirror of the -Hidden Children in which, I believe, I might have -found myself as I am, and might have come to -knowledge of the Third Truth. And I cry farewell -to Antan, to that never-won-to goal of all the gods -which was, I think, my appointed kingdom. I have -surmised high things. I have gained none of them. -My doom has been a little doom. It contents me.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I may well be content, because all that a man -may hope for I have had, who have learned at least -that the lot of a man is more sure than the lot of -any god. For the deceit which you put upon me, O -venerable and subtle Æsred, I cry out my gratitude. -There was the seeming of a home and of a woman -who loved and tended me and of a child. I may not -speak of my love for these illusions. Now they have -perished. But my memories remain: and they are -more dear to me than is any real thing.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“All, all, is perished! It may be that I have -offended the two truths which I did not esteem sufficiently -august. And I who willed to be Lord of -the Third Truth have found no third truth anywhere. -I have found only comfortably colored illusions. -But I am content with that which I have found -here upon Mispec Moor.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In the while that Gerald had been speaking, the -mists rose thicker and thicker from destroyed Antan. -He had noted in the while that he spoke how -the first wavering thin billows crept tentatively up -the hills and along the roadway, creeping upon the -ground, and under the low-swinging tree branches, -with, as it seemed, a pre-meditated furtiveness; and -then, as if emboldened by finding the way unopposed, -these mists had risen up from the ground, always -swiftlier, until now they had eclipsed all. Gerald, -now that he ended his talking, could see nothing -palpable anywhere save the little patch of intermingled -stone and grass immediately beneath his -feet; and about him everywhere were the cool mists, -lighted with a diffused gray radiancy which seemed -to come from all sides.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART ELEVEN</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF REMNANTS</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“When Wages are Paid, Work is Over.”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch46'>46.<br> <span class='sub-head'>The Gray Quiet Way of Ruins</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>G</span></span>ERALD now was wandering among thick -luminous gray mists, on a gray way which -led through long quieted places. It led him -to a weather-beaten pavilion of badly stained and -tattered cloth which once had been flesh-colored.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Within this pavilion was a masked skeleton. The -gleaming bones sat upright, and in unmarred order, -in a gilded chair. A fan lay in the lap of this skeleton, -a fan that was painted with the gay amours of -Harlequin and Columbine, which Pierrot was observing, -wistfully, through a gap in a yew-hedge: -and the skeleton wore a little black velvet carnival -mask, which covered all the upper front part of the -skull, about the eye-sockets.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And beyond that was a castle, whose exterior was -overlaid with cracked and peeling black-and-gold -lacquer work. This castle was empty everywhere of -any inhabitant. Gerald passed through its courtyard -and about many large rooms and corridors, all hung -with faded, very ancient tapestries. He encountered -nobody. Then he came to the inmost tower, builded -of horn, and so into the room which had been the -bedchamber of the lord of that castle, and he perceived -the reason why not even mice nor spiders -dared to dwell in that place.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Afterward Gerald came to a dragon’s den. But -the dragon was dead long ago, and the cupboards -of that den were as empty as had been the castle of -Vraidex, except for a pepper cruet and a salt cruet, -both of time-blackened silver, and a light golden -semi-circular crown inset with emeralds such as -blonde princesses were used to wear in that dragon’s -heyday.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thence Gerald passed to a jousting ground, and -that too was tenantless and fallen into decay. In -the paved place where knights had tilted against one -another lay at random nineteen broken spears and -three tarnished shields. In the ladies’ gallery Gerald -found only a chamber pot. The hangings of this -gallery were discolored and torn, but you could yet -see that these hangings had been of black cloth embroidered -with small rearing silver horses.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald came also to a green pasture through -which flowed unruffled a deep stream of still water. -This pasture was strewn everywhere with many -curious objects. He noted a crozier, and a wheel, -and a camel-hair shirt, and a huge gridiron, and a -copper dish containing the breasts of a young -woman. He found in that pasture also a porcelain -box of ointment, and a great saw, and a blue hat, -and a large iron comb, which like the saw had long-dried -blood upon its teeth, and a palm branch, and -two enormous, very rusty keys marked with the -monogram S. P.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald passed where three crosses lay overturned.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And beyond that the way was yet more murky. -To this hand and the other hand Gerald could just -dimly divine the ruined porticos and domes and -pylons of incredibly ancient buildings: he seemed to -go among obelisks and many-storied square towers. -But all was very gray and dubious. He wandered -now in a cloudiness wherein not anything was indisputable.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He passed across a narrow bridge beneath which -showed a dark and sluggish river. In that water -Gerald could see moving, many-colored figures which -were not strange to him. For Evasherah was there, -and Evaine, and Evarvan, and Evadne also, smiling -at him now for the last time, and he could see how -notably they had all resembled one another. And -yet one more woman was there, a blue-clad woman -in a crown just such as Maya had worn before she -became his wife, but the face of this woman Gerald -could not clearly discern.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And upon the farther bank of the dark river one -sat among a herd of black swine, and the eyes of all -these swine gleamed meditatively at Gerald through -their ragged white lashes. The man arose: and Gerald -saw this swine-driver was that same young red-haired -Horvendile who was Lord of the Marches -of Antan.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Horvendile began to speak.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch47'>47.<br> <span class='sub-head'>How Horvendile Gave Up the Race</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>H</span></span>ORVENDILE spoke of the race of Manuel, -and of the joy, and the vexation, too, -which the antics of this so inadequate race -had been to Horvendile. And it was of Merlin that -Gerald was thinking now, for it seemed to him that -here was yet another poet who did not any longer delight -to shape and to play with puppets, because Horvendile -was saying:</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Now I abandon a race whose needs are insatiable. -For tall Manuel lived always wanting what he -had not ever found, and never, quite, knowing what -thing it was which he wanted, and without which -he might not ever be contented. And Jurgen also, -after Heaven’s very best had been done to grant -him what he sought for, could reply only that he -was Jurgen who sought he knew not what. And all -their descendants have been like these maddening -two in this at least, all seeking after they could not -say what. Nobody can do anything for such a race! -For their needs have stayed insatiable: their journeying -has been, in every land and in every time, a foiled -journeying: and in the end, in the inevitable unvarying -end, each one of you treads that gray quiet way -of ruins which leads hither and to no other place.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, for that matter,” Gerald said, “it seems -that you too, Horvendile, have some engagement in -this hog wallow.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I endeavor, in point of fact, to become familiar -with this last stretch of limbo, against the time of -my own possible need not ever to be remembered -anywhere.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And for my part, I came of my own choice -and in self-protection,” Gerald continued, with his -chin well up. “For I must tell you, Horvendile, that -I have had little peace since our last meeting.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald (putting out of mind those attendant, -very hungry looking pigs) related the epic of -his journeying, without reserving anything out of -false modesty, now that he talked with a confrère. -He told of how he had descended into the underwater -palace of the Princess Evasherah and of the -orgies which he had shared in. He spoke, a bit contritely, -of the amorous excesses he had been led into -by the wives and the three hundred and fifty-odd -concubines of Glaum during their master’s absence. -With unconcealed embarrassment he told of how -the people of Lytreia had endeavored to detain -him in their temple, to reign there as their tribal -god, because they found his nose to be so much more -majestic than the idol they hitherto had worshipped. -He confessed to his dalliance with the enamored -Fox-Spirit. He frankly admitted that he had not behaved -well in seducing Evarvan and then deserting -her after her marvelous beauty had become to him -an old story. He told of how Queen Freydis had -come repeatedly to him with the most generous proffers -of her realm and person; and he spoke of this -matter with visible compunction, because he could -not deny that after three or four bouts he had repulsed -the infatuated poor lady rather rudely.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>In fine, said Gerald, since every man ought -honestly to acknowledge his own weaknesses, he -could get no real peace in the Marches of Antan. -So at the last he had stolen away, into this quiet, -gray untroubled place, of his own accord, just to be -rid of so many persons who took unfair advantage -of his over-amiable and fiery nature....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Horvendile, at the end of Gerald’s repentant -narrative, observed: “I comprehend. You have -been, in brief, the devil of a fellow and a sad rip -among the ladies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, but you wrong me! Such a suspicion is -very horrifying and quite unjust! No, it is merely -that not even Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and -Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, and the -Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones, is immune to over-constant -temptation.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And at that, Horvendile shrugged. “A god with -so many fine titles is not to be argued with. In any -case, do you be of good cheer, for even after all -these regrettable amours, and beyond the mire that -my swine delight in, the Princess still awaits you.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But in what place?” said Gerald, “and how is -she called?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“She awaits in every place so long as youth remains—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Upon my word, now, Horvendile, but that is the -truth, and a rather plaguing truth!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—However, this especial Princess is called, as -it chances, Evangeline—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, come!” said Gerald, “come now, but -really, my dear fellow—!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—And at your first sight of her you will be enraptured. -For this Princess Evangeline is so surpassingly -lovely that she excels all the other women -your gaze has ever beheld—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know,” said Gerald. “Her face is the proper -shape, it is appropriately colored everywhere, and -it is surmounted with an adequate quantity of hair.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“—Nor,” Horvendile went on, with rising enthusiasm, -“is it possible to find any defect in her -features—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No: for, doubtless, the colors of this beautiful -young girl’s two eyes are nicely matched, and her -nose stands just equidistant between them. Beneath -this is her mouth; and she has also a pair of ears.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“In fine,” said Horvendile, with his hands -aflourish above his attendant pigs, “the Princess is -young, she exhibits no absolute deformity anywhere, -and your enamored glance will therefore perceive -in her no fault, because of that magic which in the -Marches of Antan the Two Truths exercise over all -vigorous young persons.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You very movingly depict a woman of extraordinary -and, I have not the least doubt, resistless -charm. Nevertheless, I cannot any longer be wandering -about a place wherein there are only two truths, -and where the magic of these Two Truths is forever -meddling with my young body, for the gods of the -Marches of Antan do not content me.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Horvendile replied: “Men have found -many gods. But these gods pass. They descend into -Antan, and they do not return. One god and one -goddess alone do not pass. They remain eternally, -if but to weave eternally a mist about the seeing and -the thinking of the young, and thus to secure the existence -of yet other young persons within a month -or so.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“With observations to that same general effect,” -Gerald answered, “I am not unfamiliar. But let us -make the thing complete! Do you now voice, here in -your murky pigsty, one or another long-winded -restatement of the fact that time disastrously affects -all organic material. You will then, I think, have -summed up the entire philosophy of the Marches of -Antan. Perhaps it is a true philosophy. Nevertheless, -that philosophy is a morbid materialism such as does -not amuse me, who am a self-respecting citizen of -the United States of America. No: I had far rather -play with a beautiful idea than with one utterly -lacking in seductiveness. So I prefer to think that -the gods and the dreams of men pass to a noble and -a worthy goal—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It was then that Horvendile sighed, a bit despondently. -“Ah, Gerald, but how may you presume to -speak of such matters, who did not attain to -Antan?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My friend,” replied Gerald, affably, “I was -too wise to risk any such indiscretion. No: I did not -enter into my appointed kingdom; and I have destroyed -it. Therefore it must remain, so long as I -remain, whatever I choose to imagine it. I retain -the privilege of playing with a beautiful idea, in just -the proper half-remorseful frame of mind which -begets the most luxuriant fancies—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But—” Horvendile began.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No, my dear fellow, you are quite wrong.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Horvendile said, “Still—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, there is something in that, at first glance, -yet it does not really touch the root of the matter.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Horvendile protested, “I was but going to -say—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I know! I perfectly comprehend your argument. -And I admit that you phrase it forcefully. The -trouble is that you are wrong in your underlying -principle.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Horvendile said, “However—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, but not always,” Gerald stated. “For the -one way for a poet to appreciate the true loveliness -of a place is not ever to go to it. No, Horvendile, a -poet is not to be fobbed off with facts. No matter -what the surrounding facts might be, all poets from -Prometheus to Jurgen have preferred a beautiful -idea to play with. So a logical poet will always destroy -his appointed kingdom, because in this way -only can he convert it into a beautiful idea. Therefore -for me, who am a poet of sorts, to have entered -into my appointed kingdom would have been woefully -shiftless. I would have had henceforward only -one kingdom. But, as it is, I can remake the destroyed -place several times a day, in my imaginings, -and can every time rebuild it more beautifully. I have -thus a thousand kingdoms, each one of them more -lovely than the other. To-day it will be Evasherah -who awaits me there, among all the splendor and the -perfume and the sunlit lewdness of the most ancient -East: to-morrow the sweet singing of feathery-legged -Evadne will summon me to a quite different -Antan, which then will be a sea-engirdled, low-lying -tropic island: but the day after that, far more idyllic -lures will be recalling me to that pastel-colored, -pastoral and rather populous Antan which is inhabited -by all the many dreams that I had in youth, -and is to be made my strictly personal heaven by -the pure lips of Evarvan. Whereas, upon yet other -occasions,—when my turn of mind takes on a more -scholastic turn,—I shall know that in Antan awaits -me each paragraph of the profound, wide erudition -of Evaine.... But more often, Horvendile, I shall -think of yet another woman and of a boy child, who -were not wonderful in anything, but who for a while -seemed mine. And I shall believe that these two -wait for me, in a much more prosaic Antan; and I -shall know that no magic, howsoever mightier than -the less aspiring dreams of my manhood, can afford -to me anything more dear.... For all that one -needs, Horvendile, I have had. Antan could boast -of nothing more desirable, to me, than that which -I have had. So now not any power can ever quell my -thankfulness for those illusions which have made -sport with me for my allotted while. And I cry out -defiantly, among your waiting swine, in this gray -place of endless ruining, I am content...!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Horvendile replied: “A fool with so many -fine words at his tongue’s tip, a fool also is not to -be argued with. For it is a foolishness beyond any -describing, to believe that Antan can be destroyed -by you or by anybody else. Ah, no! your kingdom -awaited you, poor Gerald: but you faltered, you fell -away into domesticity,—and you talked! Now it -is the Master Philologist who, through the might -of that word which was in the beginning, and which -will be when all else has perished, has removed your -kingdom from your reach, and from your seeing, and -even from your quite whole-hearted belief, forever. -Now it is your only comfort to poultice your failure -with such foolish phrases. And now also it is I who -tell you that for such faltering and for such failure, -and for such phrases, there is possible but one answer.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Thereafter Horvendile gave Gerald a queer word -of power, and Horvendile took out of his pocket a -little mirror three inches square. You heard in the -duskiness a flapping of small vigorous wings. Then -three white pigeons stood among the swine, at the -feet of Horvendile. He did what was requisite: and -Gerald thus came straightway into a place which -was not unfamiliar.</p> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-top:10em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>PART TWELVE</span></p> -<p class='line0' style='text-align:center;margin-bottom:2em;font-size:1.2em;'><span class='gesp'>THE BOOK OF ACQUIESCENCE</span></p> - -<div class='blockquote1r2'> - -<div class='literal-container' style=''><div class='literal'> <!-- rend=';i;' --> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>“Candor is no More Palatable than an</p> -<p class='line0' style='font-style:italic;'>Oyster when Either is Out of Season.”</p> -</div></div> <!-- end rend --> - -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1 id='ch48'>48.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Fruits of the Sylan’s Industry</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>G</span></span>ERALD came thus into the library in which, -no more than four months ago, as it appeared -to him, he had quitted his natural -body. Lights burned there, but the room was empty.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nor did he perceive any marked signs of change. -Most of his books were very much as he had left -them. Upon the bookcases were still ranged his -porcelain and brass animals and birds and reptiles. -Investigation, though, revealed the addition to this -diminutive fauna of a rather charming china cat,—a -black cat, fast asleep, with a red ribbon about its -neck,—and of a small ivory elephant, which also -was black, but had white tusks.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The chairs, he saw, had been recovered, but it -was with a figured stuff of much the same design -and color. The rug that once had been his -mother’s was still underfoot; and the curtains, -while new looking, were of just the same repulsive -shade of green velvet that by candle light turned -yellowish.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It is a quite detestable color. I had always intended -to change those curtains so soon as I could -afford it, for a green with some real life in it. I can -but deduce that my body has remained remarkably -conservative through all these thirty years which -have seemed to me only a month or two. My body -has evinced commendable industry, also, for here -are dozens upon dozens of books by Gerald Musgrave.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>It seemed a bit droll thus to be confronted with -so much strange work performed by his own natural -body,—thought out in his own brain cells, and -written with his own hand,—during the time that -these chattels had been entrusted to the Sylan. Yet -the results were gratifying.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For here were not any folderol romances such as -Gerald himself, he felt uneasily, might have perhaps -contrived with those brain cells and that hand, -romances which at best would have wasted his -readers’ time, and at worst might have incited unedifying -and improper notions. Instead, these -quartos were all serious and learned and scholastic -works. Gerald therefore regarded these large quartos -with a justifiable pride and with profound respect. -Their very bindings were in themselves as -incompatible with anything frivolous as were their -contents with any unscientific double meanings. -These books had the fine clarity of a physician in -conference with a midwife. Moreover, Gerald’s admiring -eyes found nearly every page empedestalled -upon the most impressive looking kind of footnotes: -upon tall footnotes in almost illegibly small type; -upon huge polyglottic footnotes very full of numerals -and brackets, which flatteringly assumed -your acquaintance with all human tongues and your -possession of all printed books, so that you could be -referred offhand to such and such a page of an -especial edition; and upon footnotes which appeared -to quote from the literature of every known language -after having abbreviated the title of each cited -volume into unintelligibility.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For these quartos dealt with no romantic nonsense -such as the phantasms with which novels vitiate the -intelligence and the morals of their readers, Gerald -observed, but with really worth-while ethnographic -matters like the marriage customs of all lands, and -the ways of male and female prostitution among the -different races, and with the history in each country -of paederasty, and of lesbianism, and of bestiality, -and of necrophily, and of incest, and of sodomy, and -of onanism, and of all manifestations of the sexual -impulse in every era. There, in a more imaginative -vein, were the <span class='it'>Tentative Restoration of the Lost -Books of Elephantis</span>, the handsomely illustrated -<span class='it'>Seed of Minos</span>, the doctoral thesis upon <span class='it'>Lingham -Worship</span>, the <span class='it'>Fertility Rites of the Sabbat</span>, the privately -published <span class='it'>Myth of Anistar and Calmoora</span>, the -<span class='it'>Study of Priapos</span>, and the various other monumental -works which, although Gerald did not know this, -had already made Gerald Musgrave’s name familiar -to the lecture halls of all universities and the pages -of the more learned reviews.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>These quartos were, in fine, the books which had -made Gerald Musgrave the most famous and widely -read of American ethnologists; and by his body’s -industry and erudition and broad-mindedness Gerald -was properly impressed. Here seemed, indeed, -to be at least one complete and scholarly treatise -devoted to the historical development and the mechanics -and the literature of every known manifestation -of the great forces which had created all life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Yes, it is really edifying to note with what zeal -and common-sense my body—while I was a-gypsying -with over-ambitious follies,—has decorously -set up as the recorder of historical and scientific -truths.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald found upon the next shelf some -fourteen tall scrapbooks. They were full of what -the newspapers had printed in laudation and in the -most respectful criticism of the books of Gerald -Musgrave. They contained, also, accounts of the -academic honors conferred upon Gerald Musgrave. -They were interleaved with the letters which had -been written—the majority, of course, by that -strange race which writes habitually to authors, but -many of them, apparently, by persons of some consequence,—to -Gerald Musgrave about his books.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“My body in my absence has become, thanks to -my body’s books, a reputable and even a looked-up-to -citizen. My body is by way of being, indeed, a -personage. I note, too, with that interest appropriate -to the foibles of the great, that my body has also -become a somewhat vain old magpie, gathering up -through thirty years every scrap of paper which -happens to display my name.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Next Gerald lighted on a black box with silver -corners, and inside it was a time-discolored manuscript. -This Gerald carried to the writing-table. And -he found it that unfinished romance about his heroic -ancestor, Dom Manuel of Poictesme, just ninety-three -pages of it, precisely as Gerald had left it, with -no word changed or added.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“There was not in my natural body sufficient -power to sustain the high inspiration of my youth. -So, very sensibly, my body has found other pursuits, -and through them it has become a personage. I do -not complain. Not every body becomes a personage. -Even so, it seems a pity to have denied to mankind -the loveliness already created in this fragment.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>But it was just then that the door opened. In the -doorway stood a man in late middle life. And Gerald -now for one instant regarded his natural body -and all the dilapidations which time had performed -upon that body.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald somehow comprehended the penned-in -and eventless and self-sacrificing, arduous life of -the famous scholar, the life which had been lived -so long by the natural body of Gerald Musgrave. -That blinking magpie, in this somewhat stuffy room,—in -the midst of this childish menagerie of small -cats and elephants and dogs and parrots and chickens -and camels and other imbecile toys,—day after -day compiled the valuable and interesting matter in -those quartos and the trivial magniloquence in those -scrapbooks. And that, virtually, was all he ever did. -Such was his living in a world profuse in so many -agreeabilities,—to be tasted and seen, to be smelt -and heard and handled, at absolutely your own discretion, -in this so opulent world wherein anyone -could live very royally, and with never-failing ardor, -upon every person’s patrimony of the five human -senses.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Meanwhile, such self-devotion had paid, under -time’s grasping governance, an exorbitant tax. The -impaired shrunk body was unhealthy looking. Under -each of the wavering dim eyes showed a peculiar -white splotch. The skin of the noted scholar was -pasty and seemed greasy. He had hardly any hair -except those gray and untended whiskers. Everywhere -he was shrivelled and lean, except for the -abrupt, the surprising, protrusion of a large paunch. -He self-evidently had inadequate kidneys, and an -impaired heart, and defective teeth, and a sluggish -liver, and approximately every other drawback to -a sedentary person’s late middle life.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The body of this ornament to scholarship and -letters was, in fine, a quite disgusting bit of wreckage, -in need of patching up everywhere; and a fallen -god, when thus confronted by the work of time and -of much study and of intramural living, might very -well shake his red ever-busy head over the one refuge -now remaining to down-tumbled divinity.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Nevertheless, Gerald spoke the queer word of -power which Horvendile had given him. There followed -for Gerald an instant of dizziness, of a moment’s -blindness....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald found that it was he who stood at -the door of the library peering into the quiet lamp-lit -room. Before him waited a red-headed, slim -young man in a blue coat and a golden yellow waistcoat, -with a tall white stock and very handsome -ruffles about his throat. And the young fellow was -smiling at Gerald Musgrave with a rather womanish -mouth, and in the eyes of the boy was a half-lazy, -mildly humorous mockery.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Old Gerald Musgrave adored him with an ardor -which was half hatred. Then he saw that the young -fellow did not matter, and that Gerald Musgrave -had bargained well.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch49'>49.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Triumph of the Two Truths</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>“T</span></span>HAT is a strange and glorious word for -you to be telling me,” the boy began. “That -is a disastrous bargain for you to be seeking. -For your own will has spoken the revealing word -which buys back your natural body now that your -outworn crumbling body is of no more worth.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald answered: “I, who have left the Marches -of Antan forever, have bought freedom from the -ever-meddling magic of the Two Truths. At my -first sight of no other female body which is not positively -deformed will I become enraptured. I have -bought feet too old for errancy, ears that are deaf -to the high gods, and to the heart-stirring music of -great myths, and to the soft wheedling of women -also, and I have bought eyes too dim to note whether -or not Antan still gleams on the horizon. It is a good -bargain.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then he took up again the pages of that thirty-year-old -romance. That too remains, he reflected, -unfinished, like all else which I have ever undertaken....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Some day it will be completed by other hands -than the thin wrinkled hands before me. Somebody -else,—not born, as yet, it may be,—will be writing -out,—intelligibly, anyhow,—the story of Poictesme -and of the Redeemer of Poictesme and of his -fine followers and many children,—but not half -so splendidly as I was going to write it. Somebody -else will, by and by, be beleaguering and entering -into—by means of the little, yet the not wholly -despicable, art of letters,—that wonder-haunted -province which—yes, that also,—was a part of -my appointed kingdom.... Somebody else will be -laying open the fair ways to Bellegarde and to -Amneran and to Storisende, and will be making free -these ways to every person, so that, through the -lean lesser art of letters, Poictesme may become in -some sort another Antan,—an Antan perhaps considerably -abated in splendor, but graced at least with -easy accessibility....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet not even such slight triumphs were to be won -by aged feet, and by ears no longer acute, and by -dimming eyes, and by pulses which would not be -riotous ever any more. He tore up the pages one by -one, just as, he recollected now, in the land of Lytreia, -Evaine had torn up the sacred fig-leaves. -Glaum had said that the fig-leaf was the true symbol -of romance. Gerald meditatively dropped the destroyed -fragments of his romance into the waste-basket.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Gerald spoke then without any too great hopefulness. -“Has my body, during your inhabitancy of -it, my dear fellow, escaped from Evelyn Townsend? -and gone free from the unmerited blessing of a good -woman’s love?”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>The red-headed boy before him replied, discreetly: -“Your body and the body of your Cousin -Evelyn have always been such good friends!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald smiled. “I recognize that phrase. So -throughout thirty years Lichfield has never once -forgotten its polite formula for exorcising the inadmissible!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“It has been generally felt,” the youngster answered, -“that a prominent man of letters was entitled -to his Egeria. Of recent years, to be sure, your -friendship has not been—we will say,—so ardent -nor so frequently manifested. But there has been, -to hold you two together, the boy begotten by your -body upon her body. There has been the long usage -to hold you two together. So your friendship has remained -unshattered.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I had forgotten,” Gerald said, “the boy. Yes, -I remember hearing that you had thoughtfully provided -me with offspring during my absence. I know -not quite how to thank you, my dear fellow, for a -favor so delicate and so personal. We will therefore -cough and drop the subject.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald leaned back in the chair. He put -together his finger-tips, and smilingly he looked at -them with rather tired, old eyes.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“So I stay faithful to one woman, after all! I -have been kept in everything a model American citizen. -I have gracefully adhered to the code of a -gentleman. In my private life I have evinced every -proper respect for the chivalrous sacrament of -adultery between social equals. In the field of my -professional labors I have composed no puerile and -lascivious romances, but only serious and instructive -works. I am, in brief, in all respects, a credit to my -native Lichfield, and, more generally, to the United -States of America.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>He shrugged. He spread out those old-looking, -futile hands.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Well, certainly I must not spoil the miracle. So -I submit. I yield to the demands of propriety. I accept -my personal good behavior; I accept my -success; and I accept also my measure of actual -famousness.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Then Gerald said: “Therefore I must, so long -as my life lasts, continue faithfully your work as -the recorder of historical and scientific truths, since -it was such truths which brought my name into -famousness. Oh, yes, you may depend upon it, I -shall henceforward honor these fine truths within -the limits advisable for anybody now nearing sixty. -I shall serve them, that is, with my pen rather than -with other instruments now perhaps more fallible. -For the trained intelligence of such a famous scholar -as I have become cannot deny their proper importance -to those scientific and historical truths which -brought him into famousness,—nor would, of -course, my admirers care to have me abandoning my -métier.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And Gerald said also: “Even in the private relations -which you have chivalrously preserved for me, -my dear fellow, one must not ask everything. Wheresoever -a man lives, there will be a thornbush near -his door: and I can manage well enough, I daresay, -to put up with the continuance of this illicit love-affair,—in -which, after all, my advanced age now -protects me from being put to any frequent or far-reaching -inconvenience. Meanwhile, the legend of a -life-long illicit love-affair is a very splendid preservative -for the fame of any writer. It would have -been even better, of course, if in conjugating the -verb to love, you had managed to make a few mistakes -in gender; that is more piquant; that is infallible: -still, I repeat, one must not ask everything. I -have my satisfying legend of private immorality, -created without any least trouble on my part. Men -will remember it. So all ends very well indeed. I am -content with what I have found upon Mispec Moor. -I am content with what I have found in Lichfield. -And I shall not bother any more about Antan, -wherein, for one reason and another, I have found -nothing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Do you not be speaking lightly of Antan! For -I—do you not understand?”—the young man -spoke with an almost frightened elation,—“it is I -who am called to reign in Antan. You have brought -me the revealing word and the dreadful summons of -Horvendile. Antan is my appointed kingdom, into -which I shall now be entering upon the silver stallion -famous in old prophecies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, oh!” said Gerald, “so that is how it is! All -ends, again, with that rather hackneyed scoring <span class='it'>Da -capo</span>. And the eternal quest of Antan continues, for -all that I have no part in it....”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet the boy’s joyousness and proud faith appeared -to old Gerald Musgrave pitiable beyond thought. -Gerald, now that he was fifty-eight, was of course -not really troubled by that pitiableness, because all -actual commiseration and sympathy for other persons -had withered in him along with the rest of -youth’s over-upsetting emotions. Besides, Gerald saw -that, in logic, as a plain question of arithmetic, the -boy did not matter. A million or so other lads more -or less like this enthusiastic young fellow were at -that instant preparing for the same downcasting and -failure; and by and by these lads also would be facing -their own unimportance with equanimity. For, -as you—howsoever suddenly,—got older, there -was less bitterness, there was hardly any bitterness -at all, to be derived of the knowledge that in human -living very much amounted to nothing, because you -saw even more clearly and more constantly that nothing -amounted to very much....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>So Gerald said only: “You are young. At least, -you are living in a young body. So do you beware! -For, so long as you go about the Marches of Antan -in any conveyance so perilous, the lying half-magic of -the Two Truths will beset that young body, and the -Princess will await you at every turn. She will encounter -you under many names, for it is true that, -just as you said very long ago, women do vary in -their given names. She will encounter you in varying -shapes. But in any case, she waits for every young -romantic everywhere, as a rather lovable and as an -interestingly formed and colored impediment.... -I think it, therefore, highly improbable that you will -complete the journey to Antan. I, in any case, am -middle-aged. And I cry, not discontentedly, my personal -farewell to the half-magic of racing pulses and -of distended nerves—”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For an instant Gerald was silent. In his old eyes -awoke that gleam which anybody familiar with Gerald -would have recognized at once.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“You see,” he continued, with large affability, -“while you have been theorizing, my dear fellow,—oh, -very charmingly, and with a thoroughness which -does you credit, great credit,—well, my investigations -meanwhile have taken a rather more practical -turn. I am not, of course, at liberty to speak of my -love-affairs out yonder, with any real explicitness. -No, here, as always, <span class='it'>noblesse oblige</span>. Still, if you only -knew! If you but knew half as much as I do about -that droll escapade with the Lady Sigid of Audierne -and her cousin the Abbess! about what happened to -me in the harem of Caliph Mizraim! about Beatrice -and Henriette and Madame Pamela and Vittoria -and Elspeth! about the three girls at the tanner’s! or -if you knew the truth as to what her Majesty and -I were about that night we came so near being -caught—!”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“I see,” the boy said, rather wistfully. “You have -been a devil of a fellow and a sad rip among the -ladies.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“Oh, dear me, not at all!” said Gerald. And the -old fellow now wore the expression which, sometimes, -accompanies a blush. “It is merely that I have -talked a bit too freely. It is only that this rash tongue -of mine was running away with me. So I can but ask -you to forget every word I have uttered. For exalted -names ought, really, not to be repeated thus lightly. -I shall therefore say nothing whatever about the -eight other queens with whom my name has been -coupled,—with how good reason I, you understand, -must be the last person in the world to admit,—nor -about any of the empresses either. In fact, a great -deal of the scandal about my intimacy with one of -them was exaggerated. No: I most certainly must -not voice any indiscretions about dear Caroline. So I -merely point out—without mentioning any names -whatever,—that my experience has been considerable: -and I can assure you, my dear fellow, that in -the end these half-magics produce, after all, no very -prodigious miracles.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“But—” said the boy.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>“No,” Gerald protested, “no, really, you must -not tempt me with such eloquence! It suffices that -during the thirty years that you have sat here theorizing,—and -have, as it were, blossomed forth with all -these delightful books,—these half-magics have led -me day after day from one affair to its twin; they -have led me into more or less jealously guarded lowlands, -which were not markedly dissimilar; they have -led then from one valley to another valley which -looked and felt and, for that matter, smelt very much -the same; finally they led me to the fair breasts of -Maya. And I fell away into domesticity, I went no -farther. But I was wholly content there.... So I -do not complain. I have lost through these half-magics -my appointed kingdom in Antan,—or so, at -least, it appears to me, in a world wherein perhaps -nothing is indisputable except, of course, historical -and scientific truths. Yet the losing of my kingdom -has, none the less, been pleasant. I have had, under -the harryings of these half-magics—always, I mean, -upon the whole,—an agreeable time. To-night the -half-magics whose appointed duty it is to keep all -us romantics from attaining to Antan have ceased -bothering about me. After to-night I am no longer -formidable. I am, in a word, now that I approach -sixty, almost middle-aged. It follows that Antan does -not concern me any longer: and I shall think no more -about Antan, wherein, for one reason and another, I -have found nothing.”</p> - -<p class='pindent'>With that, gray Gerald Musgrave dipped his pen. -He put the boy quite out of mind. And the well-thought-of -old scholar began to write, just where his -natural body had left off a bit earlier in the evening, -setting down decorously the historical and scientific -truth as to the rules governing pre-nuptial intercourse -in the bedchambers of New Guinea and the Tonga -Islands.</p> - -<div><h1 id='ch50'>50.<br> <span class='sub-head'>Exodus of Glaum</span></h1></div> - -<p class='noindent'><span style='float:left; clear: left; margin:0 0.1em 0 0; padding:0; line-height: 1.0em; font-size: 200%;'><span style='font-size:larger'>T</span></span>HE boy waited, looking down at this old -fellow who sat there making small scratches -upon paper, the most of which he presently -canceled with yet other scratches, all the while with -the air of a person who is about something intelligent -and of actual importance. Then the boy shrugged. -For, as always, to an onlooker the motions of creative -writing revealed that flavor of the grotesque -which is attendant upon every form of procreation.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>And besides, to him for whom the silver stallion -waited without, and for whom his appointed kingdom -waited also, such time-wasting appeared futile. -He, who was young, and who retained as yet the untroubled -faith of every boy in his own abilities and -in his own importance,—and who, of course, might -not foresee the fate which awaited him in the arms -of Evadne of the Dusk,—could not regard without -impatience such time-wasting. What made it even -worse was that this dilapidated remnant of a man -was so plainly enjoying himself. For he chuckled as -he wrote; he had self-evidently found what he considered -a rather beautiful idea to play with, for now -he had cocked his battered, so nearly bald, old head -to one side, and that which he had just written down -was being regarded by his dimmed and peering eyes -with entire admiration: and it was all somewhat -pitiable to the young eyes of the observer.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>For it did not seem possible that anybody should -sit here, thus stuffily immured, and with no exercise -more profitable than writing, when yonder, as all -youth knew, the way lay open to the unimaginable -splendors of Antan. It was, for that matter, an unthrifty -wantonness for Gerald Musgrave’s young observer -to be lingering here, in the cold company of -books and china animals, when yonder (as all youth -knew) along the pleasant way to Antan were waiting -so many dear, fond, loving women eager to cheer -and to inspire and to trust and to give all to speed -the high-hearted adventurer in that glorious journeying -toward his appointed kingdom. Decidedly, -the old fellow was lost: for now he was infatuated -by the contentment to be got out of writing, which -remained always, in its own way, as bedrugging as -the contentment to be got out of domesticity; and -there was no help for this preposterous, doomed, -chuckling Gerald Musgrave,—who would always -now be finding one or another rather beautiful idea -to play with, and who must remain, so long as life -remained, a poet whose one real delight was to shape -and to play with puppets....</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Yet it mattered very little, to any person who -was already for every practical purpose a reigning -monarch, that all which pertained to this Gerald -Musgrave was somewhat droll, the smiling red-haired -boy decided, as he passed toward Evadne of -the Dusk, and out of sight of that gray-fringed bald -head bent over that incessant pen scratching.</p> - -<div class='figcenter'> -<img src='images/illo-theend.jpg' alt='' id='iid-0001' style='width:50px;height:auto;'> -<p class='caption'><span style='font-size:smaller'>THE END</span></p> -</div> - -<hr class='pbk'> - -<div><h1>TRANSCRIBER NOTES</h1></div> - -<p class='pindent'>Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p class='pindent'>Inconsistencies in punctuation have been maintained.</p> - - - - - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOMETHING ABOUT EVE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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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