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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..6ff48d0 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #67043 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67043) diff --git a/old/67043-0.txt b/old/67043-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 710d03f..0000000 --- a/old/67043-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7786 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The High Place, by James Branch -Cabell - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The High Place - A Comedy of Disenchantment - -Author: James Branch Cabell
- -Illustrator: Frank C. Papé
- -Release Date: December 29, 2021 [eBook #67043] - -Language: English
- -Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Les Galloway and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGH PLACE *** - - Transcriber’s Notes - -Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations -in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and -punctuation remains unchanged. - -Italics are represented thus _italic_. - -All chapters begin with an illustrated capital, and most end with a -decorative image. These have not been indicated. - - - - - _The - High - Place_ - - - - -BOOKS _by_ MR. CABELL - - -_Biography_: - - BEYOND LIFE - FIGURES OF EARTH - DOMNEI - CHIVALRY - JURGEN - THE LINE OF LOVE - THE HIGH PLACE - GALLANTRY - THE CERTAIN HOUR - THE CORDS OF VANITY - FROM THE HIDDEN WAY - THE RIVET IN GRANDFATHER’S NECK - THE EAGLE’S SHADOW - THE CREAM OF THE JEST - -_Scholia_: - - THE LINEAGE OF LICHFIELD - TABOO - JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER - THE JEWEL MERCHANTS - - * * * * * - - JURGEN AND THE LAW - (_Edited by Guy Holt_) - - - - - [Illustration: Image followed by; - Caption surrounded by a garland: FLORIAN felt himself to be in not - quite the company suited to a - nobleman of his rank. - _See page 147_] - - - - - THE HIGH PLACE: - - A COMEDY OF DISENCHANTMENT - BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL - WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND DECORATIONS BY - FRANK C. PAPÉ - - - “_Build on high place for Chemosh, the abomination - of Moab, and for horned Ashtoreth, the - abomination of Zidon, and for Moloch, the - abomination of the children of Ammon._” - - - [Illustration: Figure and shadow.] - - - ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY - NEW YORK: 1923 - - - Copyright, 1923, by - JAMES BRANCH CABELL - - _Printed in the - United States of America_ - - - _This First Edition of THE - HIGH PLACE is limited to - two thousand numbered copies, - of which this is_ - - _Copy Number_ 1825 - - - Published, 1923 - - - - - To - - ROBERT GAMBLE CABELL III - - _this book, where so much more is due_. - - - - -_Contents_ - - - PART ONE - - THE END OF LONG WANTING - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I THE CHILD ERRANT 3 - - II SAYINGS ABOUT PUYSANGE 10 - - III WIDOWERS SEEK CONSOLATION 24 - - IV ECONOMICS OF AN OLD RACE 36 - - V FRIENDLY ADVICE OF JANICOT 42 - - VI PHILOSOPHY OF THE LOWER CLASS 53 - - VII ADJUSTMENTS OF THE RESURRECTED 64 - - VIII AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD 74 - - IX MISGIVINGS OF A BEGINNING SAINT 80 - - X WHO FEASTED AT BRUNBELOIS 89 - - - PART TWO - - THE END OF LIGHT WINNING - - XI PROBLEMS OF BEAUTY 97 - - XII NICETIES OF FRATRICIDE 114 - - XIII DÉBONNAIRE 123 - - XIV GODS IN DECREPITUDE 141 - - XV DUBIETIES OF THE MASTER 148 - - XVI SOME VICTIMS OF FLAMBERGE 159 - - XVII THE ARMORY OF ANTAN 166 - - XVIII PROBLEMS OF HOLINESS 178 - - XIX LOCKED GATES 189 - - XX SMOKE REVEALS FIRE 204 - - - PART THREE - - THE END OF LEAN WISDOM - - - XXI OF MELIOR MARRIED 219 - - XXII THE WIVES OF FLORIAN 225 - - XXIII THE COLLYN IN THE POT 237 - - XXIV MARIE-CLAIRE 246 - - XXV THE GANDER THAT SANG 256 - - XXVI HUSBAND AND WIFE 263 - - XXVII THE FORETHOUGHT OF HOPRIG 275 - - XXVIII HIGHLY AMBIGUOUS 282 - - XXIX THE WONDER WORDS 292 - - XXX THE ERRANT CHILD 304 - - - - -_Illustrations_ - - - Florian felt himself to be in not quite the company - suited to a nobleman of his rank _Frontispiece_ - - FACING - PAGE - - She waited—there was the miracle—for Florian - de Puysange 44 - - He did not move, but lay quite still, staring upward 82 - - Florian’s plump face was transfigured, as he knelt - before his Melior 120 - - Now Florian came forward 162 - - Presently the Collyn of Puysange had opened her - yellow eyes and was licking daintily her - lips 198 - - He closed upon Florian, straightforwardly, without - any miracle-working 250 - - “—And this is the last cloud going west” 286 - - - - - PART ONE - - - _THE END OF LONG WANTING_ - - “_Lever un tel obstacle est à moy peu de chose. - Le Ciel défend, de vray, certains contentemens; - Mais on trouve avec luy des accommodemens._” - - - - -_1._ - -_The Child Errant_ - - -Probably Florian would never have gone into the Forest of Acaire had -he not been told, over and over again, to keep out of it. Obedience -to those divinely set in authority was in 1698 still modish: none the -less, such orders, so insistently repeated to any normal boy of ten, -even to a boy not born of the restless house of Puysange, must make the -venture at one time or another obligatory. - -Moreover, this October afternoon was of the sun-steeped lazy sort which -shows the world as over-satisfied with the done year’s achievements, -of the sort which, when you think about it so long, arouses a dim -dissent from such unambitious aims. It was not that the young Prince -de Lisuarte—to give Florian his proper title,—was in any one point -dissatisfied with the familiar Poictesme immediately about him: he -liked it well enough. It was only that he preferred another place, -which probably existed somewhere, and which was not familiar or even -known to him. It was only that you might—here one approximates to -Florian’s vague thinking, as he lay yawning under the little tree from -the East,—that you might find more excitement in some place which -strove toward larger upshots than the ripening of grains and fruits, in -a world which did not every autumn go to sleep as if the providing of -food-stuffs and the fodder for people’s cattle were enough. - -To-day, with October’s temperate sunlight everywhere, the sleek country -of Poictesme was inexpressibly asleep, wrapped in a mellowing haze. The -thronged trees of Acaire, as Florian now saw them just beyond that low -red wall, seemed to have golden powder scattered over them, a powder -which they stayed too motionless to shake off. Yet logic told him -these still trees most certainly veiled wild excitements of some sort, -for otherwise people would not be at you, over and over again, with -exhortations to keep out of that forest. - -Nobody was watching. There was nothing in especial to do, for Florian -had now read all the stories in this curious new book, by old Monsieur -Perrault of the Academy, which Florian’s father had last month -fetched back from Paris: and, besides, nobody at Storisende had, for -as much as a week, absolutely told Florian not to leave the gardens. -So he adventured: and with the achievement of the adventure came a -strengthening of Florian’s growing conviction that his elders were in -their notions, as a rule, illogical. - -For in Acaire, even when you went as far as Brunbelois, the boy found -nothing hurtful. It was true that, had he not at the beginning of -his wandering met with the small bright-haired woman who guided him -thereafter, he might have made mistakes: and mistakes, as Mélusine -acknowledged, might have turned out awkwardly in approaching the -high place, since monsters have to be handled in just the right -way. She explained to Florian, on that warm long October afternoon, -that sympathy is the main requisite, because the main trouble with -such monsters as the bleps and the strycophanês and the calcar (she -meant only the gray one, of course) is that each is unique, and in -consequence lonely. - -The hatred men feel for every ravening monster that wears fangs and -scales, she pointed out, is due to its apparel being not quite -the sort of thing to which men are accustomed: whereas people were -wholly used to having soldiers and prelates and statesmen ramping -about in droves, and so viewed these without any particular wonder or -disapproval. All that was needed, then, was to extend to the bleps -and the strycophanês a little of the confidence and admiration which -men everywhere else accorded to the destroyers of mankind; and you -would soon see that these glittering creatures—as well as the tawny -eale, and the leucrocotta, with its golden mane and whiskers, and the -opal-colored tarandus,—were a great deal nicer to look at than the most -courted and run-after people, and much less apt to destroy anybody -outside of their meal hours. - -In any event, it was Mélusine who had laid an enchantment upon the high -place in the midst of the wood, and who had set the catoblepas here -and the mantichora yonder to prevent the lifting of her spell, so that -Florian could not possibly have found a better guide than Mélusine. She -was kindly, you saw, but not very happy: and from the first, Florian -liked and, in some sort, pitied her. So he rode with her confidingly, -upon the back of the queerest steed that any boy of ten had ever been -privileged to look at, not to speak of riding on it: and the two talked -lazily and friendlily as they went up and up, and always upward, along -the windings of the green way which long ago had been a road. - -As they went, the body of this sweet-smelling Mélusine was warm and -soft against his body, for Mélusine was not imprisoned in hard-feeling -clothes such as were worn by your governesses and aunts. The monsters -stationed along the way drew back as Mélusine passed; and some purred -ingratiatingly, like gigantic kettles, and others made obeisances: and -you met no other living creatures except three sheep that lay in the -roadway asleep and very dingy with the dust of several hundred years. -No self-respecting monster would have touched them. Thus Florian and -Mélusine came through the forest without any hindrance or trouble, to -the cleft in the mountain tops where the castle stood beside a lake: -and Florian liked the stillness of all things in this high place, where -the waters of the lake were without a ripple, and the tall grass and so -many mist-white flowers were motionless. - -He liked it even more when Mélusine led him through such rooms in -the castle as took his fancy. He was glad that Mélusine did not -mind when Florian confessed the sleeping princess—in the room hung -everywhere with curtains upon which people hunted a tremendous boar, -and stuck spears through one another, and burst forth into peculiarly -solid-looking yellow flames,—seemed to him even more lovely than was -Mélusine. They were very much alike, though, the boy said: and Mélusine -told him that was not unnatural, since Melior was her sister. And -then, when Florian asked questions, Mélusine told him also of the old -unhappiness that had been in this place, and of the reasons which had -led her to put an enduring peacefulness upon her parents and her sister -and all the other persons who slept here enchanted. - -Florian had before to-day heard century-old tales about Mélusine’s -father, Helmas the Deep-Minded. So it was very nice actually to see -him here in bed, with his scarlet and ermine robes neatly folded on -the armchair, and his crown, with a long feather in it, hung on a -peg in the wall, just as the King had left everything when he went -to sleep several hundred years ago. The child found it all extremely -interesting, quite like a fairy tale such as those which he had lately -been reading in the book by old Monsieur Perrault of the Academy. - -But what Florian always remembered most clearly, afterward, was the -face of the sleeping princess, Melior, as he saw it above the coverlet -of violet-colored wool; and she seemed to him so lovely that Florian -was never wholly willing, afterward, to admit she was but part of a -dream which had come to him in his sleeping, on that quiet haze-wrapped -afternoon, in the gardens of his own home. Certainly his father -had found him asleep, by the bench under the little tree from the -East, and Florian could not clearly recollect how he had got back to -Storisende: but he remembered Brunbelois and his journeying to the -high place and the people seen there and, above all, the Princess -Melior, with a clarity not like his memories of other dreams. Nor did -the memory of her loveliness quite depart as Florian became older, and -neither manhood nor marriage put out of his mind the beauty that he in -childhood had, however briefly, seen. - - - - -_2._ - -_Sayings about Puysange_ - - -When Florian awakened he was lying upon the ground, with the fairy -tales of Monsieur Perrault serving for Florian’s pillow, in the gardens -of Storisende, just by the little tree raised from the slip which his -great-uncle, the Admiral, had brought from the other side of the world. -Nobody knew the right name of this tree: it was called simply the tree -from the East. Caterpillars had invaded it that autumn, and had eaten -every leaf from the boughs, and then had gone away: but after their -going the little tree had optimistically put forth again, in the mild -October weather, so that the end of each bare branch was now tipped -with a small futile budding of green. - -It was upon the bench beneath this tree that Florian’s father was -sitting. Monsieur de Puysange had laid aside his plumed three-cornered -hat, and as he sat there, all a subdued magnificence of dark blue and -gold, he was looking down smilingly at the young lazibones whom the -Duke’s foot was gently prodding into wakefulness. The Duke was wearing -blue stockings with gold clocks, as Florian was to remember.... - -Not until manhood did Florian appreciate his father, and come properly -to admire the exactness with which the third Duke of Puysange had -kept touch with his times. Under the Sun King’s first mistress Gaston -de Puysange had cultivated sentiment, under the second, warfare, and -under the third, religion: he had thus stayed always in the sunshine. -It was Florian’s lot to know his father only during the last period, -so the boy’s youth as spent dividedly at the Duke’s two châteaux, at -Storisende and at Bellegarde, lacked for no edifying influence. The -long summer days at Storisende were diversified with all appropriate -religious instruction. In winter the atmosphere of Versailles -itself—where the long day of Louis Quatorze seemed now to be ending -in a twilight of stately serenity through which the old King went -deathward, handsomely sustained by his consciousness of a well-spent -life and by the reverent homage of all his bastards,—was not more pious -than was that of Bellegarde. - -Let none suppose that Monsieur de Puysange affected superhuman -austerities. Rather, he exercised tact. If he did not keep all -fast-days, he never failed to secure the proper dispensations, nor to -see that his dependants fasted scrupulously: and if he sometimes, even -now, was drawn into argument, Monsieur de Puysange was not ever known -after any lethal duel to omit the ordering of a mass, at the local -Church of Holy Hoprig, for his adversary’s soul. “There are amenities,” -he would declare, “imperative among well-bred Christians.” - -Then too, when left a widower at the birth of his second legitimate -son, the Duke did not so far yield to the temptings of the flesh as -to take another wife; for he confessed to scruples if marriage, which -the Scriptures assert to be unknown in heaven, could anywhere be a -quite laudable estate: but he saw to it that his boys were tended by -a succession of good-looking and amiable governesses. His priests -also were kept sleek, and his confessor unshocked, by the Duke’s -tireless generosity to the Church; and were all of unquestioned -piety, which they did not carry to excess. In fine, with youth and -sentiment, and the discomforts of warfare also, put well behind him, -the good gentleman had elected to live discreetly, among reputable but -sympathetic companions.... - -When Florian told his father now about Florian’s delightful adventure -in Acaire, the Duke smiled: and he said that, in this dream begotten -by Florian’s late reading of the fairy tales of Monsieur Perrault, -Florian had been peculiarly privileged. - -“For Madame Mélusine is not often encountered nowadays, my son. She was -once well known in this part of Poictesme. But it was a long while ago -she quarreled with her father, the wise King Helmas, and imprisoned -him with all his court in the high place that ought not to be. Yet -Mélusine, let me tell you, was properly punished for her unfilial -conduct; since upon every Sunday after that, her legs were turned to -fishes’ tails, and they stayed thus until Monday. This put the poor -lady to great inconvenience: and when she eventually married, it led -to a rather famous misunderstanding with her husband. And so he died -unhappily; but she did not die, because she was of the Léshy, born of a -people who are not immortal but are more than human—” - -“Of course I know she did not die, monsieur my father. Why, it was only -this afternoon I talked with her. I liked her very much. But she is not -so pretty as Melior.” - -It seemed to Florian that the dark curls of his father’s superb peruke -now framed a smiling which was almost sad. “Perhaps there will never -be in your eyes anybody so pretty as Melior. I am sure that you have -dreamed all this, jumbling together in your dreaming old Monsieur -Perrault’s fine story of the sleeping princess—La Belle au Bois -Dormant,—with our far older legends of Poictesme—” - -“I do not think that it was just a dream, monsieur my father—” - -“But I, unluckily, am sure it was, my son. And I suspect, too, that -it is the dream which comes in varying forms to us of Puysange, the -dream which we do not ever quite put out of mind. We stay, to the -last, romantics. So Melior, it may be, will remain to you always that -unattainable beauty toward which we of Puysange must always yearn,—just -as your patron St. Hoprig will always afford to you, in his glorious -life and deeds, an example which you will admire and, I trust, emulate. -I admit that such emulation,” the Duke added, more drily, “has not -always been inescapable by us of Puysange.” - -“I cannot hope to be so good as was Monseigneur St. Hoprig,” Florian -replied, “but I shall endeavor to merit his approval.” - -“Indeed, you should have dreamed of the blessed Hoprig also, while you -were about it, Florian. For he was a close friend of your Melior’s -father, you may remember, and performed many miracles at the court of -King Helmas.” - -“That is true,” said Florian. “Oxen brought him there in a stone -trough: and I am sure that Monseigneur St. Hoprig must have loved -Melior very much.” - -And he did not say any more about what his father seemed bent upon -regarding as Florian’s dream. At ten a boy has learned to humor the -notions of his elders. Florian slipped down from the bench, and tucked -his book under his arm, and agreed with his father that it was near -time for supper. - -None the less, though, as the boy stood waiting for that magnificent -father of his to arise from the bench, Florian reflected how queer it -was that, before the falling of the Nis magic, this beautiful Melior -must have known and talked with Florian’s heavenly patron, St. Hoprig -of Gol. It was to Holy Hoprig that Florian’s mother had commended the -boy with her last breath, and it was to Holy Hoprig that Florian’s -father had taught the boy to pray in all time of doubt or peccadillo, -because this saint was always to be the boy’s protector and advocate. -And this made heaven seem very near and real, the knowledge that always -in celestial courts this bright friend was watching, and, Florian -hoped, was upon occasion tactfully suggesting to the good God that -one must not be too severe with growing boys. Melior—Florian thought -now,—was remotely and half timidly to be worshipped: Hoprig, the friend -and intercessor,—a being even more kindly and splendid than was your -superb father,—you loved.... - -Florian had by heart all the legends about Holy Hoprig. Particularly -did Florian rejoice in the tale of the saint’s birth, in such untoward -circumstances as caused the baby to be placed in a barrel, and cast -into the sea, to be carried whither wind and tide directed. Florian -knew that for ten years the barrel floated, tossing up and down in all -parts of the ocean, while regularly an angel passed the necessary food -to young Hoprig through the bung-hole. Finally, at Heaven’s chosen -time, the barrel rolled ashore near Manneville, on the low sands of -Fomor Beach. A fisherman, thinking that he had found a cask of wine, -was about to tap it with a gimlet; then from within, for the first -time, St. Hoprig speaks to man: “Do not injure the cask. Go at once to -the abbot of the monastery to which this land belongs, and bid him come -to baptize me.” - -It seemed to Florian that was a glorious start in life for a boy of -ten, a boy of just the same age as Florian. All the later miracles and -prodigies appeared, in comparison with that soul-contenting moment, to -be compact of paler splendors. Nobody, though, could hear unenviously -of the long voyage to the Red Islands and the realm of Hlif, and to -Pohjola, and even to the gold-paved Strembölgings, where every woman -contains a serpent so placed as to discourage love-making,—of that -pre-eminently delightful voyage made by St. Hoprig and St. Hork in the -stone trough, which, after its landing upon the coasts of Poictesme, -at mid-winter, during a miraculous shower of apple-blossoms, white -oxen drew through the country hillward, with the two saints by turns -preaching and converting people all the way to Perdigon. For that, -Florian remembered, was the imposing fashion in which Holy Hoprig had -come to the court of Melior’s father,—and had wrought miracles there -also, to the discomfiture of the abominable Horrig. But more important, -now, was the reflection that St. Hoprig had in this manner come to -Melior and to the unimaginable beauty which, in the high place, a -coverlet of violet stuff just half concealed.... - -Certainly Monseigneur St. Hoprig must have loved Melior very much, and -these two must have been very marvelous when they went about a more -heroic and more splendid world than Florian could hope ever to inhabit. -It was of their beauty and holiness that the boy thought, with a dumb -yearning to be not in all unworthy of these bright, dear beings. That -was the longing—to be worthy,—which possessed Florian as he stood -waiting for his father to rise from the bench beneath the little tree -from the East. There, the Duke also seemed to meditate, about something -rather pleasant. - -“You said just now, monsieur my father,” Florian stated, a trifle -worried, “that we of Puysange have not always imitated the good -examples of St. Hoprig. Have we been very bad?” - -Monsieur de Puysange had put on his plumed hat, but he stayed seated. -He appeared now, as grown people so often do, amused for no logical or -conceivable reason: though, indeed, the Duke seemed to find most living -creatures involuntarily amusing. - -He said: “We have displayed some hereditary foibles. For it is the -boast of the house of Puysange that we trace in the direct male line -from Poictesme’s old Jurgen. That ancient wanderer, says our legend, -somehow strayed into the bed-chamber of Madame Félise de Puysange; and -the result of his errancy was the vicomte who flourished under the last -Capets.” - -Young Florian, in accord with the quaint custom of the day, had been -reared without misinformation as to how or whence children came into -the world. So he said only, if a little proudly, “Yes,—he was another -Florian, I remember, like me.” - -“There were queer tales about this first Florian, also, who is reputed -to have vanished the moment he was married, and to have re-appeared -here, at Storisende, some thirty years later, with his youth -unimpaired. He declared himself to have slept out the intervening -while,—an excuse for remissness in his marital duties which sceptics -have considered both hackneyed and improbable.” - -“Well,” Florian largely considered, “but then there is Sir Ogier still -asleep in Avalon until France has need of him; and John the Divine is -still sleeping at Ephesus until it is time to bear his witness against -Antichrist; and there is Merlin in Broceliande, and there is St. Joseph -of Arimathæa in the white city of Sarras—and really, monsieur my -father, there is Melior, and all the rest of King Helmas’ people up at -Brunbelois.” - -“Are you still dreaming of your Melior, tenacious child! Certainly you -are logical, you cite good precedents for your namesake, and to adhere -to logic and precedent is always safe. I hope you will remember that.” - -“I shall remember that, monsieur my father.” - -“Certainly, too, this story of persons who sleep for a miraculous -while is common to all parts of the world. This Florian de Puysange, -in any event, married a granddaughter of the great Dom Manuel; so that -we descend from the two most famous of the heroes of Poictesme: but, -I fancy, it is from Jurgen that our family has inherited the larger -number of its traits.” - -“Anyhow, we have risen from just being vicomtes—” - -Florian’s father had leaned back, he had put off his provisional plan -of going in to supper. You could not say that the good gentleman -exactly took pride in his ancestry: rather, he found his lineage worthy -of him, and therefore he benevolently approved of it. - -So he said now, complacently enough: “Yes, our house has prospered. -Steadily our fortunes have been erected, and in dignity too we have -been erected. Luck seems to favor us, however, most heartily when a -woman rules France, and it is to exalted ladies that we owe most of -our erections. Thus Queen Ysabeau the Bavarian notably advanced the -Puysange of her time, very much as Anne of Beaujeu and Catherine de -Medici did afterward. Many persons have noted the coincidence. Indeed, -it was only sixty years ago that Marion de Lorme spoke privately to -the Great Cardinal, with such eloquence that the Puysange of the -day—another Florian, and a notably religious person,—had presently been -made a duke, with an appropriate estate in the south—” - -“I know,” said Florian, not a bit humble about his erudition. “That is -how we came to be here in Poictesme. Mademoiselle de Lorme was a very -kind lady, was she not, monsieur my father?” - -“She was so famed, my son, for all manner of generosity that when my -grandfather remodeled Bellegarde, and erected the Hugonet wing of -the present château, he sealed up in the cornerstone, just as people -sometimes place there the relics of a saint, both of Mademoiselle de -Lorme’s garters. Probably there was some salutary story connected with -his acquiring of them; for my pious grandfather cared nothing for such -vanities as jeweled garters, his mind being wholly set upon higher -things.” - -“I wish we knew that story,” said Florian. - -“But nobody does. My grandfather was discreet. So he thrived. And his -son, who was my honored father, also thrived under the regency of Anne -of Austria. He thrived rather unaccountably in the teeth of Mazarin’s -open dislike. There was some story—I do not know what,—about a nightcap -found under the Queen’s pillow, and considered by his eminence to need -some explaining. My honored father was never good at explaining things. -But he was discreet, and he thrived. And I too, my son, was lucky in -Madame de Montespan’s time.” - -Now Madame de Montespan’s time antedated Florian’s thinking: but about -the King’s last mistress,—and morganatic wife, some said,—Florian was -better informed. - -“Madame de Maintenon also is very fond of you, monsieur my father, is -she not?” - -The Duke slightly waved his hand, as one who disclaims unmerited -tribute. “It was my privilege to know that incomparable lady during -her first husband’s life. He was a penniless cripple who had lost -the use of all his members, and in that time of many wants I was so -lucky as to comfort Madame Scarron now and then. Madame de Maintenon -remembers these alleviations of her unfortunate youth, and notes with -approval that I have forgotten them utterly. So Madame is very kind. -In short,—or, rather, to sum up the tale,—the lords of Puysange are -rumored, by superstitious persons, to have a talisman which enables -them to go farther than may most men in their dealings with ladies.” - -“You mean, like a magic lamp or a wishing cap?” said Florian, “or like -a wizard’s wand?” - -“Yes, something in that shape,” the Duke answered, “and they tell how -through its proper employment, always under the great law of living, -our house has got much pleasure and prosperity. And it is certain the -Collyn aids us at need—” - -“What is the Collyn?” - -“Nothing suitable for a boy of ten to know about. When you are a man I -shall have to tell you, Florian. That will be soon enough.” - -“And what, monsieur my father, is this great law of living?” - -The Duke looked for a while at his son rather queerly. “Thou shalt not -offend,” the Duke replied, “against the notions of thy neighbor.” - -With that he was silent: and, rising at last from the bench, he walked -across the lawn, and ascended the broad curving marble stairway which -led to the south terrace of Storisende. And Florian, following, was for -an instant quiet, and a little puzzled. - -“Yes, monseigneur my father, but I do not see—” - -The Duke turned, an opulent figure in dark blue and gold. He was -standing by one of the tall vases elaborately carved with garlands, the -vases that in summer overflowed with bright red and yellow flowers: -these vases were now empty, and the gardeners had replaced the carved -lids. - -“Youth never sees the reason of that law, my son. I am wholly -unprepared to say whether or not this is a lucky circumstance.” The -Duke again paused, looking thoughtfully across the terrace, toward the -battlemented walls and the four towers of the southern façade. His -gazing seemed to go well beyond the fountain and the radiating low -hedges and gravelled walkways of the terrace, to go beyond, for that -matter, the darkening castle. Twilight was rising: you saw a light in -one window. “At all events, we are home again, young dreamer. I too was -once a dreamer. And at all events, there is Little Brother waiting for -us.” - - - - -_3._ - -_Widowers Seek Consolation_ - - -Little brother was indeed waiting for them, at the arched doorway, -impatient of his governess’ restraint. At sight of them he began -telling, coincidently, of how hungry he was, and of how he had helped -old Margot to milk a cow that afternoon, and of how a courier was -waiting for Monsieur my Father in great long boots, up to here. The -trifold tale was confusing, for at eight little Raoul could not yet -speak plainly. His sleeve was torn, and he had a marvelously dirty face. - -Behind him stood pallid pretty Mademoiselle Berthe, the governess who a -trifle later, during the next winter, killed herself. She had already -begun bewailing her condition to the Duke, even while she obstinately -would have none of the various husbands whom her kindly patron -recommended, from among his dependants, as ready to make that condition -respectable. There seemed no pleasing the girl, and Florian could see -that his father, for all his uniform benevolence, regarded her as a -nuisance. - -But the Duke now gazed down, at the pale frightened-looking creature, -with that fine condescending smile which he accorded almost everybody. -“Mademoiselle, children are a grave responsibility. I have just found -Florian asleep in the mud yonder, whereas you have evidently just -plucked this other small pest from the pig-sty. It is lucky that we -have no more brats to contend with, Mademoiselle, for the present, is -it not?” - -Florian wondered, long afterward, how Mademoiselle had looked, and -what she replied. He could not recollect. But he did remember that at -this instant Little Brother ran from her and hugged first one of his -father’s superb legs and then Florian. Little Brother was warm and -tough-feeling and astonishingly strong, and he smelled of clean earth. - -Florian loved him very much, and indeed the affection between the two -brothers endured until the end of their intercourse. Florian was always -consciously the elder and wiser, and felt himself the stronger long -after Raoul had become taller than Florian. Even after Raoul was well -on in his thirties, and both the boys had boys of their own, Florian -still thought of the Chevalier de Puysange as a little brother with a -dirty face and a smell of clean earth, whom you loved and patronized, -and from whom you had one secret only. For of course you never told -Raoul about Melior. - -You spoke to nobody about Melior. You found it wiser and more delicious -to retain all knowledge of her loveliness for entirely private -consideration, and thus not be bothered with people’s illogical notion -that Melior was only a dream. - -For the memory of the Princess Melior’s loveliness did not depart as -Florian became older, and neither manhood nor marriage could put quite -out of mind the beauty that he had in childhood, however briefly, seen. -Other women came and in due season went. His wives indeed seemed to die -with a sort of uniform prematureness in which the considerate found -something of fatality: nor did the social conventions of the day permit -a Puysange to shirk amusing himself with yet other women. Florian -amused himself so liberally, once his father was dead, and the former -Prince de Lisuarte had succeeded to the major title and to his part of -the estates, that they of Bellegarde were grieved when it was known -that the fourth Duke of Puysange now planned to marry for the fifth -time. - -At Florian’s château of Bellegarde, affairs had sped very pleasantly -since the death of his last wife, and the packing off of his son to -Storisende. Storisende, by the old Duke’s will, had fallen to Raoul. -Affairs had sped so pleasantly, they said at Bellegarde, that it -seemed a deplorable risk for monseigneur to be marrying a woman who -might, conceivably, be forthwith trying to reclaim him from all -fashionable customs. Besides, he was upon this occasion marrying a -daughter of the house of Nérac, just as his brother the Chevalier had -done. And this was a ruiningly virtuous family, a positively dowdy -family who hardly seemed to comprehend—they said at Bellegarde,—that -we were now living in the modern world of 1723, and that fashions had -altered since the old King’s death. - -“For how long, little monster, will this new toy amuse you?” asked -Mademoiselle Cécile. It appears unfair here to record that at nine -o’clock in the morning they were not yet up and about the day’s duties, -without recording also, in palliation of such seeming laziness, that -there was no especial need to hurry, for all of mademoiselle’s trunks -had been packed overnight, and she was not to leave Bellegarde until -noon. - -“Parbleu, one never knows,” Florian replied, as he lay smiling lazily -at the smiling cupids who held up the bed-canopies. “It is a very -beautiful feature of my character that at thirty-five I am still the -optimist. When I marry I always believe the ceremony to begin a new and -permanent era.” - -“Oh, very naturally, since everywhere that frame of mind is considered -appropriate to a bridegroom.” The girl had turned her sleek brown head -a little, resting it more comfortably upon the pillow, and she regarded -Florian with appraising eyes. “My friend, in this, as in much else, I -find your subserviency to convention almost excessive. It becomes a -notorious mania with you to do nothing whatever without the backing of -logic and good precedent—” - -“My father, mademoiselle, impressed upon me a great while ago the -philosophy of these virtues.” - -“Yes, all that is very fine. Yet I at times suspect your logic and -your precedents to be in reality patched-up excuses for following the -moment’s whim: or else I seem to see you adjusting them, like colored -spectacles, to improve in your eyes the appearance of that which you -have in hand.” - -“Now you misjudge me, mademoiselle, with the ruthlessness of intimate -personal acquaintance—” - -“But indeed, indeed, those precedents which you educe are often rather -far-fetched. You are much too ready to refer us to the customs of the -Visigoths, or to cite the table-talk of Aristotle, or to appeal to the -rulings of Quintilian. It sounds well: I concede that. Yet these, and -the similar sonorous pedantries with which you are so glib to justify -your pranks, do not, my friend, let me assure you, seem always wholly -relevant to the conditions of modern life—” - -“My race descends from a most notable scholar, mademoiselle, and it -well may be the great Jurgen has bequeathed to me some flavor of his -unique erudition. For that I certainly need not apologize—” - -“No, you should rather apologize because that ancient hero appears -also to have bequeathed to you a sad tendency to self-indulgence in -matrimony. Now to get married has always seemed to me an indelicate -advertising of one’s intentions: and I assuredly cannot condone in -anybody a selfish habit which to-day leads to my being turned out of -doors—” - -“A pest! you talk as if I too did not sincerely regret those social -conventions which make necessary your departure—” - -“Yet it is you who evoke those silly conventions by marrying again.” - -“—But in a grave matter like matrimony one must not be obstinate -and illiberal. Raoul assures me, you conceive, that his little -sister-in-law is a delightful creature. He thinks that as a co-heiress -of Nérac, without any meddlesome male relatives, she is the person -logically suited to be my wife. And I like to indulge the dear fellow’s -wishes.” - -“Behold a fine sample of your indulgence of others, by marrying a -great fortune! After all, though,” Cécile reflected, philosophically, -“I would not change shoes with her. For it is not wholesome, my -friend, to be your wife. But it has been eminently pleasant to be your -playfellow.” - -Florian smiled. And Florian somewhat altered his position. - -“_Bels dous amicx_,” sang Florian, softly, “_fassam un joc novel—!_” - -“I must ask for some explanation of, at least,” Cécile stated, with -that light, half-muffled laugh which Florian found adorable, “your -words.” - -“I was about to sing, mademoiselle, a very ancient aubade. I was -beginning a morning-song such as each lover in the days of troubadours -was used, here in Poictesme, to sing to his mistress at arising.” - -“So that, now you are, as I perceive, arising, you plan to honor the -old custom? That is well enough for you, who are a Duke of Puysange, -and who have so much respect for precedent and logic. But I am not -logical, I am, as you can see, a woman. Moreover, I am modern in all, -I abhor antiquity. I find it particularly misplaced in a bedroom. And -so, my friend, I must entreat you, whatever you do, not to sing any of -those old songs, which may, for anything I know, have some improper -significance.” - -Florian humored this young lady’s rather strict notions of propriety, -and they for a while stopped talking. Then they parted with a friendly -kiss, and they dressed each for travelling: and Mademoiselle -Cécile rode south upon a tentative visit to Cardinal Borgia, whose -proffered benefactions had thus far been phrased with magniloquence -and vagueness. This fair girl had the religious temperament, and she -delighted in submitting herself to her spiritual fathers, but she -required some daily comforts also. - -Florian next sent for the boy Gian Paolo, who had now for seven months -been Florian’s guest. “I am marrying,” said Florian. “We must part, -Gian Paolo.” - -“Do you think so?” the boy said. “Ah, but you would regret me!” - -“Regretting would become a lost art if people did not sometimes do -their duty. Now that I am about to take a wife, you comprehend, I -shall for the while be more or less pre-empted by my bride. It is -unlikely that I shall be able, at all events during the first ardors -of the honeymoon, to entertain my friends with any adequacy. Let us -be logical, dear Gian Paolo! I find no fault in you, beloved boy, I -concede you to be fit friend for an emperor. It is merely that the -advent of my new duchess now compels me to ensure the privacy of our -honeymoon by parting, however regretfully, with Mademoiselle Cécile and -with you also.” - -“Your decision does not surprise me, Florian, for they say that you -have parted with many persons who loved you, and who left you—” - -“Yes?” said Florian. - -“—Very suddenly—” - -“Yes?” Florian said, again. - -“—And yet without their departure surprising you at all, dear Florian.” - -“Oh, it is merely that in moments of extreme anguish I attempt to -control my emotions, and to give them no undignified display,” said -Florian. “Doubtless, I was as surprised as anybody. Well, but this -foolish gossip of this very censorious neighborhood does not concern -us, Gian Paolo: and, now that you too are about to go, I can assure you -that all your needs”—here for an instant Florian hesitated,—“have been -provided for.” - -“Indeed, I see that you have wine set ready. Is it”—and the boy smiled -subtly, for he was confident of his power over Florian,—“is it my -stirrup-cup, dear Florian?” - -Florian now looked full upon him. “Yes,” Florian said, rather sadly. -Then they drank, but not of the same wine, to the new Duchess of -Puysange. And the boy Gian Paolo died without pain. - -“It is better so,” said Florian. “Time would have spoiled your beauty. -Time would have spoiled your joy in life, Gian Paolo, and would have -shaken your fond belief that I was your slave in everything. Time lay -in wait to travesty this velvet chin with a harsh beard, to waken harsh -doubtings in the merry heart, and to abate your lovely perversities -with harsh repentance. For time ruins all, but you escape him, dear -Gian Paolo, unmarred.” - -Now Florian was smiling wistfully, for he found heartache in this -thinking of the evanescence of beauty everywhere, and heartache too in -thinking of the fate of that charming old lady, La Tophania, who had -been so kind to him in Naples. For Florian could rarely make use of -her recipes without recollecting how cruelly the mob had dealt with -his venerable instructress: that was, he knew, a sentimental side to -his nature, which he could never quite restrain. So he now thought -sadly of this stately old-world gentlewoman, so impiously dragged from -a convent and strangled, now four years ago, because of her charity -toward those who were afflicted by the longevity of others. Yes, life -was wasteful, sparing nobody, not even one who was so wise and amiable -as La Tophania, nor so lovable as Gian Paolo. The thought depressed -him: such wastefulness was illogical: and it seemed to Florian, too, -that this putting of his household into fit order for the reception of -his bride was not wholly a merry business. - -Then Florian, stroking the dead hand which was as yet soft and warm, -said gently: “And though I have slain you, dear Gian Paolo, rather -than see you depart from me to become the friend of another, and -perhaps to talk with him indiscreetly after having learned more about -me than was wise, I have at worst not offended against convention, -nor have I run counter to the fine precedents of the old time. Just -so did the great Alexander deal with his Clitus, and Hadrian with -his Antinous; nor did divine Apollo give any other parting gift to -Hyacinthos, his most dear friend. Now the examples afforded us by -ancient monarchs and by the heathen gods should not, perhaps, be -followed blindly. Indeed, we should in logic remember always that all -these were pagans, unsustained by the promptings of true faith, and -therefore liable to err. None the less, they at least establish an -arguable precedent, they afford people of condition something to go by: -and to have that is a firm comfort.” - -He kissed the dead lips fondly; and he bade his lackeys summon Father -Joseph to bury Gian Paolo, with due ceremony, in the Chapel, next to -Florian’s wives. - -“We obey. Yet, it will leave room for no more graves,” one told him, -“in the alcove wherein monseigneur’s wives are interred.” - -“That is true. You are an admirable servant, Pierre, you think -logically of all things. Do you bury the poor lad in the south -transept.” - -Then Florian took wine and wafers into the secret chamber which nobody -else cared to enter, and he made sure that everything there was in -order. All these events happened on the feast day of St. Swithin of -Winchester, which falls upon the fifteenth of July: and on that same -day Florian left Bellegarde, going to meet his new wife, and traveling -alone, toward Storisende. - - - - -_4._ - -_Economics of an Old Race_ - - -Florian rode alone, spruce and staid in a traveling suit of -bottle-green and silver, riding upon a tall white horse, riding toward -Storisende, where his betrothed awaited him, and where the wedding -supper was already in preparation. He went by the longer route, so -that he might put up a prayer, for the success of his new venture into -matrimony, at the church of Holy Hoprig. Nobody was better known nor -more welcome at this venerable shrine than was Florian, for the Duke of -Puysange had spared nothing to evince his respect for the fame and the -favorable opinion of his patron saint. Whether in the shape of candles -or a handsome window, or a new chapel or an acre or two of meadow -land, Florian was always giving for the greater glory of that bright -intercessor who in heaven, Florian assumed, was tactfully suggesting -that such generosity should not be overlooked. So it was that Florian -kept his accounts balanced, his future of a guaranteeable pleasantness, -and his conscience clear. - -Having prayed for the success of this new marriage and for the -soul of Gian Paolo, and having confessed to all the last month’s -irregularities, Florian went eastward. He passed Amneran and a spur of -the great forest, now that he went to ford the Duardenez. As he neared -Acaire he thought, idly, and with small shrugs, of a boy’s adventuring -to the sleeping princess in the midst of these woods, and of the beauty -which he had not ever forgotten utterly: and his heart was troubled -with that worshipful and hopeless longing which any thinking about this -Melior would always evoke in Florian, because he knew that his “dream,” -as people would call it, was a far more true and vital thing than -Florian’s daily living. - -Then on a sudden he reined up his horse, and Florian waited there, -looking down upon the dark woman who had come out of this not -over-wholesome forest. Florian did not speak for some while, but he -smiled, and he shook his head in a sort of humorous disapprobation. - -This woman was his half-sister, whom Florian’s father had begotten, -with the co-operation of the bailiff of Ranec’s daughter, some while -before middle age and the coming into extreme fashion of continence -had made such escapades criticizable. Marie-Claire Cazaio was thus -of an age with Florian, being his senior by only three months. In -their shared youth these two had not been strangers, for the old Duke -had handsomely recognized his responsibility for this daughter, and -had kept Marie-Claire about his household until the girl had outraged -propriety by bearing an illegitimate child. After this the Duke had no -choice except to turn her out of doors. She had since then taken up -with companions whose repute was not even dubious: and her manner of -living was esteemed intemperate by the most broad-minded persons in -Poictesme, where sorcery was treated with all reasonable indulgence. - -“My dear,” said Florian, at last, still shaking his head, “I must tell -you, however little good it does, that there was another deputation of -peasants and declamatory grocers at me, only last week, to have you -seized and burned. You are too careless, Marie-Claire, about offending -against the notions of your neighbors. You should persuade your -unearthly lovers to curb their ardors until after dark. You should at -least induce them not to pass over Amneran in such shapes as frighten -your neighbors in the twilight, and so provoke their very natural -desire to burn you at broad noon.” - -“These little peasants will not burn me yet,” she answered. “My term -is not yet run out—” You saw that Marie-Claire was thinking of quite -other matters. She said, “So, they tell me, you are to marry again?” - -She had lifted to him now that half-pensive, half-blind staring which -he uneasily recognized. Florian had always under this woman’s gaze -the illogical feeling that, where he was, Marie-Claire saw some one -else, or, to be exact, saw some one a slight distance behind him. Her -eyes could not be black. Florian knew that nobody’s eyes were really -black. But this woman’s small eyes were very dark, they had such -extraordinarily thick lashes upon both upper and lower lids, that these -little eyes most certainly seemed blobs of infernal ink. There was in -his sister’s eyes a discomfortable knowingness. Puysange looked at -Puysange. - -He answered, quietly, “Yes, Mademoiselle de Nérac is now about to make -me the happiest of men.” - -“Unhappy child! for she too is flesh and blood.” - -“And what does that anatomical truism signify when it is so cryptically -uttered, Marie-Claire?” - -“It means that you and I are not enamored of flesh and blood.” - -Florian did not reply to this in words. But he smiled at his -half-sister, for he was really fond of her, even now, and they -understood each other excellently. - -So he stayed silent, still looking at her. By and by he said: “You come -out of a wood that is not often visited by abbots and cherubim, and you -carry a sieve and shears. Who is yonder?” - -Marie-Claire replied, “How should I know the real name of the adversary -of all the gods of men?” - -“Pardieu!” said Florian, “so it is company of such sinister grandeur -that you entertain nowadays. You progress, my sister, toward a truly -notable damnation.” - -“In these parts, to be sure, they call him Janicot—” - -“Yes, I know,” said Florian, “and, certainly, his local name does not -matter in the least.” Florian smiled benevolently, and said, “Good luck -to you, my dear!” - -Then he rode on, into the pathway from which Marie-Claire had just -emerged. He was interested, for it might well be rather amusing to -overtake this whispered-about Janicot in the midst of his sombre work: -but, even so, the thoughts of Florian were not wholly given over to -Janicot, or to Marie-Claire either. Instead, he was still thinking of -the sleeping woman’s face which he had not ever forgotten utterly: and -this dark sullen sister of his—who had once been so pretty too, he -recollected,—and all her injudicious traffic seemed, somehow, rather -futile. - -No, he reflected, Marie-Claire was not pretty now. Her neck remained -wonderful: it was still the only woman’s neck familiar to Florian that -really justified comparison with a swan’s neck by its unusual length -and roundness and flexibility. But her head was too small for that -superb neck: she had taken on the dusky pallor of a Puysange: she was, -in fine, thirty-five, and looked rather older. It showed you what -irregular and sorcerous living might lead to. Florian at thirty-five -looked—at most, he estimated,—twenty-eight. Yes: it was much more -sensible to adhere to precedent, and to keep all one’s accounts in -order, through St. Hoprig’s loving care, and to retain overhead a -thrifty balance in one’s favor. - - - - -_5._ - -_Friendly Advice of Janicot_ - - -When he had entered a little way into Acaire, Florian came to an open -place, where seven trees had been hewn down. A brown horse was tethered -here, and here seven lilies bloomed with a surprising splendor of -white and gold. These stood waist-high about a sedate looking burgess, -unostentatiously but very neatly dressed in some brown stuff, which -was just the color of his skin. At his feet was a shrub covered with -crimson flowers: no sun shone here, the sky was clouded and cast down a -coppery glow. - -Such was Janicot. Florian saluted him, quite civilly, but with -appropriate reserve. - -“Come,” Janicot said, smiling, “and is this the rapturous countenance -of a bridegroom? I am not pleased with you, Monsieur the Duke, I must -have happy faces among my friends.” - -“So you also have heard of my approaching marriage! Well, I am content -enough, and for me to marry the co-heiress of Nérac seems logical: -but in logic, too, I cannot ignore that I ride toward a disappointing -business. There is magic in the curiously clothed woman who is -mistress of herself, the hour and you: but the prostrate, sweating and -submissive meat in a tangle of bed-clothing—!” Florian shrugged. - -“In fact,” said Janicot, as if pensively, “I have observed you. You -do not enter wholly into the pleasures suitable for men and women: -you do not avoid these agreeabilities, but your sampling of them is -without self-surrender, and there is something else which you hold more -desirable.” - -“That is true.” Florian for an instant meditated. Florian shrugged. -Then Florian dismounted from his white horse, and tethered it. Here was -the one being in whom you might confide logically. Florian told Janicot -the story of how, in childhood, Florian had ascended to the high place, -and had seen the Princess Melior, whom always since that time his heart -had desired. - -And Janicot heard him through, with some marks of interest. Janicot -nodded. - -“Yes, yes,” said Janicot. “I do not frequent high places. But I have -heard of this Melior, from men a long while dead, and they said that -she was beautiful.” - -“Then they spoke foolishly,” replied Florian, “because they spoke -with pitiable inadequacy. Now I do not say that she is beautiful. I do -not speak any praise whatever of Melior, because her worth is beyond -all praising. I am silent as to the unforgotten beauty of Melior, -lest I cry out against that which I love. When I was but a child her -loveliness was revealed to me, and never since then have I been able to -forget the beauty of which all dreams go envious. I jest with women who -are lovable and nicely colored; they have soft voices, and their hearts -are kind: but presently I yawn and say they are not as Melior.” - -“Ah, but in fact,” said Janicot, “in fact, you do—without caring to -commit yourself formally,—believe that this Melior is beautiful?” - -Now Florian’s plump face was altered, and his voice shook a little. He -said: - -“Her beauty is that beauty which women had in the world’s youth, and -whose components the old world forgets in this gray age. It may be that -Queen Helen possessed such beauty, she for whom the long warring was. -It may be that Cleopatra of Egypt, who had for her playmates emperors -and a gleaming snake, and for her lovers all poets that have ever -lived, or it may be that some other royal lady of the old time, in -the world’s youth, wore flesh that was the peer of Melior’s flesh in -loveliness. But such women, if there indeed was ever Melior’s peer, -are now vague echoes and blown dust. I cry the names that once were -magic. I cry to Semiramis and to Erigonê and to Guenevere, and there is -none to answer. Their beauty has gone down into the cold grave, it has -nourished grasses, and cattle chew the cud which was their loveliness. -Therefore I cry again, I cry the name of Melior: and though none -answers, I know that I cry upon the unflawed and living beauty which my -own eyes have seen.” - - -[Illustration: - Caption surrounded by a garland: - She waited—there was the miracle— - for FLORIAN DE PUYSANGE. - _See page 75_ - The image] - - -Janicot sat on a tree-stump, stroking his chin with thumb and -fore-finger. He was entirely brown, with white and gold about him, and -the flowering at his neatly shod feet was more red than blood. He said: - -“In that seeing, denied to all other living persons,—in that, at least, -you have been blessed.” - -“In that,” said Florian, bitterly, “I was accursed. Because of this -beauty which I may not put out of mind, the tinsel prettiness of other -women becomes grotesque and pitiable and hateful. I strive to mate with -them, and I lie lonely in their arms. I seek for a mate, and I find -only meat and much talking. Then I regard the tedious stranger in whose -arms I discover myself, and I wonder what I am doing in this place. I -remember Melior, and I must rid myself of the fond foolish creature who -is not as Melior.” - -“Ah, ah!” said Janicot then, “so that is how it is. I perceive you -are a romantic. The disorder is difficult to cure. Yet we must have -you losing no more wives: there must be an end to the ill luck which -follows your matrimonial adventures and causes hypercritical persons -to whisper. Yes, since you are a romantic, since all other women upset -your equanimity and lead you into bereavements which people, let me -tell you, are festooning with ugly surmises, you certainly must have -this Melior.” - -“No,” Florian said, wistfully, “there is an etiquette in these matters. -Even if I cared to dabble in sorcery, it would not be quite courteous -for me to interfere with the magic which Madame Mélusine has laid upon -the high place and her blood relations. It would be meddling in her -family affairs, it would be an incivility without precedent, to her who -was so kind to me in my childhood.” - -“You think too much about precedent, Monsieur the Duke. In any event, -Mélusine has half forgotten the matter. So much has happened to her, in -the last several hundred years, that her mind has quite gone. She cares -only to wail upon battlements and to pass through dusky corridors at -twilight, predicting the deaths of her various descendants. You can see -for yourself that these are not the recreations of a logical person. -No, Florian, you are considerate, and it does you great credit, but -you would not annoy Madame Mélusine by releasing Brunbelois.” - -Said Florian, gently: “My intimates, to be sure, address me as Florian. -But our acquaintance, Monsieur Janicot, however delightful, remains as -yet of such brevity that, really, whether you be human or divine—” - -“Oh, but, Monsieur the Duke,” replied the other, “but indeed I entreat -your pardon for my inadvertence.” - -And Florian too bowed. “It is merely a social convention, of course. -Yet it is necessary to respect the best precedents even in trifles. -Well, now, and as to your suggestion, I confess you tempt me—” - -“Only, you could not free Brunbelois unaided, nor could any living -sorcerer. For Mélusine’s was the Old Magic that is stronger than the -thin thaumaturgy of these days. Yet I desire to have happy faces about -me, so I will give you this Melior for a while.” - -“And at what price?” - -“I who am the Prince of this World am not a merchant to buy and sell. -I will release the castle, and you may have the girl as a free gift. I -warn you, though, that, since she is of the Léshy, at the year’s end -she will vanish.” - -Florian shook his head, smilingly. He knew of course that marriage -with one of the Léshy could not be permanent. But this fiend must -believe him very simple indeed, if Janicot thought Florian so -uninformed as not to know that whoever accepts a gift from hell is -thereby condemned to burn eternally: and to perceive this amused -Florian. - -“Ah, Monsieur Janicot, but a Puysange cannot take alms from anybody. -No, let us be logical! There must be a price set and paid, so that I -may remain under no distasteful and incendiary debts.” - -Janicot hid excellently the disappointment he must have felt. “Then -suppose we fix it that she is yours until you have had a child by her? -And that then she will vanish, and that then the child is to be given -me, as my honorarium, by”—Janicot explained,—“the old ritual.” - -“Well,” Florian replied, “I may logically take this to be a case of -desperate necessity, since all my happiness depends upon it. Now in -such cases Paracelsus admits the lawfulness of seeking aid from—if -you will pardon the technical term, Monsieur Janicot,—from unclean -spirits. He is supported in this, as I remember it, by Peter Ærodius, -by Bartolus of Sassoferato, by Salecitus, and by other divines and -schoolmen. So I have honorable precedents, I do not offend against -convention. Yes, I accept the offer; and the child, whatever my -paternal pangs, shall be given, as your honorarium, by the old ritual.” - -“Of course,” said Janicot, reflectively, “if there should be no child—” - -“Monsieur, I am Puysange. There will be a child.” - -“Why, then, it is settled. Now I think of it, you will need the sword -Flamberge with which to perform this rite, since Melior is of the -Léshy, and that sword alone of all swords may spill their blood—” - -“But where is Flamberge nowadays?” - -“There is one at home, in an earthen pot, who could inform you.” - -“Let us not speak of that,” said Florian, hastily, “but do you tell me -where is this sword.” - -“I have no notion as to the present whereabouts of Flamberge. Nor, -since you stickle for etiquette, is it etiquette for me to aid you in -finding this sword until you have made me a sacrifice.” - -“Why, but you offered Melior as a free gift!” said Florian, smiling to -see how obvious were the traps this Janicot set for him. “Is a princess -of smaller importance than a sword?” - -“A princess is easier to get, because a princess is easier to make. -A sword, far less a magic sword like Flamberge, cannot be fashioned -without long training and preparation and special knowledge. But no -man needs more than privacy and a queen’s goodwill to make a princess.” - -“I confess, Monsieur Janicot, that your logic is indisputable. Well, -when at the winter solstice you hold your Festival of the Wheel, I -shall not sacrifice to you. That would be to relapse into the old -evil ways of heathenry, a relapse for which is appointed an agonizing -reproof, administered in realms unnecessary to mention, but doubtless -familiar to you. However, I shall be glad to tender you a suitable -Christmas present, since that sacred season falls at the same time.” - -“You may call it whatever you prefer. But it must be a worthy gift that -one offers me at my Yule Feast.” - -“You shall have—not as a sacrifice, you understand, but as a Christmas -present,—the greatest man living in France. You shall have no less a -gift than the life of that weasel-faced prime-minister who now rules -France, the all-powerful Cardinal Dubois. For the rest, your bargain -is reasonable: it contains none of those rash mortgagings of the -soul, about which—if you will pardon my habitual frankness, Monsieur -Janicot,—one has to be careful in all business dealings with your -people. So let us subscribe this bond.” - -Janicot laughed: his traffic was not in souls, he said; and he said -also that Florian, for a nobleman, was deplorably the man of business. -None the less, Janicot now produced from his pocket a paper upon which -the terms of their bargain happened, rather unaccountably, to be neatly -written out: and they both signed this paper, with the pens and ink -which Florian had not previously noticed to be laid there so close at -hand, upon one of the tree-stumps. - -Then Janicot put up the paper, and remarked: “A thing done has an end. -For the rest, these fellows will escort you to Brunbelois.” - -“And of what fellows do you speak?” asked Florian. - -“Why, those servants of mine just behind you,” replied Janicot. - -And Florian, turning, saw in the roadway two very hairy persons in an -oxcart, drawn by two brown goats which were as large as oxen; and yet -Florian was certain no one of these things had been in that place an -instant before. This Janicot, however easy to see through had been his -traps for Florian, was beyond doubt efficient. - -Florian said: “The liveries of your retainers tend somewhat to the -capillary. None the less, I shall be deeply honored, monsieur, to be -attended by any servants of your household.” - -Janicot replied: “Madame Mélusine has ordained against men and the -living of mankind eternal banishment from the high place. Very well!” - -He drew his sword, and without any apparent effort he struck off the -head of his brown horse. He set this head upon a stake, and he thrust -the other end of the stake into the ground, so that the stake stood -upright. - -“I here set up,” said Janicot, “a nithing post. I turn the post. I turn -the eternal banishment against Madame Mélusine.” - -He waited for a moment. He was entirely brown: about him lilies -bloomed, with a surprising splendor of white and gold: and the -flowering at his feet was more red than blood. - -He moved the stake so that the horse’s head now faced the east, and -Janicot said: “Also I turn this post against the protecting monsters -of the high place, in order that they may all become as witless as now -is this slain horse. I send a witlessness upon them from the nithing -post, which makes witless and takes away the strength of the rulers and -of the controlling gods of whatever land this nithing post be turned -against. I, who am what I am, have turned the post. I have sent forth -the Seeing of All, the Seeing that makes witless. A thing done has an -end.” - - - - -_6._ - -_Philosophy of the Lower Class_ - - -Florian parted from brown Janicot for that while, and mounted his -white horse, and rode upward toward the castle of Brunbelois, without -further thought of the girl at Storisende whom logic had picked out -to be his wife. Florian was followed by the oxcart which Janicot had -provided. Florian found all the monsters lying in a witless stupor. -So he fearlessly set upon and killed the black bleps and the crested -strycophanês and the gray calcar. - -He passed on upward, presently to decapitate the eale, which writhed -its movable horns very remarkably in dying. Florian went on intrepidly, -and despatched the golden-maned and-whiskered leucrocotta. The -tarandus, farther up the road, proved more troublesome: this monster -had, after its sly habit, taken on the coloring of the spot in which it -lay concealed, so that it was hard to find; and, when found, its hide -was so tough as to resist for some while the edge of Florian’s sword. -The thin and flabby neck of the catoblepas was in contrast gratifyingly -easy to sever. Indeed, this was in all respects a contemptible monster, -dingily colored, and in no way formidable now that its eyes were shut. - -Florian’s heroic butchery was well-nigh over: so he passed on cheerily -to the next turn in the road; and in that place a moment later the -bright red mantichora was impotently thrusting out its sting in the -death agony, a sudden wind came up from the west, and the posture of -the sun was changed. - -Having dauntlessly performed these unmatched feats, the champion paused -to reward himself with a pinch of snuff. The lid of his snuff-box bore -the portrait of his dear friend and patron, Philippe d’Orléans, and -it seemed odd to be regarding familiar features in these mischancy -uplands. Then Florian, refreshed, looked about him. Three incredibly -weather-beaten sheep were grazing to his right: to the left he saw, -framed by the foliage upon each side of and overhanging the green -roadway, the castle of Brunbelois. - -Thus one by one did Florian cut off the heads of the seven wardens, -with real regret—excepting only when he killed the catoblepas,—that his -needs compelled him to destroy such colorful and charming monsters. -The two remarkably hairy persons, without ever speaking, lifted each -enormous head, one by one, into the cart. The party mounted within -eyeshot of Brunbelois thus triumphantly. And at Brunbelois, where the -old time yet lingered, the hour was not afternoon but early morning: -and at the instant Florian slew the mantichora all the persons within -the castle had awakened from what they thought was one night’s resting. - -Now the first of the awakened Peohtes whom Florian encountered was a -milkmaid coming down from Brunbelois with five cows. What Florian could -see of her was pleasurably shaped and tinted. He looked long at her. - -“To pause now for any frivolous reason,” reflected Florian, “or to -disfigure in any way the moment in which I approach my life’s desire, -is of course unthinkable—” - -Meanwhile the milkmaid looked at Florian. She smiled, and her naturally -high coloring was heightened. - -“—So I do not pause for frivolous reasons. I pause because one must be -logical. For, now that I think of it, to rescue people from enchantment -is a logical proceeding only when one is certain that this rescuing -involves some positive gain to the world. Do you drive on a little -way, and wait for me,” said Florian, aloud, to his hirsute attendants, -“while I discover from this enticing creature what sort of persons we -have resurrected.” - -The hairy servants of Janicot obeyed. Florian, very spruce in -bottle-green and silver, dismounted from his white horse, and in the -ancient roadway now overgrown with grass, held amicable discourse with -this age-old milkmaid. She proved at bottom not wholly unsophisticated. -And when they parted, each had been agreeably convinced that the -persons of one era are much like those of another. - -Florian thus came to the gates of Brunbelois logically reassured -that he had done well in reviving such persons, even at the cost of -destroying charming monsters and of the labor involved in removing so -many heads. He counted smilingly on his finger-tips, but such was his -pleased abstraction that he miscalculated, and made the total eight. - -He found that, now the enchantment was lifted, Brunbelois showed in -every respect as a fine old castle of the architecture indigenous -to fairy tales. Flags were flying from the turrets; sentinels, -delightfully shiny in the early morning sunlight, were pacing the -walls, on the look-out for enemies that had died many hundred years -ago; and at the gate was a night-porter, not yet off duty. This porter -wore red garments worked with yellow thistles, and he seemed dejected -but philosophic. - -“Whence come you, in those queer dusty clothes?” inquired the porter, -“and what is your business here?” - -“Announce to King Helmas,” said Florian, as he brushed the dust from -his bottle-green knees, and saw with regret that nothing could be done -about the grass-stains, which, possibly, had got there when he knelt to -cut off the tarandus’ head,—“announce to King Helmas that the lord of -Puysange is at hand.” - -“You are talking, sir,” the porter answered, resignedly, “most -regrettable nonsense. For the knife is in the collops, the mead is in -the drinking-horn, the eggs are upon the toast, the minstrels are in -the gallery, and King Helmas is having breakfast.” - -“None the less, I have important business with him—” - -“Equally none the less, nobody may enter at this hour unless he is -the son of a king of a privileged country or a craftsman bringing his -craft.” - -“Parbleu, but that is it, precisely. For I bring in that wagon very -fine samples of my craft.” - -The porter left his small grilled lodge. He looked at the piled heads -of the monsters, he poked them with his finger, and he said mildly, -“Why, but did you ever!” Then he returned to the gate. - -“Now, my friend,” said Florian, with the appropriate stateliness, “I -charge you, by all the color and ugliness of these samples of my craft, -to announce to your king that the lord of Puysange is at the gate with -tidings, and with proof, that the enchantment is happily lifted from -this castle.” - -“So there has been an enchantment. I suspected something of the sort -when I came to, after nodding a bit like in the night, and noticed the -remarkably thick forest that had grown up everywhere around us.” - -Florian observed, to this degraded underling who seemed not capable of -appreciating Florian’s fine exploits, “Well, certainly you take all -marvels very calmly.” - -The sad porter replied that, with a reigning family so given to high -temper and sorcery, the retainers of Brunbelois were not easily -astounded. Something in the shape of an enchantment had been predicted -in the kitchen last night, he continued, after the notable quarrel -between Madame Mélusine and her father. - -“My friend,” said Florian, “that was not last night. You speak of a -disastrous family jar in which the milk of human kindness curdled -several centuries ago. Since then there has been an enchantment laid -upon Brunbelois: and the spell was lifted only to-day.” - -“Do you mean, sir, that I am actually several hundred and fifty-two -years old?” - -“Somewhere in that November neighborhood,” said Florian. And he steeled -himself against the other’s outburst of horror and amazement. - -“To think of that now!” said the porter. “I certainly never imagined it -would come to that. However, it is always a great comfort to reflect it -hardly matters what happens to us, is it not, sir?” - -You could not but find, in this stubborn unwillingness to face the -magnitude of Florian’s exploits, something horribly prosaic and -callous. Yet, none the less, Florian civilly asked the man’s meaning. -And the dejected porter replied: - -“It is just a sort of fancying, sir, that one wanders into after -watching the stars, as I do in the way of business, night after night. -One gets to reading them and to a sort of glancing over of the story -that is written in their courses. Yes, sir, one does fall into the -habit, injudiciously perhaps, but then there is nothing else much -to do. And one does not find there quite, as you might put it, the -excitement over the famousness of kings and the ruining of empires -that one might reasonably look for. And one does not find anything at -all there about porters, I can assure you, sir, because they are not -important enough to figure in that story. There is no more writing in -the stars about night-porters than there is about bumble-bees; and that -is always a great comfort, sir, when one feels low-spirited. Because -I would not care to be in that story, myself, for it is not light -pleasant reading.” - -“A pest! so you inform me, with somewhat the gay levity of an oyster, -that you can read the stars!” - -The porter admitted dolefully, “One does come to it, sir, in my way of -business.” - -“And how many chapters, I wonder, are written in the heavens about me?” - -The porter looked at Florian for some while. The porter said, now even -more dolefully: “I would not be surprised if there was a line somewhere -about you, sir. For your planet is Venus, and her people do get written -about in an excessive way, there is no denying it. And I would not care -to be one of them, myself, but of course there is no accounting for -tastes, even if anybody anywhere had any say in the matter.” - -“Parbleu, you may be right about my planet,” said Florian, smiling for -reasons of his own. “Yet, as an artless veteran of the first and second -Pubic Wars, I do not see how you can be certain.” - -“Because of your corporature, sir,” replied the porter. “He that is -born under this planet is of fair but not tall stature, his complexion -being white but tending a little to darkness. He has fine black hair, -the brows arched, the face pretty fleshy, a cherry lip, a rolling -wandering eye. He has a love-dimple in his cheek, and shows in all -as one desirous of trimming and making himself neat and complete in -clothes and body. Now these things I see in your corporature and in the -fretfulness with which you look at the grass-stains on your knees. So -your planet is evident.” - -“That is possible, your speech has a fine ring of logic, and logic -is less common than hens’ teeth. Upon what sort of persons does this -honorable planet attend?” - -“If you could call it attending, sir—For I must tell you that these -planets have a sad loose way of not devoting their really undivided -attention to looking after the affairs of any one particular gentleman, -not even when they see him most magnificent in bottle-green and silver.” - -“They are as remiss, then, as you are precise. So do you choose your -own verb, and tell me—” - -“Sir,” replied the porter, “I regret to inform you that the person whom -Venus governs is riotous, expensive, wholly given to dissipation and -lewd companies of women and boys. He is nimble in entering unlawful -beds, he is incestuous, he is an adulterer, he is a mere skip-jack, -spending all his means among scandalous loose people: and he is in -nothing careful of the things of this life or of anything religious.” - -Florian brightened. “That also sounds quite logical,—in the main,—for -you describe the ways of the best-thought-of persons since the old -King’s death. And one of course endeavors not to offend against the -notions of one’s neighbors by seeming a despiser of accepted modes. -But I must protest to you, my friend, you are utterly wrong in the -article of religion—” - -“Oh, if you come hither to dispute about religion,” said the porter, -“the priests of Llaw Gyffes will attend to you. They love converting -people from religious errors, bless you, with their wild horses and -their red-hot irons. But, for one, I never argue about religion. You -conceive, sir, there is an entire chapter devoted to the subject, in -the writing we were just talking over: and I have read that chapter. So -I say nothing about religion. I like a bit of fun, myself: but when you -find it there, of all places, and on that scale—” Again the dejected -porter sighed. “However, I shall say no more. Instead, with your -permission, Messire de Puysange, I shall just step in, and send up your -news about the enchantment.” - -This much the porter did, and Florian was left alone to amuse himself -by looking about. Through the gateway he saw into a court paved with -cobble-stones. Upon each side of the gate was an octagonal granite -tower with iron-barred windows: each tower was three stories in height, -and the battlements were coped with some sort of bright red stone. - -Then Florian, for lack of other diversion, turned and looked idly down -the valley, toward Poictesme. There he saw something rather odd. A -mile-long bridge was flung across the west, and over it passed figures. -First came the appearance of a bear waddling upon his hind legs, -followed by an ape, and then by a huddled creature with long legs. -Florian saw also an unclothed woman, who danced as she went: over her -head fluttered a bird, and by means of a chain she haled after her a -sedentarily disposed pig. An incredibly old man followed, dressed in -faded blue, and he carried upon his arm an open basket. Last came a -shaggy dog, barking, it seemed, at all. - -These figures were like clouds in their station and in their -indeterminable coloring and vague outline, but their moving was not -like the drifting of clouds: it was the walking of living creatures. -Florian for an instant wondered as to the nature and the business -of these beings that were passing over and away from Poictesme. -He shrugged. He believed the matter to be no concern of one whose -interests overhead were all in the efficient hands of Holy Hoprig. - - - - -_7._ - -_Adjustments of the Resurrected_ - - -They brought Florian to Helmas the Deep-Minded, where the King sat -on a daīs with his Queen Pressina. The King was stately in scarlet -and ermine: his nose too was red, and to his crown was affixed the -Zhar-Ptitza’s silvery feather. Florian found his appearance far more -companionable than was that of the fat Queen (one of the water folk), -whose skin was faintly blue, and whose hair was undeniably green, and -whose little mouth seemed lost and discontented in her broad face. - -Beside them, but not upon the dark red daīs, sat the high-priest of -Llaw Gyffes, a fine looking and benevolent prelate, in white robes -edged with a purple pattern of quaint intricacies: he wore a wreath of -mistletoe about his broad forehead; and around and above this played a -pulsing radiancy. - -To these persons Florian told what had happened. When he had ended, -the Queen said she had never heard of such a thing in her life, that -it was precisely what she had predicted time and again, and that now -Helmas could see for himself what came of spoiling Mélusine, and -letting her have her own way about everything. The wise King answered -nothing whatever. - -But the high-priest of Llaw Gyffes asked, “And how did you lift this -strong enchantment?” - -“Monsieur, I removed it by the logical method of killing the seven -monsters who were its strength and symbol. That they are all quite -dead you can see for yourself,—if I may make so bold as to employ her -Majesty’s striking phrase,—by counting the assortment of heads which I -fetched hither with me.” - -“Yes, to be sure,” the priest admitted. “Seven is seven the world -over: everywhere it is a number of mystic potency. It follows that -seven severed heads must predicate seven corpses; and such proofs are -indisputable, as far as they go—” - -Still, he seemed troubled in his mind. - -Then Helmas, the wise King, said, “It is my opinion that the one way to -encounter the unalterable is to do nothing about it.” - -“Yes,” answered his wife, “and much that will help matters!” - -“Nothing, my dear,” said the wise King, “helps matters. All matters are -controlled by fate and chance, and these help themselves to what they -have need of. These two it is that have taken from me a lordship that -had not its like in the known world, and have made the palaces that -we used to be feasting in, it still seems only yesterday, just little -piles of rubbish, and have puffed out my famousness the way that when -any man gets impudent a widow does a lamp. These two it is that leave -me nothing but this castle and this crevice in the hills where the old -time yet lingers. And I accept their sending, because there is no armor -against it, but I shall keep up my dignity by not letting even fate and -chance upset me with their playfulness. Here the old time shall be as -it has always been, and here I shall continue to do what was expected -of me yesterday. And about other matters I shall not bother, but I -shall leave everything, excepting only my self-respect, to fate and -chance. And I think that Hoprig will agree with me it is the way a wise -man ought to be acting.” - -“Hoprig!” reflected Florian, looking at the halo. “But what the devil -is my patron saint doing here disguised as the high-priest of Llaw -Gyffes?” - -“I am thinking over some other matters,” replied Hoprig, to the King, -“and it is in my thinking that nobody could manage to kill so many -monsters, and to release us from our long sleeping, unless he was a -sorcerer. So Messire de Puysange must be a sorcerer, and that is very -awkward, with our torture-chamber all out of repair—” - -“Ah, monsieur,” said Florian, reproachfully, “and are these quite -charitable notions for a saint to be fostering? And, oh, monsieur, is -it quite fair for you to have been sleeping here this unconscionable -while, when you were supposed to be in heaven attending to the -remission of people’s sins?” - -Hoprig replied: “What choice had I or anybody else except to sleep -under the Nis magic? For the rest, I do not presume to say what a saint -might or might not think of the affair, because in our worship of Llaw -Gyffes of the Steady Hand—” - -“But I, monsieur, was referring to a very famous saint of the Christian -church, which has for some while counted the Dukes of Puysange among -its communicants, and is now our best-thought-of form of worship.” - -“Oh, the Christians! Yes, I have heard of them. Indeed I now remember -very well how Ork and Horrig came into these parts preaching everywhere -the remarkable fancies of that sect until I discouraged them in the way -which seemed most salutary.” - -Florian could make nothing of this. He said, “But how could you, of all -persons, have discouraged the spreading of Christianity?” - -“I discouraged them with axes,” the saint replied, “and with -thumbscrews, and with burning them at the stake. For it really does -not pay to be subtle in dealing with people of that class: and you -have to base your appeal to their better nature upon quite obvious -arguments.” - -“My faith, then, how it came about I cannot say, Monsieur Hoprig; but -for hundreds upon hundreds of years you have been a Christian saint.” - -“Dear me!” observed the saint, “so that must be the explanation of -this halo. I noticed it of course. Still, our minds have been rather -pre-empted since we woke up—But, dear me, now, I am astounded, -and I know not what to say. I do say, though, that this is quite -extraordinary news for you to be bringing a well-thought-of high-priest -of Llaw Gyffes.” - -“Nevertheless, monsieur, for all that you have never been anything but -a high-priest of the heathen, and a persecutor of the true faith, I can -assure you that you have, somehow, been canonized. And I am afraid that -during the long while you have been asleep your actions must have been -woefully misrepresented. Monsieur,” said Florian, hopefully, “at least, -though, was it not true about your being in the barrel?” - -“Why, but how could ever you,” the saint marveled, “have heard about -that rain-barrel? The incident, in any case, has been made far -too much of. You conceive, it was merely that the man came home -most unexpectedly; and since all husbands are at times and in some -circumstances so unreasonable—” - -“Ah, monsieur,” said Florian, shaking his head, “I am afraid you do not -speak of quite the barrel which is in your legend.” - -“So I have a legend! Why, how delightful! But come,” said the saint, -abeam with honest pleasure, and with his halo twinkling merrily, “come, -be communicative; be copious, and tell me all about myself.” - -Then Florian told Hoprig of how, after Hoprig’s supposed death, -miracles had been worked at Hoprig’s putative tomb, near Gol, and this -legend and that legend had grown up around his memory, and how these -things had led to Hoprig’s being canonized. And Florian alluded also, -with perfect tact but a little ruefully, to those fine donations he -had been giving, year in and year out, to the Church of Holy Hoprig, -under the impression that all the while the saint had been, instead of -snoring at Brunbelois, looking out for Florian’s interests in heaven. -And Hoprig now seemed rather pensive, and he inquired particularly -about his tomb. - -“I shall take this,” the saint said, at last, “to be the fit reward -of my tender-heartedness. The tomb near Gol of which you tell me is -the tomb in which I buried that Horrig about whom I was just talking, -after we had settled our difference of opinion as to some points of -theology. Ork was so widely scattered that any formal interment was -quite out of the question. My priests are dear, well-meaning fellows. -Still, you conceive, they are conscientious, and they enter with such -zeal into the performance of any manifest if painful duty—” - -Florian said: “They exhibited the archetypal zeal becoming to the -ministers of an established church in the defence of their vested -rights. They were, with primitive inadequacy, groping toward the -methods of our Holy Inquisition and of civilized prelates everywhere—” - -“—So they were quite tired out when we passed on to Horrig’s case. I -do not deny that I was perhaps unduly lenient about Horrig. It was the -general opinion that, tired as we were, this blasphemer against the -religious principles of our fathers ought to be burned at the stake, -and have his ashes scattered to the winds. But I was merciful. I had -eaten an extremely light breakfast. So I merely had him broken on the -wheel and decapitated, and we got through our morning’s work, after -all, in good time for dinner: and I gave him a very nice tomb indeed, -with his name on it in capital letters. Dear me!” observed Holy Hoprig, -with a marked increase of his benevolent smile, “but how drolly things -fall out! If the name had not been in capital letters, now, I would -probably never have been wearing this halo which surprised me so this -morning when I went to brush my hair—” - -“But what has happened?” said the Queen. - -“Why, madame,” replied the saint, “I take it that, with the passage -of years, the tail of the first R in the poor dear fellow’s name was -somewhat worn away. So when such miracles began to occur at his tomb -as customarily emanate from the tombs of martyrs to any faith which -later is taken up by really nice people, here were tangible and exact -proofs, to the letter, of the holiness of Hoprig. In consequence, this -Christian church has naturally canonized me.” - -“That was quite civil of them of course, if this is considered the -best-thought-of church. But, still,” the Queen said, doubtfully, “the -miracles must have meant that Horrig was right, and you were wrong.” - -“Certainly, madame, it would seem so, as a matter of purely academic -interest. For now that his church is so well-thought-of everywhere -and has canonized me, I must turn Christian, if only to show my -appreciation of the compliment. So there is no possible harm done.” - -“But in that case, it was Horrig that ought to have been made a saint -of.” - -“Now I, madame, for one, cherish humility too much to dare assert any -such thing. For the ways of Providence are proverbially inscrutable: -and it well may be that the abrasion of the tail of that R was also, -in its quiet way, a direct intervention of Heaven to reward my -mercifulness in according Horrig a comparatively pleasant martyrdom.” - -“Yes, but it was he, after all, who had to put up with that martyrdom, -on a dreadfully depressing rainy morning, too, I remember, whereas you -get sainthood out of the affair without putting up with anything.” - -“Do I not have to put up with this halo? How can I now hope to go -anywhere after dark without being observed? Ah, no, madame, I greatly -fear this canonization will cost me a host of friends by adorning -my visits with such conspicuous publicity. Nevertheless, I do not -complain. Instead, I philosophically recognize that well-bred women -must avoid all ostentation, and that the ways of Providence are -inscrutable.” - -“That is quite true,” observed King Helmas, at this point, “and I think -that nothing is to be gained by you two discussing these ways any more. -The poets and the philosophers in every place have for a long while -now had a heaviness in their minds about Providence, and the friendly -advice they have been giving is not yet all acted upon. So let us leave -Providence to look out for itself, the way we would if Providence -had wisdom teeth. And let us turn to other matters, and to hearing -what reward is asked by the champion who has rescued us from our long -sleeping.” - -“I too,” replied Florian, “if I may make so bold as to borrow the -phrase used by your Majesty just now—that phrase by which I was -immeasurably impressed, that phrase which still remains to me a -vocalisation of supreme wisdom in terms so apt and striking—” - -“Wisdom,” said the King, “was miraculously bestowed upon me a great -while ago as a free gift, which I had done nothing to earn and deserve -no credit for not having been able to avoid. And my way of talking, and -using similes and syntax,—along with phraseology and monostiches and -aposiopesis and such-like things,—is another gift, also, which I employ -without really noticing the astonishment and admiration of my hearers. -So do you not talk so much, but come to the point.” - -“I too, then, in your Majesty’s transcendent phrase, shall do what was -expected of me yesterday. I ask the hand of the King’s daughter in -marriage.” - -“That is customary,” wise Helmas said, with approval, “and you show a -very fine sense of courtesy in adhering to our perhaps old-fashioned -ways. Let the lord of Puysange be taken to his betrothed.” - - - - -_8._ - -_At the Top of the World_ - - -“You will find her,” they had said, “yonder,”—and, pointing westerly, -had left him. So Florian went unaccompanied through the long pergola -overgrown with grape-vines, toward the lone figure at the end of this -tunnel of rustling greenness and sweet odors. A woman waited there, in -an eight-sided summer-house, builded of widely-spaced lattice-work that -was hidden by vines. Through these vines you could see on every side -the fluttering bright gardens of Brunbelois, but no living creature. -This woman and Florian were alone in what was not unlike a lovely cage -of vines. Florian seemed troubled. It was apparent that he knew this -woman. - -“I am flesh and blood,” the woman said,—“as you may remember.” - -“Indeed, I have been singularly fortunate—But upon reflection, I -retract the adverb. I have been marvelously fortunate; and I have no -desire to forget it.” - -“She also, the girl yonder, is flesh and blood. You will be knowing -that before long.” - -Florian looked at this woman for some while. “Perhaps that is true. -I think it is not true. I have faith in the love which has endured -since I was but a child. If that fails me, I must die. And I shall die -willingly.” - -He bowed low to this woman, and he passed on, through the summer-house, -and out into the open air. He came thus to a wall, only breast high, -and opened the gate which was there, and so went on in full sunlight, -ascending a steepish incline that was overgrown with coarse grass and -with much white clover. Thus Florian came to the unforgotten princess -and to the beauty which he had in childhood, however briefly, seen. -There was in this bright and windy place, which smelled so pleasantly -of warm grass, nothing except a low marble bench without back or -carving. No trees nor any bushes grew here: nothing veiled this place -from the sun. Upon this sunlit mountain-top was only the bench, and -upon the bench sat Melior, waiting. - -She waited—there was the miracle,—for Florian de Puysange. - -Behind and somewhat below Florian were the turrets and banners of -Brunbelois, a place now disenchanted, but a fair place wherein the -old time yet lingered. Before him the bare hillside sank sheer and -unbroken, to the far-off tree-tops of Acaire: and beyond leagues of -foliage you could even see, not a great number of miles away, but quite -two miles below you, the open country of Poictesme, which you saw not -as anything real and tangible but as a hazed blending of purples and -of all the shades that green may have in heaven. Florian seemed to -stand at the top of the world: and with him, high as his heart, stood -Melior.... - -And it was a queer thing that he, who always noticed people’s clothes, -and who tended to be very critical about apparel, could never -afterward, in thinking about this extraordinary morning, recollect one -color which Melior wore. He remembered only a sense of many interwoven -brilliancies, as if the brightness of the summer sea and of the clouds -of sunset and of all the stars were blended here to veil this woman’s -body. She went appareled with the splendor of a queen of the old days, -she who was the most beautiful of women that have lived in any day. -For, if so far as went her body, one could think dazedly of analogues, -nowhere was there anything so bright and lovely as was this woman’s -countenance. And it was to the end that he might see the face of Melior -raised now to him, he knew, that Florian was born. All living had been -the prologue to this instant: God had made the world in order that -Florian might stand here, with Melior, at the top of the world. - -And it seemed to Florian that his indiscretions in the way of removing -people from this dear world, and of excursions into strange beds, and -of failures to attend mass regularly, had become alienate to the man -who waited before Melior. All that was over and done with: he had -climbed past all that in his ascent to this bright and windy place. -Here, in this inconceivably high place, was the loveliness seen once -and never forgotten utterly, the loveliness which had made seem very -cheap and futile the things that other men wanted. Now this loveliness -was, for the asking, his: and Florian found his composure almost -shaken, he suspected that the bearing suitable to a Duke of Puysange -was touched with unbecoming ardors. He feared that logic could not -climb so high as he had climbed. - -Besides, it might be, he had climbed too near to heaven. For nothing -veiled this unimaginably high place: God, seeing him thus plainly, -would be envious. That was the thought which Florian put hastily out of -mind.... - -He parted his lips once or twice. This was, he joyously reflected, -quite ridiculous. A woman waited: and Florian de Puysange could not -speak. Then words came, with a sort of sobbing. - -“My princess, there was a child who viewed you once in your long -sleeping. The child’s heart moved with desires which did not know their -aim. It is not that child who comes to you.” - -“No, but a very gallant champion,” she replied, “to whom we all owe our -lives.” - -He had raised a deprecating hand. It was trembling. And her face seemed -only a blurred shining, for in his eyes were tears. It must be, Florian -reflected, because of the wind: but he did not believe this, nor need -we. - -“Princess, will you entrust to me, such as I am, the life I have -repurchased for you? I dare make no large promises, in the teeth of a -disastrously tenacious memory. Yet, there is no part in me but worships -you, I have no desire in life save toward you. There has never been in -all my life any real desire save that which strove toward you.” - -“Oh, but, Messire Florian,” the girl replied, “of course I will be your -wife if you desire it.” - -He raised now both his hands a little toward her. She had not drawn -back. He did not know whether this was joy or terror which possessed -him: but it possessed him utterly. His heart was shaking in him, with -an insane and ruthless pounding. He thought his head kept time to this -pounding, and was joggling like the head of a palsied old man. He knew -his finger-tips to be visited by tiny and inexplicable vibrations. - -“If I could die now—!” was in his mind. “Now, at this instant! And what -a thought for me to be having now!” - -Instead, he now touched his disenchanted princess. Yet their two bodies -seemed not to touch, and not to have moved as flesh that is pulled by -muscles. They seemed to have merged, effortlessly and without volition, -into one body. - -In fine, he kissed her. So was the affair concluded. - - - - -_9._ - -_Misgivings of a Beginning Saint_ - - -What Florian remembered, afterward, about Brunbelois seemed rather -inconsequential. It was, to begin with, a high place, a remarkably high -place. In the heart of the Forest of Acaire, arose a mountain with -three peaks, of which the middle and lowest was cleared ground. Here -stood the castle of Brunbelois, beside a lake, a lake that was fed by -springs from the bottom, and had no tributaries and no outlet. Forests -thus rose about you everywhere except in the west, where you looked -down and yet further down, over the descending tree-tops of Acaire, and -could see beyond these the open country of Poictesme. - -Now in this exalted and cleared space wherein stood Brunbelois, there -was nothing between you and the sky. You were continually noting such a -hackneyed matter as the sky. You saw it no longer as dome-shaped, but -as, quite obviously now, an interminable reach of space. You saw the -huge clouds passing in this hollowness, each inconceivably detached and -separate as one cloud would pass tranquilly above and behind the other, -sometimes at right angles, sometimes travelling in just the opposite -direction. It troubled you to have nothing between you and a space -that afforded room for all those currents of air to move about in, so -freely, so utterly without any obstruction. It made a Puysange seem -small. And at night the stars also no longer appeared tidily affixed to -the sky, as they appeared to be when viewed from Bellegarde or Paris: -the stars seemed larger here, more meltingly luminous, and they glowed -each in visible isolation, with all that space behind them. It had not -ever before occurred to Florian that the sky could be terrible: and he -began somewhat to understand the notions of the gray-haired porter who -had watched this sky from Brunbelois, night after night, alone. - -And Florian remembered Brunbelois as being a silvery and rustling -place. A continuous wind seemed to come up from the west. The forests -rising about you everywhere except in the west were never still, you -saw all day the gray under side of the leaves twinkling restlessly, and -you heard always their varying but incessant murmur. And small clouds -too were always passing, borne by this incessant wind, very close to -you, drifting through the porches of the castle, trailing pallidly -over the grass, and veiling your feet sometimes, so that you stood -knee-deep in a cloud: and the sunlight was silvery rather than golden. -And under this gentle but perpetual wind the broad lake glittered -ceaselessly with silver sparklings. - -Moreover, the grass here was thick with large white blossoms, which -grew singly upon short stalks without any leaves, and these white -flowers nodded in an unending conference. They loaned the very -ground here an unstable silveriness, for these flowers were not ever -motionless. Sometimes they seemed to nod in sleepy mutual assent, -sometimes the wind, in strengthening, would provoke them to the -appearance of expressing diminutively vigorous indignation. And -humming-birds were continually flashing about: these were too small -for you to perceive their coloring, they went merely as gleams. And -white butterflies fluttered everywhither as if in an abstracted light -reconnoitering for what they could not find. And you were always seeing -large birds high in the air, drifting and wheeling, as it seemed, in an -endless searching for what they never found. - - -[Illustration: -Caption surrounded by a garland: He did not move, but lay quite still, - staring upward. - _See page 136_ - The image.] - - -So Florian remembered, afterward, in the main, the highness and the -silveriness and the instability of the place that he now went about -exultingly with nothing left to wish for. He hardly remembered, -afterward, what he and Melior did or talked of, during the days wherein -Brunbelois prepared for their wedding: time and events, and people too, -seemed to pass like bright shining vapors; all living swam in a haze of -happiness. Florian now thought little of logic, he thought nothing of -precedent; he thrust aside the implications of his depressing discovery -as to his patron saint: he stayed in everything light-headedly -bewildered through hourly contemplation of that unflawed loveliness -which he had for a quarter of a century desired. He was contented now; -he went unutterably contented by that beauty which he in childhood -had, however briefly, seen, and which nothing had since then availed -ever quite to put out of his mind. He could not, really, think about -anything else. He cared about nothing else. - -Still, even now, he kept some habit of circumspection: no man should -look to be utterly naīf about his fifth wife. So when St. Hoprig -contrived to talk in private with Melior, down by the lake’s border, -Florian, for profoundly logical reasons, had followed Hoprig. Florian, -for the same reasons, stood behind the hedge and listened. - -“It is right that you should marry the champion who rescued us all,” -said the voice of Hoprig, “for rules ought to be respected. But I -am still of the opinion that nobody could have disposed of so many -monsters without being an adept at sorcery.” - -“Why, then, it seems to me that we ought to be very grateful for the -sorcery by which we profit,” said the sweet voice of Melior. “For, as I -so often think—” - -“As goes the past, perhaps. The future is another matter. It is most -widely another matter, for us two in particular.” - -“You mean that as his wife I must counsel my husband to avoid all evil -courses—” - -“Yes, of course, I mean that. Your duty is plain enough, since a wife’s -functions are terrestrial. But I, madame! I am, it appears, this young -man’s patron saint, and upon his behavior depends my heavenly credit. -You will readily conceive I thus have especial reason to worry over -the possibility that Messire de Puysange may be addicted to diabolic -practises.” - -“Is it certain, my poor Hoprig, that you are actually a Christian -saint? For, really, when one comes to think—!” - -“There seems no doubt of it. I have tried a few miracles in private, -and they come off as easily as old sandals. It appears that, now I am a -saint, I enjoy, by approved precedents, all thaumaturgic powers, with -especial proficiency in blasting, cursing and smiting my opponents with -terrible afflictions; and have moreover the gift of tongues, of vision -and of prophecy, and the power of expelling demons, of healing the -sick, and of raising the dead. The situation is extraordinary, and I -know not what to do with so many talents. Nor can anybody tell me here. -In consequence, I must go down into this modern world of which Messire -de Puysange brings such remarkable reports, and there I can instruct -myself as to the requirements of my new dignity.” - -“So you will leave Brunbelois with us, I suppose, and then we shall -all—” - -“I do not say that: I do not promise you my company. Probably I shall -establish a hermitage somewhere, once I have seen something of this -later world, and shall live in that hermitage as becomes a Christian -saint. Here, you conceive, everyone knows me too well. Quite apart from -the conduct of my private affairs,—in which I could not anticipate -that sanctity might be looked for,—people would be remembering how I -preached against these Christian doctrines, exposed them by every rule -of logic, and exterminated their upholders. There would be a depressing -atmosphere of merriment. But down yonder, I daresay, I might manage -tolerably well.” - -“I hope you will let depraved women alone,” said the voice of Melior, -“because, as you ought with proper shame to remember—” - -“My princess, let us not over-rashly sneer at depraved women. They -very often have good hearts, they have attested their philanthropy in -repeated instances, and I have noticed that the deeper our research -into their private affairs, the more amiable we are apt to find their -conduct. In any case, as touches myself, a saint is above all carnal -stains and, I believe, diseases also. But it was about other matters -I wished to speak with you. I am, I repeat, suspicious of this future -husband of yours. Sorcerers have an ill way with their wives, and -deplorable habits with their children; and your condition, in view of -your fine health and youth, may soon be delicate. I shall ask for a -revelation upon these points. Whatever impends, though, I shall be at -hand to watch over you both.” - -“So you will establish your hermitage at Bellegarde? For in that event—” - -“Again, madame, you go too fast. I do not know about that either. In -the environs of Bellegarde, they tell me, is a church devoted to my -worship, and Messire de Puysange considers—inexplicably, I think,—that -it might unsettle the faith of my postulants to have me appear among -them. It seems more to the point that this Bellegarde is a retired -place in the provinces, with no gaming parlors, and, Messire de -Puysange assures me, but one respectable brothel—” - -“Then Bellegarde would not suit you—” “No, of course not: for I would -find ampler opportunities to put down the wicked, and to implant good -seed, in large cities, which are proverbially the haunts of vice. In -any case, do you take this ring. It was presented to me as a token of -not unearned esteem and admiration, by a lady who had hitherto found -men contemptible: and at my request—tendered somewhat hastily, but -to the proper authorities,—this ring has been endowed with salutary -virtues. The one trait of the holy ring which concerns us just now -is its recently acquired habit of giving due warning whenever danger -threatens its wearer. Dear me, now, how complete would have been my -relaxation if only in my pagan days I had possessed such a talisman -to put on whenever I undressed for bed! In any case, should the ring -change, then do you invoke me.” - -“And you will come with your miracles and your blightings and your -blastings! My poor Hoprig, I think you do Messire de Puysange a great -wrong, but I will keep the ring, for all that. Because, while you may -be utterly mistaken, and no doubt hope you are as much as I do, still, -the ring is very handsome: and, besides, as I so often think—” - -“Do not be telling me your thoughts just now,” replied the voice of the -saint, “for I can hear the bugle calling us to supper. There is another -precaution I would recommend, a precaution that I will explain to you -this evening, after we have eaten and drunk,” said Hoprig, as they went -away together. - -Florian, after waiting a discreet while, came from behind the hedge. -Florian looked rather thoughtful as he too walked toward the castle. - -Sunset was approaching. The entire heavens, not merely the west, had -taken on a rose-colored glare. Unbelievably white clouds were passing -very rapidly, overhead but not far-off, like scurrying trails of swans’ -down and blown powder puffs. The air was remarkably cool, with rain -in it. The diffused radiancy of this surprising sunset loaned the -gravelled walkway before him a pink hue: the lawns about him, where the -grass was everywhere intermingled with white blossoms, had, in this -roseate glowing which flooded all, assumed a coldly livid tinge. To -Florian’s left hand, piled clouds were peering over the mountain like -monstrous judges, in tall powdered wigs, appraising the case against -someone in Florian’s neighborhood. - -He shrugged, but his look of thoughtfulness remained. It was distinctly -upsetting to have one’s patron saint, in place of contriving absolution -for the past,—a function which that recreant Hoprig had never, after -all, attended to,—now absolutely planning mischief for the future. - - - - -_10._ - -_Who Feasted at Brunbelois_ - - -Florian had been married so often that he had some claim to be -considered a connoisseur of weddings: and never, he protested, had -assembled to see him married a more delightful company than the -revellers who came from every part of Acaire now that the magic was -lifted from these woods. - -Acaire was old, it had been a forest since there was a forest anywhere: -and all its denizens came now to do honor to the champion who had -released them from their long sleeping. The elves came, in their blue -low-crowned hats; the gnomes, in red woolen clothes; and the kobolds, -in brown coats that were covered with chips and sawdust. The dryads and -other tree spirits of course went verdantly appareled: and after these -came fauns with pointed furry ears, and the nixies with green teeth and -very beautiful flaxen hair, and the duergar, whose loosely swinging -arms touched the ground when they walked, and the queer little rakhna, -who were white and semi-transparent like jelly, and the Bush Gods that -were in Acaire the oldest of living creatures and had quite outlived -their divinity. From all times and all mythologies they came, and they -made a tremendous to-do over Florian and the might which had rescued -them from their centuries of sleeping under Mélusine’s enchantment. - -He bore his honors very modestly. But Florian delighted to talk with -these guests, who came of such famous old families: and they told him -strange tales of yesterday and of the days before yesterday, and it -seemed to him that many of these stories were not quite logical. Few -probabilities thrived at Brunbelois. Meanwhile the Elm Dwarfs danced -for him, pouring libations from the dew pools; the Strömkarl left its -waterfall in the forest, to play very sweetly for Florian upon the -golden harp whose earlier music had been more dangerous to hear; and -the Korrid brought him tribute in the form of a purse containing hair -and a pair of scissors. And it was all profoundly delightful. - -“I approve of the high place,” said Florian, upon the morning of his -marriage: “for here I seem to go about a more heroic and more splendid -world than I had hoped ever to inhabit.” - -“Then, why,” asked Helmas, “do you not remain at Brunbelois, instead -of carrying off my daughter to live in that low sort of place down -yonder? Why do you two not stay at Brunbelois, and be the King and -Queen here after I am gone?” - -Florian looked down from the porch where they were waiting the while -that Queen Pressina finished dressing. From this porch Florian could -see a part of the modern world, very far beneath them. He saw the -forests lying like dark flung-by scarves upon the paler green of -cleared fields; he saw the rivers as narrow shinings. In one place, -very far beneath them, a thunderstorm was passing like—of all things, -on this blissful day,—a drifting bride’s-veil. Florian saw it twinkle -with a yellow glow, then it was again a floating small white veil. And -everywhere the lands beneath him bathed in graduations of vaporous -indistinction. Poictesme seemed woven of blue smokes and of green -mists. It afforded no sharp outline anywhere as his gazing passed -outward toward the horizon. And there all melted bafflingly into a -pearl-colored sky: the eye might not judge where, earth ending, heaven -began in that bright and placid radiancy. - -It was droll to see this familiar, everyday, quite commonplace -Poictesme in that guise, to see it as so lovely, when one knew what -sort of men and women were strutting and floundering through what sort -of living down there. It would be pleasant to remain here at high -Brunbelois, and to be a king of the exalted old time that lingered here -and nowhere else in all the world. But Florian remembered his bargain -with brown Janicot, and he knew that in this high place it could -not be performed: and it was as if with the brightness of Florian’s -day-dreaming already mingled the shining of the sword with which -Florian was to carry out his part of the bargain. Flamberge awaited him -somewhere in those prosaic lowlands of 1723, down yonder. - -Therefore, as became a man of honor, Florian said, resolutely: “No, -your majesty, my kingdom may not be of this world. For my duty lies -yonder in that other world, wherein I at least shall yet have many -months of happiness before that happens which must happen.” - -“So you are counting upon many months of happiness,” the King observed. -“Your frame of mind, my son-in-law, is so thoroughly what it should be -that to me it is rather touching.” - -“A pest! and may one ask just what, exactly, moves your majesty toward -sadness?” - -“The reflection that there is no girl anywhere but has in her much of -her mother,” the King answered, darkly. “But my dear wife is already -dressed, I perceive, and is waiting for us, after having detained us -hardly two hours. So let us be getting to the temple.” - -“Very willingly!” said Florian. He wondered a little at the blindness -of fathers, but he was unutterably content. And straightway he and -Melior were married, in the queer underground temple of the Peohtes, -according to the marriage rites of Llaw Gyffes. - -Melior wore that day upon her lovely head a wreath of thistles, and -about her middle a remarkable garment of burnished steel fastened with -a small padlock: in her hand she carried a distaff, flax and a spindle. -And the marriage ceremony of the Peohtes, while new to Florian, proved -delightfully simple. - -First Melior and Florian were given an egg and a quince pear: he handed -her the fruit, which she ate, and the seeds of which she spat out; he -took from her the egg and broke it. Holy Hoprig, who had tendered his -resignation as the high-priest of Llaw Gyffes, but whose successor had -not yet been appointed, then asked the bridegroom a whispered question. - -Florian was astonished, and showed it. But he answered, without -comment, “Well, let us say, nine times.” - -Hoprig divided a cake into nine slices, and placed these upon the -altar. Afterward Hoprig cut the throat of a white hen, and put a little -of its blood upon the feet of Melior and Florian. The trumpets sounded -then, as King Helmas came forward, and gave Florian a small key. - - - - -PART TWO - -_THE END OF LIGHT WINNING_ - - “_En femme, comme en tout, je veux suivre ma mode.... - Et j’ay beny le Ciel d’avoir trouvé mon faict, - Pour me faire une femme au gré de mon souhait_.” - - - - -_11._ - -_Problems of Beauty_ - - -It was conceded even by the younger and most charming ladies of the -neighborhood that the new Duchess of Puysange was quite good looking. -The gentlemen of Poictesme appeared, literally, to be dazzled by any -prolonged consideration of Melior’s loveliness: otherwise, as Florian -soon noted, there was no logical accounting for the discrepancy in -their encomia. Enraptured pæeans upon her eyes, for example, he found -to differ amazingly and utterly in regard to such an important factor -as the color of these eyes. This was, at mildest, a circumstance -provocative of curiosity. - -Florian therefore listened more attentively to what people said of -his wife; and he discovered that his fellows’ ecstasies over Melior’s -hair and shape and complexion were not a whit less inconsistent. These -envious babblers were at one in acclaiming as flawless the beauty which -he had intrepidly fetched down from the high place: but in speaking -of any constituent of this loveliness they seemed not to be talking of -the same woman. Either her perfection actually did dazzle men so that -they were bewilderedly aware of much such a beguiling and intoxicating -brightness as Florian, on looking back, suspected Melior to have been -in his own eyes before he married her, or else the appearance of this -daughter of the Léshy was not to all persons the same. Well, this was -queer: but it was not important. Florian at least was in no doubt of -his wife’s appearance nor of his right to glory in it. - -So Florian tended to let this riddle pass unchallenged, and to quarrel -with nothing, for Florian was very happy. - -He could not have said when or why awoke the teasing question if, -after all, this happiness was greater than or different from that -which he had got of Aurélie or Hortense or Marianne or Carola? Being -married to a comparative stranger was, as always, pleasant; it was, -in fact, delightful: but you had expected, none the less, of the -love which had miraculously triumphed over time and all natural laws -some sharper tang of bliss than ordinarily flavored your honeymoons. -Still, at thirty-five, you were logical about the usual turning-out -of expectations. And you were content: and Melior was beautiful; and -among the local nobility this new Duchess of Puysange had made friends -everywhere, and she was everywhere admired, however puzzlingly men -seemed to word their praise of her loveliness. - -The newly married pair had journeyed uneventfully from Brunbelois to -Florian’s home. The mute hairy persons brought Melior’s trunks in their -cart; and St. Hoprig too came with them through Acaire, but no further. -Florian had at last persuaded him of how untactful it would be for -Hoprig to disrupt a simple and high-hearted faith that had thrived for -so many hundred years, by appearing at Bellegarde in person. Florian -had pointed out the attendant awkwardnesses, for the fetich no less -than for the devotees. And Hoprig, upon reflection, had conceded that -for a saint in the prime of life there were advantages in travelling -incognito. - -So the holy man left them at the edge of the forest. “We shall meet -again, my children,” the saint had said, with a smile, just as he -vanished like a breaking bubble. It seemed to Florian that his heavenly -patron had become a little ostentatious with miracles, but Florian -voiced no criticism. Still, he considered the evanishment of the two -hairy persons and their monstrous goats, an evanishment quite privately -conducted in the stable to which they had withdrawn after uncarting -Melior’s trunks, to be in much better taste. - -But Florian picked no open fault with Hoprig nor with anyone, for -Florian was content enough just now. He began to see that his notions -about Melior had been a trifle extravagant, that the strange loveliness -which he had been adoring since boyhood was worn by a creature whose -brilliance was of the body rather than of the intellect: however, he -had not married her in order to discuss philosophy; and, with practise, -it was easy enough to pretend to listen without really hearing her. - -All this was less worrying, less imminent, than the trouble he seemed -in every likelihood about to have with his brother, on account of -Raoul’s damnable wife. For Madame Marguerite de Puysange, as Florian -now heard, was infuriated by his failure to appear at Storisende upon -the twentieth of July, the day upon which he had been due to marry -her sister: nor by learning that he had married somebody else was the -unconscionable virago soothed. She considered a monstrous affront -had been put upon them all, a deduction which Florian granted to be -truly drawn, if that mattered. What certainly mattered was that the -lean woman had no living adult male relatives. She would be at her -husband to avenge this affront by killing Florian: and dear, plastic, -good-natured Raoul so hated to deny anybody anything that the result -of her coaxing and tears and nagging would probably be a decided -nuisance.... - -“That ring with the three diamonds in it,” Florian had said, “is -deplorably old-fashioned—” - -“Yes, I suppose it is, sweetheart: but it was given me by a dear -friend, and you know the sort of things they pick out, and, besides, I -like to have it keeping me in mind of how ridiculously the best-meaning -people may be sometimes,” his Melior had answered,—very happily, and -nuzzling a very wonderfully soft cheek against his cheek. - -So he had let the matter stand.... - -It was a nuisance, too, this news which Florian had received as to the -great Cardinal Dubois, whom Florian had promised—as he regretted now to -remember, in carelessly loose terms,—to offer as a Christmas present -to Janicot. It appeared that during Florian’s stay at Brunbelois the -over-gallant cardinal had been compelled to submit to an operation -which deprived him of two cherished possessions and shortly afterward -of his life. His death was a real grief to Florian, not as in itself -any loss, but because, with Dubois interred at St. Roch, the greatest -man living in France when Christmas came would be the Duc d’Orléans. - -Florian had long been fond of Philippe d’Orléans, and Florian loathed -the thought of making a present of his friend’s life to a comparatively -slight and ambiguous acquaintance like Janicot. There seemed no way -out of it, however, for Florian had in this matter given his word. -But he regretted deeply that he had thus recklessly promised the -greatest man in the kingdom instead of specifically confining himself -to that selfish Dubois, who could without real self-denial have lived -until December, and who could so easily have furthered everybody’s -well-being by restricting his amours to ladies of such known piety and -wholesomeness and social position as made them appropriate playfellows -for a high prince of the Church. - -But all this was spilt milk. What it came to in the upshot was that -Florian, through his infatuation for Melior, was already in a fair way -to lose his most intimate and powerful friend and his only legitimate -brother. It was a nuisance, for Florian disliked annoying either one of -them, and thus to be burdened with the need of bereaving yourself of -both appeared a positive imposition. But we cannot have all things as -we desire them in this world, his common-sense assured him: and, in the -main, as has been said, the incidental disappointments, now that he had -attained his life’s desire, were tepid and not really very deep. - -For Melior was beautiful; after months of intimacy and fond research -he could find no flaw in her beauty: and in other respects she proved -to be as acceptable a wife as any of his own marrying that he had -ever had. If she was not always reasonable, if sometimes indeed she -seemed obtuse, and if she nagged a little now and then, it was, after -all, what past experience had led him to expect alike in marriage and -in liaisons. The rapture which he had known at first sight of her, the -rapture of the mountain-top, was not, he assured himself, a delusion of -which he had ever expected permanence.... - -“But this remarkably carved staff, my darling—?” - -“Oh, it was one of my sister Mélusine’s old things. I would not be in -the least surprised if it were magical—And while we are speaking about -sisters, Florian, I do wish that black-faced one of yours would not -look at me so hard and then shrug, because she has done it twice, in -quite a personal way—” - -“Marie-Claire is a strange woman, my pet.” - -But that fretted him. He knew so well why Marie-Claire had shrugged.... - -No, he had never, really, expected the rapture of the mountain-top to -be permanent. Besides, he need not expect permanency of Melior. It was -sad, of course, that when she had borne him a child, the child must be -disposed of, and the mother must vanish, in accordance with Florian’s -agreement with Janicot. But there was always some such condition -attached to marriage between a mortal and any of the Léshy, or some -abstention set like a trap whereinto the unwary mortal was sure to -flounder, and so lose the more than mortal helpmate. The union must -always, in one way or another, prove transitory, as was shown by the -sad history of the matrimonial ventures of Melior’s own sister, and of -the knight Helias, and by many other honorable old precedents. - -And Florian now began to see that if the Melior whom he had adored -since boyhood were thus lost to him in the fulltide of their love -and happiness,—for these were still at fulltide, he here assured -himself,—then he would retain only pleasant and heart-breaking and -highly desirable memories. A great love such as his for his present -wife ought, by all the dictates of good taste, to end tragically: to -have it dwindle out into the mutual toleration of what people called -a happy marriage would be anti-climax, it would be as if one were to -botch a sublime and mellifluous sonnet with a sestet in prose. - -Melior, so long as she stayed unattainable, had provided him with -an ideal: and Melior, once lost to him, once he could never hear -another word of that continuous half-witted jabbering,—or, rather, he -emended, of this bright light creature’s very diverting chat,—then -his high misery would afford him even surer ground for a superior -dissatisfaction with the simple catering of nature. So the company -of his disenchanted princess, her company just for the present, could -be endured with a composure not wholly saddened by that dreadful and -permanent bereavement which impended. - -He reasoned thus, and was in everything considerate and loving. His -devotion was so ardent and unremittent, indeed, that, when Florian -left Bellegarde, Melior was forehandedly stitching and trimming -baby-clothes. This was at the opening of December, and he was going to -court in answer to a summons from the great Duke of Orléans. - -“It is rather odd,” observed Florian, “that it is at Philippe’s -expressed desire I go to him. Eh, but one knows that shrewd old saying -as to the gods’ preliminary treatment of those whom they wish to -destroy.” - -“Still, if you ask me,” observed his wife,—not looking at him, but at -her sewing,—“I think it is much better not to talk about the gods any -more than is necessary, and certainly not in that exact tone of voice—” -The break in speech was for the purpose of biting a thread. - -You saw, as she bent over this thread, the top of her frilly little -lace cap efflorescent with tiny pink ribbons. You saw, as she looked -up, that Melior was especially lovely to-day in this flowing pink robe -à la Watteau over a white petticoat and a corsage of white ribbons -arranged in a sort of ladder-work. There was now about her nothing -whatever of the mediæval or the outré: from the boudoir cap upon her -head to the pink satin mules upon her feet, this Melior belonged to the -modern world of 1723: and the whiteness and the pinkness of her made -you think of desserts and confectionery. - -“But what exact tone of voice,” asked Florian, smiling with lenient -pride in his really very pretty duchess, “does my darling find -injudicious?” - -“Why, I mean, as if you were looking at something a great way off, and -smelled something you were not quite certain you liked. To be sure, -now that we are both good Christians, we know that the other gods -are either devils or else illusions that never existed at all—Father -Joseph has the nicest possible manners, and just the smile and the way -of talking that very often reminds me of Hoprig, and qualifies him to -teach any religion in the world, even without stroking both your hands -all the time, but in spite of that, as I told him only last Saturday, -he will not ever speak out quite plainly about them—” - -“About your lovely hands, madame?” - -“Now, monsieur my husband, what foolish questions you ask! I mean, -about whether they are devils or illusions. Because, as I told him -frankly—” - -“Ah, now I comprehend. Yet, surely, these abstruse questions of -theology—” - -She was looking at him in astonishment. “Why, but not in the least! -I am not interested in theology, I merely say that a thing is either -one way or the other: and, as I so often think, nothing whatever is to -be gained by beating about the bush instead of being our own candid -natural selves, and confessing to our ignorance, even if we happen to -be priests, where ignorance is no disgrace—” - -“Doubtless, my dearest, you intend to convey to me—” - -“Oh, no, not for one instant!” And this bewitching seamstress was -virtually giggling, quite as if there were some logical cause for -amusement. “Anybody who called that dear old soft-soaper stupid would -be much more mistaken, monsieur my husband, than you suspect. I merely -mean that is one side of the question, a side which is perfectly -plain. The other is that, as I have told him over and over again, it -is not as if I had ever for a moment denied that Father and Mother are -conservative, but quite the contrary—” - -Florian said: “Dearest of my life, I conjecture you are still referring -to your confessor, the good Father Joseph. Otherwise, I must admit -that, somehow, I have not followed the theme of your argument with an -exactness which might, perhaps, have enabled me to form some faint -notion as to what you are talking about.” - -And again the loveliest face in the world was marveling beneath that -very pleasing disorder of little pink ribbons. “Why, I was talking -about Father Joseph, of course, and about my wanting to know how -my parents at their time of life could be expected to take up with -new ideas. Oh, and I kept at him, too: because, even if they are -worshipping devils up at Brunbelois, and doing something actually -wicked when they sacrifice to Llaw Gyffes a few serfs that are past -their work and are of no use to anybody, and no real pleasure to -themselves,—which is a side you have to look at,—it would be a sort -of comfort to be certain of the worst. Whereas, as for them, the poor -dears, as I so often say, what you do not know about does not worry -you—” - -“I take it, that you mean—” - -“Exactly!” Melior stated, with the most sagacious of nods. “Though, -for my part, I feel it is only justice to say that such devils as my -sister Mélusine used to have in now and again, in the way of sorcery, -were quite civil and obliging. So far as looks go, it is best to -remember in such cases that handsome is as handsome does, and I am sure -they did things for her that the servants would never have so much as -considered—” - -“But, still—” - -“Oh, yes, of course, we all know what a problem that is, at every turn, -with your kindness and your consideration absolutely wasted: and in -fact, as I so often think, if I could just have two rooms somewhere, -and do my own cooking—” Another thread was bitten through by the -loveliest teeth in the world. - -“You aspire to such simple pleasures, my wife, as are denied to a -Duchess of Puysange. No, one must be logical. We have the duties of our -estate. And among these duties, as I was just saying, I now discover -the deplorable need of absenting myself from the delights of your -society and conversation—” - -“I shall miss you, monsieur my husband,” replied Melior, abstractedly -holding up a very small undershirt, and looking at it as if with the -very weightiest of doubts, “of course. But still, it is not as if I -cared to be travelling now, and, besides, there really is a great deal -of sewing to be done for months to come. And with everything in this -upset condition, I do hope that—if by any chance you are sitting on -that other pair of scissors? I thought they must be there. Yes, I do -hope that you will be most careful in this affair, because I already -have enough to contend with. You ought to send the lace at once, -though: and I suppose we might as well have pink yarn and ribbons, -since the chances are equal in any event—” - -“But in what affair, delight of my existence, are you requesting me to -be careful?” - -“Why, how should I know?” And Melior, he perceived, had still the air -of one who is dealing patiently with an irrational person. “It is -probably a very good thing that I do not, since you are plainly up to -something with your friend Orléans which you want nobody to find out -about. All men are like that: and, for my part, I have no curiosity -whatever, because, as I so often think, if everybody would just attend -to their own affairs—” - -He bowed and, murmuring “Your pardon, madame!” he left her contentedly -sewing. It seemed to Florian a real pity that a creature in every way -so agreeable to his eye should steadily betray and tease his ear. -He did not find that, as wives average, his Melior was especially -loquacious: it was, rather, that when she discoursed at any length, -with her bewildering air of commingled self-satisfaction and -shrewdness, he could never make out quite clearly what she was talking -about: and as went intelligence, his disenchanted princess seemed to -him to rank somewhere between a magpie and a turnip. - -This, upon the whole, adorable idiocy might have made it appear, to -some persons, surprising that Melior should divine, as she had so -obviously divined, that Florian, in going to Philippe d’Orléans, was -prompted by motives which discretion preferred to screen. But Florian -had learned by experience that your wives very often astound you by -striking the target of your inmost thinking, fair and full, with just -such seemingly irrational shots of surmise. You might call it intuition -or whatever else you preferred: no husband of any at all lengthy -standing would be quick to call it accident. Rather, he would admit -this to be a faculty which every married woman manifested now and then: -and he would rejoice that, for the health of the world’s peace, such -clairvoyancy was intermittent. Florian esteemed it to be just one of -the inevitable drawbacks of matrimony that the most painstaking person -must sometimes encounter discomfortable moments when his wife appears -to be looking over his secret thoughts somewhat as one glances over -the pages of a not particularly interesting book. So the experienced -husband would shrug and would await this awkward moment’s passing, and -the return of his wife’s normal gullibility and charm. - -Melior, too, then, had her instants of approach to wifely, if not -precisely human, intelligence. And Melior was beautiful. There was -no flaw anywhere in her beauty. This Florian repeated, over and over -again, as he prepared for travel. Here, too, one must be logical. -That ideal beauty which he had hopelessly worshipped, and had without -hope hungered for, ever since his childhood, was now attained: and -the goddess of his long adoration was now enshrined in, to be exact, -the next room but one, already hemming diapers for their anticipated -baby. Nobody could possibly have won nearer to his heart’s desire than -Florian had come; he had got all and more than his highest dreaming had -aspired to: and so, if he was now sighing over the reflection, it must -be, he perceived, a sigh of content. - -Then he kissed his wife, and he rode away from Bellegarde, toward -the vexatious duties which awaited him at court. Florian stopped, of -course, to put up a prayer, for the success of his nearing venture into -homicide, at the Church of Holy Hoprig. That ceremonial Florian could -not well have omitted without provoking more or less speculation as to -why the Duke of Puysange should be defaulting in a pious custom of long -standing; nor, for that matter, without troubling his conscience with -doubts if he was affording the country-side quite the good example due -from one of his rank. - -Through just such mingled considerations of expediency and duty had -Florian, since his return from Brunbelois, continued his giving to -this church with all the old liberality, if with somewhat less comfort -to himself. It was a nuisance to reflect that so many irregularities -which Florian had believed compounded, to everybody’s satisfaction, -had never been attended to at all by his patron saint. It was annoying -to know that the church had got, and was continuing to get, from the -estate of Puysange so many pious offerings virtually for nothing. Even -so, replied logic, what was to be gained by arousing criticism or by -neglecting your religious duties in a manner that was noticeable? Let -us adhere to precedent, and then, if we can no longer count assuredly -on bliss in the next world, we may at least hope for tranquillity in -this one. - -So Florian, for the preservation of the local standards, now put up -a fervent prayer to his patron saint in heaven; and reflected that, -after all, the actual whereabouts, and the receptivity to petitions, -of Holy Hoprig was none of Florian’s affair. A little wonder, however, -about just where the saint might be doing what, was, Florian hoped, -permissible, since he had found such wondering not to be avoided. - - - - -_12._ - -_Niceties of Fratricide_ - - -Now that Florian came out of the provinces, he wished to take matters -in order. Not merely a snobbish pride of race led him to give his -family affairs precedence to those of the Bourbons. It was, rather, -that Florian yet had a day to wait before the coming of the winter -solstice. He was unwilling to waste these twenty-four hours, because -Florian looked with some uneasiness toward the inevitable encounter -with his wife-ridden brother, and Florian was desirous to get this -worry off his mind. For, a thing done, as Janicot had mentioned, has an -end.... - -Florian therefore made inquiries as to where Raoul was passing that -evening; and the two brothers thus met, as if by chance, at the home of -the Duc de Brancas. The circle of Monsieur de Brancas was not gallant -toward women, and his guests were gentlemen in middle age, the most of -whom came each with a boy of seventeen or thereabouts. - -Florian was grieved when, as he approached the group clustered about -the big fireplace, he saw with what ceremony Raoul bowed. Raoul had -fattened, he seemed taller, he was to-night superb in this crimson -coat, with huge turned-back cuffs,—that must be the very latest -mode,—and in this loose gold-laced white waistcoat, descending to the -knees, and unfastened at the bottom. Raoul had the grand air of their -father: a tall man was always so much more impressive. For the rest, it -was fully apparent that the dear fellow’s abominable wife had been at -her mischief-making. - -“Monsieur the Duke,” Raoul began, “this encounter is indeed fortunate.” - -“To encounter Monsieur the Chevalier,” replied Florian, with quite as -sweet a stateliness, but feeling rather like a bantam cock beside this -big Raoul, “is always a privilege.” - -People everywhere were listening now: this gambit hardly seemed -fraternal. The well-bred elderly friends of Monsieur de Brancas, to -be sure, made a considerate pretence at going on with their talk, but -most of the scented and painted boys had betrayed their lower social -degree by gaping openly: and Florian knew he was in for an unpleasant -business. - -“—For I am wondering if you have heard, monsieur,” the Chevalier went -on, “that the Comte d’Arnaye has spread the report that at Madame -de Nesle’s last ball I appeared with two buttons missing from my -waistcoat?” - -“I really cannot answer for the truth of such gossip, monsieur,”—thus -Florian, with high civility,—“since I have not seen my uncle for some -time.” - -“Ah, ah! so the Comte d’Arnaye is your uncle!” Raoul seemed gravely -pleased. “That is excellent, for, inasmuch as I cannot readily obtain -satisfaction for this calumny from your uncle, who has retired into the -provinces for the winter, I can apply to you.” - -Florian said, with careful patience: “I am delighted, monsieur, to -act as his representative. In that capacity I can assure you whoever -asserted Monsieur d’Arnaye declared the waistcoat in which you attended -the last ball of Madame de Nesle to be deficient in two buttons, or in -one button, or in a half-stitch of thread, has told a lie.” - -Raoul de Puysange frowned. “Diantre! it was my own cousin, the Count’s -youngest son, who was my informant; and since my cousin, monsieur, as -you are well aware, is little more than a child—” - -“You should have the less trouble, then,” said Florian, vexed by his -brother’s pertinacity, “in horsewhipping the brat for his silly -falsehood.” - -“Come, Monsieur the Duke, but I cannot have my cousin called a liar, -far less listen to this talk of horsewhipping one who is of my blood. I -must ask satisfaction for these affronts, and I will send a friend to -wait upon you.” - -Florian looked sadly at his brother. But the Duc de Puysange shrugged -before a meddlesome and quite unimportant person. - -Florian answered: “I am well content, Monsieur the Chevalier. Only, to -save time, I would suggest that your friend go direct to the Vicomte de -Lautrec, since he is here to-night, and since I have promised him that -he should second me in my next affair.” - -The two brothers bowed and parted decorously, having thus arranged a -public quarrel in which Mademoiselle de Nérac was in no way involved. -The instant’s tension was over, and the guests of Monsieur de Brancas -thronged hastily through the corridor,—which was rather chilly, because -all the outer side of this corridor was builded of stained glass,—and -went into the little private theatre, where the fiddles were already -tuning for the overture of a new and tuneful burletta that dealt with -The Fall of Sodom. The curtain by and by rose on the civic revels, and -the rest of the evening passed merrily. - -After the first act, while the scenery was being shifted so as to -represent Lot’s cave in the mountains, all details of the fraternal -duel were arranged by Messieurs de Lautrec and de Soyecourt. Tall lean -Monsieur de Soyecourt had, as a cousin, been prompt to insist upon -his right to act for Raoul in an encounter so sure to be discussed -everywhere. Shortly after midnight,—at which hour the other guests -of Monsieur de Brancas went into the Salon des Flagellants to amuse -themselves at a then very fashionable game which you played with little -whips,—the two brothers left the hôtel with their seconds. A surgeon -had been sent for, and he accompanied them and the five girls, whom -the Vicomte de Lautrec had caused to be fetched from La Fillon’s, to a -house near the Port Maillot, where all indulged in various pleasantries -until morning. - -The wine here proved so good, the girls were so amiable and -accomplished, that by daylight Florian had mellowed into an -all-embracing benevolence, and he proposed to compound the affair. The -suggestion roused an almost angry buzz of protest. - -Lautrec was demanding, of the company at large, would you have me, -who was married only last week, staying out all night, with no better -excuse than that I was drunk with these charming girls? Why, I was -committed to three rendezvous last night, and if there be no duel I -shall have trouble with a trio of ladies of the highest fashion. -Nor is it, put in the Marquis de Soyecourt,—whose speaking was -always somewhat indistinct, because of the loss of all his upper -front-teeth,—nor is it kind of you, my dear, to wish to deprive us of -taking part in a business which will make so much noise in the world: -brothers do not fight every day, this affair will be talked about. I -quite agree with Lautrec that your whim is foolish and inconsiderate. -Besides, Raoul was saying reprovingly, the honor of our house is -involved. To have a Puysange cry off from a duel would be a reflection -upon our blood that I could not endure— - -“What is honor,” replied Florian, “to the love which has been between -us?” - -The Chevalier looked half-shocked at this sort of talk: but he only -answered that Hannibal and Agamemnon had been very pretty fellows in -their day while it lasted; so too the boys who had loved each other at -Storisende and Bellegarde. Let the dead rest. No, to go back now was -impossible, without creating a deal of adverse comment, in view of the -publicity of their quarrel. - -Florian sighed, half wearied, half vexed, by the remote sound of his -brother’s talking, and he replied: “That is true. One must be logical. -You three are better advised than I, and we dare not offend against the -notions of our neighbors.” - -The gentlemen went into the park. They walked toward the old Château -de Madrid. There had been a very light fall of snow. It felt like sand -underfoot as you walked. Florian reflected it was droll that oak-trees -should retain so many bronze leaves thus late in winter. They quite -overshadowed this place, and made the snow look bluish. - -The gentlemen prepared for their duel, each of the four being armed -with two pistols and a sword. When all was ready, Raoul fired at once, -and wounded Florian in the left arm. It hurt. The little brother whose -face was always grimy would never have hurt you. - -At Florian’s side Lautrec had fallen, dead. The bullet of the Marquis -de Soyecourt had by an incredible chance struck the Vicomte full in the -right eye, piercing the brain. - -“Name of a name!” observed the Marquis, who was unwounded, “but here is -another widow to be consoled,—when I had aimed too at his ear! That is -the devil of this carousing all night, and then coming to one’s duels -with shaken nerves. But how fare our sons of Œdipus?” - -The Marquis turned, and what he saw was sufficiently curious. - - -[Illustration: -Caption surrounded by a garland: FLORIAN’S plump face was transfigured, - as he knelt before his MELIOR. - _See page 222_ -The image.] - - -Florian had winced when hit, thus for an instant spoiling his aim, -but he at once lowered his pistol, and he shot this tall man who had -nothing to do with his little brother, neatly through the breast. Raoul -de Puysange fired wildly with his second pistol, and drew his sword as -if to rush upon Florian, who merely shifted the yet loaded pistol to -his uncrippled right hand, and waited. But Raoul had not advanced two -paces when Raoul fell. - -Florian dropped the undischarged pistol, and went to his brother. This -thin snow underfoot was like scattered sand, and your treading in it -was audible. - -“You have done for me, my dear,” declared the Chevalier. - -And Florian was perturbed. He wished, for all that his arm was hurting -him confoundedly, to reply whatever in the circumstances was the -correct thing, but he could think of no exact precedent. So he put -aside the wild fancy of responding, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and -to this stranger at his feet he said, with a quite admirable tremor -wherein anguish blended nicely with a manly self-restraint: “Raoul, you -are the happier of us two. Do you forgive me?” - -“Yes,” replied the other, “I forgive you.” Raoul gazed up fondly at his -brother. Raoul said, with that genius for the obviously appropriate -which Florian always envied, “I feel for you as I know you do for me.” - -Thus speaking, Raoul de Puysange looked of a sudden oddly surprised. -His nostrils dilated, he shivered a little, and so died. - -Florian turned sadly to the gaunt Marquis de Soyecourt. “You spoke of -the sons of Œdipus, Antoine. But many other eminent persons have been -fratricides. There was Romulus, and Absalom in Holy Writ, and Sir Balen -of Northumberland, and several of the Capets and the Valois. King Henry -the First of England, a very wise prince, also put his brother out of -the way, as did Constantius Chlorus, a most noble patron of the Church. -Whereas all Turkish emperors—” - -“Oh, have done with your looking for precedents!” said the Marquis. -“What we should look for now, my dear, is horses to get us away from -this sad affair. For one, I am retiring into the provinces, to spend -Christmas at my venerable father’s chateau at Beaujolais, where I shall -be more comfortable than in the King’s prison of the Bastile. And I -most strongly advise you to imitate me.” - -“No,” Florian said, gently, “these are but the first fruits of the -attainment of my desire. For, as you remind me, Antoine, Christmas -approaches, and I have still unfinished business at court.” - - - - -_13._ - -_Débonnaire_ - - -Thereafter Florian went to the Duke of Orléans, with two motives. One -was the obvious necessity of obtaining a pardon for having killed -the Chevalier: Florian’s other motive was the promise given to brown -Janicot that he should have for his Christmas present, upon this day of -the winter solstice, the life of the greatest man in the kingdom. The -greatest man in the kingdom, undoubtedly, was Philippe of Orléans, the -former Regent, now prime minister, and the next heir to the throne. The -King was nobody in comparison: besides, the King was not a man but a -child of thirteen. One must be logical. Florian regretted the loss of -his friend, for he was unfeignedly fond of Orléans, but a promise once -given by a Puysange was not to be evaded. - -He must get the pardon first. Florian foresaw that the granting -of a pardon out of hand for his disastrous duel would seem to the -Duke of Orléans an action liable to involve the prime minister in -difficulties. Florian thought otherwise, in the light of his firm -belief that to-morrow Orléans would be oblivious of all earthly -affairs, but this was not an argument which Florian could tactfully -employ. Rather, he counted upon the happy fact that Florian’s services -in the past were not benefits which any reflective statesman would -care to ignore. Yes, the pardon would certainly be forthcoming, -Florian assured himself, this afternoon, as he rode forth in his great -gilded coach, for his last chat, as he rather vexedly reflected, with -all-powerful Philippe of Orléans, whom people called Philippe the -Débonnaire. - -“So!” said the minister, when they had embraced, “so, they tell me that -you have married again, and that you killed your brother this morning. -I am not pleased with you, Florian. These escapades will come to no -good end.” - -“Ah, monseigneur, but I like to take a wife occasionally, whereas you -prefer always to borrow one. It is merely a question of taste, about -which we need not quarrel. As to this duel, I lamented the necessity, -your highness, as much as anybody. But these meddling women—” - -“Yes, yes, I know,” replied Orléans, “your sister-in-law talks too -much. In fact, as I recall it, she talks even in her sleep.” - -“Monseigneur, and will you never learn discretion?” - -“I am discreet enough, in any event, to look upon fratricide rather -seriously. So I am sending you to the Bastile for a while, Florian, and -indeed the lettre de cachet ordering your imprisonment was made out an -hour ago.” - -Florian at this had out the small gold box upon whose lid was painted -a younger and far more amiable looking Orléans than frowned here in -the flesh,—in a superfluity of flesh,—and Florian took snuff. It was -always a good way of gaining time for reflection. Wine and cakes were -set ready upon the little table. Philippe was probably expecting some -woman. There had been no lackeys in the corridor which led to this -part of the château. Philippe always sent them away when any of his -women were to come in the day-time. Yes, one was quite alone with this -corpulent, black-browed and purple-faced Philippe, in this quiet room, -which was like a great gilded shell of elaborately carved woodwork, -and which had bright panels everywhere, upon the walls and the -ceiling, representing, very explicitly indeed, The Triumphs of Love. -Such solitude was uncommonly convenient; and one might speak without -reticence. - -Florian put up his snuff-box, dusted his finger-tips, and said: “I -regret to oppose you in anything, monseigneur, but for me to go to -prison would be inconvenient just now. I have important business at the -Feast of the Wheel to-morrow night.” - -Since Philippe had lost the sight of his left eye he cocked his -head like a huge bird whenever he looked at you intently. “You had -best avoid these sorceries, Florian. I have not yet forgotten that -fiend whom your accursed lieutenant evoked for us in the quarries of -Vaugirard—” Orléans paused. He said in a while, “Before that night and -that vision of my uncle’s death-bed, I was less ambitious, Florian, and -more happy.” - -“Ah, yes, poor old Mirepoix!” said Florian, smiling. “What a -preposterous fraud he was, with his absurd ventriloquism and stuffed -crocodiles and magic lanterns! However, he foretold very precisely -indeed the extraordinary series of events which would leave you the -master of this kingdom: and I had not the heart to see the faithful -fellow exposed as an ignoramus who talked nonsense. So I was at some -pains to help his prophesying come true, and to make you actually the -only surviving male relative at the old King’s death-bed.” - -“Let us speak,” said Orléans, with a vexed frown, “of cheerier matters. -Now, in regard to your imprisonment—” - -“I was coming to your notion of a merry topic. This visit to the -Feast of the Wheel is about a family matter, your highness, and is -imperative. So I must keep my freedom for the while: and I must ask, in -place of a lettre de cachet, a pardon in full.” - -“Instead, Florian, let us have fewer ‘musts’ and more friendliness in -this affair.” Orléans now put his arm about Florian. “Come, I will put -off your arrest until the day after to-morrow; you shall spend the -night here, my handsome pouting Florian; and you shall be liberated at -the end of one little week in the Bastile.” - -Florian released himself, rather petulantly. “Pardieu! but I entreat -you to reserve these endearments for your bed-chamber! No, you must -find some other playfellow for to-night. And I really cannot consent to -be arrested, for it would quite spoil my Christmas.” - -Orléans, rebuffed, said only, “But if I continue to ignore your -misbehaviors, people will talk.” - -“That is possible, your highness. It is certain that, under arrest, I -also would become garrulous.” - -“Ah! and of what would you discourse?” - -Florian looked for a while at his red-faced friend beyond the -red-topped writing-table. - -Florian said: “I would talk of the late Dauphin’s death, monseigneur; -of the death of the Duc de Bourgogne; of the death of the little Duc -de Bretagne; and of the death of the Duc de Berri. I would talk of -those inexplicable fatal illnesses among your kinsmen which of a sudden -made you, who were nobody of much consequence, the master of France and -the next heir to the throne.” - -Orléans said nothing for a time. Speaking, his voice was quiet, but -a little hoarse. “It is perhaps as well for you, my friend, that my -people have been dismissed. Yes, I am expecting Madame de Phalaris, -who is as yet amusingly shame-faced about her adulteries. So there is -nobody about, and we may speak frankly. With frankness, then, I warn -you that it is not wholesome to threaten a prince of the blood, and -that if you continue in this tone you may not long be permitted to talk -anywhere, not even in one of the many prisons at my disposal.” - -“Ah, your highness, let us not speak of my death, for it is a death -which you would deplore.” - -“Would I deplore your death?” Orléans’ head was now cocked until it -almost lay upon his left shoulder. “It is a fact of which I am not -wholly persuaded.” - -“Monseigneur, mere self-respect demands that one’s death should rouse -some grief among one’s friends. So I have made certain that your grief -would be inevitable and deep. For I am impatient of truisms—” - -“And what have truisms to do with our affair?” - -“The statement that dead men tell no tales, your highness, is a truism.” - -“Yes, and to be candid, Florian, it is that particular truism of which -I was just thinking.” - -“Well, it is this particular truism I have elected to deride. My -will is made, the disposing of my estate is foreordered, and every -legacy enumerated. One of these legacies is in the form of a written -narrative: it is not a romance, it is an entirely veracious chronicle, -dealing with the last hours of four of your kinsmen; and it is -bequeathed to a fifth kinsman, to your cousin, the Duc de Bourbon. -Should I die in one of your prisons, monseigneur,—a calamity which I -perceive to be already fore-shadowed in your mind,—that paper would go -to him.” - -The Duke of Orléans considered this. There had been much whispering; -mobs in the street had shouted, “Burn the poisoner!” when Orléans -passed: but this was different. Once Bourbon had half the information -which Florian de Puysange was able to give, there would be of course -no question of burning Orléans, since one does not treat a prince of -the blood like fuel: but there would be no doubt, either, of his swift -downfall nor of his subsequent death by means of the more honorable ax. - -Orléans knew all this. Orléans also knew Florian. In consequence -Orléans asked, “Is what you tell me the truth?” - -“Faith of a gentleman, monseigneur!” - -Orléans sighed. “It is a pity. By contriving this conditional -post-mortem sort of confession to the devil-work you prompted, you -have contrived an equally devilish safeguard. Yes, if you are telling -the truth, for me to have you put out of the way would be injudicious. -And you do tell the truth, confound you! Broad-minded as you are in -many ways, Florian, you are a romantic, and I have never known you to -break your given word or to voice any purely utilitarian lie. You are -positively queer about that.” - -“I confess it,” said Florian, frankly. “Puysange lies only for -pleasure, never for profit. But what do my foibles matter? Let us -be logical about this! What does anything matter except the plain -fact that we are useful to each other? I do not boast, but I think -you have found me efficient. You needed only a precipitating of the -inevitable, a little hastening here and there of natural processes, -to give you your desires. Well, four of these accelerations have been -brought about through the recipes of a dear old friend of mine, through -invaluable recipes which have made you the master of this kingdom. It -is now always within your power, without any real trouble, to remove -the scrofulous boy whose living keeps you from being even in title -King of France. Yes, I think I have helped you. Some persons would in -my position be exigent. But all I ask is your name written upon a bit -of paper. I will even promise you that your mercifulness shall create -no adverse comment, and that to-morrow people shall be talking of -something quite different.” - -And Florian smiled ingratiatingly, the while that he fingered what -was in his waistcoat pocket, and reflected that all France would very -certainly have more than enough to talk about to-morrow. - -“This dapper imp, in his eternal bottle-green and silver, will be the -ruin of me,” Orléans observed. But he had already drawn a paper from -the top drawer: and he filled it in, and signed it, and he pushed it -across the red-topped writing-table, toward Florian. - -“I thank you, monseigneur, for this favor,” said Florian, then, “and I -long to repay it by making you King of France. Let us drink to Philippe -the Seventh!” - -“No,” said Orleans,—“let us drink if you will, but i have no thirst for -kingship. I play with the idea, of course. To be a king sounds well, -and I once thought—But it would give me no more than I already have of -endless nuisances to endure. As matters stand, I can make shift with -the discomforts of being a great personage, because I know that I can, -whenever I like, lay aside my greatness. I can at will become again a -private person, and I can find a host of fools eager to fill my place. -But from the throne there is no exit save into the vaults of St. Denis. -So I procrastinate, I play with the idea of putting the boy out of the -way, but I do nothing definite until to-morrow.” - -“There are many adages that speak harshly of procrastination,” said -Florian, as he poured and, with his back to Orléans, flavored the wine -which was set ready. “Logic is a fine thing, monseigneur: and logic -informs me that no man is sure of living until to-morrow.” - -“But it is no fun being a great personage,” Orléans lamented, as he -took the tall, darkly glowing glass. “I have had my bellyful of it: and -I find greatness rather thin fare. I am master of France, indeed I may -with some show of reason claim to be master of Europe. I used to think -it would be pleasant to rule kingdoms; but you may take my word for -it, Florian, the game is not worth the candle. There are times,” said -Orléans, as lazily he sipped the wine which Florian had just seasoned, -“there are times when I wish I were dead and done with it all.” - -“That, your highness, will come soon enough.” - -“Yes, but do you judge what I have to contend with.” Orléans launched -into a bewailing of his political difficulties. Florian kept a polite -pose of attention, without exactly listening to these complaints about -Parliament’s obstinacy, about Alberoni’s and Villeroy’s plottings in -their exile, about the sly underminings of Fréjus, about what the -legitimated princes were planning now, about Bourbon, about Noailles, -about the pig-headedness of the English Pretender, about the empty -Treasury—Of these things Philippe was talking, in a jumble of words -without apparent end or meaning. But Florian thought of a circumstance -unrelated to any of these matters, with a sort of awed amusement. - -“All this to make a maniac of me,” the minister went on, “and with -what to balance it? Anything I choose to ask for, of course. But -then, Florian, what the deuce is there in life for one to ask for at -forty-nine? I was once a joyous glutton: now I have to be careful -of my digestion. I used to stay drunk for weeks: now one night of -virtually puritanic debauchery leaves me a wreck to be patched up by -physicians who can talk about nothing but apoplexy. Women no longer -rouse any curiosity. I know so well what their bodies are like that -an investigation is tautology: and half the time I go to bed with -no inclination to do anything but sleep. Not even my daughters, -magnificent women that you might think them—” - -“I know,” said Florian, with a reminiscent smile. - -“—Not even they are able to amuse me any more. No, my friend, I -candidly voice my opinion that there is nothing in life which -possession does not discover to be inadequate: we are cursed with -a tyrannous need for what life does not afford: and we strive for -various prizes, saying ‘Happiness is there,’ when in point of fact it -is nowhere. They who fail in their endeavors have still in them the -animus of desire: but the man who attains his will cohabits with an -assassin, for, having it, he perceives that he does not want it; and -desire is dead in him, and the man too is dead. No, Florian, be advised -by me; and do you avoid greatness as you should—and by every seeming do -not,—the devil!” - -So Philippe d’Orléans also, thought Florian, had got what he wanted, -only to find it a damnable nuisance. Probably all life was like that. -Over-high and over-earnest desires were inadvisable. It was a sort of -comfort to reflect that poor Philippe at least would soon be through -with his worries. - -A bell rang; and Florian, rising, said: “I shall heed your advice, -monseigneur—But that bell perhaps announces an arrival about which I -should remain in polite ignorance?” - -“Yes, it is Madame de Phalaris. We are to try what Aretino and Romano -can suggest for our amusement, before I go up to my hour’s work with -the King. So be off with you through the private way, for it is a very -modest little bitch.” - -Florian passed through the indicated door, but he did not quite close -it. Instead, he waited there, and he saw the entrance of charming tiny -Madame de Phalaris, whom Orléans greeted with tolerable ardor. - -“So you have come at last, you delicious rogue, to end my expounding of -moral sentiments. And with what fairy tale, bright-eyed Sapphira, will -you explain your lateness?” - -“Indeed, your highness,” said the lady, who had learned that in these -encounters the Duke liked to be heartened with some gambit of free -talk, “indeed, your question reminds me that only last night I heard -the most diverting fairy tale. But it is somewhat—” - -“Yes?” said the Duke. - -“I mean, that it is rather—” - -“But I adore that especial sort of fairy story,” he announced. “So of -course we must have it, and equally of course we must spare our mutual -blushes.” - -Thus speaking, Orléans sat at her feet, and leaned back his head -between her knees, so that neither could see the face of the other. -Her lithe white fingers stroked his cheeks, caressing those great -pendulous red jaws: and her sea-green skirts, flowered with a pattern -of slender vines, were spread like billows to each side of him. - -“There was once,” the lady began, “a king and a queen—” - -“I know the tale,” Orléans said,—“they had three sons. And the two -elder failed in preposterous quests, but the third prince succeeded in -everything, and he was damnably bored by everything. I know the tale -only too well—” - -He desisted from speaking. But he was making remarkable noises. - -“Highness—!” cried Madame de Phalaris. - -She had risen in alarm; and as she rose, the Duke’s head fell to the -crimson-covered footstool at her feet. He did not move, but lay quite -still, staring upward, and his foreshortened face, as Florian saw it, -was of a remarkable shade of purple among the elaborate dark curls of -Orléans’ peruke. - -There was for a moment utter silence. You heard only the gilded clock -upon the red chimney-piece. Then Madame de Phalaris screamed. - -Nobody replied. She rang wildly at the bell-cord beside the -writing-table. You could hear a remote tinkling, but nothing else. The -shaking woman lifted fat Orléans, and propped him against the chair in -which she had just been sitting. Philippe of Orléans sprawled thus, -more drunken looking than Florian had ever seen him in life: the -corpse was wholly undignified. The head of him whom people had called -Philippe the Débonnaire had fallen sideways, so that his black peruke -was pushed around and hid a third of his face. The left eye, the eye -with which Philippe had for years seen nothing, yet leered at the woman -before him. She began again to scream. She ran from the room, and -Florian could now just hear her as she ran, still screaming, about the -corridors in which she could find nobody. It sounded like the squeaking -of a frightened rat. - -Florian came forward without hurry, for there was no pressing need of -haste. Florian quite understood that Orléans had dismissed all his -attendants, so that Madame de Phalaris might come to him unobserved: -her husband was a notionary man. After a little amorous diversion with -the lady, Orléans had meant to go up that narrow staircase yonder, for -an hour’s work with the young King. It was odd to reflect that poor -Philippe would never go to the King nor to any woman’s bed, not ever -any more; odd, too, that anyone could be thus private in this enormous -château wherein lived several thousand persons. At all events, this -privacy was uncommonly convenient. - -So Florian reflected for an instant, after his usual fashion of fond -lingering upon what life afforded of the quaint. It was certainly very -quaint that history should be so plastic. He had, with no especial -effort or discomfort, with no real straining of his powers, changed the -history of all Europe when he transferred this famous kingdom of France -and the future of France from the keeping of Philippe to guardians -more staid. Probably Monsieur de Bourbon would be the next minister. -But whoever might be minister in name, the Bishop of Fréjus, the young -King’s preceptor, would now be the actual master of everything. Well, -to have taken France from a debauchee like this poor staring gaping -Philippe here,—Florian abstractedly straightened the thing’s peruke,—to -give control of France to such an admirable prelate as André de Fleury -was in all a praiseworthy action. It was a logical action. - -Then Florian performed unhurriedly the rite which was necessary, and -there was a sign that Janicot accepted his Christmas present. It was -not a pleasant sign to witness, nor did they who served Janicot appear -to be squeamish. After this came two hairy persons, not unfamiliar -to Florian, and these two removed as much as their master desired of -Philippe d’Orléans. They answered, too, in a fashion no whit less -impressive because of their not speaking, the questions which Florian -put as to the proper manner of his coming to Janicot and the Feast -of the Wheel. Then they were not in this room: and Florian, somewhat -shaken, also went from this room, not as they had gone but by way of -the little private door. - -It was a full half-hour, Florian learned afterward, before Madame de -Phalaris returned with a cortége of lackeys and physicians. These last -attempted to bleed Duke Philippe, but found their endeavors wasted: -La Tophania’s recipes were reliable, and to all appearance he had for -some while been dead of apoplexy. The obscene toy discovered, hanging -about his neck, when they went to undress him, surprised nobody: the -Duke had affected these oddities. When the physicians made yet other -discoveries, a trifle later, they flutteringly agreed this death must, -without any further discussion, be reported to have arisen from natural -causes. “Monsieur d’Orléans,” said one of them, jesting with rather -gray lips, “has died assisted by his usual confessor.” - -Florian had of course not needed to amass good precedents for putting -out of life anybody who was to all intents a reigning monarch. As -he glanced back at history, this seemed to him almost the favorite -avocation of estimable persons. So, as Florian rode leisurely away -in his great gilded coach, leaving behind him the second fruits of -the attainment of his desire, if he lazily afforded a sidethought -to Marcus Brutus and Jacques Clément and Aristogeiton and Ehud the -Benjaminite, and to a few other admirable assassins of high potentates, -it was through force of habit rather than any really serious -consideration. For the important thing to be considered now was how to -come by the sword Flamberge, for which Florian had, that day, paid. - - - - -_14._ - -_Gods in Decrepitude_ - - -Not one of the ambiguous guardians of the place in any way molested -Florian in that journey through which he hoped to win the sword -Flamberge. His bearing, which combined abstraction with a touch of -boredom, discouraged any advances from phantoms, and made fiends -uneasily suspect this little fellow in bottle-green and silver to be -one of those terrible magicians who attend Sabbats only when they are -planning to kidnap with strong conjurations some luckless fiend to -slave for them at unconscionable tasks. That sort of person a shrewd -fiend gives a wide berth: and certainly nobody who was not an adept -at magic would have dared venture hereabouts, upon this night of all -nights in the year, the guardians reasoned, without considering that -this traveler might be a Puysange. So Florian passed to the top of the -hill, without any molestation, in good time for the beginning of the -Feast of the Wheel. - -When Florian came quietly through the painted gate, the Master was -already upon the asherah stone receiving homage. The place was well -lighted with torches which flared bluishly as they were carried about -by creatures that had the appearance of huge dark-colored goats: -each of these goats bore two torches, the first being fixed between -its horns, and the second inserted in another place. Florian stood -aside, and watched these venerable rites of unflinching osculation -and widdershins movings and all the rest of the ritual. One respected -of course the motives which took visible form in these religious -ceremonies, but the formulæ seemed to Florian rather primitive. - -So he sat upon a secluded grassbank, beyond the light of the blue -torches, and waited. It was quaint, and pathetic too in a way, now that -the communicants were reporting upon their unimaginative doings since -the last Sabbat. The Master listened and advised upon each case. To -Florian it appeared a rather ridiculous pother over nothing, all this -to-do about the drying up of a cow or the unfitting of a bridegroom -for his privileges or the sapping away of someone’s health. Florian -inclined to romanticism even in magic, whose proper functions he did -not consider to be utilitarian or imitative of real life. It seemed to -him mere childish petulancy thus to cast laborious spells to hasten -events which would in time have happened anyhow, through nature’s -unprompted blunderings, when the obvious end of magic should be to -bring about chances which could not possibly happen. But the Master had -an air of taking it all quite seriously. - -Nor were the initiations much more diverting, however dreadfully -painful they must be to the virgin novitiates. Florian could not but -think that some more natural paraphernalia would be preferable, would -be more logical, than that horrible, cold and scaly apparatus. It was -interesting, though, to note what disposition was made of the relics -of Philippe d’Orléans: and in the giving of four infants also, by the -old ritual, Florian took a sort of personal concern, and he watched -closely, so as to see just how it was done. He was relieved to find -it a simple enough matter, hardly more difficult than the gutting of -a rabbit, once you had by heart the words of the invocation. Florian -assumed that Janicot would in due course supply the woman whose body -must serve as the altar, and Florian put the matter out of mind. - -Besides, to one with his respect for ancient custom and precedent, the -fertility rites now in full course were interesting: he imagined that -to a professed and not prudish antiquary they would be of absorbing -interest, coming down, as these ceremonies did unaltered, from the -dwarf races that preceded mankind proper. Still, as a whole, the -Feast of the Wheel was rather tedious, Florian declared to his large -neighbor. Florian had just noticed that others sat on this secluded -grassbank, to both sides of him, in a twilight so vague that he could -only see these other watchers of the feast were of huge stature and had -unblinking shining eyes. - -Yes, this dim person assented, these modern ways lacked fervor and -impressiveness: and matters had been infinitely better conducted, -he said, in the good old days when the Sabbat was held in blasphemy -against him. - -Florian, really interested at last, asked questions. It developed -that this shadowy watcher was called Marduk. He had once been rather -widely esteemed, by he had no notion how many millions of men, as the -over-lord of heaven and all living creatures, in whose hands were -the decrees of fate, and as the bright helper and healer from whom -were hid no secrets. Apsu yonder had in those fine days conducted his -blasphemies, Marduk repeated, with considerably more splendor and -display. Yes, the times worsened, the thing was now done meagrely. Apsu -had never been really the same, said Marduk,—with a dry chuckle, like -the stirring of a dead leaf,—since Apsu lost his wife. She was called -Tiamat: and, say what you might about her— - -“I quite agree with you. He was a far more dashing rogue,” put in -another half-seen shape, “in the good times when I was the eternal -source of light, the upholder of the universe, all-powerful and -all-knowing, and when nobody anywhere except that rascal Anra-Mainyu -was bold enough to talk back to Ahura-Madza. Yes, the times worsen in -every way: and even his effrontery flags, if that is any comfort.” - -“Oh, for that matter,” said a third, “this Vukub-Kakix was at hand -with his impudence when the Old Ones covered with Green Feathers first -came out of the waters and tried to make men virtuous. He was then -a splendid rogue. I found him annoying, of course, but wonderfully -amusing. Now the times worsen: and the adversary of all the gods of men -no longer has such opponents as used to keep him on his mettle.” - -“Each one of you,” marvelled Florian, “gives the Master a new and -harder christening! And what, monsieur,” asked Florian, of the last -speaker, “may be your name?” - -The third dim creature answered, “Xpiyacoc.” - -“Ah, now I understand why you should be the most generous to the Master -in the matter of cacophony! I take it that you also have retired from a -high position in the church. And I am wondering if all you veteran gods -are assembled upon half-pay”—here Florian discreetly jerked a thumb -skyward,—“to conspire?” - -“No,” said a fourth,—who, like that poor Philippe, had only one -eye,—“it is true we look to see put down the gods who just now have -men’s worship. But we do not conspire. We are too feeble now, and the -years have taken away from us even anger and malevolence. It was not -so in the merry days when the little children came to me upon spear -points. Now the times worsen: and they can but make the best of very -poor times up yonder, as we do here.” He seemed to listen to the -thing in the appearance of a raven perched on his shoulder, and then -said: “Besides, wise Huginn tells me that the reign of any god is an -ephemeral matter hardly worth fretting over. I fell. They will fall. -But neither fact is very important, says wise Huginn.” - -And about the Master these dim watchers preferred not to talk any -more. He had denied them, they said, when they were kings of heaven -and of man’s worship and terror: and the Master had always maintained -his cult against whatever god was for the moment supreme. He had -never been formidable, he had never shown any desire toward usurping -important powers. He had remained content to assert himself Prince of -this World, whoever held the heavens and large stars: and while he had -never meddled with the doings of any god in other planets, here upon -earth he had displayed such pertinacity that in the end most rulers -of the universe let him alone. And now their omnipotence had passed, -but the Master’s little power—somehow—endured. The old gods found it -inexplicable; but they were under no bonds to explain it; and it was -not worth bothering about: nor was anything else worth bothering about, -said they, whom time had freed of grave responsibilities. - -And Florian mildly pitied their come-down in life, and their descent -into this forlorn condition, but felt himself, none the less, to be -sitting among ne’er-do-wells, and to be in not quite the company suited -to a nobleman of his rank. So it was really a relief when the Master’s -religious services were over, and when, with the coming of red dawn, -his servants departed, trooping this way and that way, but without ever -ascending far above earth as they passed like sombre birds. The Master -now stood unattended upon the asherah stone. - -Florian then nodded civilly to the fallen gods, and left them. Florian -came forward and, removing his silver-laced green hat with a fine -stately sweep, he gave Janicot that ceremonious bow which Florian -reserved for persons whose worldly estate entitled them to be treated -as equals by a Duke of Puysange. - - - - -_15._ - -_Dubieties of the Master_ - - -“Come,” said Janicot, yawning in the dawn of Christmas Day, “but here -is our romantic lordling of Puysange, to whom love is divine, and the -desired woman a goddess.” - -Florian did not at once reply. He had for the instant forgotten his -need of the sword Flamberge. For on account of the requirements of the -various ceremonies, Janicot, except for a strip of dappled fawn-skin -across his chest, was not wearing any clothes, not even any shoes. -Florian had just noticed Janicot’s feet. But Florian was too courteous -to comment upon personal peculiarities: for this only is the secret -of all good-breeding, he reflected, not ever to wound the feelings of -anybody, in any circumstances, without premeditation. So his upsetment -was but momentary, and was not shown perceptibly, he felt sure, by the -gasp which politeness had turned into a sigh. - -“But what the deuce,” said Janicot then, “is this a proper groan, is -this the appropriate countenance, for one whose love has overridden the -by-laws of time and nature and even of necromancy?” - -“Ah, Monsieur Janicot,” answered Florian, “gravity everywhere goes -arm-in-arm with wisdom, and I am somewhat wiser than I was when we last -talked together. For I have been to the high place, and my desires have -been gratified.” - -“That is an affair of course, since all my friends have all their -desires in this world. What cannot be with equal readiness taken for -granted is the fact that you appear on that account to be none the -happier.” - -“Merriment,” replied Florian, “is a febrile passion. But content is -quiet.” - -“So, then, you are content, my little duke?” - -“The word ‘little,’ Monsieur Janicot, has in its ordinary uses no -uncivil connotations. Yet, when applied to a person—” - -“I entreat your pardon, Monsieur the Duke, for the ill-chosen -adjective, and I hastily withdraw it.” - -“Which pardon, I need hardly say, I grant with even more haste. I am -content, then, Monsieur Janicot. I have achieved my heart’s desire, -and I find it”—Florian coughed,—-“beyond anything I ever imagined. But -now, alas! the great love between my wife and me draws toward its sweet -fruition, and one must be logical. So I comprehend—with not unnatural -regret,—that my adored wife will presently be leaving me forever.” - -“Ah, to be sure! Then you have already, in this brief period, passed -from the pleasures of courtship to the joys of matrimony—?” - -“Monsieur, I am a Puysange. We are ardent.” - -“—And she is already—?” - -“Monsieur, I can but repeat my remark.” - -“Eh,” replied Janicot, “you have certainly spared no zeal, you have not -slept, in upholding the repute of your race: and this punctilious and -loving adherence to the fine old forthright customs of your fathers -affects me. There remains, to be sure, our bargain. Yet I am honestly -affected, and since this parting grieves you so much, Florian, some -composition must be reached—” - -“It is undeniable,” said Florian, with a reflective frown, “that my -most near acquaintances address me—” - -“I accept the reproof, I withdraw the vocative noun, and again I -entreat your pardon, Monsieur the Duke.” - -“I did not so much voice a reproof, Monsieur Janicot, as a sincere -lament that I have never enjoyed the privilege of your close -friendship.” And Florian too bowed. “I was about to observe, then, -that a gentleman adheres in all to all his bargains. So I can in logic -consider no alteration of our terms, though you comprehend, I trust, -how bitter I find their fulfilment.” - -“Yes,” Janicot responded, “it is precisely the amount of your grief -which I begin to comprehend. Its severity has even brought on a -bronchial irritation which prevents your speaking freely: and indeed, -one might have foreseen this.” - -“—So I have come to inquire how I am to get the sword Flamberge, which, -as you may remember, must figure in the ceremony of—your pardon, but -I really do appear to have contracted a quite obstinate cough in the -night air,—of giving you your honorarium, by the old ritual.” - -Janicot for a moment reflected. “You have sacrificed—” - -“Monsieur, pray let us be logical! I have offered you no sacrifice. I -have participated in no such inadvisable custom of heathenry. I must -remind you that this is Christmas; and that I, naturally, elect to -follow our Christian custom of exchanging appropriate gifts at this -season of the year.” - -“I again apologize, I withdraw the verb. You have made me a Christmas -present, then, of the life of a person of some note and mightiness, as -your race averages. So it is your right to demand my aid. Yet there -is one at your home, in an earthen pot, who could have procured for -you the information, and very probably the sword too, without your -stirring from your fireside and adored wife. It appears to me odd that, -with so few months of happiness remaining, you should absent yourself -from the sources of your only joy.” - -Florian’s hand had risen in polite protest. “Ah, but, Monsieur Janicot, -but in mere self-respect, one would not employ the power of which -you speak, unless there were some absolute need. Now, for my part, -I have always found it simple enough to get what I wanted without -needing to thank anyone for help except myself. And Flamberge too is a -prize that I prefer to win unaided, at the trivial price of a slight -token of esteem at Christmas. I prefer, you conceive,” said Florian, -as smilingly he reflected upon the incessant carefulness one had to -exercise in dealing with these fiends, “to settle the affair without -incurring humiliating and possibly pyrotechnic obligations to anybody.” - -Janicot replied: “Doubtless, such independent sentiments are admirable. -And it shall be as you like—” - -“Still, Monsieur Janicot,” said Florian, with just the proper amount of -heartbreak in his voice, “is it not regrettable that this cruel price -should be exacted of me?” - -“Old customs must be honored, and mine are oldish. Besides, as I recall -it, you suggested the bargain, not I.” - -“Yes, because I know that gifts from you are dangerous. Why, but let -us be logical! Would you have me purchase an ephemeral pleasure at -the price of my own ruin, when I could get it at the cost of somewhat -inconveniencing others?” - -“You say that my gifts are dangerous. Yet, what do you really know -about me, Florian? Again I entreat your pardon, Monsieur the Duke, but, -after all, our acquaintance progresses.” - -“I know nothing about you personally, Monsieur Janicot, beyond the -handsomeness of your generosity. I only know the danger of accepting a -free gift from any fiend; and you I take to be, in cosmic politics, a -leader of the party in opposition.” - -Janicot looked grave for a moment. He said: - -“No, I am not a fiend, Monsieur the Duke; nor, for that matter, does -your current theology afford me any niche.” - -“Well, then,” asked Florian, with his customary fine frankness, “if you -are not the devil, what the devil are you?” - -Janicot answered: “I am all that has been and that is to be. Never has -any man been able to imagine what I am.” - -“Ah, monsieur, that sounds well, and, quite possibly, it means -something. Of that I know no more than a frog does about toothache, but -I do know they call you the adversary of all the gods of men—” - -“Yes,” Janicot admitted, rather sadly, “I have been hoping, now for a -great while, that men would find some god with whom a rational person -might make terms, but that seems never to happen.” - -“Monsieur, monsieur!” cried Florian, “pray let us have no scepticism—!” - -“Scepticism also is a comfort denied to me. Men have that refuge always -open. But I have in my time dealt at close grips with too many gods to -have any doubt about them. No, I believe, and I shudder with distaste.” - -“Come, now, Monsieur Janicot, religion and somewhere to go on Sundays -are quite necessary amenities—” - -Janicot was surprised. “Why, but, Monsieur the Duke, can it be true -that you, as a person of refinement, approve of worshipping goats -and crocodiles and hawks and cats and hippopotami after the Egyptian -custom?” - -“Parbleu, not in the least! I, to the contrary—” - -“Oh, you admire, then, the monkeys and tigers, in whose honor the men -of India build temples?” - -“Not at all. You misinterpret me—” - -“Ah, I perceive. You approve, instead, of those gods of Greece and -Rome, who went about earth as bulls and cock cuckoos and as sprinklings -of doubloons and five franc pieces, when they were particularly -desirous of winning affection?” - -“Now, Monsieur Janicot, you very foolishly affect to misunderstand me. -One should be logical in these grave matters. One should know, as the -whole world knows, that the Dukes of Puysange care nothing for the -silly fables of paganism, and that for five centuries we of Puysange -have been notable and loyal Christians.” - -Janicot said: “For five whole centuries! Jahveh also, being so young a -god, must think that a long while; and doubtless he feels honored by -these five centuries of patronage.” - -“Well, of course,” said Florian, modestly, “as one of the oldest -families hereabouts, we find that our example is apt to be followed. -But we ourselves think little of our long lineage, we have grown used -to it, we think that logically it is only the man himself who matters: -and I confess, Monsieur Janicot, that it seems almost droll to see you -impressed by our antiquity.” - -“I!” said Janicot. Then he said: “For all that, I am impressed. Yes, -men are really wonderful. However, let that pass. So it is Jahveh of -whom you approve. You confess it. Why, then, I ask you, as one logical -person addressing another—” - -“A pest! logic is a fine thing, but let us not put these matters -altogether upon the ground of logic,” said Florian, recoiling just -perceptibly, as a large tumble-bug climbed on the rock, and sat beside -Janicot. - -“—I ask you,” Janicot continued, “as one person of good taste -addressing another—” - -“It is not wholly an affair of connoisseurs. Let us talk about -something else.” - -“—For you have this Jahveh’s own history of his exploits all -written down at his own dictation. I allow him candor, nor, for one -so young, does he write badly. For the rest, do these cruelties, -these double-dealings, these self-confessed divine blunders and -miscalculations, these subornings of murders and thefts and adulteries, -these punishments of the innocent, not sparing even his own family—” - -Florian yawned delicately, but without removing his eyes from the -tumble-bug. “My dear Monsieur Janicot, that sort of talk is really -rather naïve: it is, if you will pardon my frankness, quite out of date -now that we have reached the eighteenth century.” - -“Yes, but—” - -“No, Monsieur Janicot, I can consent to hear no more of these -sophomoric blasphemies. I must tell you I have learned that in these -matters, as in all matters, it is better taste to recognize some -drastic regeneration may be necessary without doing anything about it, -and certainly without aligning ourselves with the foul anarchistic -mockers of everything in our social chaos which is making for beauty -and righteousness—” - -“Why, but, Monsieur the Duke,” said Janicot, “but what—!” - -“I must tell you I perceive, in honest sorrow, that with a desire for -fescennine expression you combine a vulgar atheism and an iconoclastic -desire to befoul the sacred ideas of the average man or woman, -collectively scorned as the bourgeoisie—” - -“Yes, doubtless, this is excellent talking. Still, what—?” - -“I must tell you also that I very gravely suspect you to be one of -those half-baked intellectuals who confuse cheap atheism, and the -defiling of other men’s altars, with deep thinking; one of those -moral and spiritual hooligans who resent all forms of order as an -encroachment upon their diminutive, unkempt and unsavory egos; one of -the kind of people who relish nasty books about sacred persons and -guffaw over the amours of the angels.” - -“Yes, I concede the sonority of your periods; but what does all this -talking mean?” - -“Why, monsieur,” said Florian, doubtfully, “I do not imagine -that it means anything. These are merely the customary noises of -well-thought-of persons in reply to the raising of any topic which -they prefer not to pursue. It is but an especially dignified manner of -saying that I do not care to follow the line of thought you suggest, -because logic here might lead to uncomfortable conclusions and to -deductions without honorable precedents.” - -“Ah, now I understand you,” said Janicot, smiling. He looked down, and -stroked the tumble-bug, which under his touch shrank and vanished. “I -should have noticed the odor before; and as it is, I confess that, in -this frank adhesion to your folly without pretending it is anything -else, I recognize a minim of wisdom. So let us say no more about it. -Let us return to the question of that sword with which the loyal -servant of him who also came not to bring peace, but a sword, has need -to sever his family ties. Those persons just behind you were very -pretty swordsmen in their day: and I imagine that they can give you all -the necessary information as to the sword Flamberge.” - - - - -_16._ - -_Some Victims of Flamberge_ - - -It was really no affair of Florian’s, how these five vaguely-hued and -quaintly appareled persons happened to be standing just behind him. -They had not been there a moment ago: but Janicot seemed partial to -these small wonder-workings, and such foibles, while in dubious taste, -did not greatly matter. - -So Florian was off again with his silver-laced hat, and Florian saluted -these strangers with extreme civility. And Florian inquired of the gray -and great-thewed champion if he knew of the whereabouts of Flamberge; -and this tall man answered: - -“No. It was a fine sword, and I wore it once when I had mortal life and -was very young. But I surrendered this sword to a woman, in exchange -for that which I most desired. So I got no good of Flamberge, nor did -anyone else so far as I could ever hear, for there is a curse upon this -sword.” - -“A curse, indeed!” said Florian, somewhat astonished. “Why, but I -have always been told, monsieur, that the wearer of Flamberge is -unconquerable.” - -“That I believe to be true. Thus the wearer of Flamberge can get all -his desires, and he usually does so: and, having them, he understands -that the sword is accursed.” - -“And did you too get your desire in this world, monsieur, and perceive -the worth of it?” - -“My boy, there is a decency in these matters, and an indecency. I got -my desire. And having it, I did not complain. Let that suffice.” - -With that, the speaker picked up his shield, upon which was blazoned a -rampant and bridled stallion, and this tall gray squinting soldier was -there no longer. - -Then came a broad and surly man, in garments of faded scarlet, and with -gems dangling from his ears, and he said: “From him, who was in his -day a Redeemer, the sword came to my mother, and from her to me, and -with it I slew my father, as was foreordained. And the sword made me -unconquerable, and I went fearing nobody, and I ruled over much land, -and I was dreaded upon the wide sea. And the sword won for me the body -of that woman whom I desired, and the sword won for me long misery and -sudden ruin.” - -“A pest!” said Florian. “So you also, monsieur, were the victim of your -own triumph!” - -“Not wholly,” the other answered. “For I learned to envy and to admire -that which I could not understand. That is something far better worth -learning than you, poor shallow-hearted little posturer, are ever -likely to suspect.” - -And now came a third champion, who said: “From him, who was in his day -a most abominable pagan and a very gallant gentleman as well, the sword -came to me. And I cast it into the deep sea, because I meant to gain -my desire unaided by sorcery and with clean hands. And I did get my -desire.” - -“And did you also live unhappily ever afterward?” - -“Our marriage was as happy as most marriages. My love defied Time and -Fate. Because of my love I suffered unexampled chances and ignominies, -and I performed deeds that are still rhymed about; and in the end, -through my unswerving love, I got me a wife who was as good as most -wives. So I made no complaint.” - -And Florian nodded. “I take your meaning. There was once a king and -a queen. They had three sons. And the third prince succeeded in -everything—Your faces and your lives are strange to me. But it is -plain all four of us have ventured into the high place, that dreadful -place wherein a man attains to his desires.” - -Then said another person: “That comes of meddling with Flamberge. Now -my weapon was, at least upon some occasions, called Caliburn. And I -ventured into a great many places, but I was careful of my behavior in -all of them.” - -“And did you never attain to your desire, monsieur?” - -“Never, my lad, although I had some narrow shaves. Why, once there -was only a violet coverlet between me and destruction, but I was poet -enough to save myself.” - -“Parbleu, now that is rather odd! For I first saw my wife—I mean, my -present duchess,—asleep beneath a violet coverlet.” - -“Ah,” said the other, drily, “so that is where you sought a woman to -be, of all things, your wife! Then you are braver than I: but you are -certainly not a monstrous clever fellow.” - -“Well, well!” said Florian, “so the refrain of this obsolescent quartet -is a jingle-jangle of shallow and cheap pessimism: and the upshot of -the matter is that Flamberge is lost somewhere in the old time, and -that I know not how to come to it.” - - -[Illustration: -Caption, surrounded by garland. Now FLORIAN came forward. - _See page 234_ -The image.] - - -“That is easy,” said the fifth person, the only one who now remained. -“You must adventure as they once adventured, who were your forefathers, -and you must go with me, who am called Horvendile, into Antan.” - -“Were those evaporating gentlemen my forefathers?” asked Florian. “And -how does one go into Antan?” - -“They were,” answered Horvendile. “And one goes in this way.” He -explained the way, and the need for traveling on it. - -And Florian looked rather dubious and took snuff. He saw that Janicot -had vanished from the asherah stone, with that ostentatious simplicity -the brown creature seemed to affect. Then Florian shrugged, and said he -would go wherever Horvendile dared go, since this appeared now the only -chance of coming by the sword Flamberge. - -“And as for those who were my forefathers, and begot me, I would of -course have said something civil to express my appreciation of their -exertions, if I had known. But between ourselves, Monsieur Horvendile, -I would have preferred to meet some of the more imposing progenitors -of Puysange,—say, heroic old Dom Manuel or the great Jurgen,—instead -of these commonplace people. It is depressing to find any of one’s own -ancestors just ordinary persons, persons too who seem quite down in the -mouth, and with so little life in them—” - -“To be quite ordinary persons,” replied Horvendile, “is a failing -woefully common to all men and to the daughters of all men, nor does -that foible shock anybody who is not a romantic. As for having very -little life in them, what more do you expect of phantoms? The life -that was once in these persons to-day endures in you. For it is a -truism—preached to I do not, unluckily, know how many generations,—that -the life which informed your ancestor, tall Manuel the Redeemer, did -not perish when Manuel passed beyond the sunset, but remained here upon -earth to animate the bodies of his children and of their children after -them.” - -“But by this time Manuel must have the progeny of a sultan or of a town -bull—” - -“Yes,” Horvendile conceded, “in a great many bodies, and in countless -estates, that life has known a largish number of fruitless emotions. At -least, they appear to me to have been rather fruitless. And to-day that -life wears you, Monsieur de Puysange, as its temporary garment or, it -may be, as a mask: to-morrow you also will have been put by. For that -is always the ending of the comedy.” - -“Well, so that the comedy wherein I figure be merry enough—” - -“It is not ever a merry comedy,” replied Horvendile, “though, for one, -I find it amusing. For I forewarn you that the comedy does not vary. -The first act is the imagining of the place where contentment exists -and may be come to; and the second act reveals the striving toward, -and the third act the falling short of, that shining goal,—or else the -attaining of it to discover that happiness, after all, abides a thought -farther down the bogged, rocky, clogged, befogged heart-breaking road.” - -“Ah, but,” said Florian, “these reflections are doubtless edifying, -since they combine gloom with verbosity and no exact meaning. Still, -it is not happiness I am looking for, but a sword to which all this -philosophizing brings us no step nearer. No, it is not happiness I -seek. For through that sword, when I have got it, will come such -misery as I cannot bear to think of, since its sharp edge must sever -me irrevocably from that perfect beauty which I have adored since -boyhood. None the less, I have given my word; and these old phantoms -have unanimously reassured me that it is better to have love end -at fulltide. So let us be logical, and let us go forward, Monsieur -Horvendile, as merrily as may be possible.” - - - - -_17._ - -_The Armory of Antan_ - - -The way to Antan was made difficult by darkness and obstacles and -illusions, and the three that guarded the cedar-shadowed way were -called Glam of the Haunting Eyes and Ten-jo of the Long Nose and -Maya of the Fair Breasts. But these warders did not greatly bother -Horvendile, who passed them by the appointed methods and through means -which Florian found remarkable if not actually indelicate. In no other -way than through these cedar-groves and the local customs might you -win to Freydis, whom love brought out of Audela to suffer as a mortal -woman, and whom the druids and satirists had brought, through Sesphra’s -wicked aid, to Antan. Thus had she come to reign in Antan, and to -attest, with many dreadful instances, her ardor to do harm and work -great mischief. - -Now this Antan was a queer place, all cloudiness and grayness, but -full of gleamings which reminded you of sparks that linger insecurely -among ashes: and there were no real noises, not even when you talked. -And when Horvendile had departed, you asked this gray and dimly golden -woman if the sword Flamberge was to be come by anywhere in madame’s -most charming and tasteful residence? She replied, a shadow speaking -with the shadow of a voice, that it was very probably somewhere in her -armory: and she led the way into a misty place wherein were the famous -swords whereby came many deaths and a little fame. - -Very curious it was to see them coldly shining in the mistiness, and -to handle them. Here was long Durandal, with which Sir Roland split -a cleft in the Pyrenees; and beside it hung no less redoubtable -Haulte-Claire, with which Sir Oliver had held his own against Durandal -and Durandal’s fierce master, in that great battling which differed -from other military encounters by resulting in something memorable -and permanent, in the form of a proverb. Here was Lancelot’s sword -Aroundight, here was Ogier’s Courtain, and Siegfried’s Balmung. One saw -in this dim place the Cid’s Colada, Sir Bevis’s Morglay, the Crocea -Mors of Cæsar, and the Joyeuse of Charlemagne. Nor need one look in -vain for Curtana and Quernbiter, those once notable guardians of -England and Norway, nor for Mistelstein, nor Tizona, nor Greysteel, nor -Angurvadel, nor any other charmed sword of antiquity. All were here: -and beside Joyeuse was hung Flamberge; for Galas made both of them. - -Well, you estimated, Flamberge was by no means the handsomest of the -lot: but it would serve your turn, you did not desire to seem grasping. -And since madame appeared somewhat oversupplied with cutlery— - -Indeed that was the truth, as Freydis could not deny, in the thin tones -which people’s voices had in Antan, since not only these patrician -murderers harbored here. Here too were death’s plebeian tools in -every form. Here were Italian stilettoes heaped with Malay krisses, -the hooked Turkish scimitar with the Venetian schiavona; curved Arab -yataghans, sabres that Yoshimitzu had tempered, the Albanian cutlass, -and the notched blades of Zanzibar; the two-handed claymores of -Scotland, the espada of the Spanish matador, the scalping-knives of -the Red Indians and the ponderous glaives of executioners: swords from -all cities and all kingdoms of the world, from Ferrara and Toledo and -Damascus, from Dacia and Peru and Muscovy and Babylon. - -To which you replied that, while you had never greatly cared for -the cataloguing method in literature, you allowed its merits in -conversation. These crisp little résumés indicated a really firm grasp -of the subject. For the rest, it was most interesting to note what -ingenuity people had displayed in contriving how to kill one another. - -Freydis assented as to men’s whole-heartedness in malignity, but -was disposed to view without optimism the support it got from human -ingenuity. She considered these swords in any event to be outmoded -lumber, as concerned the needs of anybody who really desired to do harm -and work any actually great mischief. - -Still, you, whose speaking seemed even to you a whisper in the -grayness, declined to be grasping: and Flamberge would serve your turn. -Therefore it was vexatious that, instead of gracefully presenting you -with the sword, the Queen of Antan went through a gray vague corridor, -wherein upon a table lay a handful of rusty iron nails and a spear, and -then into another twilit place. - -Here, as you hastily observed, were madame’s pistols, cannons, -culverins, grenades, musketoons, harquebusses, bombs, petronels, -siege-guns, falconets, carbines, and jingals, and swivels. Yes, it was -most interesting. - -Freydis looked at you somewhat queerly: and it was, again, as outmoded -lumber that she appraised this arsenal. Then Freydis almost proudly -showed the weapons she had in store for men’s needs when men should go -to war to-morrow, and such assistants would further every patriot’s -desire to do harm and work great mischief. And you felt rather -uncomfortable to see the sleek efficiency of these gleaming things in -this ambiguous place. - -Yes, they were very interesting, and beside them, Flamberge certainly -seemed inadequate. Still, you admitted, you had never been grasping: -and Flamberge would serve your turn. - -It was really maddening how the woman kept turning to irrelevant -matters. These engines of destruction, although ingenious and -devastating toys within their limits, should not be regarded -overseriously. A million or so of persons, or at most a few nations, -could be removed with these things, but that was all. So speaking, she -passed into a room wherein were books,—but not many books,—and four -figures modelled in clay, as she told you, by old Dom Manuel very long -ago. It was more important, her thin talking went on, that as occasion -served she was sending into the world these figures, to follow their -six predecessors, to all whom she had given a life empoisoned with -dreams, with dreams that were immortal and contagious; and so would -infect others and yet others eternally, and would make living as -unhappy and detestable a business as dying. What were these dreams? she -was asked: and she in turn asked, Why should I tell you? Your dream is -different, nor may you escape it. This must suffice: that these dreams -are the most subtle and destructive of poisons, and do harm and work -great mischief, in that they enable men to see that life and all which -life can afford is inadequate to men’s desires. - -This seemed rather morbid talk. To evade it tactfully, the four -changelings as yet unborn were examined, with civil comments: and -indeed there was about one little hook-nosed figure a something which -quite took the fancy. He reminds me of a parrot, was your smilingly -tendered verdict: and Freydis, with her habitual tired shrugging, -replied that others, later, would detect, without much reticence, a -resemblance to that piratical and repetitious bird. - -Now then, all this was very interesting, most interesting, and -you really regretted having to return to the topic of the sword -Flamberge—Freydis had not made up her mind: she might or might not give -the sword, and her deciding must pivot upon what harm you meant to do -with it. Her visitor from the more cheery world of daylight was thus -forced to make a clean breast of why he needed Flamberge, the only -sword that may spill the blood of the Léshy, so that he might give, by -the old ritual, his unborn child, and rid himself of his wife. - -Whereon Queen Freydis expressed frank indignation, because the child -would by this plan be rescued from all, and the woman from much, -sorrow. Could even a small madman in bottle-green and silver suppose -that the Queen of Antan, after centuries of thriving malevolence, was -thus to be beguiled into flagrant philanthropy? - -But it was not, in the long run, philanthropy, you insisted. It was -depressing to have to argue about anything in this gray, vague, -gleaming, endless place, wherein you seemed only to whisper: and you -were, privately, a little taken aback by the unaccustomed need to -prove an action, not amply precedented and for the general good, but -the precise contrary. Aloud,—though not actually aloud, but in the -dim speech one uses in Antan,—you contended that when a man thus rid -himself of his wife he did harm and worked great mischief, because -the spectacle made all beholders unhappy. Women of course had obvious -reasons for uneasiness lest the example be followed generally: and men -were roused to veritable frenzies of pious reprovings when they saw the -thing they had so often thought of doing accomplished by somebody else. - -Did married men, then, at heart always desire to murder their wives? -was what Freydis wondered. No, you did not say that: not always; -some wives let weeks go by without provoking that desire. And to -appearances, most men became in the end more or less reconciled to -having their wives about. Still, let us not go wholly by appearances. -Let us be logical! Whom does any man most dislike? - -Freydis had settled down, with faint golden shimmerings, upon a couch -that was covered with gray cushions, and she meditated. What person -does any man most dislike? Why, Freydis estimated, the person who most -frequently annoys him, the person with whom he finds himself embroiled -in the most bitter quarrels, the person whose imperfections are to him -most glaringly apparent, and, in fine, the person who most often and -most poignantly makes him uncomfortable. - -Just so, you assented: and in the life of any possible married man, -who was that person? The question was rhetorical. You did not have -to answer it, any more than did most husbands. None the less, you -esteemed it a question which no married man had failed to consider, if -gingerly and as if from afar, with the mere tail of his mental eye, in -unacknowledged reveries. It was perhaps the memory of these cloistered -considerations which made married men acutely uncomfortable when any -other man disposed of his wife without all this half-hearted paltering -with the just half-pleasant notion that some day she would go so far as -to make justifiable—A gesture showed what, as plainly as one could show -anything in this vague endlessness of grays and gleamings. No, madame -might depend upon it, to assist any gentleman in permanently disposing -of his wife was not, in the long run, philanthropy. It really did make -the majority of other husbands uncomfortable, whether through envy or -though a conscience-stricken recalling of unacknowledged reveries, you -did not pretend to say. - -All that might be true enough, Freydis admitted, from her dim nook -among the gray cushions, without alluring her into the charitable act -of preventing a child’s enduring the sorrows and fatigues of living. - -Ah, but here again, madame must not reason so carelessly, nor be misled -by specious first appearances. Let us, instead, be logical! The child, -knowing nothing, would not know what it was escaping: and it would not -be grateful, it would derive no æsthetic pleasure from the impressive -ceremony of giving by the old ritual, it would even resent the moment’s -physical pain. But the beholders of the deed, and all that heard of it, -would be acutely uncomfortable, since the father that secured for his -child immunity from trouble and annoyance, did harm and worked great -mischief by setting an example which aroused people to those frenzies -evocable by no other prodigy than a display of common-sense. - -For people would turn from this proof of paternal affection, to the -world from which the child was being removed: and people would -be unhappy, because, with all their natural human propensity for -fault-finding tugging them toward denunciation, nobody would be able -to deny the common-sense of rescuing a child from discomforts and -calamities. What professional perjurer anywhere, madame, whether in -prison or politics or the pulpit, could muster the effrontery to -declare life other than a long series of discomforts diversified -only by disasters? What dignity was possible in an arena we entered -in the manner of urine and left in the shape of ordure? What father -endowed with any real religious faith could, after the most cursory -glancing over of the sufferings he had got gratis in this life and -had laboriously earned in the next,—could then appraise without -conscience-stricken remorse the dilemma in which he had placed his -offspring? - -Well, to see thus revealed the one sure way of rescuing the child from -this disastrous position, and to know himself too much a poltroon to -follow the example of which his judgment and all his better instincts -approved, was a situation that, madame, must make every considerate -parent actually and deeply miserable, through self-contempt. In one -manner alone might every man be made really miserable,—by preventing -him from admiring himself any longer. - -For people would look, too, toward the nearest police officer and -toward the cowardice in their own hearts: and these commingled -considerations would prevent many fathers from doing their plain -duty. They would send many and it might be the hapless majority of -fathers to bed that night with clean hands, with the pallid hands of -self-convicted dastards: and self-contempt would make these fathers -always unhappy. No, here again, madame might depend upon it that to -assist a gentleman in this giving, by the old ritual, of his offspring -was not, in the long run, and whatever the deed might seem to a first -glance, philanthropy. It did some good: one could not deny that: but, -after all, the child was absolutely the only person who profited, -and through the benefits conferred upon the child was furthered the -greatest ill and discomfort for the greatest number, who, here as in -every other case, replied to any display of common-sense with frenzies -that did harm and everywhither splutteringly worked mischief. - -And you spoke with such earnestness, and so much logic, that in the -end the vaguely golden Queen of Antan smiled through the gray mist, -and said that you reminded her of her own children. You were enamored -of words, you delighted in any nonsense which was sonorous. You were -like all her children, she told you, the children whom, in spite of -herself, she pitied. Here Freydis sighed. - -Pity has kindred, you stated. Freydis leaned back among the gray -cushions of her couch, so as to listen in perfect ease, and bade you -explain that saying. - -And as you sat down beside her, Puysange arose to the occasion. -Here was familiar ground at last, the ground on which Puysange -thrust forward with most firmness. And you reflected that it would -be inappropriate to lament, just now, that not even in Antan did a -rigidity of logic seem to get for anyone the victory which you foresaw -to be secured by your other gifts.... - -When Florian left Antan, the needed sword swung at his thigh. - - - - -_18._ - -_Problems of Holiness_ - - -Thus it was not until Handsel Monday that Florian took the serious step -which led from the realm in which Queen Freydis ruled, to the world of -every day: and Florian found there, standing on the asherah stone upon -which Janicot had received homage, no other person than Holy Hoprig. - -“So I catch you creeping out of Antan,” observed the saint, and his -halo glittered rather sternly. “I shall not pry into your actions -there, because Antan is not a part of this world, and it is only your -doings in this world which more or less involve my heavenly credit. -Upon account of that annoying tie I now admonish you. For now we -enter a new year, and this is the appropriate season for making good -resolutions. It would be wise for you to make a great many of them, my -son, for I warn you that I am a resolute spiritual father, and do not -intend to put up with any wickedness now that you return to the world -of men.” - -This was to Florian a depressing moment. He had been to a deal of -trouble to get the sword Flamberge, upon whose powers depended his -whole future. And the instant he had it, here in his path was a far -stronger power, with notions which bid fair to play the very devil with -Florian’s plans. Now one could only try what might be done with logic -and politeness. - -“Your interest in my career, Monsieur Hoprig, affects me more deeply -than I can well express; and I shall treasure your words. Still, -Monsieur Hoprig, in view of your own past, and in view of all your -abominable misdeeds as a priest of heathenry, one might anticipate a -little broad-mindedness—” - -“My past is quite good enough for any saint in eternity, and so, my -son, ought not to be sneered at by any whippersnapper of a sorcerer—” - -“Putting aside your delusion as to my necromantic accomplishments, -I had always supposed, monsieur, that the living of a saint would -be distinguished by meritorious actions, by actions worthy of our -emulation. And so—!” - -Hoprig sat down, sitting where Janicot had sat, and Hoprig made himself -comfortable. “That is as it may be. People get canonized in various -ways, and people, if you have ever noticed it, are human—” - -“Still, for all that, monsieur—” - -“—With human frailties. Now my confrères, I find since the extension of -my acquaintance in heavenly circles, are no exception to this rule. St. -Afra, the patroness of Augsburg, was for many years a courtesan in that -city, conducting a brothel in which three other saints, the blessed -Digna, Eunomia and Eutropia, exerted themselves with equal vigor and -viciousness. St. Aglae and St. Boniface for a long while maintained -an illicit carnal connection. St. Andrea of Corsini conducted himself -in every respect abominably until his mother dreamed that she had -given birth to a wolf, and so, of course, converted him. As for -St. Augustine, I can but blush, my dear son, and refer you to his -Confessions—” - -“Still, monsieur, I think—” - -“You are quite wrong. St. Benedict led for fifteen years a sinful life, -precisely as St. Bavon was a profligate for fifty. St. Bernard Ptolemei -was a highly successful lawyer, than which I need say no more—” - -“Yet, monsieur, if I be not mistaken—” - -“You are mistaken,” replied Hoprig. “The Saints Constantine and -Charlemagne committed every sort of atrocity and abomination, excepting -only that of parsimony to the Church. St. Christopher made a pact with -Satan, and St. Cyprian of Antioch was, like you, my poor child, a most -iniquitous sorcerer until he was converted through his lust for the -very holy Justina—” - -“Let us go no further in the alphabet, for there are twenty-six -letters, of which, I perceive, you have reached only the third. I was -merely about to observe,” said Florian, at a venture, “that you, after -living dishonestly—” - -“Now, if you come to that, St. George of Cappadocia was an embezzler, -St. Guthlac of Croydon was by profession a cut-throat and a thief—” - -“—After,” continued Florian, where guessing seemed to thrive, “I know -not how many escapades with women—” - -“Whom I at worst accompanied in just the physical experiments through -which were graduated into eternal grace St. Margaret of Cortona, St. -Mary the Egyptian, St. Mary the Penitent, St. Mary Magdalene, and I -cannot estimate how many other ladies now canonized.” - -“—And, worst of all, after your persecuting and murdering of real -Christians—” - -“St. Paul stoned Stephen the Protomartyr, St. Vitalis of Ravenna and -St. Torpet of Pisa both served under Nero, that arch-persecutor of the -faithful, and St. Longinus conducted the Crucifixion. No, Florian: no, -I admit that at first I was a trifle uncertain. For I did remember some -incidents that were capable of misconstruction and exaggeration, and -people talk too much upon this side of the grave for burial quite to -cure them of the habit. But since moving more widely among the elect, -it has been extremely gratifying to find my past as blameless as that -of most other holy persons.” - -“—You, after all these enormities, I say, have been canonized by the -lost tail of an R, and through mistake have been fitted out with a -legend in which there is no word of truth—” - -“The histories of many of my more immaculate confrères have that same -little defect. St. Hippolytus, who never heard of Christianity, since -he lived, if at all, several hundred years before the Christian era, -was canonized by a mistake. St. Filomena’s legend rests upon nothing -save the dreams of a priest and an artist, who were thus favored with -unluckily quite incompatible revelations. The name of St. Viar was -presented for beatification because of a time-disfigured tombstone, -like mine, a stone upon which remained only part of the Latin word -_viarum_: and two syllables of a road-inspector’s vocation were thus -esteemed worthy of being canonized. The record of St. Undecimilla was -misread as relating to eleven thousand virgins, and so swelled the -Calendar with that many saints who were later discovered never to have -existed. No, Florian, mistakes seem to occur everywhere, in awarding -the prizes of celestial as well as earthly life: but not even those of -the elect who have without any provocation been thrust into the highest -places of heaven ought to complain, for one never really gains anything -by being hypercritical.” - -“Why, then, monsieur, I say that all these legends—” - -“You are quite wrong. They are excellent legends. I know that, for -one, I have been moved to tears and to the most exalted emotions of -every kind through considering my own history. What boy had ever a more -edifying start in life than that ten years of meditation in a barrel? -It was not a beer barrel either, I am sure, for stale beer has a vile -odor. No, Florian, you may depend upon it, that barrel had been made -aromatic by a generous and full-bodied wine, by a rather sweetish wine, -I think—” - -“Yes, but, monsieur—” - -Still Hoprig’s rolling voice went on, unhurriedly and very nobly, and -with something of the stateliness of an organ’s music: and in the -saint’s face you saw unlimited benevolence, and magnanimity, and such -deep and awe-begetting wisdom as seemed more than human. - -And Hoprig said: “Wonder awakens in me when I consider my travels, and -stout admiration when I regard the magnificence of my deeds. Why, -but, my son, I defied two emperors to their pagan faces, I sailed in -a stone trough beyond the sunset, I killed five dragons, I forget -how many barbarous tribes I converted, and I intrepidly went down -into Pohjola and into the fearful land of Xibalba, among big tigers -and blood-sucking bats, to the rescue of my poor friend Hork! Now I -consider these things with a pride which is not selfish, but with pride -in the race and in the religion which produces such heroism: and I -consider these things with tears also, when I think of my steadfastness -under heathen persecution. Do you but recall, my dear child, what -torments I endured! I was bound to a wheel set with knives, I was given -poison to drink, I was made to run in red-hot iron shoes, I was cast -into quicklime—But I abridge the list of my sufferings, for it is too -harrowing. I merely point out that the legend is excellent.” - -“But, monsieur, this legend is not true.” - -“The truth, my son,” replied the saint, “is that which a person, for -one reason or another, believes. Now if I had really been put to the -horrible inconvenience of doing all these splendid things, and they had -been quite accurately reported, my legend would to-day be precisely -what it is: it would be no more or less than the fine legend which -piety has begotten upon imagination. You will grant that, I hope?” - -“Nobody denies that. It is only—” - -“Then how can it to-day matter a pennyworth whether or not I did these -things?” asked the saint, reasonably. - -“Well, truly now, Monsieur Hoprig, the way you put it—” - -“I put it, my son, in the one rational way. We must zealously preserve -those invigorating stories of the heroic and virtuous persons who -lived here before our time so gloriously, because people have need of -these excellent examples. It would be a terrible misfortune if these -stories were not known everywhere, and were not always at hand to -hearten everybody in hours of despondency by showing what virtuous -men can rise to at need. These examples comfort the discouraged with -a sentiment of their importance as moral beings and of the greatness -of their destinies. So, since the actual living of men has at no time, -unluckily, afforded quite the necessary examples, the philanthropic -historian selects, he prunes, he colors, he endeavors, like any other -artist, to make something admirable out of his raw material. The -miracles which the painter performs with evil-smelling greases, the -sculptor with mud, and the musician with the intestines of a cat, the -historian emulates through the even more unpromising medium of human -action. And that is as it should be: for life is a continuous battle -between the forces of good and evil, and news from the front ought to -be delivered in the form best suited to maintain our morale. Yes, it is -quite as it should be, for fine beliefs do everybody good.” - -“Parbleu, monsieur, I cannot presume to argue with you; but this sort -of logic is unsettling. It is also unsettling to reflect that all the -magnificent gifts I have been offering to your church were sheer waste, -since you have not been at your post attending to the forgiveness of my -irregularities. You conceive, monsieur, I had kept very exact accounts, -with an equitable and even generous assessment for every form of -offence; and to find that all this painstaking has gone for nothing has -upset my conscience.” - -“That is probable. Still, I suspect that famous conscience of yours is -as much good to you upset as in any other position.” - -“Well, but, monsieur, now that my other troubles seem in every -likelihood to approach a settlement,” said Florian, caressing the -pommel of Flamberge, “what would you have me do about rectifying my -unfortunate religious status?” - -The saint looked now at Florian for a long while. In the great shining -pale blue eyes of Hoprig was much of knowledge and of pity. “You must -repent, my son. What are good works without repentance?” - -“A pest! if that is all which is needful, I shall put my mind to it -at once,” said Florian, brightening. “And doubtless, I shall find -something to repent of.” - -“I think that more than probable. What is certain is that I have no -more time to be wasting on you. I have given you my fair warning, -in the most delicate possible terms, without even once alluding to -my enjoyment of thaumaturgic powers and my especial proficiency in -blasting, cursing and smiting people with terrible afflictions. I -prefer, my dear child, to keep matters on a pleasant footing as long,” -the saint said meaningly, “as may prove possible. So I have not in -any way alluded to these little personal gifts. I have merely warned -you quite affably that, for the sake of my celestial credit, I intend -to put up with no wickedness from you; and I have duly called you to -repentance. With these duties rid of, I can be off to Morven. After -having seen, during the last five months, as much of this modern -world as particularly appeals to a saint in the prime of life, I am -establishing a hermitage upon Morven.” - -“And for what purpose, may one ask?” Florian was reflecting that Morven -stood uncomfortably near to Bellegarde. - -The saint regarded Florian with some astonishment. “One may ask, to be -sure, my son: but why should one answer?” - -“Well, but, monsieur, Morven is a place of horrible fame, a place which -is reputed still to be given over to sorcery—” - -“I would feel some unavoidable compassion for any sorcerer that I -caught near my hermitage: but, none the less, I would do my duty as a -Christian saint with especial proficiency—” - -“—And, monsieur, you would be terribly lonely upon Morven.” - -It appeared to Florian that the saint’s smile was distinctly peculiar. -“One need never be lonely,” St. Hoprig stated, “when one is able to -work miracles.” - -With that he slightly smacked his lips and vanished. - -And Florian remained alone with many and firm grounds for depression, -and with forebodings which caused him to look somewhat forlornly at the -sword Flamberge. For there seemed troubles ahead with which Flamberge -could hardly cope. - - - - -_19._ - -_Locked Gates_ - - -Florian did not at once set forth for Bellegarde, to make the utmost of -the four months of happiness he might yet hope to share with Melior. -Instead, he despatched a very loving letter to his wife, lamenting that -business matters would prevent his returning before February. - -Meanwhile he had gone to the Hôtel de Puysange. Along with Clermont, -Simiane, the two Belle-Isles, and all the rest of Orléans’ fraternity -of roués, Florian found himself evicted from Versailles. His rooms -there had already been assigned to the de Pries, by the new minister, -Monsieur de Bourbon, whom Florian esteemed to have acted with -unbecoming promptness and ingratitude. - -Florian, in any event, went to the Hôtel de Puysange, where he lived -rather retiredly for a month. He did not utterly neglect his social -duties between supper-and breakfast-time. But during the day he -excused himself from participation in any debauchery, and save for -three trivial affairs of honor,—in which Florian took part only as a -second, and killed only one of his opponents, an uninteresting looking -young Angevin gentleman, whose name he did not catch,—with these -exceptions, Florian throughout that month lived diurnally like an -anchorite. - -Nobody could speak certainly of what went on in the day-time within the -now inhospitable gates of the Hôtel de Puysange, but the rumors as to -Florian’s doings were on that account none the less numerous. - -It was public, in any event, that he had retained Albert Aluys, the -most accomplished sorcerer then practising in the city. What these -two were actually about at this time, behind the locked gates of the -Hôtel de Puysange, remains uncertain, for Florian never discussed the -matter. Aluys, when questioned,—though the value of his evidence is -somewhat tempered by his known proficiency and ardor at lying,—reported -that Monsieur the Duke made use of his services only to evoke the most -famous and beautiful women of bygone times. That was reasonable enough: -but, what the deuce! once these marvelous creatures were materialized -and ready for all appropriate employment, monseigneur asked nothing of -the loveliest queens and empresses except to talk with him. It was not -as if he got any pleasure from it, either: for after ten minutes of -the prettiest woman’s talking about how historians had misunderstood -her with a fatuity equalled only by that of her husband and his -relatives, and about what had been the true facts in her earthly -life,—after ten minutes of these friendly confidences, monseigneur -would shake his head, and would sometimes groan outright, before he -requested that the lady be returned to her last home. - -Monseigneur, in point of fact, seemed put out by the circumstance that -these ladies manifested so little intelligence. As if, a shrugging -Aluys demanded of Heaven’s common-sense, it were not for the benefit -of humanity at large that all beautiful women were created a trifle -stupid. The ladies whom one most naturally desired to seduce were thus -made the most apt to listen to the seducer: for the good God planned -the greatest good for the greatest number. - -When February had come, and Florian might hope to share with Melior -only three more months of happiness, Florian sent a letter to his -wife to bewail the necessity of his remaining away from home until -March. The rumors as to his doings were now less colorful but equally -incredible. Yet nothing certainly was known of his pursuits, beyond the -fact that Aluys reported they were evoking the dead persons who had -been most famed for holiness and other admirable virtues. And with -these also Monsieur de Puysange seemed unaccountably disappointed. - -For he seemed, Aluys lamented, really not to have comprehended that -when men perform high actions or voice impressive sentiments, this -is by ordinary the affair of a few moments in a life of which the -remainder is much like the living of all other persons. Monsieur de -Puysange appeared to have believed that famous captains won seven -battles every week, that authentic poets conversed in hexameters, and -that profound sages did not think far less frequently about philosophy -than their family affairs. As if too, Aluys cried out, it were not -very pleasant to know the littlenesses of the great and the frailties -of the most admirable! Æschylus had confessed to habitual drunkenness, -the prophet Moses stuttered, and Charlemagne told how terribly he had -suffered with bunions. Monsieur de Puysange ought to be elated by -securing these valuable bits of historical information, but, to the -contrary, they seemed to depress him. He regretted, one judged, that -his colloquies with the renowned dead revealed that human history had -been shaped and guided by human beings. A romantic! was Aluys’ verdict: -and you cannot cure that. The gentleman will have an unhappy life. - -“His wives die quickly,” was hazarded. - -“They would,” Aluys returned: “and it makes for the benefit of all -parties.” - -Upon the first day of March, when Florian could hope at most to share -only two more months of happiness with Melior, Florian sent a letter to -his wife announcing the postponement until April of his homecoming. And -throughout this month too he lived in equal mystery, except that toward -the end of March he entertained a party of young persons at a supper -followed by the debauch just then most fashionable, a fête d’Adam. - -“Let us not be epigrammatic,” Florian had said, at outset. “Love -differs from marriage; and men are different from women; and a -restatement of either of these facts is cleverness. It is understood -that we are all capable of such revamping. So let us, upon this my -birthnight, talk logically.” - -They discussed, in consequence, the new world and the new era that was -upon them. For Europe was just then tidying up the ruin into which the -insane ambition of one man, discredited Louis Quatorze, had plunged -civilization. All the conventions of society had given way under the -strain of war, so that the younger generation was left without any -illusions. Those older people, who had so boggled matters, had been -thrust aside in favor of more youthful and more vigorous exponents of -quite new fallacies, and everyone knew that he was privileged to live -at a period in the world’s history hitherto unparalleled. So they had -a great deal to talk over at supper, with the errors of human society -at last triumphantly exposed, and with the younger generation at last -permitted utter freedom in self expression, and with recipes for all -the needful social regeneration obtainable everywhere. - -“We live,” it was confidently stated, “in a new world, which can never -again become the world we used to know.” - -Thus it was not until the coming of spring that Florian rode away -from the Hôtel de Puysange, wherein he had just passed the first -actually unhappy period of Florian’s life. For this man had long and -fervently cherished his exalted ideals: and since his boyhood the -beauty of Melior and the holiness of Hoprig had been at once the -criteria and the assurance of human perfectibility. To think of these -two had preserved him in faith and in wholesome optimism: for here was -perfect beauty and perfect holiness attained once by mankind, and in -consequence not unattainable. To dream of these two had kept Florian -prodigally supplied with lofty thoughts of human excellence. And these -two had thus enriched the living of Florian with unfailing streams of -soothing and ennobling poesy, of exactly the kind which, in Hoprig’s -fine phrase, was best suited to impress him with a sentiment of his -importance as a moral being and of the greatness of man’s destiny. - -Now all was changed. Now in the saint he found, somehow, a sort of -ambiguity; not anything toward which one could plump a corporeal -fore-finger, but, rather, a nuance of some indescribable inadequacy. -Florian could not but, very respectfully and with profound -unwillingness, suspect that any daily living, hour in and hour -out, with Holy Hoprig—in that so awkwardly situated hermitage upon -Morven,—would bear as fruitage discoveries woefully parallel to the -results of such intimacy with Melior. - -And of Melior her husband thought with even more unwillingness. At -Bellegarde he had found her, to the very last, endurable. But now that -Florian was again at court, the exigencies of his social obligations -had drawn him into many boudoirs. One could not be uncivil, nobody -would willingly foster a reputation for being an eccentric with a -mania for spending every night in the same bed. In fact, a husband -who had lost four wives in a gossip-loving world had obvious need to -avoid the imputation of being a misogynist. So Florian followed the -best-thought-of customs; and in divers bedrooms had, unavoidably and -logically, drawn comparisons. - -For at this time Florian was brought into quite intimate contact with -many delightful and very various ladies: with Madame de Polignac, -just then in the highest fashion on account of her victory in the -pistol duel she had fought with Madame de Nesle; with La Fillon, -most brilliant of blondes,—though, to be sure, she was no longer -in her first youth,—who was not less than six feet in height; with -Madame du Maine (in her Cardinal’s absence), who was the tiniest and -most fairy-like creature imaginable; with La Tencin, the former nun, -and with Emilie and La Souris, those most charming actresses; with -Madame de Modena and the Abbess de Chelles, both of whom were poor -Philippe’s daughters; with dashing Madame de Prie, who now ruled -everything through her official lover, Monsieur de Bourbon, and who in -the apartments from which Florian had been evicted accorded him such -hospitality as soon removed all hard feeling; and with some seven or -eight other ladies of the very finest breeding and wit. These ladies -now were Florian’s companions night after night: it was as companions -that he compared them with Melior: and his deductions were unavoidable. - -He found in no tête-à-tête, and through no personal investigation, any -beauty at all comparable to the beauty of Melior. This much seemed -certain: she was the most lovely animal in existence. But one must be -logical. She was also an insufferable idiot: she was, to actually -considerate eyes, a garrulous blasphemer who profaned the shrine -of beauty by living in it: and Florian was tired of her, with an -all-possessing weariness that troubled him with the incessancy of a -physical aching. - -Time and again, in the soft arms of countesses and abbesses of the -very highest fashion, even there would Florian groan to think how many -months must elapse before he could with any pretence of decency get -rid of that dreadful woman at Bellegarde. For the methods formerly -available would not serve here: his pact with brown Janicot afforded to -a man of honor no choice except to wait for the birth of the child that -was to be Janicot’s honorarium, of the dear child, already beloved with -more than the ordinary paternal fondness, whose coming was to ransom -its father from so much discomfort. No, it was tempting, of course, to -have here, actually in hand, the requisite and unique means for killing -any of the Léshy. But to return to Bellegarde now, and to replace that -maddening idiotic chatter by the fine taciturnity of death, would be -a reprehensible action in that it would impugn the good faith of a -Puysange. For to do this would be to swindle Janicot, and to evade an -explicit bargain. One had no choice except to wait for the child’s -birth. - -So Florian stood resolutely, if rather miserably, upon his point of -honor. He must—since a Puysange could not break faith, not even with -a fiend,—carry out his bargain with Janicot, so far as went the reach -of Florian’s ability. He could foresee a chance of opposition. Melior -might perhaps have other views as to the proper disposal of the child: -and Melior certainly had the charmed ring which might, if she behaved -foolishly with it, overspice the affair with a tincture of Hoprig’s -officiousness. And this at worst might result in some devastating -miracle that would destroy Florian; and at best could not but harrow -his conscience with the spectacle of a Duke of Puysange embroiled in -unprecedented conflict with his patron saint. - -His conscience, to be sure, was already in a sad way. Ever since -the awakening of Hoprig, Florian had stayed quite profoundly -conscience-stricken by the discovery that all the irregularities of -his past remained unforgiven. That was from every aspect a depressing -discovery. It had not merely a personal application: it revealed that -in this world the most painstaking piety might sometimes count for -nothing. It was a discovery which troubled your conscience, which -darkened your outlook deplorably, and which fostered actual pessimism. - - -[Illustration: -Caption surrounded by garland: Presently the COLLYN of PUYSANGE - had opened her yellow eyes and was - licking daintily her lips. - _See page 237_ -The image] - - -For what was he to do now? “Repent!” the saint had answered: it was -the sort of saying one expected of a saint, and indeed, from Hoprig, -who was secure against eternity, such repartees were natural enough. -The serene physician had prescribed, but who would compound, the -remedy? Florian himself was ready to do anything at all reasonable -about those irregularities which had remained unforgiven through, as -he must respectfully point out to inquirers, no remissness of his; -he quite sincerely wanted to spare Heaven the discomfort of having a -Duke of Puysange in irrevocable opposition: but he did not clearly see -how repentance was possible. The great majority of such offences as -antedated, say, the last two years had, after putative atonements, gone -out of his mind, just as one puts aside and forgets about receipted -bills: he could not rationally be expected to repent for misdemeanors -without remembering them. That was the deuce of having placed unbounded -faith in this—somehow—ambiguous Hoprig and in Hoprig’s celestial -attorneyship. - -Even such irregularities as Florian recalled seemed unprolific of -actual repentance. Florian now comprehended that he—perhaps through a -too careful avoidance of low company, perhaps, he granted, through a -tinge of pharisaism,—had never needed to incite the funerals of any -but estimable and honorable persons who were upon the most excellent -footing with the Church. He could not, with his rigid upbringing, for -one instant doubt that all these had passed from this unsatisfactory -world to eternal bliss. He could not question that he had actually been -the benefactor of these persons. The only thing he could be asked to -repent of here was a benevolent action, and to do that was, to anyone -of his natural kindliness, out of all thinking. - -His irregularities in the way of personal friendship, too, appeared, -upon the whole, to have resulted beneficially. Girls and boys that he -had raised from sometimes the most squalid surroundings, even rescuing -them in some cases from houses of notorious ill fame, had passed from -him to other friends, and had prospered. Louison had now her duke, -Henri his prince, and little Sapho her princess of the blood royal,—and -so it went. All were now living contentedly, in opulence, and they all -entertained the liveliest gratitude for their discoverer. You could not -repent of having given the ambitious and capable young a good start in -life. Among Florian’s married friends of higher condition, among a host -of marquises and duchesses and countesses, his passing had tinged the -quiet round of matrimony with romance, had left a plenitude of pleasant -memories, and not infrequently had improved the quality of that -household’s progeny. Here too he had in logic to admit he had scattered -benefactions, of which no kindly-hearted person could repent. - -He had never, he rather wistfully reflected, either coveted or stolen -anything worth speaking of: he might have had some such abominable -action to repent of, if only he had not always possessed a plenty of -money to purchase whatever he fancied. That over-well filled purse had -also kept him from laboring upon the Sabbath, or any day. And it had, -by ill luck, never even occurred to him to worship a graven image. - -Nor had it ever occurred to him to break his given word. Philippe, he -remembered, had referred to that as being rather queer, but it did -not seem queer to Florian: this was simply a thing that Puysange did -not do. The word of honor of a Puysange, once given, could not in any -circumstances be broken: to Florian that was an axiom sufficiently -obvious. - -He had told many falsehoods, of course. For an instant the reflection -brightened him: but he found dejectedly, on looking back, that all -these falsehoods appeared to have been told either to some woman who -was chaste or to some husband who was suspicious, entirely with the -view of curing these failings and making matters more pleasant for -everybody. A Puysange did not lie with the flat-footed design of -getting something for himself, because such deviations from exactness, -somehow, made you uncomfortable; nor through fear, because a Puysange, -quite candidly, did not understand what people meant when they talked -about fear. - -No, one must be logical. Florian found that his sins—to name for once -the quaint term with which so many quaint people would, he knew, label -the majority of his actions,—seemed untiringly to have labored toward -beneficence. Florian was not prepared to assert that this established -any general rule: for some persons, it well might be that the practise -of these technical irregularities produced actual unhappiness: but -Florian was here concerned just with his own case. And it did not, -whatever a benevolent saint advised,—and ought, of course, in his -exalted position to advise,—it did not afford the material for any -rational sort of repentance. And to prevaricate about this deficiency, -or to patch up with Heaven through mutual indulgence some not quite -candid compromise, was not a proceeding in which Florian cared to -have part, or could justify with honorable precedents. Say what you -might, even though you spoke from behind the locked gates of paradise, -Puysange remained Puysange, and wholly selfish and utilitarian lying -made Puysange uncomfortable. - -In fine, Florian earnestly wanted to repent, where repentance was -so plainly a matter of common-sense, and seemed his one chance for -an inexcruciate future: but the more he reflected upon such of his -irregularities as he could for the life of him recollect, the less -material they afforded him for repentance. No, one must be logical. -And logic forced him to see that under the present divine régime there -was slender hope for him. So his conscience was in these days in a -most perturbed state: he seemed to be deriving no profit whatever from -a wasted lifetime of pious devotion: and the more widely he and Aluys -had conducted their investigations, the less remunerative did Florian -everywhere find the pursuit of beauty and holiness. - - - - -_20._ - -_Smoke Reveals Fire_ - - -Thus it was not until the coming in of spring that Florian rode away -from the Hôtel de Puysange, riding toward Bellegarde and the business -which must be discharged. Florian went by way of Storisende, the home -of his dead brother, for Florian’s son still lived there, and Florian -now felt by no means certain he would ever see the boy again, now that -Holy Hoprig roosted over the Bellegarde to which Florian returned. - -Florian came to Storisende unannounced, as was his usage. Madame -Marguerite de Puysange and Raoul’s children kept her chamber, with a -refusal to see Florian which the steward, to all appearance, had in -transmission considerably censored. Florian thought that this poor -fellow faced somewhat inadequately the problem of the proper demeanor -toward a great peer who had very recently killed your master; and that -too much fidgeting marred his endeavor to combine the politeness -appropriate to a duke with the abhorrence many persons feel to be -demanded by fratricide. - -Meanwhile the father wished to know of his son’s whereabouts. Monsieur -the Prince de Lisuarte had left the house not long after breakfast, it -was reported, and might not return until evening. Florian shrugged, -dined alone, and went out upon the south terrace, walking downward, -into gardens now very ill tended. Raoul had let the gardens fall from -their old, well remembered, sleek estate.... - -So much of Florian’s youth had been passed here that with Florian went -many memories. He had made love to a host of charming girls in this -place, in these gardens which were now tenantless and half ruined: and -none of these girls had he been able to love utterly, because of his -mad notions about Melior. He comprehended now of how much he had been -swindled by this lunacy. His dislike of Melior—of that insufferable -bright-colored imbecile,—rose hot and strong. - -So many women had been to him only the vis-à-vis in a pleasurable -coupling, when he might have got from them the complete and high -insanity which other lads got out of loving! He remembered, for -example, another April afternoon in this place, the April before his -first marriage.... Yes, it had happened just yonder. - -Florian turned to the right, passing the little tree from the East, -which seemed no bigger now than he remembered it in boyhood; and then -trampled through a thick undergrowth which hid what he remembered -as a trim lawn. Raoul had really let the gardens fall into a quite -abominable state. A person who had taken no better care of Storisende -had not deserved to inherit such a fine property: and Florian -remembered now with some compunction how easily, when he disposed of -their father, he could also have disposed of their father’s foolish -will. But Florian too, as he admitted, had always spoiled Raoul. - -Florian came to a boulder some four feet in height, before which stood -a smaller rock that was flat-topped and made a natural seat. Both -were overgrown with patches of gray-green lichen. He looked downward. -Against the boulder, partly hidden by old withered leaves, lay two flat -stones which were each near a foot in length and about an inch thick, -two valueless unextraordinary stones which he remembered. - -He lifted these stones. Where they had lain, the ground showed dark -and wet, and was perforated with small holes. The raising of the first -stone disclosed a bloodless yellow centipede, which flustered and -wavered into hiding among the close-matted dead leaves. Under the other -stone, a great many ants were hastily carrying their small white eggs -into those holes in the ground. Some twenty gray winged ants remained -clustering together futilely. There was adhering to the under side of -this second stone a clotted web. Florian saw the evicted spider, large -and clumsy looking but very quick of movement, trundling away from -molestation much as the centipede had fled. - -It seemed to him that no life ought to be in this place; not even the -life of insects should survive in this ruined haunt of memories. He set -the two rocks at right angles to the boulder, just as he and a girl, -who no longer existed anywhere, had placed them eighteen years ago. -Moss had grown upon the boulder, so that the rocks did not fit against -it so snugly as they had done once, but they stood upright now a foot -apart. Florian gathered five fallen twigs, broke them, and piled the -fragments in this space. From his pocket he took a letter, from the -Abbess de Chelles, which he crumpled and thrust under the twigs. He -took out flint and steel, and struck a spark, which fell neatly into -the crevice between his left thumb and the thumbnail. The pensive -gravity of his face was altered as he said “Damn!” and sucked at his -thumb. Then he tried again, and soon had there just such a tiny fire as -he and that dark-haired girl had once kindled in this place. - -He sat there, feeding the small blaze with twigs and yet more twigs: -and through his thinking flitted thoughts not wholly seized. But this -fire was to him a poem. So went youth, and by and by, life. Brief heat -and bluster and brilliancy, a little noise, then smoke and ashes: then -youth was gone, with all its sparkle and splutter. You were thirty-six: -you still got love-letters from abbesses of the blood royal, but your -heart was a skuttle of cold cinders. And all that which had been, in -these gardens and in so many other places, did not matter to you. It -probably did not matter to anybody, and never had mattered. Yes, like -this tiny blazing here, so went youth, and by and by, life.... - -“Why, what the devil, my friend—!” - -Someone was speaking very close at hand. Florian looked up, strangely -haggard, looked into the face of his son Gaston. The young Prince de -Lisuarte was not alone, for a little behind him stood a dark-haired -staring peasant girl. She was rather pretty, in a fresh and wholesome -way that acquitted her of rational intelligence; and her bodice, -Florian noted, had been torn open at the neck. Well, after all, Gaston -was sixteen. - -“My father!” the boy said now. But Florian observed with approval -that the embarrassment was momentary. “This is in truth a delightful -surprise, monsieur,” Gaston continued. “We saw the smoke, and could -not imagine what caused it here in the park—” - -“So that,” said Florian, “you very naturally investigated—” - -He was reflecting that, after all, he was not answerable, and owed no -explanation, to his son for making a small fire in the spring woods. -That was lucky, for the boy would not understand the poetry of it. -Florian saw too with approval that the young woman had disappeared. For -her to have remained would have been wholly tactless, since it would -have committed him to some expression of elevated disapproval. As it -was, he needed only to rise and shake hands with this tall son of his, -and then sit down again. - -Gaston was rather picturesquely ugly: he indeed most inconsiderately -aspersed his grandmother’s memory by this injudicious resemblance to -the late King of England whom rumor had credited with the begetting of -Gaston’s mother. Carola, though, had been quite pretty. Florian thought -for a while of his first wife with less dislike than he had entertained -toward her for years. Still, he perceived, he did not actually like -this tall boy who waited before him, all in black. That would be for -Raoul.... - -“My son,” said Florian, slowly, “I am on my way homeward to dispose of -an awkward business in which there is an appreciable likelihood of my -getting my death. So the whim took me to see you, it may be, for the -last time.” - -“But, monsieur, if there is danger you should remember that I count as -a man now that I am seventeen next month. I have already two duels to -my credit, I must tell you, in which I killed nobody, to be sure, but -gave very handsome wounds. So may I not aid in this adventure?” - -“Would you fight then in my defence, Gaston?” - -“Assuredly, monsieur.” - -“But why the devil should you? Let us be logical, Gaston! You loved -that handsome hulking uncle of yours, not me, as people are customarily -supposed to love their fathers: and I have recently killed him. Your -damned aunt, I know, has been telling you that I ill-treated and -murdered your mother also. To cap all, you have a great deal to gain by -my death, for you are my heir. And I am too modest to believe that my -engaging qualities have ever ensnared you into any personal affection.” - -The boy reflected. “No, there has been no love between us. And they say -you are wicked. But I would fight for you. I do not know why.” - -Florian smiled. He nodded his head, in a sort of unwilling approval. -“We come of a queer race, my son. That is the reason you would fight in -my cause. It is also a reason why we may speak candidly.” - -“Is candor, monsieur, quite possible between father and son?” - -Florian liked that too, and showed as much. He said: “All -eccentricities are possible to our race. There are many quaint -chronicles to attest this, for there has always been a Puysange -somewhere or another fluttering the world. To-day I am Puysange. -To-morrow you will be Puysange. So I sit here with my little blaze -of spluttering twigs already half gray ashes. And you stand there, -awaiting my leisure, I will not ask how patiently.” - -“I regard you, monsieur, with every appropriate filial sentiment. But -you can remember, I am afraid, just what that comes to.” - -“I remember most clearly. In these matters we are logical. So it is the -defect of our race not ever to love anybody quite whole-heartedly; and -certainly we are not so ill-advised as to squander adoration upon one -another. Rather, we must restively seek everywhither for our desire, -even though we never discover precisely what is this desire. That also, -Gaston, is logic: for we of Puysange know, incommunicably but very -surely, that this unapprehended desire ought to be gratified. It is -this lean knowledge which permits us no rest, no complacent living in -the usual drowsiness....” - -“They tell me, monsieur, that we derive this trait from that old Jurgen -who was our ancestor, and from tall Manuel too, whose life endures in -us of Puysange.” - -“I do not know. I talked lately with a Monsieur Horvendile, who had -extreme notions about an Author who compiles an endless Biography, of -the life that uses us as masks and temporary garments. But I do not -know. I only know that this life was given me by my father, without any -knowledge as to what use I should preferably make of the unsought gift. -I only know that I have handed on this life to you, on the same terms. -Do with the life I gave you whatever you may elect. Now that I see you -for the last time, my premonitions tell me, I proffer no advice. I -shall not even asperse the effects of vice and evil-doing by protesting -that I in person illustrate them. No, I am conscious of a little -compassion for you, but that is all: I do not really care what becomes -of you. So I proffer no advice.” - -“Therein, monsieur, at least, you do not deal with me as is the custom -of fathers.” - -“No,” Florian replied. “No, I find you at sixteen already fighting -duels and tumbling wenches in the spring woods: and I spare you every -appropriate paternal comment. For one thing, I myself had at your age -indulged in these amusements; in fact, at your age, with my wild oats -sown, I was preparing to settle down to quiet domesticity with your -mother: and for another thing, I cannot see that your escapades matter. -It is only too clear to me as I sit here, with my little blaze of -spluttering twigs already half gray ashes, that in a while you and your -ardors and your adversaries and your plump wenches will be picked bones -and dust about which nobody will be worrying. These woods will then be -as young as ever: and nobody anywhere will be thinking about you nor -your iniquities nor your good actions, or about mine either; but in -this place every April will still be anemones.” - -“Meanwhile I have my day, monsieur—” - -“Yes,” Florian agreed,—“the bustling, restless and dissatisfying day of -a Puysange. That is your right, it is your logical inheritance. Well, -there has always been a Puysange, since Jurgen also made the most of -day and night,—a Puysange to keep his part of the world atwitter until -he had been taught, with bruises and hard knocks, to respect the great -law of living. Yes, there has always been a Puysange at that schooling, -and each in turn has mastered the lesson: and I cannot see how, in the -end, this, either, has mattered.” - -“But what, monsieur, is this great law of living?” - -Florian for a moment stayed silent. He could see yonder the little tree -from the East, already budding in the spring. He was remembering how, -a quarter of a century ago, another boy had asked just this question -just here. And living seemed to Florian a quite futile business. Men’s -trials and flounderings got them nowhither. A wheel turned, that was -all. Too large to be thought about, a wheel turned, without haste and -irresistibly. Men clung a while, like insects, to that wheel. The wheel -had come full circle. Now it was not Florian but Florian’s son who -was asking of his father, “What is this great law of living?” And no -response was possible except the old, evasive and cowardly answer. So -Florian gave it. One must be logical, and voice what logic taught. - -“Thou shalt not offend against the notions of thy neighbor,” Florian -replied,—“or not, at least, too often or too openly. I do not say, mark -you, my son, but that in private, and with the exercise of discretion, -one may cultivate one’s faculties.” - -“Yes, but, monsieur, I do not see—” - -“No,” Florian conceded, with a smiling toward his tall son which was -friendly but a little sad, “no, naturally you do not. How should you, -infamous seducer of the peasantry, when this is a law which no young -person anywhere is able to believe? Yet it is certain, dear child, that -if you openly offend against these notions you will be crushed: and it -is certain that if you honor them,—with, I am presupposing, a suitable -appreciation of the charms of privacy and sympathetic companions,—then -all things are permitted, and nobody will really bother about your -discreet pursuing of your desires. A wise man will avoid, though, for -his comfort’s health, all over-high and over-earnest desires.... This -is the knowledge, Gaston, which every father longs to communicate to -his son, without caring to confess that his own life has been such as -to permit the acquiring of this knowledge.” - -And the boy shook his head. “I understand your words. But your meaning, -monsieur, I do not see....” - - - - -PART THREE - -_THE END OF LEAN WISDOM_ - - - _“Ne point aller chercher ce qu’on fait dans la lune, - Et vous mesler un peu de ce qu’on fait chez vous, - Où nous voyons aller tout sans-dessus-dessous.”_ - - - - -_21._ - -_Of Melior Married_ - - -Now Florian returned to Bellegarde to face the disillusion appointed -for every husband in passing from infatuation to paternity. His -disenchanted princess now was hardly recognizable. Her face was like -dough, her nose seemed oddly swollen; under and about the blood-shot -eyes were repulsive yellow splotches. As for the bloated body, he could -not bear to look at it. He was shaken with hot and sick disgust when he -saw this really perfectly dreadful looking creature. - -Perhaps, though, Florian reflected, he saw her through emotions which -exaggerated every blemish unfairly. He knew all other pregnant women -had seemed to him unattractive rather than actually loathsome. But -here, here was the prize he had so long and fervently desired, the -prize to gain which he had sacrificed those dearest to him in this -world, and had parted with the comforting assurances of religion.... -For, Melior, then, had flawless and unequalled beauty. So he had -bought, at an exceedingly stiff price, this shining superficies, -to learn almost immediately thereafter that she possessed not one -other desirable quality. And now Melior had not even the thin mask -of loveliness. Worse still, the beauty which he had worshipped since -boyhood now existed nowhere. To purchase an hour or two of really not -very remarkable entertainment, he had himself destroyed this beauty.... - -“My love,” said Florian, “now if only I were a conceited person, I -would dare to hope that the long months since I last saw you have -passed as drearily with you as with me.” - -He kissed her tenderly. Even the woman’s breath was now unpleasant. It -seemed to Florian that nothing was being spared him. - -“Yes, that sort of talk is all very well,” replied Melior, fretfully. -“But I do think that at a time when I have every right to expect -particular attention and care, you might at least have made an effort -to get home sooner, and not leave everything upon my shoulders, -especially with all the neighbors everywhere pretending, whenever I -come into the room, that they were not talking about your having killed -your brother—” - -“Yes, yes, a most regrettable affair! But what, sweetheart, has been -going amiss at Bellegarde?” - -“That is a pretty question for you to ask, with me in my condition, -with all these other worries on top of it, about your friend Orléans. -Because, knowing you as well as I do, Florian, and not being able to -feel as you do that a prime minister is no more than a house fly or -a flea,—and seeing quite well, too, how little you consider what my -feelings naturally would be if they cut off your head—” - -“Ah, but let us take one thing at a time, and for the present leave my -head where it is. Do you mean that you have been unwell, my pet?” - -“Have you no eyes in the head you keep talking about just to keep me -upset! But I do not wonder you prefer not to look at me, now I am such -a fright, and that is you men all over. Still, you might at least have -the decency to remember who is responsible for it, and that much I must -say.” - -“But, dearest, I have both the eyes about which you inquire, and in -those doubtless partial orbs you happen not to look a fright. So I -cannot quite follow you. No, let us be logical! There is a slight -pallor, to be sure—But, no! No, dear Melior, upon the whole, I never -saw you looking lovelier, and I wonder of what you are talking.” - -“I mean, you fool, that I am sick and miserable because now almost any -day I am going to have a baby.” - -Florian was honestly shocked. He could remember no precedent among -his mistresses of anybody’s having put this news so bluntly: and -when he recalled the behavior of his first wife in precisely these -circumstances, he could not but feel that women were deteriorating. -A wife endowed with proper sensibility would have hidden her face -upon his shoulder, just as Carola had done, and would in this posture -have whispered her awed surmise that Heaven was shortly to consign -them a little cherub. But this big-bellied vixen appeared to have -no sensibilities. “You fool, now almost any day I am going to have -a baby!” was neither a loving nor a dignified way of announcing the -nearness of his freedom. - -But Florian’s plump face was transfigured, as he knelt before his -Melior, and very reverently lifted to his lips her hand. He slipped a -cushion under his knee, made himself comfortable, and, kneeling still, -went on to speak of his bliss and of his love for her and of how sacred -in his eyes appeared the marks of her condition. She listened: he -could see that Melior was pleased; and he in consequence continued his -gallant romanticizing. - -For Florian really wanted to be pleasant to the woman; and was resolved -politely to ignore even this last disillusionment, and to condone as -far as was humanly possible, the lack of consideration through which -this dreadful creature had now added to stupidity and garrulity even -physical ugliness. - -But while Florian was talking he could see, too, that the central -diamond in the charmed ring that Melior wore was to-day quite black, -like an onyx, so that he took care to keep it covered with his hand all -the while he was talking about his adoration. Here was an appalling -omen, a portent, virtually, of open conflict between Florian and his -patron saint. The central stone of this ring had become as black and -as bright and as inimical looking as though, he reflected, one of the -small eyes of Marie-Claire Cazaio stared thence. This was a depressing -sight: and it seemed to Florian quite vexingly illogical that the ring -should change in this fashion when, after all, he was planning no harm -against Melior. - -When she had borne her child, he meant of course to carry out his -bargain with brown Janicot,—a bargain that Florian considered an -entirely private matter, and an affair with which Hoprig could -not meddle without exhibiting absolute ill breeding. Then Melior -would disappear, Florian did not know whither, to be sure, but her -destination would be none of his selecting or responsibility. A really -logical ring would not call that contriving any harm against Melior. -Even Holy Hoprig must be reasonable enough to see that much. So Florian -for the while put aside his foreboding, and assured himself that, with -anything like fair luck, he was on the point of getting rid of this -dreadful woman forever. The reflection spurred him to eloquence and to -the kindliness which Florian had always felt to be due his wives in -their last hours. - - - - -_22._ - -_The Wives of Florian_ - - -Florian watched his Melior with a not unnatural care. She remained, to -the eye, unperturbed, and was her usual maddening self throughout the -evening: it seemed to him she must inevitably have noticed the changing -of her ring; and in that event, he granted the woman’s duplicity at -least to be rather magnificent. - -For Melior talked, on and on and on,—with that quite insupportable -air of commingled self-satisfaction and shrewdness,—about Monsieur du -Belloc’s new liveries, which were the exact color, my dear, of Madame -des Roches’ old wig, the one she was wearing that day she drove in -here in all that rain; and about how that reminded Melior of what a -thunderstorm had come up only last Thursday without the least warning; -and about how Marie-Claire had been looking at Melior again in that -peculiar way and ought not to be permitted to raise storms and cast -spells that dried up people’s cows. - -Even so, Melior continued, milk was fattening and was not really good -for you in large quantities, and, for one, she meant to give it up, -though if you were intended to be fat you had in the end simply to put -up with it, just as some persons got bald sooner than others, and no -hair-dresser could help you, not even if he was as airy and as pleased -with himself as that high-and-mighty François over at Manneville. Oh, -yes, but Florian must certainly remember! He was the very skinny one -whom she had in two or three times last autumn, and who had turned out -to be a Huguenot or a Jansenist or something of that sort, so that, -people did say, the dear old Bishop was going to take the proper steps -the very instant he was out again. That was the trouble, though, with -colds at his age, you never knew what they might lead to at the moment -you were least expecting it— - -So her talking went, on and on and on, while Florian looked at the -woman,—who was repulsive now even to the eye,—and he reflected: “And it -was for this that I intrepidly assailed the high place, and slaughtered -all those charming monsters! It was for this that I have sacrificed -poor Philippe and my dear Raoul!” - -Bed-time alone released him from listening to her; but not from prudent -watchfulness. - -That night he roused as Melior slipped from their bed. Through -discreetly half-closed eyelids Florian saw her take from the closet -that queer carved staff which had once belonged to her sister Mélusine. -Now Melior for a while regarded this staff dubiously. She replaced it -in the closet. She took up the night-light from the green-covered table -beside the bed, and she passed out of the room. - -He lay still for a moment, then put on his dressing-gown and slippers, -and followed her. Melior turned, with her lamp, at the second corridor, -and went out into the enclosed Thoignet Court-yard, skirted the well, -and so disappeared through the small porch into the Chapel. Florian -followed, quite noiselessly. The paved court was chilly underfoot: as -he went into the porch a spray of ivy brushed his cheek in the dark. - -Inside the Chapel three hanging lamps burned before the altar, like -red stars, but they gave virtually no illumination. Florian saw that -Melior had carried her yellow lamp into the alcove where his earlier -wives were buried. She knelt there. She was praying, no doubt, for the -intercession of that meddlesome Hoprig. Florian was rather interested. -Then his interest was redoubled, for of a sudden the place was flooded -with a wan throbbing bluish luminousness. The effigies upon the tombs -of Florian’s wives were changed; and the recumbent marble figures -yawned and stretched themselves. Thus, then, began the unimaginative -working of Hoprig’s holy ring, with a revamping of the affliction put -upon Komorre the Cursed in the old nursery tale, Florian decided; and -these retributory resurrections were rather naïve. He drew close his -dressing-gown, and got well into the shadow of his great-grandfather’s -tomb, the while that his four earlier wives sat erect and looked -compassionately at Melior. - -“Beware, poor lovely child,” said the likeness of Aurélie, “for it is -apparent that Florian intends to murder you also.” - -“I was beginning to think he had some such notion,” Melior replied, -“for otherwise, of course, he would hardly be fetching home the sword -Flamberge.” - -She had arisen from her knees, and there was in the composure with -which she now sat sociably beside the ghost of Carola, on top of -Carola’s tomb, something that Florian found rather admirable. And he -recalled too with admiration the innocence and the unconcern with which -Melior had commented upon his having acquired such a delightfully -quaint and old-fashioned looking sword.... - -“Yes, for, my dear,” said Carola, “you have permitted him to get tired -of you. It was for that oversight he murdered all of us.” - -“But I have no time to put up with the man’s foolishness just now, -when I am going to have a baby,” said Melior, with unconcealed vexation. - -“Go seek protection of St. Hoprig,” advised Hortense. - -“And how may she escape,” asked Marianne, “when Florian’s lackeys are -everywhere, and Florian’s great wolfhounds guard the outer courts?” - -“She can give them the sweet-scented poison which destroyed me,” said -Carola. “But all the gates of Bellegarde are locked fast; and how could -anyone climb down the unscalable high walls of the outer fortress?” - -“By means of the strong silken cord which strangled me,” answered -Marianne. - -“But who would guide her through the dark to sorcerous Morven?” - -“The molten lead which was poured into my ear,” replied Aurélie, “will -go before her glowing like a will-o’-the-wisp.” - -“And how can she, in her condition, make so long a journey?” - -“Let her take the fine ebony cane which broke my skull,” rejoined -Hortense. “For now the cup of Florian’s iniquity runs over, and all the -implements of his wickedness revolt against him.” - -“Come now,” said Melior, “there has been a great deal of nonsense -talked. But you have at last, poor ghost, suggested something really -practical, and something that had occurred to me also. Yes, you are -entirely right, and your suggestion is most sensible, though, to be -sure, it can hardly be ebony: for now that I am quite certain about -Florian I simply owe it to my self-respect to leave him before he -murders me too, and the easiest way to do that of course is to use -my unfortunate and misguided sister’s staff. But ebony, you know, is -perfectly black—” - -“Now of what staff can you be talking?” - -“Why, but, my dear! As anybody at Brunbelois, even the veriest tidbits -of children, could tell you, it was presented to Mélusine by one of -the most fearful and ruthless demons resident in the Red Sea. It was -the staff the poor darling always rode on. I do not, of course, mean -him: in fact, I only saw him once, on a Saturday, when I was the merest -child. And with all those scales, he could hardly expect anybody to -call him a darling, even if you overlooked his having a head like a -cat. Only much more so, of course, on account of his being larger. No, -I meant that Mélusine rode on it—” - -Now Florian was reflecting, “With what a lovely air of innocence she -lied to me about that staff!” And Aurélie was saying, ineffectively, -“Yes, but—” - -“—Not as a steady thing, of course, but when she was about some -particularly important enchantment, and wanted to make an impression. -Mélusine was accomplished, and all that, and nobody denies it, but, -if you ask me about being vain, then I can only say that, sister or -not, I believe in being truthful. And as for leaving her things about -helter-skelter, even the crown jewels—for Mélusine was the oldest of us -girls, and Father always spoiled her quite terribly, and Mother never -cared especially for dressing up,—why, we all know what clever people -are in that way: and I need only say that I found this very staff stuck -away in a cupboard, like an old worn-out broom—” - -Said Marianne, “Yes, but—” - -“—When I was getting my things together to leave Brunbelois. And, -much as I hate to contradict anybody, it has a distinctly red tinge, -so that it could not possibly be ebony. So, what with all the talk, -and Hoprig’s suspicions about Florian, it simply occurred to me that -this staff was not the sort of thing my dear father would care to be -stirring up unpleasant old memories with, by seeing it, after all his -trouble with Mélusine. For, even if Hoprig had been quite wrong, still, -marriage, as I so often think, is really just a lottery—” - -“Yes, but,” said Hortense, “but, but, but! one needs to know the charm -that controls the staff—” - -“My dear creature! But you are Hortense, are you not? Yes, I remember -Florian told me all about you: and after the manner in which he has -behaved to me, I am perfectly willing to believe that he misrepresented -you in every way. Even if you used to make it a regular habit of flying -at people’s throats like that, I know how many perfectly well meaning -women simply do not realize what an annoyance it is for any one person -to want to do all the talking—” - -“I think so too, but—” - -“Oh, I am not in the least offended, my dear. It is merely that, -as I was telling you, Hortense, my sister Mélusine was one of the -most potent sorceresses in the known world, and so utterly devoted -to her art that hardly a day passed without at any rate a little -parlor conjuring. And I used often to be playing in the corner with -my building blocks and my dolls when she was at her practising. If I -were to tell you half the things I have witnessed with my own eyes, -you simply would not believe a word of it. Yes, Mélusine was quite -accomplished, there is no denying that. And as I was saying, you know -how children are, and how often they surprise you when you had no -notion they were paying the least attention. Yes, as I often think, it -is the littlest pitchers that have the largest ears—” - -“If you know how the cantraps run, then, to be sure—” - -“Why, but,” said Melior, now with her air of one who is dealing -patiently with an irrational person, “but everybody knows if it is -not the _Eman hetan_ charm, it has to be either the _Thout tout a -tout_ or the _Horse and hattock_ one. And so, I do hope, you see my -feeling in the matter. Because, of course, appreciating as I do the -perfectly well-meant suggestions of every one of you, still nobody in -my delicate condition exactly likes to go about sliding down ropes and -poisoning the servants, not to speak of the dogs, who, after all, are -not responsible for their master’s doings, and walking nobody knows -how many miles in the dark. So I shall go to Hoprig more carefully, -and quickly too, upon the demon’s staff, vexatious as it is not to -be remembering his name. I distinctly remember there was a Z in it, -because there always seemed to me something romantic about a Z, and -that he had talons like an eagle; but it was not Bembo, or Celerri, or -El-Gabal—No, it has quite gone out of my mind, but, in any event, I am -much obliged to all of you. And no doubt it will come back to me the -moment I stop trying to remember—” - -Thus speaking, Melior arose from the tomb, and left the Chapel -reflectively. A brief silence followed, a silence that was broken by -Marianne. She said, “Poor Florian!” - -“He had his faults of course,” assented Hortense, “but really, to a -person of any sensibility—Do peep, my love, and tell me if my skirts -are down properly—” - -Now Florian came forward, as statelily as anybody can walk in bedroom -slippers, just as his wives were settling back upon their various tombs. - -“Dear ladies,” said he, “I perceive with real regret that not even -death is potent enough to allay your propensities for mischief making.” - -“Oh, oh!” they cried, each sitting very erect, “here is the foul -murderer!” - -“Parbleu, my pets, what grievance, after all, have you against me? Are -you not happier in your present existence than when you lived with me?” - -“I should think so, indeed!” replied Carola, indignantly. “Why, -wherever do you suppose we went to?” - -“I do not inquire. It is a question raised by no widower of real -discretion: he merely inclines in this, as in most matters, to be -optimistic. Yet come now, let us be logical! Is it quite right for you -four to complain against me, and to harbor actual animosity, on account -of what was in the beginning just the natural result of my rather hasty -disposition, and in the end my quadruple misfortune? Do you, Carola, -for example, honestly believe that, after having been blessed with your -affection, I could ever be actually satisfied with Melior?” - -“For one, I certainly see nothing in her. And I really do think, -Florian—” - -“Nor I, either,” said Aurélie, “nor could any rational person. And for -your own good, I must tell you quite frankly, Florian—” - -“Though, heaven knows,” said Marianne, “it is not as if any of us could -envy the poor idiot for being your wife—” - -“It is merely that one cannot help wondering,” said Hortense, “that -even you should have had no more sense or good taste—” - -So for an instant the sweet voices were like a choir of birds in -fourfold descant: and they thrilled him with remembered melodies, -vituperative and plaintive and now strangely dear. Then came the -changing. All, Florian saw in that queer bluish light, were pitiably -eager to talk about Melior, and to explain to him exhaustively just -what a fool he had been, and how exactly like him was such behavior. -But the magic of Hoprig’s revivifying ring was spent: and color and -flexibility were going away from the pretty bodies, so that their lips -could but move stiffly and feebly now, without making the least noise. -It was really heart-breaking, Florian thought, to see these lovely -women congeal into stone, and be thus petrified upon the verge of -candors which would have completely freed their minds. - -Then that strange throbbing bluish light was gone: and Florian was -alone in the dark Chapel where only three dim lamps were glowing like -red stars. An ordinary person would have estimated that this gloom did -but very inadequately prefigure Florian’s future. But a Puysange knew -perfectly where next to apply for help against any and all saints. - - - - -_23._ - -_The Collyn in the Pot_ - - -Florian went from the Chapel to the secret chamber which nobody else -cared to enter. At this last pinch he was resolved to enlist in his -defence that power which was at least as strong as Hoprig’s power. So -Florian carried with him wine and wafers. - -He opened a wicker basket, wherein was an earthen pot. Inside this -pot lay, upon strips of white and black wool, a small, very smooth -dun-colored creature that had the appearance of a cat. Florian with a -green-handled little knife pricked the end of his ring-finger until -he got the necessary blood; and presently the Collyn of Puysange had -opened her yellow eyes and was licking daintily her lips so as to lose -no drop of the offering. Florian fed her also with the wine and wafers. - -“Whither,” asked Florian then, “will the staff carry Melior?” - -The Collyn answered, in a tiny voice: “To the hut which is between -Amneran and Morven. For that hut is the outpost of romance, and is as -near as the demon’s staff may dare approach to the hermitage of Holy -Hoprig.” - -“Where is that hermitage?” - -“Upon Morven, upon the highest uplands of Morven, between a thorn-tree -and an ash-tree, and beneath an oak-tree.” - -“What is my patron saint doing in this place?” - -“Master, I also keep away from these saints. But it is rumored that -this Hoprig is now somewhat recklessly exercising the privileges of -sainthood; that his doings are not very favorably looked down upon; and -that the angels, in particular, are complaining because of his frequent -demands on them.” - -“That does not sound at all well,” said Florian, “and certainly there -is no precedent for the wife of a Puysange consorting with people who -annoy the angels.” - -The Collyn yawned: and for a while she looked at Florian somewhat as -ordinary cats regard a mouse-hole. - -“Master, I would not bother about this last wife. Why should you count -so scrupulously one woman more or less on the long list?” - -“It is not the woman I wish to keep. Faith of a gentleman, no! But I -must keep my plighted word.” - -“Master,” said the cool and tiny voice, “you are thrusting yourself -into a dangerous business. For this woman is now under Hoprig’s -protection, and the powers of these saints are not to be despised.” - -“That is true, but I must hold to my bargain with Monsieur Janicot. The -pious old faith that made my living glad has been taken away from me, -the dreams that I preserved from childhood have been embodied for my -derision. I see my admirations and my desires for what they are, and -this is a spectacle before which crumbles my self-conceit. The past, -wherein because of these empoisoned dreams I stinted living, has become -hateful: and of my hopes for the future, the less said the better. All -crumbles, Collyn: but Puysange remains Puysange.” - -“I wonder, now,” the cat asked, innocently, “if that means anything?” - -“Yes, Collyn,” Florian answered: “it means that I shall keep my own -probity unstained, keep honor at least, whatever else goes by the -board. One must be logical. My quiet unassuming practise of religion -and my constant love which once derided time and change—and in fact, -the entire code of ideals by which I have lived so comfortably for -all of thirty-six years,—appear to have been founded everywhere upon -delusion and half-knowledge. Yet Helmas, I find, was truly wise. I also -shall keep up my dignity by not letting even fate and chance upset me -with their playfulness, and I shall continue to do what was expected -of me yesterday. For the code by which I have lived contents me, or, -rather, I am subdued to it. So I must go on living by it while living -lasts.” - -“Yet if this romantic code of yours be based upon nothing—” - -“If I have wholly invented it, without the weaving into its fabric of -one strand of fact,—why, then, all the more reason for me to be proud -of and to cherish what is peculiarly mine. Do my dreams fail me? That -is no reason why I should fail my dreams, which indeed, Collyn, have -erred solely in contriving a more satisfactory world than Heaven seems -able to construct.” - -“And does all this, too, mean something?” - -“A pest! it seems to mean at least my destruction, since it is an -article of my code that a gentleman may not in any circumstances -break his word. For the rest, I find that abstract questions of right -and wrong are too deep for me, too wholly based upon delusion and -half-knowledge, so I shall meddle with them no more. Good and evil must -settle their own vaporous battles, with which I am no longer concerned.” - -“To fling down your cards in a rage profits nobody.” - -“But do I indeed rage? Do I speak bitterly? Well, for thirty-six years -I have taken sides, and for thirty-six years I have been the most -zealous of churchmen, only to find at the last that not one of my -irregularities has been charged off. I can assure you, Collyn, that -it is quite vexing to have the business credit of one’s religion thus -shaken by the news that so much piety has ended with more debts than -assets.” - -The small predatory beast still waited warily: and never for an instant -did her unwinking tilted yellow eyes leave looking at Florian. - -“So many of you I have served! your father, and your grandfather, and -all the others that for a brief while were here. And in the end you all -come to nothing.” - -“Ah, Collyn, if the life of a Puysange be of no account,—although that -is an unprecedented contention, let me tell you,—then so much the more -reason for me to shape what remains of that life to my own liking.” - -Florian thought for a while. Florian shrugged. That was the deuce -of listening to yourself when you were talking. Florian, who had -come hither to purchase aid from the Collyn, had logically convinced -himself, through this sad trick of heeding his own words, that Puysange -must stand or fall unaided. Yes, vexing as it was, that which he had -spoken with so much earnestness was really true. - -“All these years,” said Florian, rather sadly, “you have lain here at -my disposal, prepared to serve me in my need, with no small power. And -I, unlike the others of my race, have bought of you nothing. What I -have wanted I have taken, asking no odds of anyone, whether here or -below. It is true I have made to Heaven some civil tenders, in the -shape of good works and church-windows, just as I have been at pains -to supply you with blessed wine and wafers. It seemed well in logic to -preserve a friendly relation with both sides. For the rest, whatever I -felt my life to lack I have myself fetched into it, even holiness and -beauty, even”—Florian smiled,—“even Melior and Hoprig. It is perhaps -for this self-sufficiency that I am punished in a world wherein people -are expected to live and to act in herds because of their common -distrust of the future and of one another. I do not complain; and I -remain self-sufficient.” - -“In fact, with me to aid you, master, you need lack for nothing.” - -That was precisely what Florian had been thinking when he came hither. -But Florian had since then been listening to that most insidious of -counsellors, himself. He was utterly convinced; and one must be logical. - -So Florian replied languidly: - -“My dear creature! but I do not require your aid. Instead, I am come -to declare you free from your long bondage to the house of my fathers. -Yes, you are free, with no claim upon me, alone of all my race, since -now that I renounce good I shall put away evil also. For I am Puysange: -I dare to look into my own heart, and I can find there no least -admiration for Heaven or for Heaven’s adversaries. It may be I am fey: -I speak under correction, since that is not a condition with which I -have had any experience. But it seems to me that gods and devils are -poor creatures when compared to man. They live with knowledge. But man -finds heart to live without any knowledge or surety anywhere, and yet -not to go mad. And I wonder now could any god endure the testing which -all men endure?” - -At this sort of talking the Collyn purred. - -“Master, you shall evade that testing, for you shall have unbounded -knowledge. Ah, but what secrets and what powers I will give you, my -proud little master, for a compact and a price.” - -“No: I have no doubt the powers you offer are very pleasant, very -amusing to exercise, and all that; but I have had quite enough of -compacts.” - -“I will give you the master-word of darkness, that single word which -death speaks to life, and which none answers. I will give you the power -of the crucified serpent, and the spell which draws the sun and the -moon to bathe in a silver tub and do your will. There is wealth in -that spell, the wealth which purchases kingdoms. And I will give you, -who have smiled so long, the power to laugh. I will do more, my proud -little master: for I will give you the bravery to weep—” - -But Florian answered: “You cannot give me anything worthy of comparison -with that which I once had, and now have lost. I had my dreams of -beauty and of holiness. I had the noblest dreams imaginable. These -dreams I have embodied as no other man has ever done before me: these -dreams I have made vital things, and I have introduced them into my -living, full measure. No, you can give me nothing worthy of comparison -with what I have lost. And you are free. In all these years the one -service I have asked of you, who have been so long the mainstay and the -destroyer of Puysange, is now at the last to reveal to me the shortest -way to my patron saint.” - -“From these saints you will get a quick and ugly shrift: from me long -years of ease and wisdom, master,—utter wisdom, and no more restless -doubtings about anything.” - -Florian felt of a sudden that this small fawning creature was -loathsome: and just as suddenly, Florian too was weary of all things -that are and of all that was ever to happen anywhere. - -“No, Collyn, I repudiate your wicked aid; and I set you free, not -really hating evil or good either. But I honestly prefer to owe -allegiance to nobody except myself. Because of that preference I -shall go undefended to yet another high place in quest of my embodied -dreams,—now for a second time, and now with a somewhat different -intent.” - -“You march toward death and toward utter destruction, my proud little -master, when even now my power might save you. There is no other power -that would befriend you now, for you march up against Heaven.” - -“Yes, yes! that is regrettable of course, it tends to establish a bad -precedent. But it is my ill luck to be both a gentleman and a poet,—a -poet who, I can assure you,” Florian said, hastily, “has never written -any verses. That, at least, nobody can charge me with. Now to a -gentleman destruction is preferable to dishonor: and to a married poet, -Collyn, there are worse things than death.” - - - - -_24._ - -_Marie-Claire_ - - -Florian left Bellegarde at dawn. For once, he did not travel in his -favorite bottle-green and silver. Good taste suggested that a plain -black suit with his best Mechlin ruffles, was the appropriate wear in -which to court destruction. Thus clad, he girded on Flamberge, and set -out as merrily as might be, afoot: no horse could come to the top of -Morven, where once had stood the grove of Virbius. - -Florian journeyed first to Amneran, and went to a very retired cottage -built of oak and plaster upon a stone foundation. Here was his last -hope of aid, and of succour which he might accept without any detriment -to the pride of Puysange, for this was the ill spoken-of home of his -half-sister, Marie-Claire Cazaio. She was alone at her spinning when he -came into the room. He took her hand. He kissed it. - -“You told me once, dear Marie-Claire, a long while since, that in -the end I would come to you in an old garden where dead leaves were -falling, and would kiss your hand, and tell you I had loved you all my -life. I wonder, Marie-Claire, if you remember that?” - -“I have forgotten,” she said, “nothing.” - -“You were wrong as to the garden and as to the dead leaves. But in all -else you were right. This is the end, Marie-Claire. And in the end I -fulfill your prophecy.” - -She looked at him, for no brief while, with those small darkened eyes -which seemed to see beyond him. “Yes, you are speaking the truth. I -had thought that when this happened it would matter. And it does not -matter.” - -“Only one thing has mattered in all our lives, Marie-Claire. I was at -Storisende last week. I remembered you and our youth.” - -“And were you”—she smiled faintly,—“and were you properly remorseful?” - -“No. I have regretted many of my doings. But I can find nowhere in -me any of the highly requisite repentance for those of my actions -which people would describe as criminal. I suppose it is because we -of Puysange are so respectful of the notions of others that we do -not commit crimes rashly. We enter into no illegal turpitude until -rather careful reflection has assured us of its expediency. I, in any -event, have sometimes been virtuous with unthinking levity, and with -depressing upshots: but my vices, which my judgment had to endorse -before prudence would venture on them, have resulted well enough. So I -can regret no irregularities, and certainly not the happiness of our -far-off youth.” - -Again Marie-Claire was in no hurry to reply. When she spoke, it was -without any apparent conviction either one way or the other. “Our -happiness involved, they say, considerable misdoing.” - -This stirred him to mild indignation. “And is love between brother -and sister a misdoing? Come, Marie-Claire, but let us be logical! All -scientists will tell you that endogamy is natural to mankind as long -as men stay uncorrupted by over-civilization. The weight of history -goes wholly one way. The Pharaohs and the Ptolemies afford, I believe, -precedents that are tolerably ancient. Strabo is explicit as to the old -Irish, Herodotus as to the Persians. In heaven also Osiris and Zeus -and I know not how many other supreme gods have, in cherishing extreme -affection for their sisters, set the example followed upon earth by the -Kings of Siam and of Phœnicia, and by the Incas of Peru—” - -She shook that small dark head. “But, none the less—” - -“—An example followed by the Sinhalese, the Romans of the old -Republic, the Tyrians, the Guanches of the Canary Islands—” - -“Let us say no more about it—” - -“—An example, in short, of the best standing in all quarters of the -globe. In the Rig-Veda you will find Yami defending with unanswerable -eloquence the union of brother and sister. In Holy Writ we see Heaven’s -highest blessings accorded to the fruit of Abraham’s affection for his -sister Sarah, nor need I allude to the marriage of Azrun with her two -brothers, Abel and Cain. And in the Ynglinga Saga—” - -She laid her hand upon his mouth. “Yes, yes, you have your precedents: -and in your eyes, I know, that is the main thing, because of your -dread of being unconventional and offending the neighbors. We were -not wicked, then, whatever our less well-read father thought: we were -merely”—and here she smiled,—“we were merely logical in our youth. In -any event, we wasted our youth.” - -“Yes,” Florian admitted, “for I was then logical, but not sufficiently -logical. I could, as easily at that time as later, have cured our -father of his habit of meddling with my affairs. But I turned -unthinkingly away from the contented decades of technical criminality -which we might have shared. For I was in those days enamored of the -beauty that I in childhood had, however briefly, seen: even while my -body rioted, my thoughts remained bewilderedly aware of a beguiling -and intoxicating brightness which stayed unwon to; and I could care -whole-heartedly about nothing else.” - -“I know,” she answered. “You were a dear boy. And it does not matter, -now, that you went away from me, and played at being a man about whom I -knew nothing and cared nothing. For old times’ sake my sending followed -you to Brunbelois, and even there for old times’ sake I warned you. But -you would not heed—” - -“I cared for nothing then save the beauty of Melior. And now her -beauty,” he said, with a wry smile, “is gone. And that also does not -matter. For months her beauty has been the one thing about her I never -think of.” - -“She is flesh and blood,” said Marie-Claire, as if that explained -everything. “It is a combination which does not long detain Puysange. -What is this peril that you go to encounter to-day?” - -“I go up upon Morven to keep my word as frankly and as utterly as I -gave it; and thereby to be embroiled, I am afraid, in open conflict -with my patron saint.” - -“That is bad. You must keep your word of course, because favoritism to -anybody is wrong. But these saints do not understand this; they build -all upon Heaven’s favoritism: and these holy persons are stronger than -we, precisely because they are immune to such clear seeing as we are -cursed with.” - - -[Illustration: -Caption, surrounded by garland: He closed upon FLORIAN, straight- - forwardly, without any miracle- - working. - _See page 281_ -The image] - - -“But your powers of sending and perverting and blighting and so on,” he -said,—“are none of these to be enlisted in my favor?” - -“Not against Hoprig,” she replied, “for the elect have that invincible -unreason and stupidity against which alone our powers are feeble. No, -my dearest, I cannot aid you. For these saints are stronger than we -are: and in the end, whatever grounds they may afford us for contempt -or for laughing at them, they conquer us.” - -It was in some sort a relief to know there was not hope anywhere. -Florian spoke now with more animation. “No, Marie-Claire. Even at the -last let us adhere to logic! These saints do not conquer; they destroy -us, that is all. The ruthless power of holiness is strong enough for -that, but it is not strong enough to hold me, not for one instant, in -subjection.” - -“Ah, and must you still be playing, dear boy that was, at being a most -tremendous fellow?” she said, still smiling very tenderly. “Heaven will -destroy you, then: and this is the hour of your return, the hour which -I once prophesied, the hour which comes—so unportentously!—to end our -living. So let us not waste that hour in quibbles.” - -“You are so practical,” he lamented, “and with all that is lovable -you combine such a dearth of admirable sentiments. In brief, you are -Puysange.” - -She said pensively: “You were not lonely in my little time of -happiness. You would not ever have been lonely with me.” - -“Have you divined that also, Marie-Claire? Yes, it has been lonely. -I have had many friends and wives and mistresses. Perhaps I have had -everything which life has to give—” - -Florian sat looking moodily at two queer drawings done in red and black -upon the plaster of the wall: one represented a serpent swallowing -rods, the other a serpent crucified. Beneath these drawings was a dark -shining stone, and in its gleaming he saw figures move. - -Florian turned, and said without any apparent emotion: “But I have -lived quite alone, with no comprehension of anyone, and with so much -distrust of everybody! And now it is too late.” - -She considered this: she spread out her hands, smiling without mirth. -“Yes, it is too late, even with me. Nothing is left, where all was -yours once, Florian. I seem a husk. I do not either love or hate -you any longer. Only,”—again that dark blind staring puzzled over -him,—“only, it is not you who wait here in this fine black suit.” - -That made him too smile, and shrug a little. “It is what remains of -me, my dear,—all that remains anywhere to-day. Such is the end of every -person’s youth and passion. I sometimes think that we reside in an -ill-managed place. For look, Marie-Claire!” He waved toward the window, -made up of very small panes of leaded glass, through which you saw the -first vaporous green of the low fruit trees and much sunshine. “Look, -Marie-Claire! spring is returning now, on every side. That seems so -tactless.” - -But Marie-Claire replied, with more tolerance: “That is Their notion of -humor. I suppose it amuses the poor dears, so let us not complain.” - -Then they fell to talking of other matters, and they spoke of shared -small happenings in that spring of eighteen years ago, talking quite at -random as one trifle reminded them of another. The son of Marie-Claire, -young Achille Cazaio, was away from home in the way of business: for -at seventeen he had just set up as a brigand, and he was at this time -only a hopeful apprentice in the trade through which he was to prosper -and to win success and some fame. So they were undisturbed; and Florian -that day saw nothing of the stripling bandit, whom gossip declared -remarkably to resemble his half-uncle. - -And Florian stayed for some while in this neat sparsely furnished -room. He was content. At the bottom of his mind had always been the -knowledge that by and by he would return to Marie-Claire. Such -events as had happened since he left her, and the things that people -had said and thought and done because of him, and in particular the -responsibilities with which he had been entrusted,—his dukedom, his -wives, his order of the Holy Ghost, a whole château to do with whatever -he pleased,—were the materials of a joke which he was to share with his -sister some day, when the boy that had left her came back after having -hoodwinked so many persons into regarding him as mature and efficient -and unprincipled and all sorts of other amusing things. Marie-Claire -alone knew that this fourth Duke of Puysange was still the boy who had -loved her; and her blind gazing seemed always to penetrate the disguise. - -Well! he had come back to her, to find that both of them were changed. -The fact was sad, because it seemed to him that boy and girl had been -rather wonderful. But it did not matter. Probably nothing mattered. -Meanwhile he was again with Marie-Claire. It was sufficient to be home -again, for the little while which remained before his destruction by -that pig-headed and meddlesome Hoprig. And Florian was content.... - -Toward mid-day Florian parted with his sister for the last time. He -found it rather appalling that neither she nor he was moved by this -leave-taking. Then he reflected: “But we are dead persons, dead a -great while ago. This is the calm of death.” - -He saw that this was true, and got from it the comfort which he always -derived from logic. - -Nevertheless, he went back very softly, and he peered through the door -he had left not quite closed. Marie-Claire now knelt before the dark -polished stone in whose gleaming moved figures. - -“Lalle, Bachera, Magotte, Baphia—” she had begun. - -Florian shrugged as, this time, he really went away from the house of -oak and plaster. He knew whom she invoked. But that did not matter -either. And in fact, for Marie-Claire to pass from him to that other -was profoundly logical. - - - - -_25._ - -_The Gander That Sang_ - - -Florian followed the brook. Florian went hillward, walking upon what -seemed a long-ruined roadway. As he went upstream, the brook was to his -left hand: to his right was the hillside thick with trees. Florian, -whose familiarity with rural affairs was limited, was perforce content -to recognize among these trees the maples, the oaks, the pines and the -chestnuts. - -“Only, I should by every precedent, now that I go to inevitable -destruction, be observing everything with unnatural vividness,” he -reflected: “and to have about me so many familiar looking but to me -anonymous trees and bushes makes my impression of the scenery quite -unbecomingly vague.” - -Midges danced vexatiously about his face, and now and again he slapped -at them without gaining the least good. So much of the ruined roadway -had collapsed into the brook, in disorderly jumbles of stones and clay -and splintered slate, that what remained was very awkward to walk on: -your right foot was always so much higher up the hill than your left. -All was peculiarly still this afternoon: it startled you, when, as -happened once or twice, a grasshopper sprang out of your way, rising -from between your feet with vicious unexpected whirrings. That did not -seem wholly natural, in April. - -Florian came at last to a log hut beside three trees. Here then was -the hermitage of Holy Hoprig, wherein Florian was to encounter the -unpredictable. Florian regarded this hut with disfavor. He had never -thought to be destroyed in such an unimpressive looking building. - -He shrugged, he loosened Flamberge in the scabbard, he went forward, -and he pushed open the door. “Now if only,” he reflected, “I had the -height and the imposing appearance of Raoul!” Florian made the most of -every inch; and entered with the bearing becoming to a Duke of Puysange. - -The hut was unoccupied, save that in one corner was a cage painted -brown; and inside this sat, upon a red silk cushion, a large gander. - -“Do not disturb me,” said this bird, at once, “for I have had quite -enough to upset me already.” - -Florian for an instant stayed silent and somewhat confused. For this -evidently was not the saint’s hermitage, and a talking gander seemed -not wholly natural. Then Florian recollected that Morven had always -been the home of sorcery. So Florian replied, with great civility, that -he had not meant to intrude, but merely happened to be passing. And -Florian then talked with this gander, who told of the quite disgusting -scene he had witnessed when a woman, riding upon a magic staff, had -come into the hut, and had there been delivered of a child. - -“Children are not usually acquired so,” said the gander, “for as a -rule, a stork brings them, and that is a much nicer method.” - -“But where,” said Florian, “is now this honorarium?” - -“I do not know what that means,” the bird replied, “but I do know that -if it means anything objectionable it has almost certainly been in here -to-day to annoy me.” - -And the bird told of how a dove had come and had carried off in its -beak the ring the woman had given it. He told how presently had come -a fine looking man with a shining about his head, not flying but -luxuriously riding through the air upon a gold cloud, with cherubs’ -heads floating about him; and how the woman and the child had gone away -upon this same cloud, surrounded by, the gander thought, extremely -fretful looking cherubs. - -“The whole affair has upset me very much,” said the gander, “for I was -composing, and I can never bear to be interrupted.” - -And the gander sang to Florian of the proper way in which children -should be born and should live thereafter. About the glory of love and -the felicities of marriage, about patriotism and success in business -and about the high assurances of religion, the gander sang, and about -optimism and philanthropy and about the steady advancing of every kind -of social improvement. And of man that is the child and heir of God, -and of the splendor of man’s works, and of the magnanimity of human -nature, and of the wonder of man’s living upon earth, the gander sang -also. - -“Parbleu, but let us be logical about this!” said Florian. “Your art is -very pleasing; but it embellishes a lazar-house with pastels. For human -living is not at all like the song you have made concerning it.” - -“So much the worse for human living,” the gander answered. “It does not -bother me here in my cage. Besides, the purpose and the effect of my -singing, like that of all great singing, is to fill my fellows with a -sentiment of their importance as moral beings and of the greatness of -their destinies. So I do not mimic. I create.” - -Florian looked at the gander for some while, and Florian sighed. This -creature too had in it nothing of the realist, Florian reflected, -and it preferred to live by its own code; but its æsthetic theories -coincided with Hoprig’s. And the hermitage of that—somehow—ambiguous -Hoprig was still to seek. - -Florian left the imprisoned gander singing very gloriously, and Florian -went now across Morven, that place of abominable fame. These uplands -were thickly overgrown with a queer vine that had large oval leaves, -the green of which was mottled with red, somewhat like the skin of -snakes. Here also grew strawberry vines. As he walked this undergrowth -was continually catching in the buckles of Florian’s shoes. Everywhere -were inexplicable soft noises, and about his face danced a small cloud -of midges. - -There was no other sign of life except that once five large black and -white birds rose from the ground immediately before him, seeming to -rise from between his feet as the grasshoppers had done. This did not -frighten Florian, exactly, but the suddenness of it, in this lonely -place, gave him a shock not wholly delightful. These birds, he saw, -had been feeding there upon the berries of a small bush, upon purple -berries which were about the size of a wren’s egg, and whose outer -sides had been pecked away by the birds, leaving the seeds exposed. All -this was natural enough until you reflected that in these latitudes no -bush produced berries as early as April. - -Now toward twilight Florian came to clumps of big and vividly yellow -toad-stools, which seemed fat and poisonous and very evil. He passed -among these, breaking many of them with his feet, and reflecting -that the tiny screams which appeared to be uttered by these broken, -loathsomely soft things must be the cry of some other sort of queer -bird hidden somewhere near at hand. And he presently saw the appearance -of a man coming toward him, and about the head of this man was a -shining, as Florian perceived from afar, and was so assured that this -was Hoprig. - -Florian went forward intrepidly, once he had loosened Flamberge in the -scabbard. But this was not Hoprig. It was, instead, an incredibly old -man in faded blue, who carried upon his arm an open basket filled with -small roots. At his heel came a blue and white dog. The old man looked -once at Florian, with peculiarly bright eyes, like the eyes of those -who had watched the Feast of the Wheel, and he passed without speaking. -The dog paused, and without making any noise, sniffed about Florian’s -legs once or twice, as if this inspection were a matter of duty, and -then followed this old man who had about his head a shining. It was -odd, but the dog made no noise when he sniffed thus close to you; -and neither the man in blue nor the blue and white dog made any least -noise as they passed through the thick and tangled vines underfoot; nor -did their passing at all move these vines which caught at the buckles -of Florian’s shoes so that he was continually tripping. These things -rendered it difficult to believe that the man and the dog could be -wholly natural. - -And still those pertinacious midges danced before Florian’s eyes: and -he was tired of slapping at them without ever driving them away. Morven -did not appear a merry place, upon this the last day of April, as -Florian toiled through Morven’s thickening twilight, in search of Holy -Hoprig’s hermitage, wherein was now the child that Florian had need of. - - - - -_26._ - -_Husband and Wife_ - - -Toward evening Florian came into the saint’s hermitage. Inside, it -proved a most comfortable hermitage, having walls builded of logs with -the interstices filled with plaster. It seemed rather luxuriously -furnished, to Florian’s glance, which took exact note of nothing more -specific than the skull upon the lectern and the three silver-gilt -candelabra. These twelve candles, as you came in from the twilight, -made the room quite cosy. Florian did not, however, look at the room’s -equipment with the interest he reserved for his wife. - -Melior sat there, alone except for the newborn child in her lap. At the -sound of Florian’s entrance she had drawn the child closer, raising her -blue mantle about it in an involuntary movement of protection: and as -she faced him thus, Florian could see, without any especial interest, -that with motherhood all her lost beauty had returned. It seemed -inexplicable, but Melior was, if anything, more lovely than she had -ever been: it was probably one of Hoprig’s miracles: and Florian found -time to wonder why he should be, so unquestionably and so actively, -irritated by the sight of a person in everything so pleasing. - -Neither spoke for a while. - -“I thought that you would be here before long: and all I have to say -is that I wonder how you can look me in the face,” observed Melior, -at last. “Still, that you should be so bent upon your own destruction -that you have followed us even here, does, I confess, astonish me. Why, -Florian, have you no sense at all!” - -“My dearest, you underestimate the power of paternal affection.” -Florian came to her, and gently uncovered the child’s face. The baby, -having supped, was asleep. Florian looked at it for a moment and -for yet another moment. He shrugged. “No: I am aware of none of the -appropriate emotions. The creature merely seems to me unfinished. Its -head, in particular, has been affixed most unsatisfactorily; and I -lament the general appearance of having been recently boiled. No, I -sacrifice little.” - -Melior put the sleeping child into the cradle yonder, a cradle -which Florian supposed that Hoprig must have created extempore and -miraculously when a cradle was needed. It hardly seemed the most -natural appurtenance of an anchorite’s retreat. - -Then Melior turned, and she regarded Florian with her maddening air of -dealing very patiently with an irrational person. - -“Do you actually think, Florian, that, now, you can harm the little -pet? Florian, that is one fault you have, though I am far from saying -it is the only one. Still, as I so often think, no one of us is -perfect: and perpetual fault-finding never gets you anywhere, does -it? Even so, Florian, there is no denying you do not like to take a -common-sense view of the most self-evident facts when the facts are not -quite what you want them to be, and that much I feel I ought to tell -you frankly. Otherwise, Florian, you would comprehend at once that I -have only to cry out to St. Hoprig, who is back yonder chopping the -wood to cook our supper, after those cherubs were positively rude about -being asked to do it, and then he will blast you with a miracle.” - -She had gone back to her outlandish mediæval clothing. He recognized, -now, the dreadful gown she was wearing the morning he first came to her -upon the mountain top,—that glaring, shiny, twinkling affair, which -reminded you of an Opera dancer’s costume in some spectacular ballet. -For a Duchess of Puysange to be thus preposterously attired was -unbecoming, and was in quite abominable taste. - -“First, madame,” said Florian, with a vexed, rather tired sigh, “let us -explain matters. I have loved you since my boyhood, Melior, with a love -which no woman, I think, can understand. For I loved you worshipfully, -without hope, without any actual desire: and I loved you, by ill-luck, -with a whole-heartedness which has prevented my ever loving anything -else. It is droll that a little color and glitter and a few plump -curves, seen once and very briefly, should be able to make all other -things not quite worth troubling about. But the farce is old. They used -to call us nympholepts; and they fabled that the beauty which robbed us -of all normal human joys was divine. Well, I have no desire to discuss -the nature of divinity, madame, nor to bore you with any further -talking about what no woman understands. It suffices that I loved you -in this pre-eminently ridiculous fashion; and that a way was offered me -by which I might very incredibly win to you.” - -To which Melior replied: “You mean about your bargaining with Janicot, -I suppose, and I am sure I never heard of such nonsense in my life. -Why, Florian, to think that the moment I let you out of my sight, even -if it was a little while before I first actually saw you, because that -does not in the least alter the principle of the thing,—quite apart -from its happening the same morning, anyhow,—that you should be mixing -yourself up with such people! It is positively incredible! But, as for -your supposing that I am going to let you and your Janicots lay one -finger on my precious lamb—!” - -“Madame,” he replied, “let us be logical! I can conceive of no -possible reason why you should especially value this child. It may -be no more repulsive looking than other babies: that is a point upon -which I cannot pretend to speak with authority. But it is certainly -not in itself an attractive animal. And your acquaintance with it, -dating only from this morning, is far too brief to have permitted the -forming of any personal attachment. For the rest, this bargain with -Monsieur Janicot is an affair in which I have given my word. I can say -no more. It is in your power, of course, to summon my patron saint, -who, from what I know of him, will probably attempt to coerce me into -rank dishonesty; and in that case the issue remains doubtful. The -most probable outcome—need I say?—in view of his boasted proficiency -in blasting, cursing and smiting, seems my annihilation. Would you, -madame, who are of royal blood and are born of a race that is more than -human,—would you have me, on that account, hold back in an affair in -which my honor is involved?” - -“Why, Florian, since you are asking my advice, I think it is not quite -nice to speak of the power of a saint as being at all doubtful. We both -know perfectly well that he would resent any impudence from you with a -palsy or an advanced case of leprosy or perhaps a thunderbolt, and make -things most unpleasant for everybody. And besides, it is just as well -to avoid the subject of doubtfulness, because after talking with your -other wives, I confess, Florian, that I have the very gravest doubts as -to what you are planning to have become of me.” - -“You will vanish, madame, after the usual custom of your race. I am -sure I do not know whither the Léshy usually vanish.” - -“I decline to vanish. Now that I am a Christian, Florian, I should -think that even you would know I must decline to take any part in any -such silly and irreligious proceedings—” - -To which he answered patiently, “But I have given my word, madame.” - -And still this obstinate woman clung to her pretence that he was -behaving irrationally. She said, with an effect of being almost sorry -for him: - -“My poor Florian! now but let us be perfectly friendly about this. I am -disposed to bear no malice, because, as I so often think, what is the -odds? In the long run, I mean—” - -“Madame, it is my misfortune never quite to know what you mean.” - -“Why, I mean that we all make mistakes, and that it is to be expected, -and the least said about it, the soonest mended. Besides, as I was -telling you, I do not know of course who it was that first set women -upon a pedestal, and even if I did, I would be willing to overlook his -mistakes too—” - -“But you have not been telling me about this over-imaginative unmarried -person! You were talking about malice and vanishing—” - -“—Still, I certainly would not thank him, because I have had to pay for -that mistake, even more heavily than women do now. Ah, Florian, as I so -often think, it is always the woman who pays! For, you conceive, in my -first life, back at Brunbelois, I mean, in those perfectly awful days -of chivalry, I used to be worshipped, or at least that was what it came -to in practise, as a symbol of heavenly excellence—” - -Florian said, with an attempt at gallantry, “I can well imagine—” - -“Oh, it was without any actually personal application, you understand: -it was just that all ladies were regarded in that light. It was -considered that in making women Heaven had revealed the full extent -of Heaven’s powers. So they made us sit upon uncomfortable thrones at -their tournaments—” - -“But,” Florian protested, “these honorable and extremely picturesque -customs—” - -“My dear, that is all very well! but they used to last for a week -sometimes. And there we would have to sit, from six to seven hours a -day, with canopies but no cushions, and with no toilet conveniences, -and with nothing whatever to do except to watch them sticking and -poking and chopping one another in order to show how they respected -us,—though I could never understand just how that came in, because my -back hurt me too much, apart from my other troubles—” - -“But as a symbol—” This horrible woman seemed resolved to leave him no -one last shred of his dream. - -“It was not the symbolism I objected to, Florian, but the endless -inconvenience. The tournaments were only a part of it; and of course -even after them you could get liniment, and you soon learned not to -drink anything with your breakfast. But they walked off with your -sleeves and handkerchiefs, with or without your leave: and when you go -to put on your gloves, let me tell you, it is most annoying to find -that the other one is several miles away in somebody’s helmet—” - -“Now,” Florian said, yet more and more shocked, “you illogically apply -prosaic standards to the entirely poetic attitude of chivalry—” - -“Oh, as for their poetry, telling what marvelous creatures they thought -us, they were all over the place with it. That was trying enough in -the day-time: but when it came to being waked up long before dawn, -and prevented from getting a wink of beauty-sleep at night, by their -aubades and serenas about how wonderful you were, I do assure you, it -was really very tiresome—” - -“I can see that.” Logic compelled the admission, however repulsive it -was to find a woman blundering into logic. “But, still, madame—” - -“Yes, you can see that, Florian, now, because you now comprehend you -have been as foolishly exaggerative as any of them. Florian, you are a -romantic: and from the first that has been the trouble, because it was -that which made you fall in love with your notion of Melior. That was -just what you did, without even having talked with me—” - -“Parbleu, but certainly it was without having heard you talk—” - -“And as far as it went, it was quite nice of you, Florian, for you -appear even to have imperilled your soul—which, to be sure, must have -been in a rather dangerous way already,—through your desire to have -me for your wife. Nobody thinks of denying that was a very pretty -compliment, but, if you ask me, it was a mistake—” - -This seemed to Florian such a masterpiece in the art of understatement -that he said almost sullenly, “We needs must love the highest—” - -“Nonsense, Florian, I am far from being the highest. And so, let me -tell you, is any other woman. After a month or two of sleeping with -and mooning around me,—who, you must do me the justice to admit, never -laughed at you once, though I do not deny that I was tempted, for, -Florian, my dear, it seems only fair to tell you that at times you are -simply—! But then, it is not as if other men were very different—” - -“Let us,” said Florian,—who was reflecting that he had never really -detested anybody before he met this woman,—“let us turn to more -profitable topics than masculine romanticism—” - -“So you made the appalling discovery that I did not belong upon a -pedestal. That was inevitable, though I must say it was not as if I had -endeavored to hide it from you. And you resented it fiercely. That too, -I suppose, was only you romantic men all over, though it was just as -foolish as the mooning. And from what I can gather, you appear to have -been equally rash and—if you do not mind my saying so, dear,—equally -inconsiderate, in your treatment of your other wives. Though, to be -sure, whatever you could see in those women, even at the first—!” - -“I am a Puysange. We are ardent—” - -“In any event, it is not as if anything could be done about them now. -So, really, Florian, taking one consideration with another, I do not -see why, now that we have talked it over amicably, and you have more -or less explained yourself,—and, I am willing to believe, are quite -properly sorry,—we should not get on tolerably well. And about men I -say nothing, because one does want to be kind, but I doubt if any woman -anywhere really hopes for more than that when she marries.” - -Melior had stopped talking. Not that fact alone had roused Florian to -chill amazement. He said, “You plan, madame—?” - -“Why, first of all, I plan for both of us to appeal, in a suitably -religious and polite manner, to your patron saint. That is the plain -duty of a Christian. For if this Janicot has any real claim upon the -little darling, you surely must see how much nicer it would be, in -every way, for Hoprig to be working miracles against him instead of -smiting you with something unpleasant. And besides, I do not see how he -can have any real claim—” - -Florian resolutely thrust aside the suspicion that this obstinate and -shiny and gross-minded woman was now planning, among other enormities, -to return to living with him. He said only: - -“I am astounded. I am grieved. You would have me meanly crawl out of my -bargain by invoking the high powers of Heaven to help me in a swindle, -very much as one hears of dishonest persons repudiating fair debts -through the chicanery of a death-bed repentance. Pardieu, madame! since -you suggest such infamies, and since you will not hear reason, I can -but leave you, to defy this Hoprig to his ugly nose, and to perish, if -necessary, upon his woodpile with untarnished faith.” - -He turned sadly from this woman who appeared to have no sense of -logic or honor, not even any elementary notion of fair-dealing. And -as Florian turned, he saw the door open, and through the doorway -came first an armful of faggots and behind it the flushed but still -benevolent face of Hoprig. - - - - -_27._ - -_The Forethought of Hoprig_ - - -“Come now,” said St. Hoprig, as he laid down the wood, “but here is -that abominable ward of mine! and upon the point of defying me too!” -Whereon he shook hands cordially with Florian. - -“Ah, but, monsieur,” said Florian, “be logical! We meet as enemies.” - -“Frequently,” observed the saint, “that is the speediest way of -reaching a thorough understanding. I suppose that you have come about -your foolish bargain with Janicot.” - -“Upon my word,” replied Florian, “but all my business affairs appear to -be well known to everybody upon Morven!” - -The saint had turned to Melior, with a wise nod. “So, you perceive, -madame, our precautions were justified. Now, my dear son, do not worry -any more about your contract with the powers of evil, but off with your -things, and have some supper with us. For I have excellent news for -you. You were to sacrifice to Janicot the first child that you and -Madame Melior might have, and she was then to vanish. Your bargain is -void, or, rather, the terms have not yet been fulfilled.” - -Florian looked forlornly at his wife, then toward the cradle, and he -said, “I fail to perceive the omission, Monsieur Hoprig.” - -“Luckily for human society, my son, a great many persons are similarly -obtuse.” - -“Ah,” said Florian, “but let us have no daring coruscations of wit -where plain talking is needed.” - -“I must tell you, then,” the saint continued, “that, when my suspicions -were aroused at Brunbelois, I communicated with higher powers, and the -Recording Angel obliged me with a fair copy of your first interview -with Janicot. He objected to giving it: but I stood up for my rights -as a saint, and in the end, after some little unpleasantness, he did -give it. One really has to be firm with these angels, I find, in order -to get the least bit of service. After that, at all events, the way -to foil your wicked scheme was clear enough: in fact, it was the one -possible way to prevent, without open scandal, your begetting of a -child upon your wife for deplorable purposes. I advised the Princess to -follow this way, and to make sure before marrying you that you should -win to her embraces a bit too late to be the father of her child.” - -“That seems to be unprecedented advice,” said Florian, sternly, “to -have come from a saint of the Calendar.” - -He tried, at least, to speak sternly: but a dreadful thought had -smitten him, and Florian knew that he, who had wondered what people -meant when they talked about fear, had done with wondering. - -“It was for your own good and eternal salvation,” observed Melior, -“though, to be sure, all men are like that, and, as I often think, the -more you do for them the less they seem to appreciate your trouble—” - -Florian said only, “May I inquire, madame, without appearing unduly -intrusive, who was your collaborator in arranging this infant’s début?” - -“Why, but of course she received all the necessary assistance,” replied -St. Hoprig, “from me. I never grudge the efforts necessary to a good -action of this sort: and all night long, my son, I labored cheerfully -for your salvation. For it was my plain duty as your celestial patron -to save you, at any cost, from falling into grave sin: and, besides, -it was a matter hardly to be entrusted to any other gentleman without -considerable possibilities of scandal.” - -Florian looked from one to the other. “So it was to prevent scandal -that my wife and my patron saint have put together their heads: and -beauty and holiness—they also!—must combine to avoid offending against -the notions of the neighbors. You will permit the remark that here is -ambiguous logic.” - -“Ah, but my dear,” replied Melior, “can you with logic deny that we did -it for your own good? So often, when affairs look wrong, if you will -just regard the spirit of the thing—” - -“Madame,” said Florian, without unkindliness, “let us not argue about -that. I am sure you were persuaded as to the spirit of the thing, when -no doubt Monsieur Hoprig went into it at full length—” - -Yet Florian spoke perturbedly, for in his heart remained despair and -terror. To find that he had been hoodwinked was not a discovery to -upset a person used to the ways of the world and of more wives than -he had ever married: to be hoodwinked was the métier of husbands. -Moreover, reflection had already suggested that the saint had followed -the honorable old tradition of various nations who deputed exactly the -task which Hoprig had spared Florian to their most holy persons. - -Florian took snuff. With his chin well up, he inhaled luxuriously.... - -Yes, Florian reflected, there were priests everywhere,—the Brahmans of -Malabar, the Piaches of the Arawaks, the Dedes of Lycia, the Chodsas -of the Dersim uplands, and the Ankuts of the Esquimaux,—to all these -priests was formally relegated the performing of this task when a woman -was about to marry. Every part of the world wherein mankind remained -unspoiled by civilization, reflected Florian, afforded an exact and -honorable precedent: and he could advance no ground for complaint. -For one was logical. Certain physical reservations were made much of, -to be sure, in Holy Writ and in the sermons preached in convents to -auditories of schoolgirls. And this theory perhaps did no great harm. -But, after all, there was a grain of folly in this theory that to-day’s -letters still in the post contained of necessity more virtuous matter -than did yesterday’s letters, whose seals had been broken. No, let us -be logical about this theory. - -He closed his snuff-box. The lid bore the portrait of poor Philippe. -He regretted Philippe, who had been destroyed with no real gain to -anybody. Florian slipped the box into his waistcoat pocket.... - -Hoprig’s painstaking forethought, then, gave a philosopher no ground -for wonder or dissatisfaction. But none the less, in the heart of -Florian was despair and terror. The terms of his bargain had not been -fulfilled, and the one course open to a gentleman who held by his word -was to go on living with his disenchanted princess for, at the very -least—he estimated, appalled,—another full year. - -Florian extended his right hand, dusting the fingers one against the -other. He liked those long white fingers. But this was simply dreadful: -and he would have to speak now, he would have to say something. They -were both waiting. Negligently he straightened the Mechlin ruffles at -his throat.... - -Then with a riotous surge of joy, he recollected that the current -conventions of society afforded him a colorable pretext to provoke -the saint into annihilating him. As against continuing to live within -earshot of Melior’s insufferable jabbering,—as against a year of hourly -frettings under a gross-minded idiot’s blasphemies against the bright -and flawless shrine of beauty which she inhabited,—the everywhere -betrayed romantic had still the refuge of bodily destruction in this -world and damnation in the next. And all because of a graceful social -convention! all because of one of those fine notions which, precisely -as he had always contended, made human living among the amenities -of civilization so much more comely and more satisfying than was -the existence of such savages as lived ignobly with no guide except -common-sense. The Piaches and the Brahmans and the Ankuts were all -savages, and their obscene notions were wholly abominable. - -“Madame,” said Florian, with his best dignity, “whatever the contrast -between the purity of your intentions and of your conduct, I shall -cling to the old simple faith of my ancestors. I am a Puysange. I do -not care for airdrawn abstractions, I do not palter with such dangerous -subtleties as you suggest. I act with the forthright simplicity which -becomes a gentleman, and I avenge my wounded honor.” - -Whereupon, with due respect for the possible incandescence of a halo, -Florian struck Hoprig on the jaw. - -“Now, holy Michael aid me!” cried the saint, and he closed upon -Florian, straightforwardly, without any miracle-working. - -And as Hoprig spoke, there was a great peal of thunder. The crash, with -its long shuddering reverberations was utterly appalling, but Hoprig -was not appalled. Instead, he had drawn away from Florian, and Hoprig -was now smiling deprecatingly. - -“Dear me!” the saint observed, “but I am always forgetting. And now, I -suppose, they will be vexed again.” - - - - -_28._ - -_Highly Ambiguous_ - - -And then as the last shaken note of thunder died away, and as Melior -fell to comforting the awakened baby, a tall warrior entered. He -wore the most resplendent of ancient corselets, and embossed greaves -protected his legs, but no helmet hid his flaxen curls. He now laid -down an eight-sided shield, emblazoned argent with a cross gules, and -he rustled his wings rather indignantly. - -“Really, Hoprig,” said the new-comer, “this is carrying matters -entirely too far; and you must not summon the princes of Heaven from -their affairs to take part in your fisticuffs.” - -“What more can you expect, good Michael, of misguided efforts to make -saints of my people?” - -This was a voice which was not unknown to Florian. And he saw that -Janicot too had come,—not in that unreserved condition in which Florian -had last seen him, but discreetly clothed and showing in everything -as the neat burgess of Florian’s first encounter. And it was evident -that this Janicot was not a stranger to St. Michael, either, when the -archangel answered: - -“It is well enough for you to grin, but with us the matter is no joke. -This Hoprig has been duly canonized. When he invokes any of us we are -under formal obligations to minister unto him, for he is entitled to -all the perquisites of a saint: and he puts them to most inappropriate -uses. For I must tell you—” - -“Come, Monseigneur St. Michael,” observed Hoprig, waving toward -Melior’s back, where she was comforting the mewing baby without the -least attention to anything else,—“come, let us remember that a lady is -present.” - -“And for that matter, upon how many nights since you began going about -earth—But I shall say no more upon a topic so painful. It is sufficient -to state that the entire affair is most unsettling, and has displeased -those high in authority. The Church has canonized you, and we have of -course to stand by the Church, with which our relations have for some -while been, in the main, quite friendly. I do not deny that if anything -could have been done about you, just quietly—But we find the Church has -provided no method whatever for removing saints from the Calendar—” - -“You might remove him from earth, however,” Janicot suggested, -helpfully. “A thunderbolt is not expensive.” - -“It has been considered. But the effect, we believe, would not upon -the whole be salutary. It would discourage the pious in their efforts -toward sanctity to observe that bolt coming from, of all quarters, -heaven. Besides, as a saint, he must, directly after being killed, -ascend to eternal glory. You ought to understand that we would be the -last persons actually to hurry him.” - -“I think I see,” said Janicot. “You are bound to stand by the Church as -faithfully as I do, if not through quite the same motives. Now, I hold -no brief for this saint. He has swindled me,—cleverly enough, but with -that lack of common honesty which as a rule lends ambiguity to pious -actions,—out of Madame Melior’s child. I name only the mother, because, -as I understand—?” - -He had turned to Florian, and Janicot’s raised eyebrows were -sententious. - -Florian answered them, “Yes, Monsieur Janicot; it appears that I have -acquired an increase of grace through works of supererogation.” - -“Ah! and I had thought you were ardent! The child, in any event, is a -detail about which there is no hurry. I am not fond of children myself—” - -And Florian marvelled. “Then, why—?” - -“It is merely that my servants have a use for them. Yes, my servants -make them quite useful, by adding the juice of water parsnip and soot -and cinquefoil and some other ingredients. And I endeavor to supply my -servants’ needs. However!”—and Janicot waved the matter aside,—“when -I am beaten I acknowledge it. The disenchanted princess remains -yours: and I shall have no claim upon you until”—here Janicot smiled -again,—“until the great love between your wife and you has approached a -somewhat more authentic fruition.” - -“Monsieur Janicot,” replied Florian, “you set the noble example of -confessing when one is beaten. I was very careful when we made the -compact which secured me this flawlessly beautiful lady as my wife. I -am no longer careful. I cannot live with her for another year, not for -a month, not for a half-hour! As you perceive, at the bare thought I -grow hysterical. I tell you I cannot face the thought that this is the -woman whom I have worshipped so long! I am a broken man, and I repent -of every crime I committed in order to get her. Therefore let us make a -second compact, my dear Monsieur Janicot, a compact by which she will -be taken away from me! And you may name your own terms.” - -“Ah, but you are all alike!” sighed Janicot. “You palter and haggle -about the securing of your desires: but once you have your desires, -no price appears too high to rid you of them. I cannot understand my -people, and my failure quite to comprehend them troubles me: yet I -could have told you, Florian, the first day we met, that it would come -to this. But you were that droll creature the romantic, the man who -cherishes superhuman ideals. And I really cannot put up with ideals—” -Janicot ceased from talking half as if in meditation. He now glanced -from one to another of the company with a sort of friendly petulance. -“However, why is everybody looking so solemn? I like to have happy -faces about me.” - -“It is well enough for you to philosophize and grin,” Michael -returned, in lordly indignation. “But grinning settles few religious -difficulties, and philosophy muddles them worse than ever. Yet, if -you ask why I look solemn, it is because this saint here has become a -scandal on earth, a nuisance in heaven, and an impossibility in hell. -And after all our conferences we can find no place for him anywhere -to-day.” - -“Yet the affair is really very simple,” replied Janicot. “Let Hoprig -and Melior, and their child too, return to Brunbelois and to the old -time before he was a saint. Let them return to the high place and to -the old time that is overpast now everywhere except at Brunbelois. Thus -earth will be rid of your scandal-breeding saint, and Hoprig of his -halo and Florian of his threatened hysteria. And this Melior and this -Hoprig will no longer be real persons, but will once more blend into an -ancient legend of exceeding beauty and holiness. And nobody anywhere -will be dissatisfied. This I suggest because I like to have happy faces -about me, and happy faces everywhere, even in heaven.” - - -[Illustration: -Caption surrounded by garland: “—And this is the last cloud going - west.” - _See page 291_ -The image] - - -Michael said: “You are subtle. That is not our strong point, of course. -Still, I really do wonder why, after so many conferences, we never -thought of such an obvious solution as to antedate him at Brunbelois.” - -And Michael looked at Hoprig. - -Hoprig smiled, benevolently as always, but not in the least -repentantly, and Hoprig said: “Why, after all, I have seen quite as -much of this modern world as interests a saint in the prime of life; -this halo certainly is, in ways we need not go into, sometimes in -inconvenience; and there is no real pleasure in being ministered unto -by unwilling angels. So that I am ready to leave it to the lady.” - -Now Melior arose from beside the cradle, wherein the child was now once -more asleep. And Melior looked at Florian, without saying anything: but -she was smiling rather sadly; and Florian knew that nowhere in this -world, at any time, had there been any person more lovely than was his -disenchanted princess. - -And Florian said: “A pest! but, in the name of earth and sky and -sea, in the name of Heaven and all the fiends, let this be done! For -the moment you are again a legend, madame, I shall recapture the dear -misery of my love for you and for that perfect beauty which should be -seen and not heard.” - -“Indeed,” she replied, “I daresay that is the truth. So, for all our -sakes, Hoprig and I will go back to the time before I married you: and -then, on account of the baby, I suppose I will have to marry Hoprig, -who at least takes women as he finds them.” - -“You speak, I assume, metaphorically,” observed the saint, “but, in any -case, I believe you exhibit good sense. So let us be going.” - -Then Florian said farewell to Melior and to Hoprig also. Florian -had put aside his dapper look: he had quite lost his usual air of -tolerating a mixture of vexation and mirth: and for that moment he did -not show in anything as a jaunty little person of the very highest -fashion. - -“Now that you two,” said Florian, “become again a legend and a symbol, -I can believe in and love and worship you once more. It is in vain, -it is with pitiable folly, that any man aspires to be bringing beauty -and holiness into his daily living. These things are excellent for -dilettanti to admire from afar. But they are not attainable, in any -quantity that suffices. We needs believe in beauty: and there needs -always flourish the notion that beauty exists in human living, so long -as memory transfigures what is past, and optimism what is to come. And -sometimes one finds beauty even in the hour which is passing, here and -there, at wide intervals: but it is mixed—as inextricably as is mixed -your speaking, bright-colored enemy of all romance,—with what is silly -and commonplace and trivial.” - -“It seems so very vexatious,” Melior stated, as if from depths of long -deliberation, “when you can distinctly remember having brought your -hat, to be quite unable—Yes, go on talking, Florian. It is on the peg -by the door, and we are all listening.” - -“And I would like to believe,” continued Florian, “that there is -holiness in human living; but I at least have always found this also -mixed with, I do not say hypocrisy, but ambiguity.... Mankind have -their good points, but—to my knowledge,—no firm claim of any sort on -admiration. I have been familiar with no person without finding that -intimacy made some liking inevitable and any real respect preposterous. -I deduce that in no virtue, and in no viciousness, does man excel: -his endowments, either way, are inadequate. So holiness and beauty -must remain to me just notions very pleasant to think about, and quite -harmless to aim at if you like, if only because such aiming makes no -noticeable difference anywhere. But they remain also unattained by -mortal living. I do not know why this should be the law. I merely know -that I overrode the law which says that only mediocrity may thrive in -any place; and that I have been punished, with derision and with too -clear seeing.” - -“Yes, but,” said Janicot, “you are punishing everybody else with -verbosity—” - -“I also can perceive no reason, my son,” declared St. Hoprig, “for -talking highflown bombast and attempting to drag an apologue from the -snarls of a most annoying affair. It should be sufficient to reflect -that your romantic hankerings have upset heaven, and have given rise—I -gather from the sneers of this brown fiend,—to unfavorable comment even -in hell. And there is simply no telling into what state my temple of -Llaw Gyffes may have got during the months you have held me in this -frivolous modern world.” - -“Your temple of Llaw Gyffes!” said Florian, sadly. “But can it be, -monsieur, that, after having been a saint of the Calendar, now that you -return to heathen Brunbelois and the old time—?” - -“My son, in any time,” Hoprig replied, “and in any place, my talents -are such as qualify me only for the best-thought-of church. My nature -craves stability and the support of tradition and of really nice -people. New faiths sometimes allure unthinking hot-heads like that -poor dear Horrig, but not ever me: for I find that any religion, when -once it is endowed and made respectable, works out in its effect -upon human living pretty much like any other religion. Meanwhile, of -course, one naturally prefers to retain a solid position in society. -So that really it does seem foolish to quarrel, in any time or place, -with the best-thought-of faith. No, Florian, creeds shift and alter in -everything except in promising salvation through church-work: but the -prelate remains immortal. And I will tell you another thing, Florian, -that you should remember when we are gone: and it is that all men and -all women are human beings, and that nothing can be done about it.” And -Hoprig at this point regarded Florian for some while with a sort of -pity. “In any case,” the saint said then, “do you look out for another -celestial patron, and for a second father in the spirit, now that -sunset approaches, and this is the last cloud going west.” - -And Melior took up the still sleeping child, without saying anything, -but smiling very lovelily at Florian: and she and Hoprig entered into -a golden cloud, and these two went away from Florian forever. And they -went as a blurred shining: for Florian was recollecting a child’s -desire to be not in all unworthy of these bright, dear beings; and -Florian somewhat wistfully recalled that brave aspiring, and that glad -ignorance, which nothing now could ever reawaken any more. - - - - -_29._ - -_The Wonder Words_ - - -“But now,” said Florian, “what now is to become of me, who have no -longer any standards of beauty and holiness?” And he looked expectantly -from Janicot to the archangel, and back again, to see when they would -begin their battling for possession of the Duke of Puysange. Both -spirits seemed almost unflatteringly unbellicose. - -“I have no instructions about you,” replied Michael. “I did not come -hither in the way of official duty, but only at the summons of that -fellow—It is really a very great comfort to reflect that, now he has -gone back to the old time before he was canonized, he is no longer a -saint! Still, as for you, your ways have been atrocious, and it is -hardly doubtful that your end should be the same.” - -Florian at that had out the magic sword Flamberge. “Then, Monseigneur -St. Michael, logic prompts one to make the best of this: and I entreat -that you do me the honor of crossing blades with me, so that I may -perish not ignobly.” - -“Come,” Michael said, “so this shrimp challenges an archangel! That is -really a fine gesture.” - -“Yes, there is spirit in this romantic,” Janicot declared. “It seems -to take the place of his intelligence. I cannot see it matters what -becomes of the creature, but, after all, old friends will welcome any -excuse to chat together. See, here is excellent wine in the saint’s -cupboard, and over a cup of it let us amicably decide what we should do -with this little Florian.” - -“It is well thought of,” Michael estimated, “for I have been working -all day upon the new worlds behind Fomalhaut, with the air full of -comet dust. Yes, that rapscallion Hoprig fetched me a long way, and I -am thirsty.” - -So these two sat down at the table to settle the fate of Florian. -Janicot poured for Florian also: and Florian took the proffered cup, -and a chair too, which he modestly placed against the log-and-plaster -wall at some distance from his judges. - -Florian’s judges made an odd pair. For resplendent Michael showed in -everything as divine, and in his face was the untroubled magnanimity of -a great prince of Heaven. But Janicot had the appearance of a working -man, all a sober and practical brown, which would show no stains after -the performance of any necessary labor, and his face was the more -shrewd. - -“First,” said Janicot, “let us drink. That is the proper beginning of -any dispute, for it makes each think his adversary a splendid fellow, -it promotes confidence and candor alike.” - -“Nobody should lack confidence and candor when it comes to dealing with -sin,” replied Michael: and with one heroic draught he emptied his cup. - -Florian sipped his more tentatively: for this seemed uncommonly queer -wine. - -“Sin,” Janicot said now, as if in meditation, “is a fine and impressive -monosyllable.” - -“Sin,” Michael said, with sternness, “is that which is forbidden by the -word of God.” - -“But, to be sure!” Florian put in. “Sin is a very grave matter: and -to expiate it requires stained windows and candles and, above all, -repentance—” - -“Ah, but a word,” said Janicot, “has no inherent meaning, it has -merely the significance a mutual agreement arbitrarily attaches to -that especial sound. Let me refill your cup, which I perceive to be -empty: and, Monsieur the Duke, do you stop talking to your judges. That -much—to resume,—is true of all words. And the word of your god has been -so variously pronounced, my good Michael, it has been so diversely -interpreted, that, really, men begin to wonder—” - -“I did not sit down,” cried Michael, “to hear blasphemies, but to -settle the doom of this sinner. Nor will I chop logic with you. I am a -blunt soldier, and you are subtle. Yes, the world knows you are subtle, -but how far has your subtlety got you? Why, it has got you as far as -from heaven to hell.” - -Florian vastly admired that just and pious summing-up as he leaned back -in his chair, and looked toward Janicot. Florian was feeling strangely -complacent, though, for Hoprig’s wine was extraordinarily potent tipple -to have come from the cupboard of a saint. - -“Ah, friend,” returned Janicot, smiling, “and do you really put actual -faith in that sensational modern story that I was an angel who rebelled -against your Jahveh?” - -“It was before my time, of course,” Michael conceded. “I only know -that my Lord created me with orders to conquer you, who call yourself -the Prince of this World. So I did this, though, to give the devil his -due, it was no easy task. But that is far-off stuff: a soldier bears no -malice when the fighting is over: and I drink to you.” - -“Your health, bright adversary! Yet what if I were not conquered, but -merely patient? Why should not I, who have outlived so many gods, -remain as patient under the passing of this tribal god come out of -Israel as I stayed once under Baal and Beltane? Both of these have had -their adorers and tall temples hereabouts: and Mithra and Zeus and -Osiris and I know not how many thousands of other beautiful and holy -deities have had their dole of worship and neglect and oblivion. Now I -have never been omnipotent, I am not worshipped in any shining temple -even to-day; but always I have been served.” - -Florian, through half-closed eyelids,—for he felt a trifle drowsy after -that extraordinary wine,—was admiring the curious proud look which -had come into the brown face of Janicot. Florian began complacently -to allow this fiend had his redeeming points. This Janicot was quite -distinguished looking. - -“For I,” said Janicot, “am the Prince of this World, not to be ousted: -and I have in my time, good Michael, had need to practise patience. -You think with awed reverence of your Jahveh: and that in your station -is commendable. Yet you should remember, too, that to me, who saw but -yesterday your Jahveh’s start in life as a local storm-god upon Sinai, -he is just the latest of many thousands of adversaries whom I have seen -triumph and pass while I stayed patient under all temporary annoyances. -For in heaven they keep changing dynasties, and every transient ruler -of heaven is bent upon making laws for my little kingdom. Oh, I blame -nobody! The desire is natural in omnipotence: and many of these laws I -have admired, as academic exercises. The trouble seemed to be that they -were drawn up in heaven, where there is nothing quite like the nature -of my people—” - -“A very sinful people!” said Michael. - -“There, as in so many points, bright adversary, our opinions differ. -You perceive only that they are not what, in accordance with your -master’s theories, they ought to be. I am more practical: I accept them -as they are, and I make no complaint. That which you call their lust -and wantonness, I know to be fertility—” And Janicot spread out both -hands. “But it is an old tale. God after god has set rules to bridle -and to change the nature of my people. Meanwhile I do not meddle with -their natures, I urge them to live in concord with their natures, -and to make the most of my kingdom. To be content and to keep me -well supplied with subjects, is all that any reasonable prince would -require. And as for sin, I have admitted it is a fine word. But the -wages of sin—in any event, very often,” said Janicot, and with a smile -he illuminated the parenthesis,—“is life.” - -“To all this,” said Michael, extending his empty cup, “the answer is -simple. You are evil, and you lie.” - -“Before your days, before there were men like those of to-day,” said -Janicot, indulgently, as he poured sombre wine, “and when the dwarf -peoples served me in secret places, even they had other official -gods. When your Jahveh is forgotten, men will yet serve me, if but -in secrecy. Creeds pass, my friend, just as that little Hoprig said. -And it is true, too, that the prelate remains always, as my technical -opponent. But the lingham and the yoni do not pass, they do not change, -they keep their strong control of all that lives: and these serve me -alone.” - -“If my Lord passes,” Michael answered, very nobly and very simply, -“I pass with Him. We that love Him could then desire no other fate. -Meanwhile I have faith in Him, and in His power and in His wisdom, and -my faith contents me.” - -“Faith!” Janicot said, rather wistfully. “Ah, there we encounter -another fine word, a wonder word: and I admit that your anodyne -is potent. But it is not to my taste. However, this wine here is -emphatically to my taste. So let us drink!” - -“It is a good wine. But it begets a treacherous softness of heart and -an unsuitable, a quite un-Hebraic tendency to let bygones be bygones. I -mean, unsuitable for one in my service. For, after all, old adversary, -without intending any disrespect, of course, we were originally for -martial law and military strictness, for smiting hip and thigh when -the least thing went wrong: and in spite of our recent coming over to -these new Christian doctrines—And, by the way, that reminds me of this -sinner here. We seem to keep wandering from the point.” - -They had looked toward Florian, who discreetly remained lying back in -his chair, watching them between nearly closed lids. - -“Indeed, we have so utterly neglected him that he has gone to sleep. So -let us drink, and be at ease,” said Janicot, “now that we are relieved -of his eavesdropping. This little Florian annoys me, rather. For he -makes something too much of logic: so he rebels against your creed of -faith and of set laws to be obeyed, asking Why? Did you never hear -the creature crying out, Let us be logical! in, of all places, this -universe? And he rebels against my creed, which he believes a mere -affair of the lingham and the yoni, saying This is not enough. Such -men as he continue to dream, my friend, and I confess such men are -dangerous: for they obstinately aspire toward a perfectibility that -does not exist, they will be content with nothing else; and when your -master and I do not satisfy the desire which is in their dreams, they -draw their appalling logical conclusions. To that humiliation, such as -it is, I answer Drink! For the Oracle of Bacbuc also—that oracle which -the little curé of Meudon was not alone in misunderstanding,—that -oracle speaks the true wonder word.” - -Michael had listened, with one elbow on the table, and with one hand -propping his chin. Michael had listened with a queer mingling, in his -frank face, of admiration and distrust. - -The archangel now slightly raised his head, just free of his hand, and -he asked rather scornfully, “But what have we to do with their dreams?” - -“A great deal. Men go enslaved by this dream of beauty: but never yet -have they sought to embody it, whether in their wives or in their -equally droll works of art, without imperfect results, without results -that were maddening to the dreamer. Men are resolved to know that -which they may whole-heartedly worship. No, they are not bent upon -emulating what they worship: it is, rather, that holiness also is a -dream which allures mankind resistlessly. But thus far,—by your leave, -good Michael,—they have found nothing to worship which bears logical -inspection much better than does Hoprig. The dangerous part of all this -is that men, none the less, still go on dreaming.” - -“They might be worse employed.” Michael himself refilled his cup. “For -I could tell you—” - -“Pray spare my blushes! Yes, they obstinately go on dreaming. Your -master is strong, as yet, and I too am strong, but neither of us is -strong enough to control men’s dreams. Now, the dreaming of men—mark -you, I do not say of humankind, for women are rational creatures,—has -an aspiring which is ruthless. It goes beyond decency, it aspires -to more of perfectibility than any god has yet been able to provide -or even to live up to. So this quite insane aspiring first sets up -beautiful and holy gods in heaven, then in the dock; and, judging all -by human logic, decrees this god not to be good enough. Thus their -logic has dealt with Baal and Beltane and Mithra; thus it will deal—” -Janicot very courteously waved a brown and workmanlike hand. “But let -us not dwell upon reflections that you may perhaps find unpleasant. In -the meanwhile, me too this human dreaming thrusts aside, as not good -enough.” - -It was plain that Michael distrusted Janicot in all and yet in some -sort admired him most unwillingly. Michael asked, with a reserved -smiling, “What follows, O subtle one?” - -“It follows that all gods must pass until—perhaps—a god be found who -satisfies the requirements of this disastrously exigent human dreaming. -It follows that I must perforce go quietly about my kingdom because -of this insane toplofty dreaming.” And Janicot sighed. “Yes, it is -humiliating: but I also have my anodyne, I have my wonder word. And it -is Drink!” - -“Of course it would be,” Michael replied, with the most dignified of -hiccoughs, “since drunkenness is a particularly low form of sin.” - -“The drinking I advocate is not merely of the grape. No, it is from the -cup of space that I would have all drink, accepting all that is, in one -fearless draught. Some day, it may be, my people here will attain to -my doctrine: and even these fretful little men will see that life and -death, and the nature of their dreams, and of their bodies also, are -but ingredients in a cup from which the wise drink fearlessly.” - -Janicot had risen now. He came toward Florian, and stood there, looking -down. And Florian discreetly continued his mimicry of untroubled -slumber. - -“Meanwhile he does not drink, he merely dreams, this little Florian. He -dreams of beauty and of holiness fetched back by him to an earth which -everywhere fell short of his wishes, fetched down by him intrepidly -from that imagined high place where men attain to their insane desires. -He dreams of aspiring and joy and color and suffering and unreason, and -of those quaint taboos which you and he call sin, as being separate -things, not seeing how all blends in one vast cup. Nor does he see, as -yet, that this blending is very beautiful when properly regarded, and -very holy when approached without human self-conceit. What would you -have, good Michael? He and his like remain as yet just fretted children -a little rashly hungry for excitement.” - -Michael stood now beside Janicot. Michael also was looking at Florian, -not unkindlily. - -“Yes,” Michael said. “Yes, that is true. He is yet a child.” - -Then the two faces which bent over Florian were somehow blended into -one face, and Florian knew that these two beings had melted into one -person, and that this person was prodding him very gently. - - - - -_30._ - -_The Errant Child_ - - -His father, after all these years, was still wearing the blue stockings -with gold clocks. Florian noted that first, because his father’s foot -was gently prodding Florian into wakefulness, as Florian’s father sat -there under the little tree from the East. Beyond the Duke’s smiling -countenance, beyond the face which was at once the face of Michael and -of Janicot, Florian could now see a criss-crossery of stripped boughs, -each one of which was tipped with a small bud of green. - -“Come, lazibones, but you will get your death of cold, sleeping here on -the bare ground, at harvest-time.” - -“At harvest-time—I have been dreaming—” Florian sat erect, rubbing at -his eyes with a hand whose smallness he instantly noted with wonder. -The ground, too, seemed surprisingly close to him, the grass blades -looked bigger than was natural. He could feel sinking away from him -such childish notions about God and wickedness, and about being a grown -man, as the little boy—who was he, as he now recollected,—had blended -in his callow dreaming: and Florian sat there blinking innocent and -puzzled eyes. He was safe back again, he reflected, in the seventeenth -century: Louis Quatorze was King once more: and all the virtues were -again modish. And this really must be harvest-time, for the sleek -country of Poictesme appeared inexpressibly asleep, wrapped in a -mellowing haze. - -Florian said, “It was a very queer dream, monsieur my father—” - -“A pleasant dream, however, I hope, my son. No other sort of dream -is worth inducing by sleeping under what, they used to tell me, is a -charmed tree, and by using for your pillow a book that at least is -charming.” - -And the Duke pointed to the book by Monsieur Perrault of the Academy, -in which Florian had that very morning read with approving interest -about the abominable Bluebeard and about the Cat with Boots and about -the Sleeping Beauty and about Cendrillon and about a variety of other -delightful persons. - -But Florian just now was not for fairy tales, rather all his thoughts -still clung to his queer dream. And the child said, frowning: - -“It was pleasant enough. But it was puzzling. For there were beautiful -ladies that nobody could stand living with, and a saint that was an -out-and-out fraud, and”—Florian slightly hesitated,—“and a wicked man, -as bad almost as Komorre the Cursed, that did everything he wanted to, -without ever being exactly punished, or satisfied either—” - -“Behold now,” Monsieur de Puysange lamented, “how appalling are the -advances of this modern pessimism! My own child, at ten, advises -me that beauty and holiness are delusions, and that not even in -untrammeled wickedness is to be found contentment.” - -“No: that was not the moral of my dream. That is what bothers me, -monsieur my father. There was not any moral: and nothing seemed to be -leading up to anything else in particular. I seemed to live a long -while, monsieur my father, I had got to be thirty-six and over, without -finding any logic and reasonableness anywhere—” - -“Doubtless, at that advanced age, your faculties were blunted, and you -had become senile—” - -“—And the people that wanted things did not want them any longer once -they had got them. They seemed rather to dislike them—” - -“From your pronominal disorder,” the Duke stated, “I can deduce fancies -which are not a novelty here in Poictesme. Such was the crying, in a -somewhat more poetic and grammatical version, of our reputed begetters, -men say,—of Dom Manuel and of Jurgen also,—in the old days before there -was ever a Puysange.” - -“Yes, but that was so long ago! when people were hardly civilised. -And what with all the changes that have been since then—! Well, -but it really seems to me, monsieur my father, that—just taking it -logically,—now that we have almost reached the eighteenth century, and -all the nations have signed that treaty at Ryswick to prevent there -ever being any more wars, and people are riding about peaceably in -sedan chairs, and are living in America, and even some of the peasants -have glass windows in their houses—” - -“Undoubtedly,” said the Duke, “we live in an age of invention and of -such material luxury as the world has never known. All wonders of -science have been made our servants. War, yesterday our normal arbiter, -has now become irrational, even to the most unreflective, since one -army simply annihilates the other with these modern cannons that shoot -for hundreds of feet. To cross the trackless Atlantic is now but the -affair of a month or two in our swift sailing ships. And we trap and -slaughter even the huge whale to the end that we, ignoring the sun’s -whims, may loan to nights of feverish dissipation the brilliancy of -afternoon, with our oillamps. We have perhaps exhausted the secrets of -material nature. And in intellectual matters too we have progressed. -Yet all progress, I would have you note, is directed by wise persons -who discreetly observe the great law of living—” - -“And what is that law, monsieur my father?” - -“Thou shalt not offend,” the Duke replied, “against the notions of -thy neighbor. Now to the honoring of this law the wise person will -bring more of earnestness than he will bring to the weighing of -discrepancies between facts and well-thought-of ideas about these -facts. So, at most, he will laugh, he will perhaps cast an oblique jest -with studied carelessness: and he will then pass on, upon the one way -that is safe—for him,—without ever really considering the gaucherie of -regarding life too seriously. And his less daring fellows will follow -him by and by, upon the road which they were going to take in any -event. That is progress.” - -“Thou shalt not offend against the notions of thy neighbor!” Florian -repeated. “Yes, I remember. That was a part of my dream, too.” He was -silent for an instant, glancing eastward beyond the gardens of his -home. The thronged trees of Acaire, as Florian now saw them just beyond -that low red wall, seemed to have golden powder scattered over them, a -powder which they stayed too motionless to shake off. “But—in my dream, -you know,— that had been learned by living wickedly. And you have -always taught Little Brother and me to be very good and religious—” - -“My son, my son! and have I reared an errant child, an actual atheist, -who doubts that in the next world also we have—a Neighbor?” - -“Do you mean the good God, monsieur my father?” - -“Eh,” said the Duke, “I would distinguish, I would avoid -anthropomorphology, I would speak here with exactness. I mean that -in this world we must live always in subjection to notions which a -moment’s thought shows always to be irrational; and that nothing -anywhere attests the designer of this world, however high His place or -whatever His proper title, to be swayed at all by what we describe as -justice and logic.” - -“I can see that,” said Florian: “though I have been thinking about -another sort of high place—” - -But the Duke was still speaking: and now, to Florian’s ear, his -father’s tone was somewhat of a piece with this sun-steeped and -tranquil and ineffably lazy October afternoon, which seemed to show the -world as over-satisfied with the done year’s achievements. - -“So life, my son, must always display, to him who rashly elects to -think about it, just the incoherency and the inconclusiveness of -a child’s dreammaking. No doubt, this is to be explained by our -obtuseness: I design, in any event, no impiety, for to be impious is -unwise. I merely mean that I assume Someone also to be our neighbor, -in His high place, and that I think His notions also should be treated -with respect.” - -“I see,” said Florian. But all that was youthful in him seemed to stir -in dim dissent from unambitious aims. - -“I mean, in short, that the wise person will conform—with, it may be, a -permissible shrug,—to each and every notion that is affected by those -neighbors whose strength is greater than his. I would also suggest -that, if only for the sake of his own comfort, the wise person will -cultivate a belief that these notions, however incomprehensible, may -none the less be intelligent and well-meaning.” - -“I see,” the boy said, yet again. He spoke abstractedly, for he was now -thinking of brown Janicot and of resplendent Monseigneur St. Michael, -in that queer dream. His father appeared in some sort to agree with -both of them. - -And as the Duke continued, speaking slowly, and with something of the -languor of this surrounding autumnal world,—which seemed to strive -toward no larger upshots than the ripening of grains and fruits,—it -occurred to Florian, for the first time in Florian’s life, that this -always smiling father of his was, under so many graces, an uneasy and -baffled person. - -The Duke said: “To submit is the great lesson. I too was once a -dreamer: and in dreams there are lessons. But to submit, without -dreaming any more, is the great lesson; to submit, without either -understanding or repining, and without demanding of life too much of -beauty or of holiness, and without shirking the fact that this universe -is under no least bond ever to grant us, upon either side of the grave, -our desires. To do that, my son, does not satisfy and probably will not -ever satisfy a Puysange. But to do that is wisdom.” - -The boy for some while considered this. He considered, too, the -enigmatic, just half-serious face of his father, the face that was -at once the face of Michael and of Janicot. To accept things as they -were, in this world which was now going to sleep as if the providing -of food-stuffs and the fodder for people’s cattle were enough; and to -have faith without reasoning over-logically about it: all these grown -persons seemed enleagued to proffer him this stupid and unaspiring -advice. - -But Florian, at ten, had learned to humor the notions of his elders. So -he said affably, if not quite without visible doubtfulness, “I see....” - - - EXPLICIT - - It is gratifying to relate that, in a world wherein most moral lessons - go to waste, young Florian duly honored the teaching of his dream. - Therefore, as the boy grew toward maturity, he reduplicated in action - all the crimes he had committed in fancy, and was appropriately - grateful for his fore-knowledge that all would turn out well. But, - when he had reached the thirty-sixth year of his living and the fourth - chapter of this history, he then, at the conclusion of his talking - with Marie-Claire Cazaio, decorously crossed himself, and he shrugged. - - “Let sleeping ideals lie,” said Florian: “for over-high and - over-earnest desires are inadvisable.” - - Thereafter he rode, not into Acaire, but toward the Duardenez. He - forded this river uneventfully; and four days later, at Storisende, - was married, _en cinquièmes noces_, to Mademoiselle Louise de Nérac. - - It is likewise pleasant to know that this couple lived together in - an amity sufficient to result in the begetting of three daughters, - and to permit, when the fourth Duke of Puysange most piously and - edifyingly quitted this life, in the November of 1736, the survival - of his widow.... The moral of all which seems to be that no word of - this book, after the fourth chapter, need anybody regard with any - least seriousness, unless you chance to be one of those discomfortable - folk who contend that a fact is something which actually, but only, - happens. A truth—so these will tell you,—does not merely “happen,” - because truth is unfortuitous and immortal. This rather sweeping - statement ought to be denied—outright—by none who believe that - immortals go about our world invisibly. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGH PLACE *** - -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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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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: The High Place</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>A Comedy of Disenchantment</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; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: Frank C. Papé</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 29, 2021 [eBook #67043]</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: Charlene Taylor, Les Galloway and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGH PLACE ***</div> - -<div class="narrow"> -<div class="transnote"> - -<h3>Transcriber’s Notes</h3> - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations -in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and -punctuation remains unchanged.</p> -<p>The cover has been prepared by the transcriber and is placed -in the public domain.</p> - -</div> - - -<div class="echap"></div> -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="endpapers" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/endpapers.jpg" alt="" /> - <div class="caption">Endpaper</div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<p class="half-title"> -<i>The<br /> -High<br /> -Place</i> -</p> - - -<div class="chapter"></div> - -<div class="box"> - -<p>BOOKS <i>by</i> MR. CABELL</p> - -<div class="small"> - -<p><i>Biography</i>:</p> - - -<ul> -<li><span class="smcap">Beyond Life</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Figures of Earth</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Domnei</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Chivalry</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Jurgen</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">The Line of Love</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">The High Place</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Gallantry</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">The Certain Hour</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">The Cords of Vanity</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">From the Hidden Way</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">The Rivet in Grandfather’s Neck</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">The Eagle’s Shadow</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">The Cream of the Jest</span></li> -</ul> - -<p><i>Scholia</i>:</p> - -<ul> -<li><span class="smcap">The Lineage of Lichfield</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Taboo</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Joseph Hergesheimer</span></li> -<li><span class="smcap">The Jewel Merchants</span></li> -<li><hr class="small" /></li> -<li><span class="smcap">Jurgen and the Law</span><br /> -(<i>Edited by Guy Holt</i>)</li> -</ul> -</div></div> - -<div class="chapter"></div> - - -<div class="echap"></div> -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="frontis" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/frontis.jpg" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><span class="smcap">Florian</span> felt himself to be in not -quite the company suited to a nobleman of his rank.<br /> -See page <a href="#Page_147">147</a></div> -</div> -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="frontis-caption" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img src="images/frontis-caption.jpg" alt="" /> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<h1> -THE HIGH PLACE:<br /> - -<small>A COMEDY OF DISENCHANTMENT<br /> -<span class="gesperrt">BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL</span><br /> -<small>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND DECORATIONS BY</small><br /> -FRANK C. PAPÉ</small><img src = "images/titlepagea.jpg" alt="leaves" /></h1> - -<div class="blocktitle"> -<p class="spaced">“<i>Build on high place for Chemosh, the abomination -of Moab, and for horned Ashtoreth, the -abomination of Zidon, and for Moloch, the -abomination of the children of Ammon.</i>”</p> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter illowp30" id="titlepage" style="max-width: 12.5em;"> - <img src = "images/titlepage.jpg" alt="Man with shadow" /> -</div> - -<p class="pnind center space-above"> -ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY<br /> -NEW YORK: 1923<img src = "images/titlepageb.jpg" alt="leaves" /></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<div class="chapter"></div> - -<p class="small center"> -Copyright, 1923, by<br /> -<span class="smcap">James Branch Cabell</span></p> -<p class="small center"> -<i>Printed in the<br /> -United States of America</i></p> - -<p class="small center spaced"> -<i>This First Edition of THE<br /> -HIGH PLACE is limited to<br /> -two thousand numbered copies,<br /> -of which this is</i><br /> -<br /> -<i>Copy Number</i> 1825</p> - -<p class="small center">Published, 1923</p> - - - - - -<p class="small center spaced"> -To<br /> -<span class="smcap">Robert Gamble Cabell III</span><br /> -<br /> -<i>this book, where so much more is due</i>.</p> - - -<div class="chapter btitle"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Contents"><i>Contents</i></h2> -</div> - - -<table class="standard" summary=""> -<tr> -<td class="tdc" colspan="3"><a href="#PART_ONE">PART ONE</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdc" colspan="3">THE END OF LONG WANTING</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdl" colspan="2"><small>CHAPTER</small></td> -<td class="tdr"><small>PAGE</small></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_1">I</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Child Errant</span></td> -<td class="tdr">3</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_2">II</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Sayings about Puysange</span></td> -<td class="tdr">10</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_3">III</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Widowers Seek Consolation</span></td> -<td class="tdr">24</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_4">IV</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Economics of an Old Race</span></td> -<td class="tdr">36</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_5">V</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Friendly Advice of Janicot</span></td> -<td class="tdr">42</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_6">VI</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Philosophy of the Lower Class</span></td> -<td class="tdr">53</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_7">VII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Adjustments of the Resurrected</span></td> -<td class="tdr">64</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_8">VIII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">At the Top of the World</span></td> -<td class="tdr">74</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_9">IX</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Misgivings of a Beginning Saint</span></td> -<td class="tdr">80</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_10">X</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Who Feasted at Brunbelois</span></td> -<td class="tdr">89</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdc" colspan="3"><a href="#PART_TWO">PART TWO</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdc" colspan="3">THE END OF LIGHT WINNING</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_11">XI</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Problems of Beauty</span></td> -<td class="tdr">97</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_12">XII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Niceties of Fratricide</span></td> -<td class="tdr">114</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_13">XIII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Débonnaire</span></td> -<td class="tdr">123</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_14">XIV</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Gods in Decrepitude</span></td> -<td class="tdr">141</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_15">XV</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Dubieties of the Master</span></td> -<td class="tdr">148</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_16">XVI</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Some Victims of Flamberge</span></td> -<td class="tdr">159 -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</span></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_17">XVII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Armory of Antan</span></td> -<td class="tdr">166</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_18">XVIII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Problems of Holiness</span></td> -<td class="tdr">178</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_19">XIX</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Locked Gates</span></td> -<td class="tdr">189</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_20">XX</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Smoke Reveals Fire</span></td> -<td class="tdr">204</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdc" colspan="3"><a href="#PART_THREE">PART THREE</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdc" colspan="3">THE END OF LEAN WISDOM</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_21">XXI</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Of Melior Married</span></td> -<td class="tdr">219</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_22">XXII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Wives of Florian</span></td> -<td class="tdr">225</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_23">XXIII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Collyn in the Pot</span></td> -<td class="tdr">237</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_24">XXIV</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Marie-Claire</span></td> -<td class="tdr">246</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_25">XXV</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Gander That Sang</span></td> -<td class="tdr">256</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_26">XXVI</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Husband and Wife</span></td> -<td class="tdr">263</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_27">XXVII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Forethought of Hoprig</span></td> -<td class="tdr">275</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_28">XXVIII</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Highly Ambiguous</span></td> -<td class="tdr">282</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_29">XXIX</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Wonder Words</span></td> -<td class="tdr">292</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#c_30">XXX</a></td> -<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Errant Child</span></td> -<td class="tdr">304</td> -</tr> -</table> - - - -<div class="chapter btitle"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</span></p> - - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Illustrations"><i>Illustrations</i></h2> -</div> - - -<table class="standard" summary=""> -<tr> -<td class="tdh">Florian felt himself to be in not quite the company -suited to a nobleman of his rank</td> -<td class="tdrb"><i>Frontispiece</i></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td></td> -<td class="tdr"><small>FACING PAGE</small></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdh">She waited—there was the miracle—for Florian -de Puysange</td> -<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdh">He did not move, but lay quite still, staring upward</td> -<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdh">Florian’s plump face was transfigured, as he knelt -before his Melior</td> -<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdh">Now Florian came forward</td> -<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdh">Presently the Collyn of Puysange had opened her -yellow eyes and was licking daintily her lips</td> -<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdh">He closed upon Florian, straightforwardly, without -any miracle-working</td> -<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td class="tdh">“—And this is the last cloud going west”</td> -<td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_286">286</a></td> -</tr> -</table> - - - -<div class="chapter"></div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle1"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_ONE">PART ONE<br /> - -<i>THE END OF LONG WANTING</i></h2> - - -<div class="blockquote"> -<p>“<i>Lever un tel obstacle est à moy peu de chose.</i><br /> -<i>Le Ciel défend, de vray, certains contentemens;</i><br /> -<i>Mais on trouve avec luy des accommodemens.</i>”<br /> -</p></div></div> - - - - -<div class="chapter nobreak1"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_1"><i>1.</i><br /> - - -<i>The Child Errant</i></h3></div> - -<div class="figcenter illowp100" id="image003t" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image003t.jpg" alt="drop cap ilustration" /> -</div> -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image003b.jpg" alt="P" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">ROBABLY Florian would never have -gone into the Forest of Acaire had he -not been told, over and over again, to -keep out of it. Obedience to those -divinely set in authority was in 1698 -still modish: none the less, such orders, -so insistently repeated to any -normal boy of ten, even to a boy not -born of the restless house of Puysange, -must make the venture at one -time or another obligatory.</p> -</div> -<p>Moreover, this October afternoon -was of the sun-steeped lazy sort which -shows the world as over-satisfied with -the done year’s achievements, of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> -sort which, when you think about it so long, arouses -a dim dissent from such unambitious aims. It was -not that the young Prince de Lisuarte—to give -Florian his proper title,—was in any one point dissatisfied -with the familiar Poictesme immediately -about him: he liked it well enough. It was only -that he preferred another place, which probably -existed somewhere, and which was not familiar or -even known to him. It was only that you might—here -one approximates to Florian’s vague thinking, -as he lay yawning under the little tree from the -East,—that you might find more excitement in some -place which strove toward larger upshots than the -ripening of grains and fruits, in a world which did -not every autumn go to sleep as if the providing -of food-stuffs and the fodder for people’s cattle -were enough.</p> - -<p>To-day, with October’s temperate sunlight everywhere, -the sleek country of Poictesme was inexpressibly -asleep, wrapped in a mellowing haze. The -thronged trees of Acaire, as Florian now saw them -just beyond that low red wall, seemed to have golden -powder scattered over them, a powder which they -stayed too motionless to shake off. Yet logic told -him these still trees most certainly veiled wild excitements -of some sort, for otherwise people would -not be at you, over and over again, with exhortations -to keep out of that forest.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p> - -<p>Nobody was watching. There was nothing in -especial to do, for Florian had now read all the -stories in this curious new book, by old Monsieur -Perrault of the Academy, which Florian’s father -had last month fetched back from Paris: and, besides, -nobody at Storisende had, for as much as a -week, absolutely told Florian not to leave the gardens. -So he adventured: and with the achievement -of the adventure came a strengthening of Florian’s -growing conviction that his elders were in their notions, -as a rule, illogical.</p> - -<p>For in Acaire, even when you went as far as -Brunbelois, the boy found nothing hurtful. It was -true that, had he not at the beginning of his wandering -met with the small bright-haired woman who -guided him thereafter, he might have made mistakes: -and mistakes, as Mélusine acknowledged, -might have turned out awkwardly in approaching -the high place, since monsters have to be handled -in just the right way. She explained to Florian, -on that warm long October afternoon, that sympathy -is the main requisite, because the main trouble -with such monsters as the bleps and the strycophanês -and the calcar (she meant only the gray one, -of course) is that each is unique, and in consequence -lonely.</p> - -<p>The hatred men feel for every ravening monster -that wears fangs and scales, she pointed out, is due<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> -to its apparel being not quite the sort of thing to -which men are accustomed: whereas people were -wholly used to having soldiers and prelates and -statesmen ramping about in droves, and so viewed -these without any particular wonder or disapproval. -All that was needed, then, was to extend to the -bleps and the strycophanês a little of the confidence -and admiration which men everywhere else accorded -to the destroyers of mankind; and you would soon -see that these glittering creatures—as well as the -tawny eale, and the leucrocotta, with its golden -mane and whiskers, and the opal-colored tarandus,—were -a great deal nicer to look at than the most -courted and run-after people, and much less apt to -destroy anybody outside of their meal hours.</p> - -<p>In any event, it was Mélusine who had laid an -enchantment upon the high place in the midst of the -wood, and who had set the catoblepas here and the -mantichora yonder to prevent the lifting of her -spell, so that Florian could not possibly have found -a better guide than Mélusine. She was kindly, you -saw, but not very happy: and from the first, Florian -liked and, in some sort, pitied her. So he rode -with her confidingly, upon the back of the queerest -steed that any boy of ten had ever been privileged -to look at, not to speak of riding on it: and the -two talked lazily and friendlily as they went up -and up, and always upward, along the windings<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> -of the green way which long ago had been a -road.</p> - -<p>As they went, the body of this sweet-smelling -Mélusine was warm and soft against his body, for -Mélusine was not imprisoned in hard-feeling clothes -such as were worn by your governesses and aunts. -The monsters stationed along the way drew back as -Mélusine passed; and some purred ingratiatingly, -like gigantic kettles, and others made obeisances: -and you met no other living creatures except three -sheep that lay in the roadway asleep and very dingy -with the dust of several hundred years. No self-respecting -monster would have touched them. Thus -Florian and Mélusine came through the forest without -any hindrance or trouble, to the cleft in the -mountain tops where the castle stood beside a lake: -and Florian liked the stillness of all things in this -high place, where the waters of the lake were without -a ripple, and the tall grass and so many mist-white -flowers were motionless.</p> - -<p>He liked it even more when Mélusine led him -through such rooms in the castle as took his fancy. -He was glad that Mélusine did not mind when -Florian confessed the sleeping princess—in the room -hung everywhere with curtains upon which people -hunted a tremendous boar, and stuck spears through -one another, and burst forth into peculiarly solid-looking -yellow flames,—seemed to him even more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> -lovely than was Mélusine. They were very much -alike, though, the boy said: and Mélusine told him -that was not unnatural, since Melior was her sister. -And then, when Florian asked questions, Mélusine -told him also of the old unhappiness that had been -in this place, and of the reasons which had led her -to put an enduring peacefulness upon her parents -and her sister and all the other persons who slept -here enchanted.</p> - -<p>Florian had before to-day heard century-old tales -about Mélusine’s father, Helmas the Deep-Minded. -So it was very nice actually to see him here in bed, -with his scarlet and ermine robes neatly folded on -the armchair, and his crown, with a long feather in -it, hung on a peg in the wall, just as the King had -left everything when he went to sleep several hundred -years ago. The child found it all extremely -interesting, quite like a fairy tale such as those -which he had lately been reading in the book by -old Monsieur Perrault of the Academy.</p> - -<p>But what Florian always remembered most -clearly, afterward, was the face of the sleeping -princess, Melior, as he saw it above the coverlet of -violet-colored wool; and she seemed to him so lovely -that Florian was never wholly willing, afterward, -to admit she was but part of a dream which had -come to him in his sleeping, on that quiet haze-wrapped -afternoon, in the gardens of his own home.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span> -Certainly his father had found him asleep, by the -bench under the little tree from the East, and -Florian could not clearly recollect how he had got -back to Storisende: but he remembered Brunbelois -and his journeying to the high place and the people -seen there and, above all, the Princess Melior, -with a clarity not like his memories of other dreams. -Nor did the memory of her loveliness quite depart -as Florian became older, and neither manhood nor -marriage put out of his mind the beauty that he -in childhood had, however briefly, seen.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="image041" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image041.jpg" alt="Serpent woman" /> -</div> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_2"><i>2.</i><br /> - -<i>Sayings about Puysange</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image010.jpg" alt="W" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">HEN Florian awakened he was lying -upon the ground, with the fairy tales -of Monsieur Perrault serving for -Florian’s pillow, in the gardens of -Storisende, just by the little tree -raised from the slip which his great-uncle, -the Admiral, had brought from the other side -of the world. Nobody knew the right name of this -tree: it was called simply the tree from the East. -Caterpillars had invaded it that autumn, and had -eaten every leaf from the boughs, and then had gone -away: but after their going the little tree had optimistically -put forth again, in the mild October -weather, so that the end of each bare branch was -now tipped with a small futile budding of green.</p> - -<p>It was upon the bench beneath this tree that -Florian’s father was sitting. Monsieur de Puysange -had laid aside his plumed three-cornered hat, and -as he sat there, all a subdued magnificence of dark -blue and gold, he was looking down smilingly at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> -the young lazibones whom the Duke’s foot was -gently prodding into wakefulness. The Duke was -wearing blue stockings with gold clocks, as Florian -was to remember....</p> - -<p>Not until manhood did Florian appreciate his -father, and come properly to admire the exactness -with which the third Duke of Puysange had kept -touch with his times. Under the Sun King’s first -mistress Gaston de Puysange had cultivated sentiment, -under the second, warfare, and under the -third, religion: he had thus stayed always in the -sunshine. It was Florian’s lot to know his father -only during the last period, so the boy’s youth as -spent dividedly at the Duke’s two châteaux, at -Storisende and at Bellegarde, lacked for no edifying -influence. The long summer days at Storisende -were diversified with all appropriate religious instruction. -In winter the atmosphere of Versailles -itself—where the long day of Louis Quatorze -seemed now to be ending in a twilight of stately -serenity through which the old King went deathward, -handsomely sustained by his consciousness of -a well-spent life and by the reverent homage of all -his bastards,—was not more pious than was that -of Bellegarde.</p> - -<p>Let none suppose that Monsieur de Puysange affected -superhuman austerities. Rather, he exercised -tact. If he did not keep all fast-days, he never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> -failed to secure the proper dispensations, nor to see -that his dependants fasted scrupulously: and if he -sometimes, even now, was drawn into argument, -Monsieur de Puysange was not ever known after -any lethal duel to omit the ordering of a mass, at -the local Church of Holy Hoprig, for his adversary’s -soul. “There are amenities,” he would declare, -“imperative among well-bred Christians.”</p> - -<p>Then too, when left a widower at the birth of his -second legitimate son, the Duke did not so far yield -to the temptings of the flesh as to take another -wife; for he confessed to scruples if marriage, -which the Scriptures assert to be unknown in -heaven, could anywhere be a quite laudable estate: -but he saw to it that his boys were tended by a -succession of good-looking and amiable governesses. -His priests also were kept sleek, and his confessor -unshocked, by the Duke’s tireless generosity to the -Church; and were all of unquestioned piety, which -they did not carry to excess. In fine, with youth -and sentiment, and the discomforts of warfare also, -put well behind him, the good gentleman had -elected to live discreetly, among reputable but sympathetic -companions....</p> - -<p>When Florian told his father now about Florian’s -delightful adventure in Acaire, the Duke smiled: -and he said that, in this dream begotten by Florian’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> -late reading of the fairy tales of Monsieur Perrault, -Florian had been peculiarly privileged.</p> - -<p>“For Madame Mélusine is not often encountered -nowadays, my son. She was once well known in -this part of Poictesme. But it was a long while -ago she quarreled with her father, the wise King -Helmas, and imprisoned him with all his court in -the high place that ought not to be. Yet Mélusine, -let me tell you, was properly punished for her unfilial -conduct; since upon every Sunday after that, -her legs were turned to fishes’ tails, and they stayed -thus until Monday. This put the poor lady to great -inconvenience: and when she eventually married, it -led to a rather famous misunderstanding with her -husband. And so he died unhappily; but she did -not die, because she was of the Léshy, born of a -people who are not immortal but are more than -human—”</p> - -<p>“Of course I know she did not die, monsieur my -father. Why, it was only this afternoon I talked -with her. I liked her very much. But she is not -so pretty as Melior.”</p> - -<p>It seemed to Florian that the dark curls of his -father’s superb peruke now framed a smiling which -was almost sad. “Perhaps there will never be in -your eyes anybody so pretty as Melior. I am sure -that you have dreamed all this, jumbling together<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> -in your dreaming old Monsieur Perrault’s fine story -of the sleeping princess—La Belle au Bois Dormant,—with -our far older legends of Poictesme—”</p> - -<p>“I do not think that it was just a dream, monsieur -my father—”</p> - -<p>“But I, unluckily, am sure it was, my son. And -I suspect, too, that it is the dream which comes in -varying forms to us of Puysange, the dream which -we do not ever quite put out of mind. We stay, to -the last, romantics. So Melior, it may be, will -remain to you always that unattainable beauty toward -which we of Puysange must always yearn,—just -as your patron St. Hoprig will always afford -to you, in his glorious life and deeds, an example -which you will admire and, I trust, emulate. I admit -that such emulation,” the Duke added, more -drily, “has not always been inescapable by us of -Puysange.”</p> - -<p>“I cannot hope to be so good as was Monseigneur -St. Hoprig,” Florian replied, “but I shall endeavor -to merit his approval.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, you should have dreamed of the blessed -Hoprig also, while you were about it, Florian. For -he was a close friend of your Melior’s father, you -may remember, and performed many miracles at the -court of King Helmas.”</p> - -<p>“That is true,” said Florian. “Oxen brought him -there in a stone trough: and I am sure that Mon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>seigneur -St. Hoprig must have loved Melior very -much.”</p> - -<p>And he did not say any more about what his -father seemed bent upon regarding as Florian’s -dream. At ten a boy has learned to humor the notions -of his elders. Florian slipped down from the -bench, and tucked his book under his arm, and -agreed with his father that it was near time for -supper.</p> - -<p>None the less, though, as the boy stood waiting -for that magnificent father of his to arise from the -bench, Florian reflected how queer it was that, before -the falling of the Nis magic, this beautiful -Melior must have known and talked with Florian’s -heavenly patron, St. Hoprig of Gol. It was to -Holy Hoprig that Florian’s mother had commended -the boy with her last breath, and it was to Holy -Hoprig that Florian’s father had taught the boy to -pray in all time of doubt or peccadillo, because this -saint was always to be the boy’s protector and advocate. -And this made heaven seem very near and -real, the knowledge that always in celestial courts -this bright friend was watching, and, Florian hoped, -was upon occasion tactfully suggesting to the good -God that one must not be too severe with growing -boys. Melior—Florian thought now,—was remotely -and half timidly to be worshipped: Hoprig, -the friend and intercessor,—a being even more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> -kindly and splendid than was your superb father,—you -loved....</p> - -<p>Florian had by heart all the legends about Holy -Hoprig. Particularly did Florian rejoice in the tale -of the saint’s birth, in such untoward circumstances -as caused the baby to be placed in a barrel, and cast -into the sea, to be carried whither wind and tide -directed. Florian knew that for ten years the barrel -floated, tossing up and down in all parts of the -ocean, while regularly an angel passed the necessary -food to young Hoprig through the bung-hole. -Finally, at Heaven’s chosen time, the barrel rolled -ashore near Manneville, on the low sands of Fomor -Beach. A fisherman, thinking that he had found a -cask of wine, was about to tap it with a gimlet; -then from within, for the first time, St. Hoprig -speaks to man: “Do not injure the cask. Go at -once to the abbot of the monastery to which this -land belongs, and bid him come to baptize me.”</p> - -<p>It seemed to Florian that was a glorious start in -life for a boy of ten, a boy of just the same age as -Florian. All the later miracles and prodigies appeared, -in comparison with that soul-contenting moment, -to be compact of paler splendors. Nobody, -though, could hear unenviously of the long voyage -to the Red Islands and the realm of Hlif, and to -Pohjola, and even to the gold-paved Strembölgings, -where every woman contains a serpent so placed as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> -to discourage love-making,—of that pre-eminently -delightful voyage made by St. Hoprig and St. Hork -in the stone trough, which, after its landing upon -the coasts of Poictesme, at mid-winter, during a -miraculous shower of apple-blossoms, white oxen -drew through the country hillward, with the two -saints by turns preaching and converting people all -the way to Perdigon. For that, Florian remembered, -was the imposing fashion in which Holy -Hoprig had come to the court of Melior’s father,—and -had wrought miracles there also, to the discomfiture -of the abominable Horrig. But more -important, now, was the reflection that St. Hoprig -had in this manner come to Melior and to the unimaginable -beauty which, in the high place, a coverlet -of violet stuff just half concealed....</p> - -<p>Certainly Monseigneur St. Hoprig must have -loved Melior very much, and these two must have -been very marvelous when they went about a more -heroic and more splendid world than Florian could -hope ever to inhabit. It was of their beauty and -holiness that the boy thought, with a dumb yearning -to be not in all unworthy of these bright, dear -beings. That was the longing—to be worthy,—which -possessed Florian as he stood waiting for his -father to rise from the bench beneath the little tree -from the East. There, the Duke also seemed to -meditate, about something rather pleasant.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p> - -<p>“You said just now, monsieur my father,” Florian -stated, a trifle worried, “that we of Puysange have -not always imitated the good examples of St. Hoprig. -Have we been very bad?”</p> - -<p>Monsieur de Puysange had put on his plumed -hat, but he stayed seated. He appeared now, as -grown people so often do, amused for no logical -or conceivable reason: though, indeed, the Duke -seemed to find most living creatures involuntarily -amusing.</p> - -<p>He said: “We have displayed some hereditary -foibles. For it is the boast of the house of Puysange -that we trace in the direct male line from -Poictesme’s old Jurgen. That ancient wanderer, -says our legend, somehow strayed into the bed-chamber -of Madame Félise de Puysange; and the -result of his errancy was the vicomte who flourished -under the last Capets.”</p> - -<p>Young Florian, in accord with the quaint custom -of the day, had been reared without misinformation -as to how or whence children came into -the world. So he said only, if a little proudly, -“Yes,—he was another Florian, I remember, like -me.”</p> - -<p>“There were queer tales about this first Florian, -also, who is reputed to have vanished the moment -he was married, and to have re-appeared here, at -Storisende, some thirty years later, with his youth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> -unimpaired. He declared himself to have slept out -the intervening while,—an excuse for remissness in -his marital duties which sceptics have considered -both hackneyed and improbable.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” Florian largely considered, “but then -there is Sir Ogier still asleep in Avalon until France -has need of him; and John the Divine is still sleeping -at Ephesus until it is time to bear his witness -against Antichrist; and there is Merlin -in Broceliande, and there is St. Joseph of Arimathæa -in the white city of Sarras—and really, -monsieur my father, there is Melior, and all the -rest of King Helmas’ people up at Brunbelois.”</p> - -<p>“Are you still dreaming of your Melior, tenacious -child! Certainly you are logical, you cite -good precedents for your namesake, and to adhere -to logic and precedent is always safe. I hope you -will remember that.”</p> - -<p>“I shall remember that, monsieur my father.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, too, this story of persons who sleep -for a miraculous while is common to all parts of -the world. This Florian de Puysange, in any -event, married a granddaughter of the great Dom -Manuel; so that we descend from the two most -famous of the heroes of Poictesme: but, I fancy, -it is from Jurgen that our family has inherited the -larger number of its traits.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p> - -<p>“Anyhow, we have risen from just being -vicomtes—”</p> - -<p>Florian’s father had leaned back, he had put off -his provisional plan of going in to supper. You -could not say that the good gentleman exactly took -pride in his ancestry: rather, he found his lineage -worthy of him, and therefore he benevolently approved -of it.</p> - -<p>So he said now, complacently enough: “Yes, -our house has prospered. Steadily our fortunes -have been erected, and in dignity too we have been -erected. Luck seems to favor us, however, most -heartily when a woman rules France, and it is to -exalted ladies that we owe most of our erections. -Thus Queen Ysabeau the Bavarian notably advanced -the Puysange of her time, very much as -Anne of Beaujeu and Catherine de Medici did afterward. -Many persons have noted the coincidence. -Indeed, it was only sixty years ago that Marion de -Lorme spoke privately to the Great Cardinal, with -such eloquence that the Puysange of the day—another -Florian, and a notably religious person,—had -presently been made a duke, with an appropriate -estate in the south—”</p> - -<p>“I know,” said Florian, not a bit humble about -his erudition. “That is how we came to be here -in Poictesme. Mademoiselle de Lorme was a very -kind lady, was she not, monsieur my father?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p> - -<p>“She was so famed, my son, for all manner of -generosity that when my grandfather remodeled -Bellegarde, and erected the Hugonet wing of the -present château, he sealed up in the cornerstone, just -as people sometimes place there the relics of a saint, -both of Mademoiselle de Lorme’s garters. Probably -there was some salutary story connected with his -acquiring of them; for my pious grandfather cared -nothing for such vanities as jeweled garters, his -mind being wholly set upon higher things.”</p> - -<p>“I wish we knew that story,” said Florian.</p> - -<p>“But nobody does. My grandfather was discreet. -So he thrived. And his son, who was my honored -father, also thrived under the regency of Anne of -Austria. He thrived rather unaccountably in the -teeth of Mazarin’s open dislike. There was some -story—I do not know what,—about a nightcap -found under the Queen’s pillow, and considered by -his eminence to need some explaining. My honored -father was never good at explaining things. But -he was discreet, and he thrived. And I too, my -son, was lucky in Madame de Montespan’s time.”</p> - -<p>Now Madame de Montespan’s time antedated -Florian’s thinking: but about the King’s last mistress,—and -morganatic wife, some said,—Florian -was better informed.</p> - -<p>“Madame de Maintenon also is very fond of you, -monsieur my father, is she not?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span></p> - -<p>The Duke slightly waved his hand, as one who -disclaims unmerited tribute. “It was my privilege -to know that incomparable lady during her first -husband’s life. He was a penniless cripple who -had lost the use of all his members, and in that time -of many wants I was so lucky as to comfort Madame -Scarron now and then. Madame de Maintenon -remembers these alleviations of her unfortunate -youth, and notes with approval that I have -forgotten them utterly. So Madame is very kind. -In short,—or, rather, to sum up the tale,—the lords -of Puysange are rumored, by superstitious persons, -to have a talisman which enables them to go farther -than may most men in their dealings with -ladies.”</p> - -<p>“You mean, like a magic lamp or a wishing cap?” -said Florian, “or like a wizard’s wand?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, something in that shape,” the Duke answered, -“and they tell how through its proper employment, -always under the great law of living, our -house has got much pleasure and prosperity. And -it is certain the Collyn aids us at need—”</p> - -<p>“What is the Collyn?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing suitable for a boy of ten to know about. -When you are a man I shall have to tell you, Florian. -That will be soon enough.”</p> - -<p>“And what, monsieur my father, is this great law -of living?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p> - -<p>The Duke looked for a while at his son rather -queerly. “Thou shalt not offend,” the Duke replied, -“against the notions of thy neighbor.”</p> - -<p>With that he was silent: and, rising at last from -the bench, he walked across the lawn, and ascended -the broad curving marble stairway which led to the -south terrace of Storisende. And Florian, following, -was for an instant quiet, and a little puzzled.</p> - -<p>“Yes, monseigneur my father, but I do not see—”</p> - -<p>The Duke turned, an opulent figure in dark blue -and gold. He was standing by one of the tall vases -elaborately carved with garlands, the vases that in -summer overflowed with bright red and yellow -flowers: these vases were now empty, and the gardeners -had replaced the carved lids.</p> - -<p>“Youth never sees the reason of that law, my son. -I am wholly unprepared to say whether or not this -is a lucky circumstance.” The Duke again paused, -looking thoughtfully across the terrace, toward the -battlemented walls and the four towers of the southern -façade. His gazing seemed to go well beyond -the fountain and the radiating low hedges and -gravelled walkways of the terrace, to go beyond, for -that matter, the darkening castle. Twilight was rising: -you saw a light in one window. “At all events, -we are home again, young dreamer. I too was once -a dreamer. And at all events, there is Little -Brother waiting for us.”</p> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_3"><i>3.</i><br /> - -<i>Widowers Seek Consolation</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image024.jpg" alt="L" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">ITTLE brother was indeed waiting -for them, at the arched doorway, -impatient of his governess’ restraint. -At sight of them he began telling, -coincidently, of how hungry he was, -and of how he had helped old Margot -to milk a cow that afternoon, and of how a -courier was waiting for Monsieur my Father in -great long boots, up to here. The trifold tale was -confusing, for at eight little Raoul could not yet -speak plainly. His sleeve was torn, and he had a -marvelously dirty face.</p> - -<p>Behind him stood pallid pretty Mademoiselle -Berthe, the governess who a trifle later, during the -next winter, killed herself. She had already begun -bewailing her condition to the Duke, even while she -obstinately would have none of the various husbands -whom her kindly patron recommended, from -among his dependants, as ready to make that condition -respectable. There seemed no pleasing the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> -girl, and Florian could see that his father, for all -his uniform benevolence, regarded her as a nuisance.</p> - -<p>But the Duke now gazed down, at the pale -frightened-looking creature, with that fine condescending -smile which he accorded almost everybody. -“Mademoiselle, children are a grave responsibility. -I have just found Florian asleep in the mud yonder, -whereas you have evidently just plucked this other -small pest from the pig-sty. It is lucky that we -have no more brats to contend with, Mademoiselle, -for the present, is it not?”</p> - -<p>Florian wondered, long afterward, how Mademoiselle -had looked, and what she replied. He could -not recollect. But he did remember that at this -instant Little Brother ran from her and hugged first -one of his father’s superb legs and then Florian. -Little Brother was warm and tough-feeling and -astonishingly strong, and he smelled of clean earth.</p> - -<p>Florian loved him very much, and indeed the affection -between the two brothers endured until the -end of their intercourse. Florian was always consciously -the elder and wiser, and felt himself the -stronger long after Raoul had become taller than -Florian. Even after Raoul was well on in his thirties, -and both the boys had boys of their own, -Florian still thought of the Chevalier de Puysange -as a little brother with a dirty face and a smell of -clean earth, whom you loved and patronized, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> -from whom you had one secret only. For of course -you never told Raoul about Melior.</p> - -<p>You spoke to nobody about Melior. You found -it wiser and more delicious to retain all knowledge -of her loveliness for entirely private consideration, -and thus not be bothered with people’s illogical notion -that Melior was only a dream.</p> - -<p>For the memory of the Princess Melior’s loveliness -did not depart as Florian became older, and -neither manhood nor marriage could put quite out -of mind the beauty that he had in childhood, however -briefly, seen. Other women came and in due -season went. His wives indeed seemed to die with -a sort of uniform prematureness in which the considerate -found something of fatality: nor did the -social conventions of the day permit a Puysange to -shirk amusing himself with yet other women. -Florian amused himself so liberally, once his father -was dead, and the former Prince de Lisuarte had -succeeded to the major title and to his part of the -estates, that they of Bellegarde were grieved when -it was known that the fourth Duke of Puysange -now planned to marry for the fifth time.</p> - -<p>At Florian’s château of Bellegarde, affairs had -sped very pleasantly since the death of his last wife, -and the packing off of his son to Storisende. -Storisende, by the old Duke’s will, had fallen to -Raoul. Affairs had sped so pleasantly, they said at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> -Bellegarde, that it seemed a deplorable risk for -monseigneur to be marrying a woman who might, -conceivably, be forthwith trying to reclaim him -from all fashionable customs. Besides, he was -upon this occasion marrying a daughter of the house -of Nérac, just as his brother the Chevalier had done. -And this was a ruiningly virtuous family, a positively -dowdy family who hardly seemed to comprehend—they -said at Bellegarde,—that we were now -living in the modern world of 1723, and that fashions -had altered since the old King’s death.</p> - -<p>“For how long, little monster, will this new toy -amuse you?” asked Mademoiselle Cécile. It appears -unfair here to record that at nine o’clock in -the morning they were not yet up and about the -day’s duties, without recording also, in palliation of -such seeming laziness, that there was no especial -need to hurry, for all of mademoiselle’s trunks had -been packed overnight, and she was not to leave -Bellegarde until noon.</p> - -<p>“Parbleu, one never knows,” Florian replied, as -he lay smiling lazily at the smiling cupids who held -up the bed-canopies. “It is a very beautiful feature -of my character that at thirty-five I am still the -optimist. When I marry I always believe the ceremony -to begin a new and permanent era.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, very naturally, since everywhere that frame -of mind is considered appropriate to a bridegroom.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> -The girl had turned her sleek brown head a little, -resting it more comfortably upon the pillow, and -she regarded Florian with appraising eyes. “My -friend, in this, as in much else, I find your subserviency -to convention almost excessive. It becomes -a notorious mania with you to do nothing -whatever without the backing of logic and good -precedent—”</p> - -<p>“My father, mademoiselle, impressed upon me a -great while ago the philosophy of these virtues.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, all that is very fine. Yet I at times suspect -your logic and your precedents to be in reality -patched-up excuses for following the moment’s -whim: or else I seem to see you adjusting them, -like colored spectacles, to improve in your eyes the -appearance of that which you have in hand.”</p> - -<p>“Now you misjudge me, mademoiselle, with the -ruthlessness of intimate personal acquaintance—”</p> - -<p>“But indeed, indeed, those precedents which you -educe are often rather far-fetched. You are much -too ready to refer us to the customs of the Visigoths, -or to cite the table-talk of Aristotle, or to appeal -to the rulings of Quintilian. It sounds well: I concede -that. Yet these, and the similar sonorous -pedantries with which you are so glib to justify -your pranks, do not, my friend, let me assure you, -seem always wholly relevant to the conditions of -modern life—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p> - -<p>“My race descends from a most notable scholar, -mademoiselle, and it well may be the great Jurgen -has bequeathed to me some flavor of his unique -erudition. For that I certainly need not apologize—”</p> - -<p>“No, you should rather apologize because that -ancient hero appears also to have bequeathed to -you a sad tendency to self-indulgence in matrimony. -Now to get married has always seemed to me an -indelicate advertising of one’s intentions: and I assuredly -cannot condone in anybody a selfish habit -which to-day leads to my being turned out of -doors—”</p> - -<p>“A pest! you talk as if I too did not sincerely -regret those social conventions which make necessary -your departure—”</p> - -<p>“Yet it is you who evoke those silly conventions -by marrying again.”</p> - -<p>“—But in a grave matter like matrimony one -must not be obstinate and illiberal. Raoul assures -me, you conceive, that his little sister-in-law is a -delightful creature. He thinks that as a co-heiress -of Nérac, without any meddlesome male relatives, -she is the person logically suited to be my wife. -And I like to indulge the dear fellow’s wishes.”</p> - -<p>“Behold a fine sample of your indulgence of -others, by marrying a great fortune! After all, -though,” Cécile reflected, philosophically, “I would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> -not change shoes with her. For it is not wholesome, -my friend, to be your wife. But it has been -eminently pleasant to be your playfellow.”</p> - -<p>Florian smiled. And Florian somewhat altered -his position.</p> - -<p>“<i>Bels dous amicx</i>,” sang Florian, softly, “<i>fassam -un joc novel—!</i>”</p> - -<p>“I must ask for some explanation of, at least,” -Cécile stated, with that light, half-muffled laugh -which Florian found adorable, “your words.”</p> - -<p>“I was about to sing, mademoiselle, a very ancient -aubade. I was beginning a morning-song such -as each lover in the days of troubadours was used, -here in Poictesme, to sing to his mistress at arising.”</p> - -<p>“So that, now you are, as I perceive, arising, you -plan to honor the old custom? That is well enough -for you, who are a Duke of Puysange, and who -have so much respect for precedent and logic. But -I am not logical, I am, as you can see, a woman. -Moreover, I am modern in all, I abhor antiquity. I -find it particularly misplaced in a bedroom. And -so, my friend, I must entreat you, whatever you do, -not to sing any of those old songs, which may, -for anything I know, have some improper significance.”</p> - -<p>Florian humored this young lady’s rather strict -notions of propriety, and they for a while stopped -talking. Then they parted with a friendly kiss, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> -they dressed each for travelling: and Mademoiselle -Cécile rode south upon a tentative visit to Cardinal -Borgia, whose proffered benefactions had thus -far been phrased with magniloquence and vagueness. -This fair girl had the religious temperament, -and she delighted in submitting herself to her spiritual -fathers, but she required some daily comforts -also.</p> - -<p>Florian next sent for the boy Gian Paolo, who -had now for seven months been Florian’s guest. “I -am marrying,” said Florian. “We must part, Gian -Paolo.”</p> - -<p>“Do you think so?” the boy said. “Ah, but you -would regret me!”</p> - -<p>“Regretting would become a lost art if people did -not sometimes do their duty. Now that I am about -to take a wife, you comprehend, I shall for the -while be more or less pre-empted by my bride. It -is unlikely that I shall be able, at all events during -the first ardors of the honeymoon, to entertain my -friends with any adequacy. Let us be logical, dear -Gian Paolo! I find no fault in you, beloved boy, I -concede you to be fit friend for an emperor. It is -merely that the advent of my new duchess now compels -me to ensure the privacy of our honeymoon by -parting, however regretfully, with Mademoiselle -Cécile and with you also.”</p> - -<p>“Your decision does not surprise me, Florian, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> -they say that you have parted with many persons -who loved you, and who left you—”</p> - -<p>“Yes?” said Florian.</p> - -<p>“—Very suddenly—”</p> - -<p>“Yes?” Florian said, again.</p> - -<p>“—And yet without their departure surprising -you at all, dear Florian.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it is merely that in moments of extreme -anguish I attempt to control my emotions, and to -give them no undignified display,” said Florian. -“Doubtless, I was as surprised as anybody. Well, -but this foolish gossip of this very censorious neighborhood -does not concern us, Gian Paolo: and, now -that you too are about to go, I can assure you that -all your needs”—here for an instant Florian hesitated,—“have -been provided for.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, I see that you have wine set ready. Is -it”—and the boy smiled subtly, for he was confident -of his power over Florian,—“is it my stirrup-cup, -dear Florian?”</p> - -<p>Florian now looked full upon him. “Yes,” -Florian said, rather sadly. Then they drank, but -not of the same wine, to the new Duchess of Puysange. -And the boy Gian Paolo died without pain.</p> - -<p>“It is better so,” said Florian. “Time would -have spoiled your beauty. Time would have spoiled -your joy in life, Gian Paolo, and would have -shaken your fond belief that I was your slave in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> -everything. Time lay in wait to travesty this velvet -chin with a harsh beard, to waken harsh doubtings -in the merry heart, and to abate your lovely -perversities with harsh repentance. For time ruins -all, but you escape him, dear Gian Paolo, unmarred.”</p> - -<p>Now Florian was smiling wistfully, for he found -heartache in this thinking of the evanescence of -beauty everywhere, and heartache too in thinking of -the fate of that charming old lady, La Tophania, -who had been so kind to him in Naples. For -Florian could rarely make use of her recipes without -recollecting how cruelly the mob had dealt with -his venerable instructress: that was, he knew, a sentimental -side to his nature, which he could never -quite restrain. So he now thought sadly of this -stately old-world gentlewoman, so impiously dragged -from a convent and strangled, now four years ago, -because of her charity toward those who were afflicted -by the longevity of others. Yes, life was -wasteful, sparing nobody, not even one who was so -wise and amiable as La Tophania, nor so lovable -as Gian Paolo. The thought depressed him: such -wastefulness was illogical: and it seemed to Florian, -too, that this putting of his household into fit order -for the reception of his bride was not wholly a merry -business.</p> - -<p>Then Florian, stroking the dead hand which was -as yet soft and warm, said gently: “And though I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> -have slain you, dear Gian Paolo, rather than see -you depart from me to become the friend of another, -and perhaps to talk with him indiscreetly -after having learned more about me than was wise, -I have at worst not offended against convention, -nor have I run counter to the fine precedents of the -old time. Just so did the great Alexander deal with -his Clitus, and Hadrian with his Antinous; nor did -divine Apollo give any other parting gift to Hyacinthos, -his most dear friend. Now the examples -afforded us by ancient monarchs and by the heathen -gods should not, perhaps, be followed blindly. Indeed, -we should in logic remember always that all -these were pagans, unsustained by the promptings -of true faith, and therefore liable to err. None -the less, they at least establish an arguable precedent, -they afford people of condition something -to go by: and to have that is a firm comfort.”</p> - -<p>He kissed the dead lips fondly; and he bade his -lackeys summon Father Joseph to bury Gian Paolo, -with due ceremony, in the Chapel, next to Florian’s -wives.</p> - -<p>“We obey. Yet, it will leave room for no more -graves,” one told him, “in the alcove wherein monseigneur’s -wives are interred.”</p> - -<p>“That is true. You are an admirable servant, -Pierre, you think logically of all things. Do you -bury the poor lad in the south transept.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span></p> - -<p>Then Florian took wine and wafers into the secret -chamber which nobody else cared to enter, and -he made sure that everything there was in order. -All these events happened on the feast day of St. -Swithin of Winchester, which falls upon the fifteenth -of July: and on that same day Florian left -Bellegarde, going to meet his new wife, and traveling -alone, toward Storisende.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="image035-1" style="max-width: 68.75em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image035.jpg" alt="Florian bowing to Assyrian god" /> -</div> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_4"><i>4.</i><br /> - -<i>Economics of an Old Race</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image036.jpg" alt="F" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">LORIAN rode alone, spruce and staid -in a traveling suit of bottle-green -and silver, riding upon a tall white -horse, riding toward Storisende, -where his betrothed awaited him, -and where the wedding supper was -already in preparation. He went by the longer -route, so that he might put up a prayer, for the -success of his new venture into matrimony, at the -church of Holy Hoprig. Nobody was better known -nor more welcome at this venerable shrine than was -Florian, for the Duke of Puysange had spared nothing -to evince his respect for the fame and the -favorable opinion of his patron saint. Whether in -the shape of candles or a handsome window, or a -new chapel or an acre or two of meadow land, -Florian was always giving for the greater glory of -that bright intercessor who in heaven, Florian assumed, -was tactfully suggesting that such generosity -should not be overlooked. So it was that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> -Florian kept his accounts balanced, his future of a -guaranteeable pleasantness, and his conscience clear.</p> - -<p>Having prayed for the success of this new marriage -and for the soul of Gian Paolo, and having -confessed to all the last month’s irregularities, -Florian went eastward. He passed Amneran and -a spur of the great forest, now that he went to -ford the Duardenez. As he neared Acaire he -thought, idly, and with small shrugs, of a boy’s -adventuring to the sleeping princess in the midst of -these woods, and of the beauty which he had not -ever forgotten utterly: and his heart was troubled -with that worshipful and hopeless longing which -any thinking about this Melior would always evoke -in Florian, because he knew that his “dream,” as -people would call it, was a far more true and vital -thing than Florian’s daily living.</p> - -<p>Then on a sudden he reined up his horse, and -Florian waited there, looking down upon the dark -woman who had come out of this not over-wholesome -forest. Florian did not speak for some while, -but he smiled, and he shook his head in a sort of -humorous disapprobation.</p> - -<p>This woman was his half-sister, whom Florian’s -father had begotten, with the co-operation of the -bailiff of Ranec’s daughter, some while before middle -age and the coming into extreme fashion of -continence had made such escapades criticizable.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> -Marie-Claire Cazaio was thus of an age with -Florian, being his senior by only three months. In -their shared youth these two had not been strangers, -for the old Duke had handsomely recognized his -responsibility for this daughter, and had kept Marie-Claire -about his household until the girl had outraged -propriety by bearing an illegitimate child. -After this the Duke had no choice except to turn -her out of doors. She had since then taken up -with companions whose repute was not even dubious: -and her manner of living was esteemed intemperate -by the most broad-minded persons in -Poictesme, where sorcery was treated with all reasonable -indulgence.</p> - -<p>“My dear,” said Florian, at last, still shaking his -head, “I must tell you, however little good it does, -that there was another deputation of peasants and -declamatory grocers at me, only last week, to have -you seized and burned. You are too careless, -Marie-Claire, about offending against the notions -of your neighbors. You should persuade your unearthly -lovers to curb their ardors until after dark. -You should at least induce them not to pass over -Amneran in such shapes as frighten your neighbors -in the twilight, and so provoke their very natural -desire to burn you at broad noon.”</p> - -<p>“These little peasants will not burn me yet,” she -answered. “My term is not yet run out—” You<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> -saw that Marie-Claire was thinking of quite other -matters. She said, “So, they tell me, you are to -marry again?”</p> - -<p>She had lifted to him now that half-pensive, half-blind -staring which he uneasily recognized. Florian -had always under this woman’s gaze the illogical -feeling that, where he was, Marie-Claire saw some -one else, or, to be exact, saw some one a slight distance -behind him. Her eyes could not be black. -Florian knew that nobody’s eyes were really black. -But this woman’s small eyes were very dark, they -had such extraordinarily thick lashes upon both upper -and lower lids, that these little eyes most certainly -seemed blobs of infernal ink. There was in -his sister’s eyes a discomfortable knowingness. -Puysange looked at Puysange.</p> - -<p>He answered, quietly, “Yes, Mademoiselle de -Nérac is now about to make me the happiest of -men.”</p> - -<p>“Unhappy child! for she too is flesh and blood.”</p> - -<p>“And what does that anatomical truism signify -when it is so cryptically uttered, Marie-Claire?”</p> - -<p>“It means that you and I are not enamored of -flesh and blood.”</p> - -<p>Florian did not reply to this in words. But he -smiled at his half-sister, for he was really fond of -her, even now, and they understood each other -excellently.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span></p> - -<p>So he stayed silent, still looking at her. By and -by he said: “You come out of a wood that is not -often visited by abbots and cherubim, and you carry -a sieve and shears. Who is yonder?”</p> - -<p>Marie-Claire replied, “How should I know the -real name of the adversary of all the gods of men?”</p> - -<p>“Pardieu!” said Florian, “so it is company of -such sinister grandeur that you entertain nowadays. -You progress, my sister, toward a truly notable -damnation.”</p> - -<p>“In these parts, to be sure, they call him -Janicot—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know,” said Florian, “and, certainly, his -local name does not matter in the least.” Florian -smiled benevolently, and said, “Good luck to you, -my dear!”</p> - -<p>Then he rode on, into the pathway from which -Marie-Claire had just emerged. He was interested, -for it might well be rather amusing to overtake -this whispered-about Janicot in the midst of -his sombre work: but, even so, the thoughts of -Florian were not wholly given over to Janicot, or -to Marie-Claire either. Instead, he was still thinking -of the sleeping woman’s face which he had not -ever forgotten utterly: and this dark sullen sister -of his—who had once been so pretty too, he recollected,—and -all her injudicious traffic seemed, somehow, -rather futile.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span></p> - -<p>No, he reflected, Marie-Claire was not pretty now. -Her neck remained wonderful: it was still the only -woman’s neck familiar to Florian that really justified -comparison with a swan’s neck by its unusual -length and roundness and flexibility. But her head -was too small for that superb neck: she had taken -on the dusky pallor of a Puysange: she was, in -fine, thirty-five, and looked rather older. It showed -you what irregular and sorcerous living might lead -to. Florian at thirty-five looked—at most, he estimated,—twenty-eight. -Yes: it was much more sensible -to adhere to precedent, and to keep all one’s -accounts in order, through St. Hoprig’s loving care, -and to retain overhead a thrifty balance in one’s -favor.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp80" id="image009-1" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image009.jpg" alt="Serpent woman?" /> -</div> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span></p> -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_5"><i>5.</i><br /> - -<i>Friendly Advice of Janicot</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image042.jpg" alt="W" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">HEN he had entered a little way into -Acaire, Florian came to an open -place, where seven trees had been -hewn down. A brown horse was -tethered here, and here seven lilies -bloomed with a surprising splendor -of white and gold. These stood waist-high about -a sedate looking burgess, unostentatiously but very -neatly dressed in some brown stuff, which was just -the color of his skin. At his feet was a shrub covered -with crimson flowers: no sun shone here, the -sky was clouded and cast down a coppery glow.</p> - -<p>Such was Janicot. Florian saluted him, quite -civilly, but with appropriate reserve.</p> - -<p>“Come,” Janicot said, smiling, “and is this the -rapturous countenance of a bridegroom? I am not -pleased with you, Monsieur the Duke, I must have -happy faces among my friends.”</p> - -<p>“So you also have heard of my approaching marriage! -Well, I am content enough, and for me to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span> -marry the co-heiress of Nérac seems logical: but -in logic, too, I cannot ignore that I ride toward a -disappointing business. There is magic in the curiously -clothed woman who is mistress of herself, the -hour and you: but the prostrate, sweating and submissive -meat in a tangle of bed-clothing—!” -Florian shrugged.</p> - -<p>“In fact,” said Janicot, as if pensively, “I have -observed you. You do not enter wholly into the -pleasures suitable for men and women: you do not -avoid these agreeabilities, but your sampling of -them is without self-surrender, and there is something -else which you hold more desirable.”</p> - -<p>“That is true.” Florian for an instant meditated. -Florian shrugged. Then Florian dismounted from -his white horse, and tethered it. Here was the one -being in whom you might confide logically. Florian -told Janicot the story of how, in childhood, Florian -had ascended to the high place, and had seen the -Princess Melior, whom always since that time his -heart had desired.</p> - -<p>And Janicot heard him through, with some marks -of interest. Janicot nodded.</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” said Janicot. “I do not frequent high -places. But I have heard of this Melior, from men -a long while dead, and they said that she was beautiful.”</p> - -<p>“Then they spoke foolishly,” replied Florian, “be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>cause -they spoke with pitiable inadequacy. Now I -do not say that she is beautiful. I do not speak -any praise whatever of Melior, because her worth -is beyond all praising. I am silent as to the unforgotten -beauty of Melior, lest I cry out against -that which I love. When I was but a child her -loveliness was revealed to me, and never since then -have I been able to forget the beauty of which all -dreams go envious. I jest with women who are -lovable and nicely colored; they have soft voices, -and their hearts are kind: but presently I yawn and -say they are not as Melior.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but in fact,” said Janicot, “in fact, you -do—without caring to commit yourself formally,—believe -that this Melior is beautiful?”</p> - -<p>Now Florian’s plump face was altered, and his -voice shook a little. He said:</p> - -<p>“Her beauty is that beauty which women had in -the world’s youth, and whose components the old -world forgets in this gray age. It may be that -Queen Helen possessed such beauty, she for whom -the long warring was. It may be that Cleopatra -of Egypt, who had for her playmates emperors and -a gleaming snake, and for her lovers all poets that -have ever lived, or it may be that some other royal -lady of the old time, in the world’s youth, wore -flesh that was the peer of Melior’s flesh in loveliness. -But such women, if there indeed was ever -Melior’s peer, are now vague echoes and blown dust. -I cry the names that once were magic. I cry to -Semiramis and to Erigonê and to Guenevere, and -there is none to answer. Their beauty has gone -down into the cold grave, it has nourished grasses, -and cattle chew the cud which was their loveliness. -Therefore I cry again, I cry the name of Melior: -and though none answers, I know that I cry upon -the unflawed and living beauty which my own eyes -have seen.”</p> - - -<div class="echap"></div> -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="facing044-caption" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img src="images/facing044-caption.jpg" alt="Caption" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="facing044" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/facing044.jpg" alt="" /> - <div class="caption">She waited—there was the miracle—for -<span class="smcap">Florian de Puysange</span>.<br /> -<i>See page <a href="#Page_75">75</a></i></div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span></p> - - -<p>Janicot sat on a tree-stump, stroking his chin with -thumb and fore-finger. He was entirely brown, -with white and gold about him, and the flowering -at his neatly shod feet was more red than blood. -He said:</p> - -<p>“In that seeing, denied to all other living persons,—in -that, at least, you have been blessed.”</p> - -<p>“In that,” said Florian, bitterly, “I was accursed. -Because of this beauty which I may not put out of -mind, the tinsel prettiness of other women becomes -grotesque and pitiable and hateful. I strive to mate -with them, and I lie lonely in their arms. I seek -for a mate, and I find only meat and much talking. -Then I regard the tedious stranger in whose arms -I discover myself, and I wonder what I am doing in -this place. I remember Melior, and I must rid myself -of the fond foolish creature who is not as -Melior.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span></p> - -<p>“Ah, ah!” said Janicot then, “so that is how it is. -I perceive you are a romantic. The disorder is -difficult to cure. Yet we must have you losing no -more wives: there must be an end to the ill luck -which follows your matrimonial adventures and -causes hypercritical persons to whisper. Yes, since -you are a romantic, since all other women upset your -equanimity and lead you into bereavements which -people, let me tell you, are festooning with ugly -surmises, you certainly must have this Melior.”</p> - -<p>“No,” Florian said, wistfully, “there is an etiquette -in these matters. Even if I cared to dabble -in sorcery, it would not be quite courteous for me -to interfere with the magic which Madame Mélusine -has laid upon the high place and her blood relations. -It would be meddling in her family affairs, -it would be an incivility without precedent, to her -who was so kind to me in my childhood.”</p> - -<p>“You think too much about precedent, Monsieur -the Duke. In any event, Mélusine has half forgotten -the matter. So much has happened to her, in -the last several hundred years, that her mind has -quite gone. She cares only to wail upon battlements -and to pass through dusky corridors at twilight, -predicting the deaths of her various descendants. -You can see for yourself that these are not -the recreations of a logical person. No, Florian, -you are considerate, and it does you great credit, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> -you would not annoy Madame Mélusine by releasing -Brunbelois.”</p> - -<p>Said Florian, gently: “My intimates, to be sure, -address me as Florian. But our acquaintance, -Monsieur Janicot, however delightful, remains as -yet of such brevity that, really, whether you be human -or divine—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but, Monsieur the Duke,” replied the other, -“but indeed I entreat your pardon for my inadvertence.”</p> - -<p>And Florian too bowed. “It is merely a social -convention, of course. Yet it is necessary to respect -the best precedents even in trifles. Well, now, -and as to your suggestion, I confess you tempt -me—”</p> - -<p>“Only, you could not free Brunbelois unaided, nor -could any living sorcerer. For Mélusine’s was the -Old Magic that is stronger than the thin thaumaturgy -of these days. Yet I desire to have happy -faces about me, so I will give you this Melior for -a while.”</p> - -<p>“And at what price?”</p> - -<p>“I who am the Prince of this World am not a -merchant to buy and sell. I will release the castle, -and you may have the girl as a free gift. I warn -you, though, that, since she is of the Léshy, at the -year’s end she will vanish.”</p> - -<p>Florian shook his head, smilingly. He knew of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span> -course that marriage with one of the Léshy could -not be permanent. But this fiend must believe him -very simple indeed, if Janicot thought Florian so -uninformed as not to know that whoever accepts -a gift from hell is thereby condemned to burn eternally: -and to perceive this amused Florian.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Monsieur Janicot, but a Puysange cannot -take alms from anybody. No, let us be logical! -There must be a price set and paid, so that I -may remain under no distasteful and incendiary -debts.”</p> - -<p>Janicot hid excellently the disappointment he must -have felt. “Then suppose we fix it that she is yours -until you have had a child by her? And that then -she will vanish, and that then the child is to be given -me, as my honorarium, by”—Janicot explained,—“the -old ritual.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” Florian replied, “I may logically take -this to be a case of desperate necessity, since all my -happiness depends upon it. Now in such cases -Paracelsus admits the lawfulness of seeking aid -from—if you will pardon the technical term, Monsieur -Janicot,—from unclean spirits. He is supported -in this, as I remember it, by Peter Ærodius, -by Bartolus of Sassoferato, by Salecitus, and by -other divines and schoolmen. So I have honorable -precedents, I do not offend against convention. Yes, -I accept the offer; and the child, whatever my pater<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>nal -pangs, shall be given, as your honorarium, by -the old ritual.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Janicot, reflectively, “if there -should be no child—”</p> - -<p>“Monsieur, I am Puysange. There will be a -child.”</p> - -<p>“Why, then, it is settled. Now I think of it, you -will need the sword Flamberge with which to perform -this rite, since Melior is of the Léshy, and -that sword alone of all swords may spill their -blood—”</p> - -<p>“But where is Flamberge nowadays?”</p> - -<p>“There is one at home, in an earthen pot, who -could inform you.”</p> - -<p>“Let us not speak of that,” said Florian, hastily, -“but do you tell me where is this sword.”</p> - -<p>“I have no notion as to the present whereabouts -of Flamberge. Nor, since you stickle for etiquette, -is it etiquette for me to aid you in finding this sword -until you have made me a sacrifice.”</p> - -<p>“Why, but you offered Melior as a free gift!” -said Florian, smiling to see how obvious were the -traps this Janicot set for him. “Is a princess of -smaller importance than a sword?”</p> - -<p>“A princess is easier to get, because a princess is -easier to make. A sword, far less a magic sword -like Flamberge, cannot be fashioned without long -training and preparation and special knowledge.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> -But no man needs more than privacy and a queen’s -goodwill to make a princess.”</p> - -<p>“I confess, Monsieur Janicot, that your logic is -indisputable. Well, when at the winter solstice you -hold your Festival of the Wheel, I shall not sacrifice -to you. That would be to relapse into the old evil -ways of heathenry, a relapse for which is appointed -an agonizing reproof, administered in realms unnecessary -to mention, but doubtless familiar to you. -However, I shall be glad to tender you a suitable -Christmas present, since that sacred season falls at -the same time.”</p> - -<p>“You may call it whatever you prefer. But it -must be a worthy gift that one offers me at my Yule -Feast.”</p> - -<p>“You shall have—not as a sacrifice, you understand, -but as a Christmas present,—the greatest man -living in France. You shall have no less a gift -than the life of that weasel-faced prime-minister -who now rules France, the all-powerful Cardinal -Dubois. For the rest, your bargain is reasonable: -it contains none of those rash mortgagings of the -soul, about which—if you will pardon my habitual -frankness, Monsieur Janicot,—one has to be careful -in all business dealings with your people. So -let us subscribe this bond.”</p> - -<p>Janicot laughed: his traffic was not in souls, he -said; and he said also that Florian, for a nobleman,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> -was deplorably the man of business. None the less, -Janicot now produced from his pocket a paper upon -which the terms of their bargain happened, rather -unaccountably, to be neatly written out: and they -both signed this paper, with the pens and ink which -Florian had not previously noticed to be laid there -so close at hand, upon one of the tree-stumps.</p> - -<p>Then Janicot put up the paper, and remarked: -“A thing done has an end. For the rest, these fellows -will escort you to Brunbelois.”</p> - -<p>“And of what fellows do you speak?” asked -Florian.</p> - -<p>“Why, those servants of mine just behind you,” -replied Janicot.</p> - -<p>And Florian, turning, saw in the roadway two -very hairy persons in an oxcart, drawn by two -brown goats which were as large as oxen; and -yet Florian was certain no one of these things had -been in that place an instant before. This Janicot, -however easy to see through had been his traps for -Florian, was beyond doubt efficient.</p> - -<p>Florian said: “The liveries of your retainers -tend somewhat to the capillary. None the less, I -shall be deeply honored, monsieur, to be attended -by any servants of your household.”</p> - -<p>Janicot replied: “Madame Mélusine has ordained -against men and the living of mankind eternal -banishment from the high place. Very well!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span></p> - -<p>He drew his sword, and without any apparent -effort he struck off the head of his brown horse. -He set this head upon a stake, and he thrust the -other end of the stake into the ground, so that the -stake stood upright.</p> - -<p>“I here set up,” said Janicot, “a nithing post. I -turn the post. I turn the eternal banishment against -Madame Mélusine.”</p> - -<p>He waited for a moment. He was entirely -brown: about him lilies bloomed, with a surprising -splendor of white and gold: and the flowering at -his feet was more red than blood.</p> - -<p>He moved the stake so that the horse’s head now -faced the east, and Janicot said: “Also I turn this -post against the protecting monsters of the high -place, in order that they may all become as witless -as now is this slain horse. I send a witlessness -upon them from the nithing post, which makes witless -and takes away the strength of the rulers and -of the controlling gods of whatever land this nithing -post be turned against. I, who am what I am, have -turned the post. I have sent forth the Seeing of -All, the Seeing that makes witless. A thing done -has an end.”</p> - - -<div class="chapter"></div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_6"><i>6.</i><br /> - -<i>Philosophy of the Lower Class</i></h3></div> - - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image036.jpg" alt="F" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">lorian parted from brown Janicot -for that while, and mounted his -white horse, and rode upward toward -the castle of Brunbelois, without -further thought of the girl at -Storisende whom logic had picked -out to be his wife. Florian was followed by the -oxcart which Janicot had provided. Florian found -all the monsters lying in a witless stupor. So he -fearlessly set upon and killed the black bleps and -the crested strycophanês and the gray calcar.</p> - -<p>He passed on upward, presently to decapitate the -eale, which writhed its movable horns very remarkably -in dying. Florian went on intrepidly, and despatched -the golden-maned and-whiskered leucrocotta. -The tarandus, farther up the road, proved -more troublesome: this monster had, after its sly -habit, taken on the coloring of the spot in which it -lay concealed, so that it was hard to find; and, when -found, its hide was so tough as to resist for some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> -while the edge of Florian’s sword. The thin and -flabby neck of the catoblepas was in contrast gratifyingly -easy to sever. Indeed, this was in all respects -a contemptible monster, dingily colored, and -in no way formidable now that its eyes were shut.</p> - -<p>Florian’s heroic butchery was well-nigh over: so -he passed on cheerily to the next turn in the road; -and in that place a moment later the bright red -mantichora was impotently thrusting out its sting in -the death agony, a sudden wind came up from the -west, and the posture of the sun was changed.</p> - -<p>Having dauntlessly performed these unmatched -feats, the champion paused to reward himself with -a pinch of snuff. The lid of his snuff-box bore the -portrait of his dear friend and patron, Philippe -d’Orléans, and it seemed odd to be regarding familiar -features in these mischancy uplands. Then -Florian, refreshed, looked about him. Three incredibly -weather-beaten sheep were grazing to his -right: to the left he saw, framed by the foliage -upon each side of and overhanging the green roadway, -the castle of Brunbelois.</p> - -<p>Thus one by one did Florian cut off the heads -of the seven wardens, with real regret—excepting -only when he killed the catoblepas,—that his needs -compelled him to destroy such colorful and charming -monsters. The two remarkably hairy persons, -without ever speaking, lifted each enormous head,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> -one by one, into the cart. The party mounted -within eyeshot of Brunbelois thus triumphantly. -And at Brunbelois, where the old time yet lingered, -the hour was not afternoon but early morning: and -at the instant Florian slew the mantichora all the -persons within the castle had awakened from what -they thought was one night’s resting.</p> - -<p>Now the first of the awakened Peohtes whom -Florian encountered was a milkmaid coming down -from Brunbelois with five cows. What Florian -could see of her was pleasurably shaped and tinted. -He looked long at her.</p> - -<p>“To pause now for any frivolous reason,” reflected -Florian, “or to disfigure in any way the moment -in which I approach my life’s desire, is of -course unthinkable—”</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the milkmaid looked at Florian. -She smiled, and her naturally high coloring was -heightened.</p> - -<p>“—So I do not pause for frivolous reasons. I -pause because one must be logical. For, now that -I think of it, to rescue people from enchantment is -a logical proceeding only when one is certain that -this rescuing involves some positive gain to the -world. Do you drive on a little way, and wait for -me,” said Florian, aloud, to his hirsute attendants, -“while I discover from this enticing creature what -sort of persons we have resurrected.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p> - -<p>The hairy servants of Janicot obeyed. Florian, -very spruce in bottle-green and silver, dismounted -from his white horse, and in the ancient roadway -now overgrown with grass, held amicable discourse -with this age-old milkmaid. She proved at bottom -not wholly unsophisticated. And when they -parted, each had been agreeably convinced that the -persons of one era are much like those of another.</p> - -<p>Florian thus came to the gates of Brunbelois logically -reassured that he had done well in reviving -such persons, even at the cost of destroying charming -monsters and of the labor involved in removing -so many heads. He counted smilingly on his finger-tips, -but such was his pleased abstraction that he -miscalculated, and made the total eight.</p> - -<p>He found that, now the enchantment was lifted, -Brunbelois showed in every respect as a fine old -castle of the architecture indigenous to fairy tales. -Flags were flying from the turrets; sentinels, delightfully -shiny in the early morning sunlight, were -pacing the walls, on the look-out for enemies that -had died many hundred years ago; and at the gate -was a night-porter, not yet off duty. This porter -wore red garments worked with yellow thistles, and -he seemed dejected but philosophic.</p> - -<p>“Whence come you, in those queer dusty clothes?” -inquired the porter, “and what is your business -here?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span></p> - -<p>“Announce to King Helmas,” said Florian, as he -brushed the dust from his bottle-green knees, and -saw with regret that nothing could be done about -the grass-stains, which, possibly, had got there when -he knelt to cut off the tarandus’ head,—“announce -to King Helmas that the lord of Puysange is at -hand.”</p> - -<p>“You are talking, sir,” the porter answered, resignedly, -“most regrettable nonsense. For the knife -is in the collops, the mead is in the drinking-horn, -the eggs are upon the toast, the minstrels are in -the gallery, and King Helmas is having breakfast.”</p> - -<p>“None the less, I have important business with -him—”</p> - -<p>“Equally none the less, nobody may enter at this -hour unless he is the son of a king of a privileged -country or a craftsman bringing his craft.”</p> - -<p>“Parbleu, but that is it, precisely. For I bring in -that wagon very fine samples of my craft.”</p> - -<p>The porter left his small grilled lodge. He looked -at the piled heads of the monsters, he poked them -with his finger, and he said mildly, “Why, but did -you ever!” Then he returned to the gate.</p> - -<p>“Now, my friend,” said Florian, with the appropriate -stateliness, “I charge you, by all the color -and ugliness of these samples of my craft, to announce -to your king that the lord of Puysange is -at the gate with tidings, and with proof, that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> -enchantment is happily lifted from this castle.”</p> - -<p>“So there has been an enchantment. I suspected -something of the sort when I came to, after nodding -a bit like in the night, and noticed the remarkably -thick forest that had grown up everywhere around -us.”</p> - -<p>Florian observed, to this degraded underling who -seemed not capable of appreciating Florian’s fine -exploits, “Well, certainly you take all marvels very -calmly.”</p> - -<p>The sad porter replied that, with a reigning family -so given to high temper and sorcery, the retainers -of Brunbelois were not easily astounded. Something -in the shape of an enchantment had been predicted -in the kitchen last night, he continued, after -the notable quarrel between Madame Mélusine and -her father.</p> - -<p>“My friend,” said Florian, “that was not last -night. You speak of a disastrous family jar in -which the milk of human kindness curdled several -centuries ago. Since then there has been an enchantment -laid upon Brunbelois: and the spell was -lifted only to-day.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean, sir, that I am actually several -hundred and fifty-two years old?”</p> - -<p>“Somewhere in that November neighborhood,” -said Florian. And he steeled himself against the -other’s outburst of horror and amazement.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p> - -<p>“To think of that now!” said the porter. “I certainly -never imagined it would come to that. However, -it is always a great comfort to reflect it hardly -matters what happens to us, is it not, sir?”</p> - -<p>You could not but find, in this stubborn unwillingness -to face the magnitude of Florian’s exploits, -something horribly prosaic and callous. Yet, none -the less, Florian civilly asked the man’s meaning. -And the dejected porter replied:</p> - -<p>“It is just a sort of fancying, sir, that one wanders -into after watching the stars, as I do in the -way of business, night after night. One gets to -reading them and to a sort of glancing over of the -story that is written in their courses. Yes, sir, one -does fall into the habit, injudiciously perhaps, but -then there is nothing else much to do. And one -does not find there quite, as you might put it, the -excitement over the famousness of kings and the -ruining of empires that one might reasonably look -for. And one does not find anything at all there -about porters, I can assure you, sir, because they -are not important enough to figure in that story. -There is no more writing in the stars about night-porters -than there is about bumble-bees; and that -is always a great comfort, sir, when one feels low-spirited. -Because I would not care to be in that -story, myself, for it is not light pleasant reading.”</p> - -<p>“A pest! so you inform me, with somewhat the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> -gay levity of an oyster, that you can read the stars!”</p> - -<p>The porter admitted dolefully, “One does come -to it, sir, in my way of business.”</p> - -<p>“And how many chapters, I wonder, are written -in the heavens about me?”</p> - -<p>The porter looked at Florian for some while. -The porter said, now even more dolefully: “I would -not be surprised if there was a line somewhere about -you, sir. For your planet is Venus, and her people -do get written about in an excessive way, there is -no denying it. And I would not care to be one of -them, myself, but of course there is no accounting -for tastes, even if anybody anywhere had any say -in the matter.”</p> - -<p>“Parbleu, you may be right about my planet,” -said Florian, smiling for reasons of his own. “Yet, -as an artless veteran of the first and second Pubic -Wars, I do not see how you can be certain.”</p> - -<p>“Because of your corporature, sir,” replied the -porter. “He that is born under this planet is of -fair but not tall stature, his complexion being white -but tending a little to darkness. He has fine black -hair, the brows arched, the face pretty fleshy, a -cherry lip, a rolling wandering eye. He has a love-dimple -in his cheek, and shows in all as one desirous -of trimming and making himself neat and -complete in clothes and body. Now these things I -see in your corporature and in the fretfulness with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> -which you look at the grass-stains on your knees. -So your planet is evident.”</p> - -<p>“That is possible, your speech has a fine ring of -logic, and logic is less common than hens’ teeth. -Upon what sort of persons does this honorable planet -attend?”</p> - -<p>“If you could call it attending, sir—For I must -tell you that these planets have a sad loose way of -not devoting their really undivided attention to -looking after the affairs of any one particular gentleman, -not even when they see him most magnificent -in bottle-green and silver.”</p> - -<p>“They are as remiss, then, as you are precise. -So do you choose your own verb, and tell me—”</p> - -<p>“Sir,” replied the porter, “I regret to inform you -that the person whom Venus governs is riotous, expensive, -wholly given to dissipation and lewd companies -of women and boys. He is nimble in entering -unlawful beds, he is incestuous, he is an adulterer, -he is a mere skip-jack, spending all his means -among scandalous loose people: and he is in nothing -careful of the things of this life or of anything -religious.”</p> - -<p>Florian brightened. “That also sounds quite -logical,—in the main,—for you describe the ways -of the best-thought-of persons since the old King’s -death. And one of course endeavors not to offend -against the notions of one’s neighbors by seeming<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span> -a despiser of accepted modes. But I must protest -to you, my friend, you are utterly wrong in the -article of religion—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, if you come hither to dispute about religion,” -said the porter, “the priests of Llaw Gyffes -will attend to you. They love converting people -from religious errors, bless you, with their wild -horses and their red-hot irons. But, for one, I -never argue about religion. You conceive, sir, there -is an entire chapter devoted to the subject, in the -writing we were just talking over: and I have read -that chapter. So I say nothing about religion. I -like a bit of fun, myself: but when you find it there, -of all places, and on that scale—” Again the dejected -porter sighed. “However, I shall say no -more. Instead, with your permission, Messire de -Puysange, I shall just step in, and send up your -news about the enchantment.”</p> - -<p>This much the porter did, and Florian was left -alone to amuse himself by looking about. Through -the gateway he saw into a court paved with cobble-stones. -Upon each side of the gate was an octagonal -granite tower with iron-barred windows: -each tower was three stories in height, and the battlements -were coped with some sort of bright red -stone.</p> - -<p>Then Florian, for lack of other diversion, turned -and looked idly down the valley, toward Poictesme.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> -There he saw something rather odd. A mile-long -bridge was flung across the west, and over it passed -figures. First came the appearance of a bear waddling -upon his hind legs, followed by an ape, and -then by a huddled creature with long legs. Florian -saw also an unclothed woman, who danced as she -went: over her head fluttered a bird, and by means -of a chain she haled after her a sedentarily disposed -pig. An incredibly old man followed, dressed in -faded blue, and he carried upon his arm an open -basket. Last came a shaggy dog, barking, it -seemed, at all.</p> - -<p>These figures were like clouds in their station and -in their indeterminable coloring and vague outline, -but their moving was not like the drifting of clouds: -it was the walking of living creatures. Florian for -an instant wondered as to the nature and the business -of these beings that were passing over and -away from Poictesme. He shrugged. He believed -the matter to be no concern of one whose interests -overhead were all in the efficient hands of Holy -Hoprig.</p> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_7"><i>7.</i><br /> - -<i>Adjustments of the Resurrected</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image064.jpg" alt="T" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">hey brought Florian to Helmas the -Deep-Minded, where the King sat -on a daīs with his Queen Pressina. -The King was stately in scarlet and -ermine: his nose too was red, and -to his crown was affixed the Zhar-Ptitza’s -silvery feather. Florian found his appearance -far more companionable than was that of the -fat Queen (one of the water folk), whose skin was -faintly blue, and whose hair was undeniably green, -and whose little mouth seemed lost and discontented -in her broad face.</p> - -<p>Beside them, but not upon the dark red daīs, sat -the high-priest of Llaw Gyffes, a fine looking and -benevolent prelate, in white robes edged with a purple -pattern of quaint intricacies: he wore a wreath -of mistletoe about his broad forehead; and around -and above this played a pulsing radiancy.</p> - -<p>To these persons Florian told what had happened. -When he had ended, the Queen said she had never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> -heard of such a thing in her life, that it was precisely -what she had predicted time and again, and -that now Helmas could see for himself what came -of spoiling Mélusine, and letting her have her own -way about everything. The wise King answered -nothing whatever.</p> - -<p>But the high-priest of Llaw Gyffes asked, “And -how did you lift this strong enchantment?”</p> - -<p>“Monsieur, I removed it by the logical method of -killing the seven monsters who were its strength -and symbol. That they are all quite dead you can -see for yourself,—if I may make so bold as to employ -her Majesty’s striking phrase,—by counting -the assortment of heads which I fetched hither with -me.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, to be sure,” the priest admitted. “Seven -is seven the world over: everywhere it is a number -of mystic potency. It follows that seven severed -heads must predicate seven corpses; and such proofs -are indisputable, as far as they go—”</p> - -<p>Still, he seemed troubled in his mind.</p> - -<p>Then Helmas, the wise King, said, “It is my -opinion that the one way to encounter the unalterable -is to do nothing about it.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” answered his wife, “and much that will -help matters!”</p> - -<p>“Nothing, my dear,” said the wise King, “helps -matters. All matters are controlled by fate and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> -chance, and these help themselves to what they have -need of. These two it is that have taken from me -a lordship that had not its like in the known world, -and have made the palaces that we used to be feasting -in, it still seems only yesterday, just little piles -of rubbish, and have puffed out my famousness the -way that when any man gets impudent a widow -does a lamp. These two it is that leave me nothing -but this castle and this crevice in the hills where -the old time yet lingers. And I accept their sending, -because there is no armor against it, but I shall -keep up my dignity by not letting even fate and -chance upset me with their playfulness. Here the -old time shall be as it has always been, and here I -shall continue to do what was expected of me yesterday. -And about other matters I shall not bother, -but I shall leave everything, excepting only my self-respect, -to fate and chance. And I think that -Hoprig will agree with me it is the way a wise man -ought to be acting.”</p> - -<p>“Hoprig!” reflected Florian, looking at the halo. -“But what the devil is my patron saint doing here -disguised as the high-priest of Llaw Gyffes?”</p> - -<p>“I am thinking over some other matters,” replied -Hoprig, to the King, “and it is in my thinking -that nobody could manage to kill so many monsters, -and to release us from our long sleeping, unless -he was a sorcerer. So Messire de Puysange<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span> -must be a sorcerer, and that is very awkward, with -our torture-chamber all out of repair—”</p> - -<p>“Ah, monsieur,” said Florian, reproachfully, “and -are these quite charitable notions for a saint to be -fostering? And, oh, monsieur, is it quite fair for -you to have been sleeping here this unconscionable -while, when you were supposed to be in heaven attending -to the remission of people’s sins?”</p> - -<p>Hoprig replied: “What choice had I or anybody -else except to sleep under the Nis magic? For the -rest, I do not presume to say what a saint might -or might not think of the affair, because in our -worship of Llaw Gyffes of the Steady Hand—”</p> - -<p>“But I, monsieur, was referring to a very famous -saint of the Christian church, which has for some -while counted the Dukes of Puysange among its -communicants, and is now our best-thought-of form -of worship.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, the Christians! Yes, I have heard of them. -Indeed I now remember very well how Ork and -Horrig came into these parts preaching everywhere -the remarkable fancies of that sect until I discouraged -them in the way which seemed most salutary.”</p> - -<p>Florian could make nothing of this. He said, -“But how could you, of all persons, have discouraged -the spreading of Christianity?”</p> - -<p>“I discouraged them with axes,” the saint replied, -“and with thumbscrews, and with burning them at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> -the stake. For it really does not pay to be subtle -in dealing with people of that class: and you have -to base your appeal to their better nature upon quite -obvious arguments.”</p> - -<p>“My faith, then, how it came about I cannot say, -Monsieur Hoprig; but for hundreds upon hundreds -of years you have been a Christian saint.”</p> - -<p>“Dear me!” observed the saint, “so that must be -the explanation of this halo. I noticed it of course. -Still, our minds have been rather pre-empted since -we woke up—But, dear me, now, I am astounded, -and I know not what to say. I do say, though, -that this is quite extraordinary news for you to be -bringing a well-thought-of high-priest of Llaw -Gyffes.”</p> - -<p>“Nevertheless, monsieur, for all that you have -never been anything but a high-priest of the heathen, -and a persecutor of the true faith, I can assure you -that you have, somehow, been canonized. And I -am afraid that during the long while you have been -asleep your actions must have been woefully misrepresented. -Monsieur,” said Florian, hopefully, -“at least, though, was it not true about your being -in the barrel?”</p> - -<p>“Why, but how could ever you,” the saint marveled, -“have heard about that rain-barrel? The incident, -in any case, has been made far too much of. -You conceive, it was merely that the man came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> -home most unexpectedly; and since all husbands are -at times and in some circumstances so unreasonable—”</p> - -<p>“Ah, monsieur,” said Florian, shaking his head, -“I am afraid you do not speak of quite the barrel -which is in your legend.”</p> - -<p>“So I have a legend! Why, how delightful! -But come,” said the saint, abeam with honest pleasure, -and with his halo twinkling merrily, “come, be -communicative; be copious, and tell me all about -myself.”</p> - -<p>Then Florian told Hoprig of how, after Hoprig’s -supposed death, miracles had been worked at -Hoprig’s putative tomb, near Gol, and this legend -and that legend had grown up around his memory, -and how these things had led to Hoprig’s being -canonized. And Florian alluded also, with perfect -tact but a little ruefully, to those fine donations he -had been giving, year in and year out, to the -Church of Holy Hoprig, under the impression that -all the while the saint had been, instead of snoring -at Brunbelois, looking out for Florian’s interests in -heaven. And Hoprig now seemed rather pensive, -and he inquired particularly about his tomb.</p> - -<p>“I shall take this,” the saint said, at last, “to be -the fit reward of my tender-heartedness. The tomb -near Gol of which you tell me is the tomb in which -I buried that Horrig about whom I was just talk<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>ing, -after we had settled our difference of opinion -as to some points of theology. Ork was so widely -scattered that any formal interment was quite out -of the question. My priests are dear, well-meaning -fellows. Still, you conceive, they are conscientious, -and they enter with such zeal into the performance -of any manifest if painful duty—”</p> - -<p>Florian said: “They exhibited the archetypal -zeal becoming to the ministers of an established -church in the defence of their vested rights. They -were, with primitive inadequacy, groping toward -the methods of our Holy Inquisition and of civilized -prelates everywhere—”</p> - -<p>“—So they were quite tired out when we passed -on to Horrig’s case. I do not deny that I was perhaps -unduly lenient about Horrig. It was the general -opinion that, tired as we were, this blasphemer -against the religious principles of our fathers ought -to be burned at the stake, and have his ashes scattered -to the winds. But I was merciful. I had -eaten an extremely light breakfast. So I merely -had him broken on the wheel and decapitated, and -we got through our morning’s work, after all, in -good time for dinner: and I gave him a very nice -tomb indeed, with his name on it in capital letters. -Dear me!” observed Holy Hoprig, with a marked -increase of his benevolent smile, “but how drolly -things fall out! If the name had not been in capi<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>tal -letters, now, I would probably never have been -wearing this halo which surprised me so this morning -when I went to brush my hair—”</p> - -<p>“But what has happened?” said the Queen.</p> - -<p>“Why, madame,” replied the saint, “I take it that, -with the passage of years, the tail of the first R -in the poor dear fellow’s name was somewhat worn -away. So when such miracles began to occur at -his tomb as customarily emanate from the tombs of -martyrs to any faith which later is taken up by -really nice people, here were tangible and exact -proofs, to the letter, of the holiness of Hoprig. In -consequence, this Christian church has naturally -canonized me.”</p> - -<p>“That was quite civil of them of course, if this -is considered the best-thought-of church. But, -still,” the Queen said, doubtfully, “the miracles -must have meant that Horrig was right, and you -were wrong.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, madame, it would seem so, as a matter -of purely academic interest. For now that his -church is so well-thought-of everywhere and has -canonized me, I must turn Christian, if only to -show my appreciation of the compliment. So there -is no possible harm done.”</p> - -<p>“But in that case, it was Horrig that ought to -have been made a saint of.”</p> - -<p>“Now I, madame, for one, cherish humility too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> -much to dare assert any such thing. For the ways -of Providence are proverbially inscrutable: and it -well may be that the abrasion of the tail of that R -was also, in its quiet way, a direct intervention of -Heaven to reward my mercifulness in according -Horrig a comparatively pleasant martyrdom.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but it was he, after all, who had to put up -with that martyrdom, on a dreadfully depressing -rainy morning, too, I remember, whereas you get -sainthood out of the affair without putting up with -anything.”</p> - -<p>“Do I not have to put up with this halo? How -can I now hope to go anywhere after dark without -being observed? Ah, no, madame, I greatly fear -this canonization will cost me a host of friends by -adorning my visits with such conspicuous publicity. -Nevertheless, I do not complain. Instead, I philosophically -recognize that well-bred women must -avoid all ostentation, and that the ways of Providence -are inscrutable.”</p> - -<p>“That is quite true,” observed King Helmas, at -this point, “and I think that nothing is to be gained -by you two discussing these ways any more. The -poets and the philosophers in every place have for -a long while now had a heaviness in their minds -about Providence, and the friendly advice they have -been giving is not yet all acted upon. So let us -leave Providence to look out for itself, the way we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span> -would if Providence had wisdom teeth. And let -us turn to other matters, and to hearing what reward -is asked by the champion who has rescued us -from our long sleeping.”</p> - -<p>“I too,” replied Florian, “if I may make so bold -as to borrow the phrase used by your Majesty just -now—that phrase by which I was immeasurably -impressed, that phrase which still remains to me a -vocalisation of supreme wisdom in terms so apt -and striking—”</p> - -<p>“Wisdom,” said the King, “was miraculously bestowed -upon me a great while ago as a free gift, -which I had done nothing to earn and deserve no -credit for not having been able to avoid. And my -way of talking, and using similes and syntax,—along -with phraseology and monostiches and aposiopesis -and such-like things,—is another gift, also, -which I employ without really noticing the astonishment -and admiration of my hearers. So do you -not talk so much, but come to the point.”</p> - -<p>“I too, then, in your Majesty’s transcendent -phrase, shall do what was expected of me yesterday. -I ask the hand of the King’s daughter in marriage.”</p> - -<p>“That is customary,” wise Helmas said, with approval, -“and you show a very fine sense of courtesy -in adhering to our perhaps old-fashioned ways. -Let the lord of Puysange be taken to his betrothed.”</p> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_8"><i>8.</i><br /> - -<i>At the Top of the World</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image074.jpg" alt="Y" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">OU will find her,” they had said, -“yonder,”—and, pointing westerly, -had left him. So Florian went unaccompanied -through the long pergola -overgrown with grape-vines, -toward the lone figure at the end of -this tunnel of rustling greenness and sweet odors. -A woman waited there, in an eight-sided summer-house, -builded of widely-spaced lattice-work that -was hidden by vines. Through these vines you -could see on every side the fluttering bright gardens -of Brunbelois, but no living creature. This woman -and Florian were alone in what was not unlike a -lovely cage of vines. Florian seemed troubled. It -was apparent that he knew this woman.</p> - -<p>“I am flesh and blood,” the woman said,—“as -you may remember.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, I have been singularly fortunate—But -upon reflection, I retract the adverb. I have -been marvelously fortunate; and I have no desire -to forget it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span></p> - -<p>“She also, the girl yonder, is flesh and blood. -You will be knowing that before long.”</p> - -<p>Florian looked at this woman for some while. -“Perhaps that is true. I think it is not true. I -have faith in the love which has endured since I -was but a child. If that fails me, I must die. -And I shall die willingly.”</p> - -<p>He bowed low to this woman, and he passed on, -through the summer-house, and out into the open -air. He came thus to a wall, only breast high, and -opened the gate which was there, and so went on -in full sunlight, ascending a steepish incline that -was overgrown with coarse grass and with much -white clover. Thus Florian came to the unforgotten -princess and to the beauty which he had in childhood, -however briefly, seen. There was in this -bright and windy place, which smelled so pleasantly -of warm grass, nothing except a low marble bench -without back or carving. No trees nor any -bushes grew here: nothing veiled this place from -the sun. Upon this sunlit mountain-top was only -the bench, and upon the bench sat Melior, waiting.</p> - -<p>She waited—there was the miracle,—for Florian -de Puysange.</p> - -<p>Behind and somewhat below Florian were the -turrets and banners of Brunbelois, a place now disenchanted, -but a fair place wherein the old time yet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> -lingered. Before him the bare hillside sank sheer -and unbroken, to the far-off tree-tops of Acaire: -and beyond leagues of foliage you could even see, -not a great number of miles away, but quite two -miles below you, the open country of Poictesme, -which you saw not as anything real and tangible -but as a hazed blending of purples and of all the -shades that green may have in heaven. Florian -seemed to stand at the top of the world: and with -him, high as his heart, stood Melior....</p> - -<p>And it was a queer thing that he, who always noticed -people’s clothes, and who tended to be very -critical about apparel, could never afterward, in -thinking about this extraordinary morning, recollect -one color which Melior wore. He remembered -only a sense of many interwoven brilliancies, as if -the brightness of the summer sea and of the clouds -of sunset and of all the stars were blended here to -veil this woman’s body. She went appareled with -the splendor of a queen of the old days, she who -was the most beautiful of women that have lived -in any day. For, if so far as went her body, one -could think dazedly of analogues, nowhere was -there anything so bright and lovely as was this -woman’s countenance. And it was to the end that -he might see the face of Melior raised now to him, -he knew, that Florian was born. All living had -been the prologue to this instant: God had made<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span> -the world in order that Florian might stand here, -with Melior, at the top of the world.</p> - -<p>And it seemed to Florian that his indiscretions in -the way of removing people from this dear world, -and of excursions into strange beds, and of failures -to attend mass regularly, had become alienate to -the man who waited before Melior. All that was -over and done with: he had climbed past all that -in his ascent to this bright and windy place. Here, -in this inconceivably high place, was the loveliness -seen once and never forgotten utterly, the loveliness -which had made seem very cheap and futile the -things that other men wanted. Now this loveliness -was, for the asking, his: and Florian found -his composure almost shaken, he suspected that the -bearing suitable to a Duke of Puysange was touched -with unbecoming ardors. He feared that logic -could not climb so high as he had climbed.</p> - -<p>Besides, it might be, he had climbed too near to -heaven. For nothing veiled this unimaginably high -place: God, seeing him thus plainly, would be envious. -That was the thought which Florian put -hastily out of mind....</p> - -<p>He parted his lips once or twice. This was, he -joyously reflected, quite ridiculous. A woman -waited: and Florian de Puysange could not speak. -Then words came, with a sort of sobbing.</p> - -<p>“My princess, there was a child who viewed you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> -once in your long sleeping. The child’s heart moved -with desires which did not know their aim. It is not -that child who comes to you.”</p> - -<p>“No, but a very gallant champion,” she replied, -“to whom we all owe our lives.”</p> - -<p>He had raised a deprecating hand. It was trembling. -And her face seemed only a blurred shining, -for in his eyes were tears. It must be, Florian -reflected, because of the wind: but he did not believe -this, nor need we.</p> - -<p>“Princess, will you entrust to me, such as I am, -the life I have repurchased for you? I dare make -no large promises, in the teeth of a disastrously -tenacious memory. Yet, there is no part in me but -worships you, I have no desire in life save toward -you. There has never been in all my life any real -desire save that which strove toward you.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but, Messire Florian,” the girl replied, “of -course I will be your wife if you desire it.”</p> - -<p>He raised now both his hands a little toward her. -She had not drawn back. He did not know whether -this was joy or terror which possessed him: but it -possessed him utterly. His heart was shaking in -him, with an insane and ruthless pounding. He -thought his head kept time to this pounding, and -was joggling like the head of a palsied old man. -He knew his finger-tips to be visited by tiny and -inexplicable vibrations.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span></p> - -<p>“If I could die now—!” was in his mind. “Now, -at this instant! And what a thought for me to be -having now!”</p> - -<p>Instead, he now touched his disenchanted princess. -Yet their two bodies seemed not to touch, and -not to have moved as flesh that is pulled by muscles. -They seemed to have merged, effortlessly and without -volition, into one body.</p> - -<p>In fine, he kissed her. So was the affair concluded.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="image079" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image079.jpg" alt="Adam and Eve and serpent under apple tree" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_9"><i>9.</i><br /> - -<i>Misgivings of a Beginning Saint</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image042.jpg" alt="W" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">hat Florian remembered, afterward, -about Brunbelois seemed -rather inconsequential. It was, to -begin with, a high place, a remarkably -high place. In the heart of the -Forest of Acaire, arose a mountain -with three peaks, of which the middle and lowest -was cleared ground. Here stood the castle of -Brunbelois, beside a lake, a lake that was fed by -springs from the bottom, and had no tributaries and -no outlet. Forests thus rose about you everywhere -except in the west, where you looked down and yet -further down, over the descending tree-tops of -Acaire, and could see beyond these the open country -of Poictesme.</p> - -<p>Now in this exalted and cleared space wherein -stood Brunbelois, there was nothing between you -and the sky. You were continually noting such a -hackneyed matter as the sky. You saw it no longer -as dome-shaped, but as, quite obviously now, an in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>terminable -reach of space. You saw the huge -clouds passing in this hollowness, each inconceivably -detached and separate as one cloud would pass -tranquilly above and behind the other, sometimes at -right angles, sometimes travelling in just the opposite -direction. It troubled you to have nothing -between you and a space that afforded room for -all those currents of air to move about in, so freely, -so utterly without any obstruction. It made a Puysange -seem small. And at night the stars also -no longer appeared tidily affixed to the sky, as they -appeared to be when viewed from Bellegarde or -Paris: the stars seemed larger here, more meltingly -luminous, and they glowed each in visible isolation, -with all that space behind them. It had not ever -before occurred to Florian that the sky could be terrible: -and he began somewhat to understand the notions -of the gray-haired porter who had watched -this sky from Brunbelois, night after night, alone.</p> - -<p>And Florian remembered Brunbelois as being a -silvery and rustling place. A continuous wind -seemed to come up from the west. The forests -rising about you everywhere except in the west were -never still, you saw all day the gray under side of -the leaves twinkling restlessly, and you heard always -their varying but incessant murmur. And -small clouds too were always passing, borne by this -incessant wind, very close to you, drifting through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> -the porches of the castle, trailing pallidly over the -grass, and veiling your feet sometimes, so that you -stood knee-deep in a cloud: and the sunlight was -silvery rather than golden. And under this gentle -but perpetual wind the broad lake glittered ceaselessly -with silver sparklings.</p> - -<p>Moreover, the grass here was thick with large -white blossoms, which grew singly upon short stalks -without any leaves, and these white flowers nodded -in an unending conference. They loaned the very -ground here an unstable silveriness, for these flowers -were not ever motionless. Sometimes they -seemed to nod in sleepy mutual assent, sometimes -the wind, in strengthening, would provoke them to -the appearance of expressing diminutively vigorous -indignation. And humming-birds were continually -flashing about: these were too small for you to perceive -their coloring, they went merely as gleams. -And white butterflies fluttered everywhither as if in -an abstracted light reconnoitering for what they -could not find. And you were always seeing large -birds high in the air, drifting and wheeling, as it -seemed, in an endless searching for what they never -found.</p> - -<div class="echap"></div> -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="facing082-caption" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img src="images/facing082-caption.jpg" alt="Caption" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="facin082" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/facin082.jpg" alt="" /> - <div class="caption">He did not move, but lay quite still, -staring upward.<br /><i>See page <a href="#Page_136">136</a></i></div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span></p> - - -<p>So Florian remembered, afterward, in the main, -the highness and the silveriness and the instability -of the place that he now went about exultingly with -nothing left to wish for. He hardly remembered, -afterward, what he and Melior did or talked of, -during the days wherein Brunbelois prepared for -their wedding: time and events, and people too, -seemed to pass like bright shining vapors; all living -swam in a haze of happiness. Florian now -thought little of logic, he thought nothing of precedent; -he thrust aside the implications of his depressing -discovery as to his patron saint: he stayed -in everything light-headedly bewildered through -hourly contemplation of that unflawed loveliness -which he had for a quarter of a century desired. -He was contented now; he went unutterably contented -by that beauty which he in childhood had, -however briefly, seen, and which nothing had since -then availed ever quite to put out of his mind. He -could not, really, think about anything else. He -cared about nothing else.</p> - -<p>Still, even now, he kept some habit of circumspection: -no man should look to be utterly naīf -about his fifth wife. So when St. Hoprig contrived -to talk in private with Melior, down by the -lake’s border, Florian, for profoundly logical reasons, -had followed Hoprig. Florian, for the same -reasons, stood behind the hedge and listened.</p> - -<p>“It is right that you should marry the champion -who rescued us all,” said the voice of Hoprig, -“for rules ought to be respected. But I am still of -the opinion that nobody could have disposed of so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> -many monsters without being an adept at sorcery.”</p> - -<p>“Why, then, it seems to me that we ought to be -very grateful for the sorcery by which we profit,” -said the sweet voice of Melior. “For, as I so often -think—”</p> - -<p>“As goes the past, perhaps. The future is another -matter. It is most widely another matter, -for us two in particular.”</p> - -<p>“You mean that as his wife I must counsel my -husband to avoid all evil courses—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, of course, I mean that. Your duty is plain -enough, since a wife’s functions are terrestrial. -But I, madame! I am, it appears, this young man’s -patron saint, and upon his behavior depends my -heavenly credit. You will readily conceive I thus -have especial reason to worry over the possibility -that Messire de Puysange may be addicted to diabolic -practises.”</p> - -<p>“Is it certain, my poor Hoprig, that you are actually -a Christian saint? For, really, when one -comes to think—!”</p> - -<p>“There seems no doubt of it. I have tried a few -miracles in private, and they come off as easily as -old sandals. It appears that, now I am a saint, I -enjoy, by approved precedents, all thaumaturgic -powers, with especial proficiency in blasting, cursing -and smiting my opponents with terrible afflictions; -and have moreover the gift of tongues, of vision<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> -and of prophecy, and the power of expelling demons, -of healing the sick, and of raising the dead. The -situation is extraordinary, and I know not what to -do with so many talents. Nor can anybody tell me -here. In consequence, I must go down into this -modern world of which Messire de Puysange brings -such remarkable reports, and there I can instruct -myself as to the requirements of my new dignity.”</p> - -<p>“So you will leave Brunbelois with us, I suppose, -and then we shall all—”</p> - -<p>“I do not say that: I do not promise you my -company. Probably I shall establish a hermitage -somewhere, once I have seen something of this later -world, and shall live in that hermitage as becomes -a Christian saint. Here, you conceive, everyone -knows me too well. Quite apart from the conduct -of my private affairs,—in which I could not anticipate -that sanctity might be looked for,—people -would be remembering how I preached against these -Christian doctrines, exposed them by every rule of -logic, and exterminated their upholders. There -would be a depressing atmosphere of merriment. -But down yonder, I daresay, I might manage tolerably -well.”</p> - -<p>“I hope you will let depraved women alone,” said -the voice of Melior, “because, as you ought with -proper shame to remember—”</p> - -<p>“My princess, let us not over-rashly sneer at de<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>praved -women. They very often have good hearts, -they have attested their philanthropy in repeated instances, -and I have noticed that the deeper our research -into their private affairs, the more amiable -we are apt to find their conduct. In any case, as -touches myself, a saint is above all carnal stains -and, I believe, diseases also. But it was about other -matters I wished to speak with you. I am, I repeat, -suspicious of this future husband of yours. -Sorcerers have an ill way with their wives, and deplorable -habits with their children; and your condition, -in view of your fine health and youth, may -soon be delicate. I shall ask for a revelation upon -these points. Whatever impends, though, I shall be -at hand to watch over you both.”</p> - -<p>“So you will establish your hermitage at Bellegarde? -For in that event—”</p> - -<p>“Again, madame, you go too fast. I do not -know about that either. In the environs of Bellegarde, -they tell me, is a church devoted to my worship, -and Messire de Puysange considers—inexplicably, -I think,—that it might unsettle the faith of -my postulants to have me appear among them. It -seems more to the point that this Bellegarde is a -retired place in the provinces, with no gaming parlors, -and, Messire de Puysange assures me, but one -respectable brothel—”</p> - -<p>“Then Bellegarde would not suit you—”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span> -“No, of course not: for I would find ampler opportunities -to put down the wicked, and to implant -good seed, in large cities, which are proverbially -the haunts of vice. In any case, do you take this -ring. It was presented to me as a token of not unearned -esteem and admiration, by a lady who had -hitherto found men contemptible: and at my request—tendered -somewhat hastily, but to the proper -authorities,—this ring has been endowed with salutary -virtues. The one trait of the holy ring which -concerns us just now is its recently acquired habit -of giving due warning whenever danger threatens -its wearer. Dear me, now, how complete would -have been my relaxation if only in my pagan days -I had possessed such a talisman to put on whenever -I undressed for bed! In any case, should the ring -change, then do you invoke me.”</p> - -<p>“And you will come with your miracles and your -blightings and your blastings! My poor Hoprig, I -think you do Messire de Puysange a great wrong, -but I will keep the ring, for all that. Because, -while you may be utterly mistaken, and no doubt -hope you are as much as I do, still, the ring is -very handsome: and, besides, as I so often think—”</p> - -<p>“Do not be telling me your thoughts just now,” -replied the voice of the saint, “for I can hear the -bugle calling us to supper. There is another precaution -I would recommend, a precaution that I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> -will explain to you this evening, after we have -eaten and drunk,” said Hoprig, as they went away -together.</p> - -<p>Florian, after waiting a discreet while, came from -behind the hedge. Florian looked rather thoughtful -as he too walked toward the castle.</p> - -<p>Sunset was approaching. The entire heavens, -not merely the west, had taken on a rose-colored -glare. Unbelievably white clouds were passing very -rapidly, overhead but not far-off, like scurrying -trails of swans’ down and blown powder puffs. -The air was remarkably cool, with rain in it. The -diffused radiancy of this surprising sunset loaned -the gravelled walkway before him a pink hue: the -lawns about him, where the grass was everywhere -intermingled with white blossoms, had, in this -roseate glowing which flooded all, assumed a coldly -livid tinge. To Florian’s left hand, piled clouds -were peering over the mountain like monstrous -judges, in tall powdered wigs, appraising the case -against someone in Florian’s neighborhood.</p> - -<p>He shrugged, but his look of thoughtfulness remained. -It was distinctly upsetting to have one’s -patron saint, in place of contriving absolution for -the past,—a function which that recreant Hoprig -had never, after all, attended to,—now absolutely -planning mischief for the future.</p> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_10"><i>10.</i><br /> - -<i>Who Feasted at Brunbelois</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image089.jpg" alt="F" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">LORIAN had been married so often -that he had some claim to be considered -a connoisseur of weddings: -and never, he protested, had assembled -to see him married a more delightful -company than the revellers -who came from every part of Acaire now that the -magic was lifted from these woods.</p> - -<p>Acaire was old, it had been a forest since there -was a forest anywhere: and all its denizens came -now to do honor to the champion who had released -them from their long sleeping. The elves came, in -their blue low-crowned hats; the gnomes, in red -woolen clothes; and the kobolds, in brown coats -that were covered with chips and sawdust. The -dryads and other tree spirits of course went verdantly -appareled: and after these came fauns with -pointed furry ears, and the nixies with green teeth -and very beautiful flaxen hair, and the duergar, -whose loosely swinging arms touched the ground -when they walked, and the queer little rakhna, who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> -were white and semi-transparent like jelly, and the -Bush Gods that were in Acaire the oldest of living -creatures and had quite outlived their divinity. -From all times and all mythologies they came, and -they made a tremendous to-do over Florian and the -might which had rescued them from their centuries -of sleeping under Mélusine’s enchantment.</p> - -<p>He bore his honors very modestly. But Florian -delighted to talk with these guests, who came of -such famous old families: and they told him strange -tales of yesterday and of the days before yesterday, -and it seemed to him that many of these stories -were not quite logical. Few probabilities thrived -at Brunbelois. Meanwhile the Elm Dwarfs danced -for him, pouring libations from the dew pools; the -Strömkarl left its waterfall in the forest, to play -very sweetly for Florian upon the golden harp -whose earlier music had been more dangerous to -hear; and the Korrid brought him tribute in the -form of a purse containing hair and a pair of scissors. -And it was all profoundly delightful.</p> - -<p>“I approve of the high place,” said Florian, upon -the morning of his marriage: “for here I seem to -go about a more heroic and more splendid world -than I had hoped ever to inhabit.”</p> - -<p>“Then, why,” asked Helmas, “do you not remain -at Brunbelois, instead of carrying off my daughter -to live in that low sort of place down yonder?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> -Why do you two not stay at Brunbelois, and be -the King and Queen here after I am gone?”</p> - -<p>Florian looked down from the porch where they -were waiting the while that Queen Pressina finished -dressing. From this porch Florian could see a part -of the modern world, very far beneath them. He -saw the forests lying like dark flung-by scarves -upon the paler green of cleared fields; he saw the -rivers as narrow shinings. In one place, very far -beneath them, a thunderstorm was passing like—of -all things, on this blissful day,—a drifting bride’s-veil. -Florian saw it twinkle with a yellow glow, -then it was again a floating small white veil. And -everywhere the lands beneath him bathed in graduations -of vaporous indistinction. Poictesme seemed -woven of blue smokes and of green mists. It afforded -no sharp outline anywhere as his gazing -passed outward toward the horizon. And there all -melted bafflingly into a pearl-colored sky: the eye -might not judge where, earth ending, heaven began -in that bright and placid radiancy.</p> - -<p>It was droll to see this familiar, everyday, quite -commonplace Poictesme in that guise, to see it as -so lovely, when one knew what sort of men and -women were strutting and floundering through what -sort of living down there. It would be pleasant to -remain here at high Brunbelois, and to be a king -of the exalted old time that lingered here and no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>where -else in all the world. But Florian remembered -his bargain with brown Janicot, and he knew -that in this high place it could not be performed: -and it was as if with the brightness of Florian’s -day-dreaming already mingled the shining of the -sword with which Florian was to carry out his part -of the bargain. Flamberge awaited him somewhere -in those prosaic lowlands of 1723, down yonder.</p> - -<p>Therefore, as became a man of honor, Florian -said, resolutely: “No, your majesty, my kingdom -may not be of this world. For my duty lies yonder -in that other world, wherein I at least shall yet have -many months of happiness before that happens -which must happen.”</p> - -<p>“So you are counting upon many months of happiness,” -the King observed. “Your frame of mind, -my son-in-law, is so thoroughly what it should be -that to me it is rather touching.”</p> - -<p>“A pest! and may one ask just what, exactly, -moves your majesty toward sadness?”</p> - -<p>“The reflection that there is no girl anywhere -but has in her much of her mother,” the King answered, -darkly. “But my dear wife is already -dressed, I perceive, and is waiting for us, after having -detained us hardly two hours. So let us be -getting to the temple.”</p> - -<p>“Very willingly!” said Florian. He wondered a -little at the blindness of fathers, but he was unutter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>ably -content. And straightway he and Melior were -married, in the queer underground temple of the -Peohtes, according to the marriage rites of Llaw -Gyffes.</p> - -<p>Melior wore that day upon her lovely head a -wreath of thistles, and about her middle a remarkable -garment of burnished steel fastened with a small -padlock: in her hand she carried a distaff, flax and -a spindle. And the marriage ceremony of the -Peohtes, while new to Florian, proved delightfully -simple.</p> - -<p>First Melior and Florian were given an egg and -a quince pear: he handed her the fruit, which she -ate, and the seeds of which she spat out; he took -from her the egg and broke it. Holy Hoprig, who -had tendered his resignation as the high-priest of -Llaw Gyffes, but whose successor had not yet been -appointed, then asked the bridegroom a whispered -question.</p> - -<p>Florian was astonished, and showed it. But he -answered, without comment, “Well, let us say, nine -times.”</p> - -<p>Hoprig divided a cake into nine slices, and placed -these upon the altar. Afterward Hoprig cut the -throat of a white hen, and put a little of its blood -upon the feet of Melior and Florian. The trumpets -sounded then, as King Helmas came forward, and -gave Florian a small key.</p> - - -<div class="chapter"></div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle1"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_TWO">PART TWO<br /> - -<i>THE END OF LIGHT WINNING</i></h2> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse indent2">“<i>En femme, comme en tout, je veux suivre ma mode....</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Et j’ay beny le Ciel d’avoir trouvé mon faict,</i></div> -<div class="verse"><i>Pour me faire une femme au gré de mon souhait</i>.”</div> -</div></div></div> -</div> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_11"><i>11.</i><br /> - -<i>Problems of Beauty</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image097.jpg" alt="I" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">T was conceded even by the younger -and most charming ladies of the -neighborhood that the new Duchess -of Puysange was quite good looking. -The gentlemen of Poictesme appeared, -literally, to be dazzled by -any prolonged consideration of Melior’s loveliness: -otherwise, as Florian soon noted, there was no logical -accounting for the discrepancy in their encomia. -Enraptured pæeans upon her eyes, for example, he -found to differ amazingly and utterly in regard to -such an important factor as the color of these eyes. -This was, at mildest, a circumstance provocative of -curiosity.</p> - -<p>Florian therefore listened more attentively to -what people said of his wife; and he discovered -that his fellows’ ecstasies over Melior’s hair and -shape and complexion were not a whit less inconsistent. -These envious babblers were at one in acclaiming -as flawless the beauty which he had in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>trepidly -fetched down from the high place: but in -speaking of any constituent of this loveliness they -seemed not to be talking of the same woman. -Either her perfection actually did dazzle men so -that they were bewilderedly aware of much such a -beguiling and intoxicating brightness as Florian, on -looking back, suspected Melior to have been in his -own eyes before he married her, or else the appearance -of this daughter of the Léshy was not to all -persons the same. Well, this was queer: but it was -not important. Florian at least was in no doubt of -his wife’s appearance nor of his right to glory in it.</p> - -<p>So Florian tended to let this riddle pass unchallenged, -and to quarrel with nothing, for Florian -was very happy.</p> - -<p>He could not have said when or why awoke the -teasing question if, after all, this happiness was -greater than or different from that which he had -got of Aurélie or Hortense or Marianne or Carola? -Being married to a comparative stranger was, as -always, pleasant; it was, in fact, delightful: but -you had expected, none the less, of the love which -had miraculously triumphed over time and all natural -laws some sharper tang of bliss than ordinarily -flavored your honeymoons. Still, at thirty-five, you -were logical about the usual turning-out of expectations. -And you were content: and Melior was -beautiful; and among the local nobility this new<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span> -Duchess of Puysange had made friends everywhere, -and she was everywhere admired, however puzzlingly -men seemed to word their praise of her loveliness.</p> - -<p>The newly married pair had journeyed uneventfully -from Brunbelois to Florian’s home. The -mute hairy persons brought Melior’s trunks in their -cart; and St. Hoprig too came with them through -Acaire, but no further. Florian had at last persuaded -him of how untactful it would be for Hoprig -to disrupt a simple and high-hearted faith that -had thrived for so many hundred years, by appearing -at Bellegarde in person. Florian had pointed -out the attendant awkwardnesses, for the fetich no -less than for the devotees. And Hoprig, upon reflection, -had conceded that for a saint in the prime -of life there were advantages in travelling incognito.</p> - -<p>So the holy man left them at the edge of the -forest. “We shall meet again, my children,” the -saint had said, with a smile, just as he vanished -like a breaking bubble. It seemed to Florian that -his heavenly patron had become a little ostentatious -with miracles, but Florian voiced no criticism. Still, -he considered the evanishment of the two hairy persons -and their monstrous goats, an evanishment -quite privately conducted in the stable to which they -had withdrawn after uncarting Melior’s trunks, to -be in much better taste.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span></p> - -<p>But Florian picked no open fault with Hoprig -nor with anyone, for Florian was content enough -just now. He began to see that his notions about -Melior had been a trifle extravagant, that the -strange loveliness which he had been adoring since -boyhood was worn by a creature whose brilliance -was of the body rather than of the intellect: however, -he had not married her in order to discuss -philosophy; and, with practise, it was easy -enough to pretend to listen without really hearing -her.</p> - -<p>All this was less worrying, less imminent, than -the trouble he seemed in every likelihood about to -have with his brother, on account of Raoul’s damnable -wife. For Madame Marguerite de Puysange, -as Florian now heard, was infuriated by his failure -to appear at Storisende upon the twentieth of July, -the day upon which he had been due to marry her -sister: nor by learning that he had married somebody -else was the unconscionable virago soothed. -She considered a monstrous affront had been put -upon them all, a deduction which Florian granted -to be truly drawn, if that mattered. What certainly -mattered was that the lean woman had no living -adult male relatives. She would be at her husband -to avenge this affront by killing Florian: and dear, -plastic, good-natured Raoul so hated to deny anybody -anything that the result of her coaxing and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span> -tears and nagging would probably be a decided -nuisance....</p> - -<p>“That ring with the three diamonds in it,” -Florian had said, “is deplorably old-fashioned—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I suppose it is, sweetheart: but it was given -me by a dear friend, and you know the sort of things -they pick out, and, besides, I like to have it keeping -me in mind of how ridiculously the best-meaning -people may be sometimes,” his Melior had answered,—very -happily, and nuzzling a very wonderfully -soft cheek against his cheek.</p> - -<p>So he had let the matter stand....</p> - -<p>It was a nuisance, too, this news which Florian -had received as to the great Cardinal Dubois, whom -Florian had promised—as he regretted now to remember, -in carelessly loose terms,—to offer as a -Christmas present to Janicot. It appeared that -during Florian’s stay at Brunbelois the over-gallant -cardinal had been compelled to submit to an operation -which deprived him of two cherished possessions -and shortly afterward of his life. His death -was a real grief to Florian, not as in itself any loss, -but because, with Dubois interred at St. Roch, the -greatest man living in France when Christmas came -would be the Duc d’Orléans.</p> - -<p>Florian had long been fond of Philippe d’Orléans, -and Florian loathed the thought of making a present -of his friend’s life to a comparatively slight and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> -ambiguous acquaintance like Janicot. There seemed -no way out of it, however, for Florian had in this -matter given his word. But he regretted deeply -that he had thus recklessly promised the greatest -man in the kingdom instead of specifically confining -himself to that selfish Dubois, who could without -real self-denial have lived until December, and -who could so easily have furthered everybody’s -well-being by restricting his amours to ladies of such -known piety and wholesomeness and social position -as made them appropriate playfellows for a high -prince of the Church.</p> - -<p>But all this was spilt milk. What it came to in -the upshot was that Florian, through his infatuation -for Melior, was already in a fair way to lose -his most intimate and powerful friend and his only -legitimate brother. It was a nuisance, for Florian -disliked annoying either one of them, and thus to -be burdened with the need of bereaving yourself of -both appeared a positive imposition. But we cannot -have all things as we desire them in this world, -his common-sense assured him: and, in the main, as -has been said, the incidental disappointments, now -that he had attained his life’s desire, were tepid and -not really very deep.</p> - -<p>For Melior was beautiful; after months of intimacy -and fond research he could find no flaw in -her beauty: and in other respects she proved to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> -as acceptable a wife as any of his own marrying -that he had ever had. If she was not always reasonable, -if sometimes indeed she seemed obtuse, and -if she nagged a little now and then, it was, after -all, what past experience had led him to expect alike -in marriage and in liaisons. The rapture which he -had known at first sight of her, the rapture of the -mountain-top, was not, he assured himself, a delusion -of which he had ever expected permanence....</p> - -<p>“But this remarkably carved staff, my darling—?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it was one of my sister Mélusine’s old things. -I would not be in the least surprised if it were -magical—And while we are speaking about sisters, -Florian, I do wish that black-faced one of -yours would not look at me so hard and then shrug, -because she has done it twice, in quite a personal -way—”</p> - -<p>“Marie-Claire is a strange woman, my pet.”</p> - -<p>But that fretted him. He knew so well why -Marie-Claire had shrugged....</p> - -<p>No, he had never, really, expected the rapture of -the mountain-top to be permanent. Besides, he -need not expect permanency of Melior. It was -sad, of course, that when she had borne him a child, -the child must be disposed of, and the mother must -vanish, in accordance with Florian’s agreement with -Janicot. But there was always some such condition -attached to marriage between a mortal and any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> -of the Léshy, or some abstention set like a trap -whereinto the unwary mortal was sure to flounder, -and so lose the more than mortal helpmate. The -union must always, in one way or another, prove -transitory, as was shown by the sad history of the -matrimonial ventures of Melior’s own sister, and -of the knight Helias, and by many other honorable -old precedents.</p> - -<p>And Florian now began to see that if the Melior -whom he had adored since boyhood were thus lost -to him in the fulltide of their love and happiness,—for -these were still at fulltide, he here assured himself,—then -he would retain only pleasant and heart-breaking -and highly desirable memories. A great -love such as his for his present wife ought, by all -the dictates of good taste, to end tragically: to have -it dwindle out into the mutual toleration of what -people called a happy marriage would be anti-climax, -it would be as if one were to botch a sublime and -mellifluous sonnet with a sestet in prose.</p> - -<p>Melior, so long as she stayed unattainable, had -provided him with an ideal: and Melior, once lost to -him, once he could never hear another word of that -continuous half-witted jabbering,—or, rather, he -emended, of this bright light creature’s very diverting -chat,—then his high misery would afford him -even surer ground for a superior dissatisfaction -with the simple catering of nature. So the com<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>pany -of his disenchanted princess, her company just -for the present, could be endured with a composure -not wholly saddened by that dreadful and permanent -bereavement which impended.</p> - -<p>He reasoned thus, and was in everything considerate -and loving. His devotion was so ardent -and unremittent, indeed, that, when Florian left -Bellegarde, Melior was forehandedly stitching and -trimming baby-clothes. This was at the opening -of December, and he was going to court in answer -to a summons from the great Duke of Orléans.</p> - -<p>“It is rather odd,” observed Florian, “that it is -at Philippe’s expressed desire I go to him. Eh, -but one knows that shrewd old saying as to the gods’ -preliminary treatment of those whom they wish to -destroy.”</p> - -<p>“Still, if you ask me,” observed his wife,—not -looking at him, but at her sewing,—“I think it is -much better not to talk about the gods any more -than is necessary, and certainly not in that exact -tone of voice—” The break in speech was for the -purpose of biting a thread.</p> - -<p>You saw, as she bent over this thread, the top of -her frilly little lace cap efflorescent with tiny pink -ribbons. You saw, as she looked up, that Melior -was especially lovely to-day in this flowing pink -robe à la Watteau over a white petticoat and a -corsage of white ribbons arranged in a sort of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> -ladder-work. There was now about her nothing -whatever of the mediæval or the outré: from the -boudoir cap upon her head to the pink satin mules -upon her feet, this Melior belonged to the modern -world of 1723: and the whiteness and the pinkness -of her made you think of desserts and confectionery.</p> - -<p>“But what exact tone of voice,” asked Florian, -smiling with lenient pride in his really very pretty -duchess, “does my darling find injudicious?”</p> - -<p>“Why, I mean, as if you were looking at something -a great way off, and smelled something you -were not quite certain you liked. To be sure, now -that we are both good Christians, we know that the -other gods are either devils or else illusions that -never existed at all—Father Joseph has the nicest -possible manners, and just the smile and the way -of talking that very often reminds me of Hoprig, -and qualifies him to teach any religion in the world, -even without stroking both your hands all the time, -but in spite of that, as I told him only last Saturday, -he will not ever speak out quite plainly about -them—”</p> - -<p>“About your lovely hands, madame?”</p> - -<p>“Now, monsieur my husband, what foolish questions -you ask! I mean, about whether they are -devils or illusions. Because, as I told him -frankly—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p> - -<p>“Ah, now I comprehend. Yet, surely, these abstruse -questions of theology—”</p> - -<p>She was looking at him in astonishment. “Why, -but not in the least! I am not interested in theology, -I merely say that a thing is either one way -or the other: and, as I so often think, nothing whatever -is to be gained by beating about the bush instead -of being our own candid natural selves, and -confessing to our ignorance, even if we happen to -be priests, where ignorance is no disgrace—”</p> - -<p>“Doubtless, my dearest, you intend to convey to -me—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, not for one instant!” And this bewitching -seamstress was virtually giggling, quite as -if there were some logical cause for amusement. -“Anybody who called that dear old soft-soaper -stupid would be much more mistaken, monsieur my -husband, than you suspect. I merely mean that is -one side of the question, a side which is perfectly -plain. The other is that, as I have told him over -and over again, it is not as if I had ever for a -moment denied that Father and Mother are conservative, -but quite the contrary—”</p> - -<p>Florian said: “Dearest of my life, I conjecture -you are still referring to your confessor, the good -Father Joseph. Otherwise, I must admit that, -somehow, I have not followed the theme of your -argument with an exactness which might, perhaps,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span> -have enabled me to form some faint notion as to -what you are talking about.”</p> - -<p>And again the loveliest face in the world was -marveling beneath that very pleasing disorder of -little pink ribbons. “Why, I was talking about -Father Joseph, of course, and about my wanting to -know how my parents at their time of life could -be expected to take up with new ideas. Oh, and -I kept at him, too: because, even if they are worshipping -devils up at Brunbelois, and doing something -actually wicked when they sacrifice to Llaw -Gyffes a few serfs that are past their work and are -of no use to anybody, and no real pleasure to themselves,—which -is a side you have to look at,—it -would be a sort of comfort to be certain of the -worst. Whereas, as for them, the poor dears, as -I so often say, what you do not know about does -not worry you—”</p> - -<p>“I take it, that you mean—”</p> - -<p>“Exactly!” Melior stated, with the most sagacious -of nods. “Though, for my part, I feel it is only -justice to say that such devils as my sister Mélusine -used to have in now and again, in the way of -sorcery, were quite civil and obliging. So far as -looks go, it is best to remember in such cases that -handsome is as handsome does, and I am sure they -did things for her that the servants would never -have so much as considered—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span></p> - -<p>“But, still—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, of course, we all know what a problem -that is, at every turn, with your kindness and your -consideration absolutely wasted: and in fact, as I so -often think, if I could just have two rooms somewhere, -and do my own cooking—” Another thread -was bitten through by the loveliest teeth in the -world.</p> - -<p>“You aspire to such simple pleasures, my wife, -as are denied to a Duchess of Puysange. No, one -must be logical. We have the duties of our estate. -And among these duties, as I was just saying, I -now discover the deplorable need of absenting myself -from the delights of your society and conversation—”</p> - -<p>“I shall miss you, monsieur my husband,” replied -Melior, abstractedly holding up a very small -undershirt, and looking at it as if with the very -weightiest of doubts, “of course. But still, it is -not as if I cared to be travelling now, and, besides, -there really is a great deal of sewing to be done for -months to come. And with everything in this upset -condition, I do hope that—if by any chance you -are sitting on that other pair of scissors? I thought -they must be there. Yes, I do hope that you will be -most careful in this affair, because I already have -enough to contend with. You ought to send the lace -at once, though: and I suppose we might as well<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> -have pink yarn and ribbons, since the chances are -equal in any event—”</p> - -<p>“But in what affair, delight of my existence, are -you requesting me to be careful?”</p> - -<p>“Why, how should I know?” And Melior, he -perceived, had still the air of one who is dealing -patiently with an irrational person. “It is probably -a very good thing that I do not, since you are -plainly up to something with your friend Orléans -which you want nobody to find out about. All men -are like that: and, for my part, I have no curiosity -whatever, because, as I so often think, if everybody -would just attend to their own affairs—”</p> - -<p>He bowed and, murmuring “Your pardon, madame!” -he left her contentedly sewing. It seemed -to Florian a real pity that a creature in every way -so agreeable to his eye should steadily betray and -tease his ear. He did not find that, as wives average, -his Melior was especially loquacious: it was, -rather, that when she discoursed at any length, with -her bewildering air of commingled self-satisfaction -and shrewdness, he could never make out quite -clearly what she was talking about: and as went -intelligence, his disenchanted princess seemed to -him to rank somewhere between a magpie and a -turnip.</p> - -<p>This, upon the whole, adorable idiocy might have -made it appear, to some persons, surprising that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span> -Melior should divine, as she had so obviously divined, -that Florian, in going to Philippe d’Orléans, -was prompted by motives which discretion preferred -to screen. But Florian had learned by experience -that your wives very often astound you by striking -the target of your inmost thinking, fair and full, -with just such seemingly irrational shots of surmise. -You might call it intuition or whatever else you preferred: -no husband of any at all lengthy standing -would be quick to call it accident. Rather, he would -admit this to be a faculty which every married -woman manifested now and then: and he would rejoice -that, for the health of the world’s peace, such -clairvoyancy was intermittent. Florian esteemed it -to be just one of the inevitable drawbacks of matrimony -that the most painstaking person must sometimes -encounter discomfortable moments when his -wife appears to be looking over his secret thoughts -somewhat as one glances over the pages of a not -particularly interesting book. So the experienced -husband would shrug and would await this awkward -moment’s passing, and the return of his wife’s -normal gullibility and charm.</p> - -<p>Melior, too, then, had her instants of approach -to wifely, if not precisely human, intelligence. And -Melior was beautiful. There was no flaw anywhere -in her beauty. This Florian repeated, over and -over again, as he prepared for travel. Here, too,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span> -one must be logical. That ideal beauty which he -had hopelessly worshipped, and had without hope -hungered for, ever since his childhood, was now -attained: and the goddess of his long adoration was -now enshrined in, to be exact, the next room but -one, already hemming diapers for their anticipated -baby. Nobody could possibly have won nearer to -his heart’s desire than Florian had come; he had -got all and more than his highest dreaming had -aspired to: and so, if he was now sighing over the -reflection, it must be, he perceived, a sigh of content.</p> - -<p>Then he kissed his wife, and he rode away from -Bellegarde, toward the vexatious duties which -awaited him at court. Florian stopped, of course, to -put up a prayer, for the success of his nearing venture -into homicide, at the Church of Holy Hoprig. -That ceremonial Florian could not well have omitted -without provoking more or less speculation as to -why the Duke of Puysange should be defaulting -in a pious custom of long standing; nor, for that -matter, without troubling his conscience with doubts -if he was affording the country-side quite the good -example due from one of his rank.</p> - -<p>Through just such mingled considerations of expediency -and duty had Florian, since his return from -Brunbelois, continued his giving to this church with -all the old liberality, if with somewhat less comfort -to himself. It was a nuisance to reflect that so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> -many irregularities which Florian had believed compounded, -to everybody’s satisfaction, had never been -attended to at all by his patron saint. It was annoying -to know that the church had got, and was -continuing to get, from the estate of Puysange so -many pious offerings virtually for nothing. Even -so, replied logic, what was to be gained by arousing -criticism or by neglecting your religious duties -in a manner that was noticeable? Let us adhere -to precedent, and then, if we can no longer count -assuredly on bliss in the next world, we may at least -hope for tranquillity in this one.</p> - -<p>So Florian, for the preservation of the local -standards, now put up a fervent prayer to his patron -saint in heaven; and reflected that, after all, the -actual whereabouts, and the receptivity to petitions, -of Holy Hoprig was none of Florian’s affair. A -little wonder, however, about just where the saint -might be doing what, was, Florian hoped, permissible, -since he had found such wondering not to be -avoided.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="image065" style="max-width: 37.5em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image065.jpg" alt="Lizard crawling out of a pot" /> -</div> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_12"><i>12.</i><br /> - -<i>Niceties of Fratricide</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image114.jpg" alt="N" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">OW that Florian came out of the -provinces, he wished to take matters -in order. Not merely a snobbish -pride of race led him to give his -family affairs precedence to those of -the Bourbons. It was, rather, that -Florian yet had a day to wait before the coming -of the winter solstice. He was unwilling to waste -these twenty-four hours, because Florian looked -with some uneasiness toward the inevitable encounter -with his wife-ridden brother, and Florian was -desirous to get this worry off his mind. For, a -thing done, as Janicot had mentioned, has an -end....</p> - -<p>Florian therefore made inquiries as to where -Raoul was passing that evening; and the two -brothers thus met, as if by chance, at the home of -the Duc de Brancas. The circle of Monsieur de -Brancas was not gallant toward women, and his -guests were gentlemen in middle age, the most of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span> -whom came each with a boy of seventeen or thereabouts.</p> - -<p>Florian was grieved when, as he approached the -group clustered about the big fireplace, he saw with -what ceremony Raoul bowed. Raoul had fattened, -he seemed taller, he was to-night superb in this -crimson coat, with huge turned-back cuffs,—that -must be the very latest mode,—and in this loose -gold-laced white waistcoat, descending to the knees, -and unfastened at the bottom. Raoul had the grand -air of their father: a tall man was always so much -more impressive. For the rest, it was fully apparent -that the dear fellow’s abominable wife had been at -her mischief-making.</p> - -<p>“Monsieur the Duke,” Raoul began, “this encounter -is indeed fortunate.”</p> - -<p>“To encounter Monsieur the Chevalier,” replied -Florian, with quite as sweet a stateliness, but feeling -rather like a bantam cock beside this big Raoul, -“is always a privilege.”</p> - -<p>People everywhere were listening now: this -gambit hardly seemed fraternal. The well-bred -elderly friends of Monsieur de Brancas, to be sure, -made a considerate pretence at going on with their -talk, but most of the scented and painted boys had -betrayed their lower social degree by gaping openly: -and Florian knew he was in for an unpleasant -business.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span></p> - -<p>“—For I am wondering if you have heard, monsieur,” -the Chevalier went on, “that the Comte -d’Arnaye has spread the report that at Madame de -Nesle’s last ball I appeared with two buttons missing -from my waistcoat?”</p> - -<p>“I really cannot answer for the truth of such -gossip, monsieur,”—thus Florian, with high civility,—“since -I have not seen my uncle for some -time.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, ah! so the Comte d’Arnaye is your uncle!” -Raoul seemed gravely pleased. “That is excellent, -for, inasmuch as I cannot readily obtain satisfaction -for this calumny from your uncle, who has retired -into the provinces for the winter, I can apply to -you.”</p> - -<p>Florian said, with careful patience: “I am delighted, -monsieur, to act as his representative. In -that capacity I can assure you whoever asserted -Monsieur d’Arnaye declared the waistcoat in which -you attended the last ball of Madame de Nesle to -be deficient in two buttons, or in one button, or in -a half-stitch of thread, has told a lie.”</p> - -<p>Raoul de Puysange frowned. “Diantre! it was -my own cousin, the Count’s youngest son, who was -my informant; and since my cousin, monsieur, as -you are well aware, is little more than a child—”</p> - -<p>“You should have the less trouble, then,” said -Florian, vexed by his brother’s pertinacity, “in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span> -horsewhipping the brat for his silly falsehood.”</p> - -<p>“Come, Monsieur the Duke, but I cannot have my -cousin called a liar, far less listen to this talk of -horsewhipping one who is of my blood. I must -ask satisfaction for these affronts, and I will send -a friend to wait upon you.”</p> - -<p>Florian looked sadly at his brother. But the Duc -de Puysange shrugged before a meddlesome and -quite unimportant person.</p> - -<p>Florian answered: “I am well content, Monsieur -the Chevalier. Only, to save time, I would suggest -that your friend go direct to the Vicomte de -Lautrec, since he is here to-night, and since I have -promised him that he should second me in my next -affair.”</p> - -<p>The two brothers bowed and parted decorously, -having thus arranged a public quarrel in which -Mademoiselle de Nérac was in no way involved. -The instant’s tension was over, and the guests of -Monsieur de Brancas thronged hastily through the -corridor,—which was rather chilly, because all the -outer side of this corridor was builded of stained -glass,—and went into the little private theatre, where -the fiddles were already tuning for the overture of -a new and tuneful burletta that dealt with The Fall -of Sodom. The curtain by and by rose on the civic -revels, and the rest of the evening passed merrily.</p> - -<p>After the first act, while the scenery was being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> -shifted so as to represent Lot’s cave in the mountains, -all details of the fraternal duel were arranged -by Messieurs de Lautrec and de Soyecourt. Tall -lean Monsieur de Soyecourt had, as a cousin, been -prompt to insist upon his right to act for Raoul in -an encounter so sure to be discussed everywhere. -Shortly after midnight,—at which hour the other -guests of Monsieur de Brancas went into the Salon -des Flagellants to amuse themselves at a then very -fashionable game which you played with little -whips,—the two brothers left the hôtel with their -seconds. A surgeon had been sent for, and he accompanied -them and the five girls, whom the -Vicomte de Lautrec had caused to be fetched from -La Fillon’s, to a house near the Port Maillot, where -all indulged in various pleasantries until morning.</p> - -<p>The wine here proved so good, the girls were -so amiable and accomplished, that by daylight -Florian had mellowed into an all-embracing benevolence, -and he proposed to compound the affair. -The suggestion roused an almost angry buzz of -protest.</p> - -<p>Lautrec was demanding, of the company at large, -would you have me, who was married only last -week, staying out all night, with no better excuse -than that I was drunk with these charming girls? -Why, I was committed to three rendezvous last -night, and if there be no duel I shall have trouble<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> -with a trio of ladies of the highest fashion. Nor -is it, put in the Marquis de Soyecourt,—whose -speaking was always somewhat indistinct, because -of the loss of all his upper front-teeth,—nor is it -kind of you, my dear, to wish to deprive us of -taking part in a business which will make so much -noise in the world: brothers do not fight every day, -this affair will be talked about. I quite agree with -Lautrec that your whim is foolish and inconsiderate. -Besides, Raoul was saying reprovingly, the honor -of our house is involved. To have a Puysange cry -off from a duel would be a reflection upon our blood -that I could not endure—</p> - -<p>“What is honor,” replied Florian, “to the love -which has been between us?”</p> - -<p>The Chevalier looked half-shocked at this sort of -talk: but he only answered that Hannibal and -Agamemnon had been very pretty fellows in their -day while it lasted; so too the boys who had loved -each other at Storisende and Bellegarde. Let the -dead rest. No, to go back now was impossible, -without creating a deal of adverse comment, in -view of the publicity of their quarrel.</p> - -<p>Florian sighed, half wearied, half vexed, by the -remote sound of his brother’s talking, and he replied: -“That is true. One must be logical. You -three are better advised than I, and we dare not -offend against the notions of our neighbors.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span></p> - -<p>The gentlemen went into the park. They walked -toward the old Château de Madrid. There had -been a very light fall of snow. It felt like sand -underfoot as you walked. Florian reflected it was -droll that oak-trees should retain so many bronze -leaves thus late in winter. They quite overshadowed -this place, and made the snow look bluish.</p> - -<p>The gentlemen prepared for their duel, each of -the four being armed with two pistols and a sword. -When all was ready, Raoul fired at once, and -wounded Florian in the left arm. It hurt. The -little brother whose face was always grimy would -never have hurt you.</p> - -<p>At Florian’s side Lautrec had fallen, dead. The -bullet of the Marquis de Soyecourt had by an incredible -chance struck the Vicomte full in the right -eye, piercing the brain.</p> - -<p>“Name of a name!” observed the Marquis, who -was unwounded, “but here is another widow to be -consoled,—when I had aimed too at his ear! That -is the devil of this carousing all night, and then coming -to one’s duels with shaken nerves. But how -fare our sons of Œdipus?”</p> - -<p>The Marquis turned, and what he saw was sufficiently -curious.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="facing120-caption" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img src="images/facing120-caption.jpg" alt="Caption" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="facing120" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/facing120.jpg" alt="" /> - <div class="caption"><span class="smcap">Florian’s</span> plump face was transfigured, -as he knelt before his <span class="smcap">Melior</span>.<br /> -<i>See page <a href="#Page_222">222</a></i></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span></p> - - -<p>Florian had winced when hit, thus for an instant -spoiling his aim, but he at once lowered his pistol, -and he shot this tall man who had nothing to do -with his little brother, neatly through the breast. -Raoul de Puysange fired wildly with his second pistol, -and drew his sword as if to rush upon Florian, -who merely shifted the yet loaded pistol to his uncrippled -right hand, and waited. But Raoul had -not advanced two paces when Raoul fell.</p> - -<p>Florian dropped the undischarged pistol, and went -to his brother. This thin snow underfoot was like -scattered sand, and your treading in it was audible.</p> - -<p>“You have done for me, my dear,” declared the -Chevalier.</p> - -<p>And Florian was perturbed. He wished, for all -that his arm was hurting him confoundedly, to reply -whatever in the circumstances was the correct -thing, but he could think of no exact precedent. -So he put aside the wild fancy of responding, “Am -I my brother’s keeper?” and to this stranger at his -feet he said, with a quite admirable tremor wherein -anguish blended nicely with a manly self-restraint: -“Raoul, you are the happier of us two. Do you -forgive me?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” replied the other, “I forgive you.” Raoul -gazed up fondly at his brother. Raoul said, with -that genius for the obviously appropriate which -Florian always envied, “I feel for you as I know -you do for me.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p> - -<p>Thus speaking, Raoul de Puysange looked of a -sudden oddly surprised. His nostrils dilated, he -shivered a little, and so died.</p> - -<p>Florian turned sadly to the gaunt Marquis de -Soyecourt. “You spoke of the sons of Œdipus, -Antoine. But many other eminent persons have -been fratricides. There was Romulus, and Absalom -in Holy Writ, and Sir Balen of Northumberland, -and several of the Capets and the Valois. -King Henry the First of England, a very wise -prince, also put his brother out of the way, as did -Constantius Chlorus, a most noble patron of the -Church. Whereas all Turkish emperors—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, have done with your looking for precedents!” -said the Marquis. “What we should look -for now, my dear, is horses to get us away from -this sad affair. For one, I am retiring into the -provinces, to spend Christmas at my venerable -father’s chateau at Beaujolais, where I shall be -more comfortable than in the King’s prison of the -Bastile. And I most strongly advise you to imitate -me.”</p> - -<p>“No,” Florian said, gently, “these are but the -first fruits of the attainment of my desire. For, -as you remind me, Antoine, Christmas approaches, -and I have still unfinished business at court.”</p> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_13"><i>13.</i><br /> - -<i>Débonnaire</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image123.jpg" alt="T" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">HEREAFTER Florian went to the -Duke of Orléans, with two motives. -One was the obvious necessity of -obtaining a pardon for having killed -the Chevalier: Florian’s other motive -was the promise given to brown -Janicot that he should have for his Christmas present, -upon this day of the winter solstice, the life of -the greatest man in the kingdom. The greatest man -in the kingdom, undoubtedly, was Philippe of -Orléans, the former Regent, now prime minister, -and the next heir to the throne. The King was -nobody in comparison: besides, the King was not -a man but a child of thirteen. One must be logical. -Florian regretted the loss of his friend, for -he was unfeignedly fond of Orléans, but a promise -once given by a Puysange was not to be evaded.</p> - -<p>He must get the pardon first. Florian foresaw -that the granting of a pardon out of hand for his -disastrous duel would seem to the Duke of Orléans<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> -an action liable to involve the prime minister in -difficulties. Florian thought otherwise, in the light -of his firm belief that to-morrow Orléans would be -oblivious of all earthly affairs, but this was not an -argument which Florian could tactfully employ. -Rather, he counted upon the happy fact that Florian’s -services in the past were not benefits which -any reflective statesman would care to ignore. Yes, -the pardon would certainly be forthcoming, Florian -assured himself, this afternoon, as he rode forth -in his great gilded coach, for his last chat, as he -rather vexedly reflected, with all-powerful Philippe -of Orléans, whom people called Philippe the -Débonnaire.</p> - -<p>“So!” said the minister, when they had embraced, -“so, they tell me that you have married again, and -that you killed your brother this morning. I am -not pleased with you, Florian. These escapades -will come to no good end.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, monseigneur, but I like to take a wife occasionally, -whereas you prefer always to borrow -one. It is merely a question of taste, about which -we need not quarrel. As to this duel, I lamented -the necessity, your highness, as much as anybody. -But these meddling women—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, I know,” replied Orléans, “your sister-in-law -talks too much. In fact, as I recall it, she -talks even in her sleep.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p> - -<p>“Monseigneur, and will you never learn discretion?”</p> - -<p>“I am discreet enough, in any event, to look upon -fratricide rather seriously. So I am sending you -to the Bastile for a while, Florian, and indeed the -lettre de cachet ordering your imprisonment was -made out an hour ago.”</p> - -<p>Florian at this had out the small gold box upon -whose lid was painted a younger and far more -amiable looking Orléans than frowned here in the -flesh,—in a superfluity of flesh,—and Florian took -snuff. It was always a good way of gaining time -for reflection. Wine and cakes were set ready upon -the little table. Philippe was probably expecting -some woman. There had been no lackeys in the -corridor which led to this part of the château. -Philippe always sent them away when any of his -women were to come in the day-time. Yes, one -was quite alone with this corpulent, black-browed -and purple-faced Philippe, in this quiet room, which -was like a great gilded shell of elaborately carved -woodwork, and which had bright panels everywhere, -upon the walls and the ceiling, representing, very -explicitly indeed, The Triumphs of Love. Such -solitude was uncommonly convenient; and one -might speak without reticence.</p> - -<p>Florian put up his snuff-box, dusted his finger-tips, -and said: “I regret to oppose you in any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>thing, -monseigneur, but for me to go to prison -would be inconvenient just now. I have important -business at the Feast of the Wheel to-morrow -night.”</p> - -<p>Since Philippe had lost the sight of his left eye -he cocked his head like a huge bird whenever he -looked at you intently. “You had best avoid these -sorceries, Florian. I have not yet forgotten that -fiend whom your accursed lieutenant evoked for us -in the quarries of Vaugirard—” Orléans paused. -He said in a while, “Before that night and that -vision of my uncle’s death-bed, I was less ambitious, -Florian, and more happy.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes, poor old Mirepoix!” said Florian, smiling. -“What a preposterous fraud he was, with his -absurd ventriloquism and stuffed crocodiles and -magic lanterns! However, he foretold very precisely -indeed the extraordinary series of events -which would leave you the master of this kingdom: -and I had not the heart to see the faithful fellow -exposed as an ignoramus who talked nonsense. -So I was at some pains to help his prophesying come -true, and to make you actually the only surviving -male relative at the old King’s death-bed.”</p> - -<p>“Let us speak,” said Orléans, with a vexed frown, -“of cheerier matters. Now, in regard to your imprisonment—”</p> - -<p>“I was coming to your notion of a merry topic.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> -This visit to the Feast of the Wheel is about a -family matter, your highness, and is imperative. -So I must keep my freedom for the while: and I -must ask, in place of a lettre de cachet, a pardon -in full.”</p> - -<p>“Instead, Florian, let us have fewer ‘musts’ and -more friendliness in this affair.” Orléans now put -his arm about Florian. “Come, I will put off your -arrest until the day after to-morrow; you shall -spend the night here, my handsome pouting Florian; -and you shall be liberated at the end of one little -week in the Bastile.”</p> - -<p>Florian released himself, rather petulantly. -“Pardieu! but I entreat you to reserve these endearments -for your bed-chamber! No, you must -find some other playfellow for to-night. And I -really cannot consent to be arrested, for it would -quite spoil my Christmas.”</p> - -<p>Orléans, rebuffed, said only, “But if I continue -to ignore your misbehaviors, people will talk.”</p> - -<p>“That is possible, your highness. It is certain -that, under arrest, I also would become garrulous.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! and of what would you discourse?”</p> - -<p>Florian looked for a while at his red-faced friend -beyond the red-topped writing-table.</p> - -<p>Florian said: “I would talk of the late Dauphin’s -death, monseigneur; of the death of the -Duc de Bourgogne; of the death of the little Duc<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> -de Bretagne; and of the death of the Duc de Berri. -I would talk of those inexplicable fatal illnesses -among your kinsmen which of a sudden made you, -who were nobody of much consequence, the master -of France and the next heir to the throne.”</p> - -<p>Orléans said nothing for a time. Speaking, his -voice was quiet, but a little hoarse. “It is perhaps -as well for you, my friend, that my people have -been dismissed. Yes, I am expecting Madame de -Phalaris, who is as yet amusingly shame-faced -about her adulteries. So there is nobody about, and -we may speak frankly. With frankness, then, I -warn you that it is not wholesome to threaten a -prince of the blood, and that if you continue in this -tone you may not long be permitted to talk anywhere, -not even in one of the many prisons at my -disposal.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, your highness, let us not speak of my death, -for it is a death which you would deplore.”</p> - -<p>“Would I deplore your death?” Orléans’ head -was now cocked until it almost lay upon his left -shoulder. “It is a fact of which I am not wholly -persuaded.”</p> - -<p>“Monseigneur, mere self-respect demands that -one’s death should rouse some grief among one’s -friends. So I have made certain that your grief -would be inevitable and deep. For I am impatient -of truisms—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span></p> - -<p>“And what have truisms to do with our affair?”</p> - -<p>“The statement that dead men tell no tales, your -highness, is a truism.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, and to be candid, Florian, it is that particular -truism of which I was just thinking.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it is this particular truism I have elected -to deride. My will is made, the disposing of my -estate is foreordered, and every legacy enumerated. -One of these legacies is in the form of a written -narrative: it is not a romance, it is an entirely -veracious chronicle, dealing with the last hours of -four of your kinsmen; and it is bequeathed to a fifth -kinsman, to your cousin, the Duc de Bourbon. -Should I die in one of your prisons, monseigneur,—a -calamity which I perceive to be already fore-shadowed -in your mind,—that paper would go to -him.”</p> - -<p>The Duke of Orléans considered this. There -had been much whispering; mobs in the street had -shouted, “Burn the poisoner!” when Orléans passed: -but this was different. Once Bourbon had half the -information which Florian de Puysange was able -to give, there would be of course no question of -burning Orléans, since one does not treat a prince -of the blood like fuel: but there would be no doubt, -either, of his swift downfall nor of his subsequent -death by means of the more honorable ax.</p> - -<p>Orléans knew all this. Orléans also knew Flo<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span>rian. -In consequence Orléans asked, “Is what you -tell me the truth?”</p> - -<p>“Faith of a gentleman, monseigneur!”</p> - -<p>Orléans sighed. “It is a pity. By contriving -this conditional post-mortem sort of confession to -the devil-work you prompted, you have contrived -an equally devilish safeguard. Yes, if you are telling -the truth, for me to have you put out of the -way would be injudicious. And you do tell the -truth, confound you! Broad-minded as you are in -many ways, Florian, you are a romantic, and I -have never known you to break your given word or -to voice any purely utilitarian lie. You are positively -queer about that.”</p> - -<p>“I confess it,” said Florian, frankly. “Puysange -lies only for pleasure, never for profit. But what -do my foibles matter? Let us be logical about this! -What does anything matter except the plain fact -that we are useful to each other? I do not boast, -but I think you have found me efficient. You -needed only a precipitating of the inevitable, a little -hastening here and there of natural processes, to -give you your desires. Well, four of these accelerations -have been brought about through the recipes -of a dear old friend of mine, through invaluable -recipes which have made you the master of this -kingdom. It is now always within your power, -without any real trouble, to remove the scrofulous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span> -boy whose living keeps you from being even in title -King of France. Yes, I think I have helped you. -Some persons would in my position be exigent. -But all I ask is your name written upon a bit of -paper. I will even promise you that your mercifulness -shall create no adverse comment, and that to-morrow -people shall be talking of something quite -different.”</p> - -<p>And Florian smiled ingratiatingly, the while that -he fingered what was in his waistcoat pocket, and -reflected that all France would very certainly have -more than enough to talk about to-morrow.</p> - -<p>“This dapper imp, in his eternal bottle-green and -silver, will be the ruin of me,” Orléans observed. -But he had already drawn a paper from the top -drawer: and he filled it in, and signed it, and he -pushed it across the red-topped writing-table, toward -Florian.</p> - -<p>“I thank you, monseigneur, for this favor,” said -Florian, then, “and I long to repay it by making -you King of France. Let us drink to Philippe the -Seventh!”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Orleans,—“let us drink if you will, -but i have no thirst for kingship. I play with the -idea, of course. To be a king sounds well, and I -once thought—But it would give me no more -than I already have of endless nuisances to endure. -As matters stand, I can make shift with the dis<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span>comforts -of being a great personage, because I -know that I can, whenever I like, lay aside my -greatness. I can at will become again a private -person, and I can find a host of fools eager to fill -my place. But from the throne there is no exit -save into the vaults of St. Denis. So I procrastinate, -I play with the idea of putting the boy out -of the way, but I do nothing definite until to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“There are many adages that speak harshly of -procrastination,” said Florian, as he poured and, -with his back to Orléans, flavored the wine which -was set ready. “Logic is a fine thing, monseigneur: -and logic informs me that no man is sure of living -until to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“But it is no fun being a great personage,” -Orléans lamented, as he took the tall, darkly glowing -glass. “I have had my bellyful of it: and I -find greatness rather thin fare. I am master of -France, indeed I may with some show of reason -claim to be master of Europe. I used to think it -would be pleasant to rule kingdoms; but you may -take my word for it, Florian, the game is not -worth the candle. There are times,” said Orléans, -as lazily he sipped the wine which Florian had just -seasoned, “there are times when I wish I were dead -and done with it all.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span></p> - -<p>“That, your highness, will come soon enough.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but do you judge what I have to contend -with.” Orléans launched into a bewailing of his -political difficulties. Florian kept a polite pose of -attention, without exactly listening to these complaints -about Parliament’s obstinacy, about Alberoni’s -and Villeroy’s plottings in their exile, about -the sly underminings of Fréjus, about what the -legitimated princes were planning now, about Bourbon, -about Noailles, about the pig-headedness of the -English Pretender, about the empty Treasury—Of -these things Philippe was talking, in a jumble -of words without apparent end or meaning. But -Florian thought of a circumstance unrelated to any -of these matters, with a sort of awed amusement.</p> - -<p>“All this to make a maniac of me,” the minister -went on, “and with what to balance it? Anything -I choose to ask for, of course. But then, Florian, -what the deuce is there in life for one to ask for -at forty-nine? I was once a joyous glutton: now I -have to be careful of my digestion. I used to stay -drunk for weeks: now one night of virtually puritanic -debauchery leaves me a wreck to be patched -up by physicians who can talk about nothing but -apoplexy. Women no longer rouse any curiosity. -I know so well what their bodies are like that an -investigation is tautology: and half the time I go -to bed with no inclination to do anything but sleep.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> -Not even my daughters, magnificent women that -you might think them—”</p> - -<p>“I know,” said Florian, with a reminiscent smile.</p> - -<p>“—Not even they are able to amuse me any more. -No, my friend, I candidly voice my opinion that -there is nothing in life which possession does not -discover to be inadequate: we are cursed with a -tyrannous need for what life does not afford: and -we strive for various prizes, saying ‘Happiness is -there,’ when in point of fact it is nowhere. They -who fail in their endeavors have still in them the -animus of desire: but the man who attains his will -cohabits with an assassin, for, having it, he perceives -that he does not want it; and desire is dead -in him, and the man too is dead. No, Florian, be -advised by me; and do you avoid greatness as you -should—and by every seeming do not,—the devil!”</p> - -<p>So Philippe d’Orléans also, thought Florian, had -got what he wanted, only to find it a damnable -nuisance. Probably all life was like that. Over-high -and over-earnest desires were inadvisable. It -was a sort of comfort to reflect that poor Philippe -at least would soon be through with his worries.</p> - -<p>A bell rang; and Florian, rising, said: “I shall -heed your advice, monseigneur—But that bell perhaps -announces an arrival about which I should remain -in polite ignorance?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is Madame de Phalaris. We are to try<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> -what Aretino and Romano can suggest for our -amusement, before I go up to my hour’s work with -the King. So be off with you through the private -way, for it is a very modest little bitch.”</p> - -<p>Florian passed through the indicated door, but he -did not quite close it. Instead, he waited there, and -he saw the entrance of charming tiny Madame de -Phalaris, whom Orléans greeted with tolerable -ardor.</p> - -<p>“So you have come at last, you delicious rogue, -to end my expounding of moral sentiments. And -with what fairy tale, bright-eyed Sapphira, will you -explain your lateness?”</p> - -<p>“Indeed, your highness,” said the lady, who had -learned that in these encounters the Duke liked to be -heartened with some gambit of free talk, “indeed, -your question reminds me that only last night I -heard the most diverting fairy tale. But it is somewhat—”</p> - -<p>“Yes?” said the Duke.</p> - -<p>“I mean, that it is rather—”</p> - -<p>“But I adore that especial sort of fairy story,” -he announced. “So of course we must have it, and -equally of course we must spare our mutual blushes.”</p> - -<p>Thus speaking, Orléans sat at her feet, and leaned -back his head between her knees, so that neither -could see the face of the other. Her lithe white -fingers stroked his cheeks, caressing those great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span> -pendulous red jaws: and her sea-green skirts, flowered -with a pattern of slender vines, were spread -like billows to each side of him.</p> - -<p>“There was once,” the lady began, “a king and -a queen—”</p> - -<p>“I know the tale,” Orléans said,—“they had -three sons. And the two elder failed in preposterous -quests, but the third prince succeeded in everything, -and he was damnably bored by everything. -I know the tale only too well—”</p> - -<p>He desisted from speaking. But he was making -remarkable noises.</p> - -<p>“Highness—!” cried Madame de Phalaris.</p> - -<p>She had risen in alarm; and as she rose, the -Duke’s head fell to the crimson-covered footstool at -her feet. He did not move, but lay quite still, staring -upward, and his foreshortened face, as Florian -saw it, was of a remarkable shade of purple among -the elaborate dark curls of Orléans’ peruke.</p> - -<p>There was for a moment utter silence. You -heard only the gilded clock upon the red chimney-piece. -Then Madame de Phalaris screamed.</p> - -<p>Nobody replied. She rang wildly at the bell-cord -beside the writing-table. You could hear a -remote tinkling, but nothing else. The shaking -woman lifted fat Orléans, and propped him against -the chair in which she had just been sitting. -Philippe of Orléans sprawled thus, more drunken<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> -looking than Florian had ever seen him in life: the -corpse was wholly undignified. The head of him -whom people had called Philippe the Débonnaire -had fallen sideways, so that his black peruke was -pushed around and hid a third of his face. The -left eye, the eye with which Philippe had for years -seen nothing, yet leered at the woman before him. -She began again to scream. She ran from the -room, and Florian could now just hear her as she -ran, still screaming, about the corridors in which -she could find nobody. It sounded like the squeaking -of a frightened rat.</p> - -<p>Florian came forward without hurry, for there -was no pressing need of haste. Florian quite understood -that Orléans had dismissed all his attendants, -so that Madame de Phalaris might come -to him unobserved: her husband was a notionary -man. After a little amorous diversion with the -lady, Orléans had meant to go up that narrow staircase -yonder, for an hour’s work with the young -King. It was odd to reflect that poor Philippe -would never go to the King nor to any woman’s -bed, not ever any more; odd, too, that anyone could -be thus private in this enormous château wherein -lived several thousand persons. At all events, this -privacy was uncommonly convenient.</p> - -<p>So Florian reflected for an instant, after his usual -fashion of fond lingering upon what life afforded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> -of the quaint. It was certainly very quaint that history -should be so plastic. He had, with no especial -effort or discomfort, with no real straining of -his powers, changed the history of all Europe when -he transferred this famous kingdom of France and -the future of France from the keeping of Philippe -to guardians more staid. Probably Monsieur de -Bourbon would be the next minister. But whoever -might be minister in name, the Bishop of -Fréjus, the young King’s preceptor, would now be -the actual master of everything. Well, to have -taken France from a debauchee like this poor staring -gaping Philippe here,—Florian abstractedly -straightened the thing’s peruke,—to give control of -France to such an admirable prelate as André de -Fleury was in all a praiseworthy action. It was a -logical action.</p> - -<p>Then Florian performed unhurriedly the rite -which was necessary, and there was a sign that -Janicot accepted his Christmas present. It was not -a pleasant sign to witness, nor did they who served -Janicot appear to be squeamish. After this came -two hairy persons, not unfamiliar to Florian, and -these two removed as much as their master desired -of Philippe d’Orléans. They answered, too, in a -fashion no whit less impressive because of their -not speaking, the questions which Florian put as -to the proper manner of his coming to Janicot and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span> -the Feast of the Wheel. Then they were not in -this room: and Florian, somewhat shaken, also went -from this room, not as they had gone but by way -of the little private door.</p> - -<p>It was a full half-hour, Florian learned afterward, -before Madame de Phalaris returned with a -cortége of lackeys and physicians. These last attempted -to bleed Duke Philippe, but found their -endeavors wasted: La Tophania’s recipes were reliable, -and to all appearance he had for some while -been dead of apoplexy. The obscene toy discovered, -hanging about his neck, when they went to -undress him, surprised nobody: the Duke had affected -these oddities. When the physicians made -yet other discoveries, a trifle later, they flutteringly -agreed this death must, without any further discussion, -be reported to have arisen from natural -causes. “Monsieur d’Orléans,” said one of them, -jesting with rather gray lips, “has died assisted by -his usual confessor.”</p> - -<p>Florian had of course not needed to amass good -precedents for putting out of life anybody who was -to all intents a reigning monarch. As he glanced -back at history, this seemed to him almost the favorite -avocation of estimable persons. So, as -Florian rode leisurely away in his great gilded -coach, leaving behind him the second fruits of the -attainment of his desire, if he lazily afforded a side<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span>thought -to Marcus Brutus and Jacques Clément and -Aristogeiton and Ehud the Benjaminite, and to a -few other admirable assassins of high potentates, it -was through force of habit rather than any really -serious consideration. For the important thing to -be considered now was how to come by the sword -Flamberge, for which Florian had, that day, paid.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp65" id="image140" style="max-width: 56.25em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image140.jpg" alt="Demon" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_14"><i>14.</i><br /> - -<i>Gods in Decrepitude</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image141.jpg" alt="N" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">OT one of the ambiguous guardians -of the place in any way molested -Florian in that journey through -which he hoped to win the sword -Flamberge. His bearing, which -combined abstraction with a touch -of boredom, discouraged any advances from phantoms, -and made fiends uneasily suspect this little -fellow in bottle-green and silver to be one of those -terrible magicians who attend Sabbats only when -they are planning to kidnap with strong conjurations -some luckless fiend to slave for them at unconscionable -tasks. That sort of person a shrewd -fiend gives a wide berth: and certainly nobody who -was not an adept at magic would have dared venture -hereabouts, upon this night of all nights in the -year, the guardians reasoned, without considering -that this traveler might be a Puysange. So Florian -passed to the top of the hill, without any molestation, -in good time for the beginning of the Feast -of the Wheel.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span></p> - -<p>When Florian came quietly through the painted -gate, the Master was already upon the asherah stone -receiving homage. The place was well lighted with -torches which flared bluishly as they were carried -about by creatures that had the appearance of huge -dark-colored goats: each of these goats bore two -torches, the first being fixed between its horns, and -the second inserted in another place. Florian stood -aside, and watched these venerable rites of unflinching -osculation and widdershins movings and all the -rest of the ritual. One respected of course the motives -which took visible form in these religious ceremonies, -but the formulæ seemed to Florian rather -primitive.</p> - -<p>So he sat upon a secluded grassbank, beyond the -light of the blue torches, and waited. It was quaint, -and pathetic too in a way, now that the communicants -were reporting upon their unimaginative doings -since the last Sabbat. The Master listened and -advised upon each case. To Florian it appeared a -rather ridiculous pother over nothing, all this to-do -about the drying up of a cow or the unfitting of a -bridegroom for his privileges or the sapping away -of someone’s health. Florian inclined to romanticism -even in magic, whose proper functions he -did not consider to be utilitarian or imitative of -real life. It seemed to him mere childish petulancy -thus to cast laborious spells to hasten events which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> -would in time have happened anyhow, through nature’s -unprompted blunderings, when the obvious -end of magic should be to bring about chances -which could not possibly happen. But the Master -had an air of taking it all quite seriously.</p> - -<p>Nor were the initiations much more diverting, -however dreadfully painful they must be to the virgin -novitiates. Florian could not but think that -some more natural paraphernalia would be preferable, -would be more logical, than that horrible, cold -and scaly apparatus. It was interesting, though, to -note what disposition was made of the relics of -Philippe d’Orléans: and in the giving of four infants -also, by the old ritual, Florian took a sort of -personal concern, and he watched closely, so as to -see just how it was done. He was relieved to find -it a simple enough matter, hardly more difficult than -the gutting of a rabbit, once you had by heart the -words of the invocation. Florian assumed that -Janicot would in due course supply the woman -whose body must serve as the altar, and Florian -put the matter out of mind.</p> - -<p>Besides, to one with his respect for ancient custom -and precedent, the fertility rites now in full -course were interesting: he imagined that to a professed -and not prudish antiquary they would be of -absorbing interest, coming down, as these ceremonies -did unaltered, from the dwarf races that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> -preceded mankind proper. Still, as a whole, the -Feast of the Wheel was rather tedious, Florian declared -to his large neighbor. Florian had just noticed -that others sat on this secluded grassbank, to -both sides of him, in a twilight so vague that he -could only see these other watchers of the feast -were of huge stature and had unblinking shining -eyes.</p> - -<p>Yes, this dim person assented, these modern ways -lacked fervor and impressiveness: and matters had -been infinitely better conducted, he said, in the good -old days when the Sabbat was held in blasphemy -against him.</p> - -<p>Florian, really interested at last, asked questions. -It developed that this shadowy watcher was called -Marduk. He had once been rather widely esteemed, -by he had no notion how many millions of men, -as the over-lord of heaven and all living creatures, -in whose hands were the decrees of fate, and as -the bright helper and healer from whom were hid -no secrets. Apsu yonder had in those fine days conducted -his blasphemies, Marduk repeated, with considerably -more splendor and display. Yes, the -times worsened, the thing was now done meagrely. -Apsu had never been really the same, said Marduk,—with -a dry chuckle, like the stirring of a dead -leaf,—since Apsu lost his wife. She was called -Tiamat: and, say what you might about her—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span></p> - -<p>“I quite agree with you. He was a far more -dashing rogue,” put in another half-seen shape, “in -the good times when I was the eternal source of -light, the upholder of the universe, all-powerful and -all-knowing, and when nobody anywhere except -that rascal Anra-Mainyu was bold enough to talk -back to Ahura-Madza. Yes, the times worsen in -every way: and even his effrontery flags, if that is -any comfort.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, for that matter,” said a third, “this Vukub-Kakix -was at hand with his impudence when the -Old Ones covered with Green Feathers first came -out of the waters and tried to make men virtuous. -He was then a splendid rogue. I found him annoying, -of course, but wonderfully amusing. Now the -times worsen: and the adversary of all the gods of -men no longer has such opponents as used to keep -him on his mettle.”</p> - -<p>“Each one of you,” marvelled Florian, “gives the -Master a new and harder christening! And what, -monsieur,” asked Florian, of the last speaker, “may -be your name?”</p> - -<p>The third dim creature answered, “Xpiyacoc.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, now I understand why you should be the -most generous to the Master in the matter of -cacophony! I take it that you also have retired -from a high position in the church. And I am -wondering if all you veteran gods are assembled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> -upon half-pay”—here Florian discreetly jerked a -thumb skyward,—“to conspire?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said a fourth,—who, like that poor -Philippe, had only one eye,—“it is true we look to -see put down the gods who just now have men’s -worship. But we do not conspire. We are too -feeble now, and the years have taken away from -us even anger and malevolence. It was not so in -the merry days when the little children came to me -upon spear points. Now the times worsen: and -they can but make the best of very poor times up -yonder, as we do here.” He seemed to listen to -the thing in the appearance of a raven perched on -his shoulder, and then said: “Besides, wise Huginn -tells me that the reign of any god is an ephemeral -matter hardly worth fretting over. I fell. They -will fall. But neither fact is very important, says -wise Huginn.”</p> - -<p>And about the Master these dim watchers preferred -not to talk any more. He had denied them, -they said, when they were kings of heaven and of -man’s worship and terror: and the Master had always -maintained his cult against whatever god was -for the moment supreme. He had never been formidable, -he had never shown any desire toward -usurping important powers. He had remained -content to assert himself Prince of this World, whoever -held the heavens and large stars: and while<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span> -he had never meddled with the doings of any god -in other planets, here upon earth he had displayed -such pertinacity that in the end most rulers of the -universe let him alone. And now their omnipotence -had passed, but the Master’s little power—somehow—endured. -The old gods found it inexplicable; -but they were under no bonds to explain it; -and it was not worth bothering about: nor was anything -else worth bothering about, said they, whom -time had freed of grave responsibilities.</p> - -<p>And Florian mildly pitied their come-down in -life, and their descent into this forlorn condition, -but felt himself, none the less, to be sitting among -ne’er-do-wells, and to be in not quite the company -suited to a nobleman of his rank. So it was really -a relief when the Master’s religious services were -over, and when, with the coming of red dawn, his -servants departed, trooping this way and that way, -but without ever ascending far above earth as they -passed like sombre birds. The Master now stood -unattended upon the asherah stone.</p> - -<p>Florian then nodded civilly to the fallen gods, -and left them. Florian came forward and, removing -his silver-laced green hat with a fine stately -sweep, he gave Janicot that ceremonious bow which -Florian reserved for persons whose worldly estate -entitled them to be treated as equals by a Duke of -Puysange.</p> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_15"><i>15.</i><br /> - -<i>Dubieties of the Master</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image148.jpg" alt="C" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">OME,” said Janicot, yawning in the -dawn of Christmas Day, “but here -is our romantic lordling of Puysange, -to whom love is divine, and -the desired woman a goddess.”</p> - -<p>Florian did not at once reply. -He had for the instant forgotten his need of the -sword Flamberge. For on account of the requirements -of the various ceremonies, Janicot, except for -a strip of dappled fawn-skin across his chest, was -not wearing any clothes, not even any shoes. -Florian had just noticed Janicot’s feet. But Florian -was too courteous to comment upon personal peculiarities: -for this only is the secret of all good-breeding, -he reflected, not ever to wound the feelings -of anybody, in any circumstances, without premeditation. -So his upsetment was but momentary, -and was not shown perceptibly, he felt sure, by the -gasp which politeness had turned into a sigh.</p> - -<p>“But what the deuce,” said Janicot then, “is this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span> -a proper groan, is this the appropriate countenance, -for one whose love has overridden the by-laws of -time and nature and even of necromancy?”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Monsieur Janicot,” answered Florian, -“gravity everywhere goes arm-in-arm with wisdom, -and I am somewhat wiser than I was when we -last talked together. For I have been to the high -place, and my desires have been gratified.”</p> - -<p>“That is an affair of course, since all my friends -have all their desires in this world. What cannot -be with equal readiness taken for granted is the -fact that you appear on that account to be none -the happier.”</p> - -<p>“Merriment,” replied Florian, “is a febrile passion. -But content is quiet.”</p> - -<p>“So, then, you are content, my little duke?”</p> - -<p>“The word ‘little,’ Monsieur Janicot, has in its -ordinary uses no uncivil connotations. Yet, when -applied to a person—”</p> - -<p>“I entreat your pardon, Monsieur the Duke, for -the ill-chosen adjective, and I hastily withdraw it.”</p> - -<p>“Which pardon, I need hardly say, I grant with -even more haste. I am content, then, Monsieur -Janicot. I have achieved my heart’s desire, and I -find it”—Florian coughed,—-“beyond anything I -ever imagined. But now, alas! the great love between -my wife and me draws toward its sweet -fruition, and one must be logical. So I compre<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span>hend—with -not unnatural regret,—that my adored -wife will presently be leaving me forever.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, to be sure! Then you have already, in this -brief period, passed from the pleasures of courtship -to the joys of matrimony—?”</p> - -<p>“Monsieur, I am a Puysange. We are ardent.”</p> - -<p>“—And she is already—?”</p> - -<p>“Monsieur, I can but repeat my remark.”</p> - -<p>“Eh,” replied Janicot, “you have certainly spared -no zeal, you have not slept, in upholding the repute -of your race: and this punctilious and loving adherence -to the fine old forthright customs of your -fathers affects me. There remains, to be sure, our -bargain. Yet I am honestly affected, and since -this parting grieves you so much, Florian, some -composition must be reached—”</p> - -<p>“It is undeniable,” said Florian, with a reflective -frown, “that my most near acquaintances address -me—”</p> - -<p>“I accept the reproof, I withdraw the vocative -noun, and again I entreat your pardon, Monsieur -the Duke.”</p> - -<p>“I did not so much voice a reproof, Monsieur -Janicot, as a sincere lament that I have never enjoyed -the privilege of your close friendship.” And -Florian too bowed. “I was about to observe, then, -that a gentleman adheres in all to all his bargains. -So I can in logic consider no alteration of our terms,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span> -though you comprehend, I trust, how bitter I find -their fulfilment.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Janicot responded, “it is precisely the -amount of your grief which I begin to comprehend. -Its severity has even brought on a bronchial -irritation which prevents your speaking freely: and -indeed, one might have foreseen this.”</p> - -<p>“—So I have come to inquire how I am to get -the sword Flamberge, which, as you may remember, -must figure in the ceremony of—your pardon, but -I really do appear to have contracted a quite obstinate -cough in the night air,—of giving you your -honorarium, by the old ritual.”</p> - -<p>Janicot for a moment reflected. “You have -sacrificed—”</p> - -<p>“Monsieur, pray let us be logical! I have offered -you no sacrifice. I have participated in no such -inadvisable custom of heathenry. I must remind -you that this is Christmas; and that I, naturally, -elect to follow our Christian custom of exchanging -appropriate gifts at this season of the year.”</p> - -<p>“I again apologize, I withdraw the verb. You -have made me a Christmas present, then, of the life -of a person of some note and mightiness, as your -race averages. So it is your right to demand my -aid. Yet there is one at your home, in an earthen -pot, who could have procured for you the information, -and very probably the sword too, without your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span> -stirring from your fireside and adored wife. It -appears to me odd that, with so few months of -happiness remaining, you should absent yourself -from the sources of your only joy.”</p> - -<p>Florian’s hand had risen in polite protest. “Ah, -but, Monsieur Janicot, but in mere self-respect, one -would not employ the power of which you speak, -unless there were some absolute need. Now, for -my part, I have always found it simple enough to -get what I wanted without needing to thank anyone -for help except myself. And Flamberge too is a -prize that I prefer to win unaided, at the trivial -price of a slight token of esteem at Christmas. I -prefer, you conceive,” said Florian, as smilingly he -reflected upon the incessant carefulness one had to -exercise in dealing with these fiends, “to settle the -affair without incurring humiliating and possibly -pyrotechnic obligations to anybody.”</p> - -<p>Janicot replied: “Doubtless, such independent -sentiments are admirable. And it shall be as you -like—”</p> - -<p>“Still, Monsieur Janicot,” said Florian, with just -the proper amount of heartbreak in his voice, “is -it not regrettable that this cruel price should be -exacted of me?”</p> - -<p>“Old customs must be honored, and mine are -oldish. Besides, as I recall it, you suggested the -bargain, not I.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes, because I know that gifts from you are -dangerous. Why, but let us be logical! Would -you have me purchase an ephemeral pleasure at the -price of my own ruin, when I could get it at the -cost of somewhat inconveniencing others?”</p> - -<p>“You say that my gifts are dangerous. Yet, -what do you really know about me, Florian? Again -I entreat your pardon, Monsieur the Duke, but, -after all, our acquaintance progresses.”</p> - -<p>“I know nothing about you personally, Monsieur -Janicot, beyond the handsomeness of your generosity. -I only know the danger of accepting a -free gift from any fiend; and you I take to be, -in cosmic politics, a leader of the party in opposition.”</p> - -<p>Janicot looked grave for a moment. He said:</p> - -<p>“No, I am not a fiend, Monsieur the Duke; nor, -for that matter, does your current theology afford -me any niche.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then,” asked Florian, with his customary -fine frankness, “if you are not the devil, what the -devil are you?”</p> - -<p>Janicot answered: “I am all that has been and -that is to be. Never has any man been able to -imagine what I am.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, monsieur, that sounds well, and, quite possibly, -it means something. Of that I know no -more than a frog does about toothache, but I do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> -know they call you the adversary of all the gods -of men—”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Janicot admitted, rather sadly, “I have -been hoping, now for a great while, that men would -find some god with whom a rational person might -make terms, but that seems never to happen.”</p> - -<p>“Monsieur, monsieur!” cried Florian, “pray let -us have no scepticism—!”</p> - -<p>“Scepticism also is a comfort denied to me. Men -have that refuge always open. But I have in my -time dealt at close grips with too many gods to -have any doubt about them. No, I believe, and I -shudder with distaste.”</p> - -<p>“Come, now, Monsieur Janicot, religion and -somewhere to go on Sundays are quite necessary -amenities—”</p> - -<p>Janicot was surprised. “Why, but, Monsieur the -Duke, can it be true that you, as a person of refinement, -approve of worshipping goats and crocodiles -and hawks and cats and hippopotami after the Egyptian -custom?”</p> - -<p>“Parbleu, not in the least! I, to the contrary—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you admire, then, the monkeys and tigers, -in whose honor the men of India build temples?”</p> - -<p>“Not at all. You misinterpret me—”</p> - -<p>“Ah, I perceive. You approve, instead, of those -gods of Greece and Rome, who went about earth -as bulls and cock cuckoos and as sprinklings of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> -doubloons and five franc pieces, when they were -particularly desirous of winning affection?”</p> - -<p>“Now, Monsieur Janicot, you very foolishly affect -to misunderstand me. One should be logical -in these grave matters. One should know, as the -whole world knows, that the Dukes of Puysange -care nothing for the silly fables of paganism, and -that for five centuries we of Puysange have been -notable and loyal Christians.”</p> - -<p>Janicot said: “For five whole centuries! Jahveh -also, being so young a god, must think that a -long while; and doubtless he feels honored by these -five centuries of patronage.”</p> - -<p>“Well, of course,” said Florian, modestly, “as -one of the oldest families hereabouts, we find that -our example is apt to be followed. But we ourselves -think little of our long lineage, we have grown -used to it, we think that logically it is only the man -himself who matters: and I confess, Monsieur -Janicot, that it seems almost droll to see you impressed -by our antiquity.”</p> - -<p>“I!” said Janicot. Then he said: “For all that, -I am impressed. Yes, men are really wonderful. -However, let that pass. So it is Jahveh of whom -you approve. You confess it. Why, then, I ask -you, as one logical person addressing another—”</p> - -<p>“A pest! logic is a fine thing, but let us not put -these matters altogether upon the ground of logic,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span> -said Florian, recoiling just perceptibly, as a large -tumble-bug climbed on the rock, and sat beside -Janicot.</p> - -<p>“—I ask you,” Janicot continued, “as one person -of good taste addressing another—”</p> - -<p>“It is not wholly an affair of connoisseurs. Let -us talk about something else.”</p> - -<p>“—For you have this Jahveh’s own history of his -exploits all written down at his own dictation. I -allow him candor, nor, for one so young, does he -write badly. For the rest, do these cruelties, these -double-dealings, these self-confessed divine blunders -and miscalculations, these subornings of murders -and thefts and adulteries, these punishments of the -innocent, not sparing even his own family—”</p> - -<p>Florian yawned delicately, but without removing -his eyes from the tumble-bug. “My dear Monsieur -Janicot, that sort of talk is really rather naïve: it is, -if you will pardon my frankness, quite out of date -now that we have reached the eighteenth century.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but—”</p> - -<p>“No, Monsieur Janicot, I can consent to hear no -more of these sophomoric blasphemies. I must tell -you I have learned that in these matters, as in all -matters, it is better taste to recognize some drastic -regeneration may be necessary without doing anything -about it, and certainly without aligning ourselves -with the foul anarchistic mockers of every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span>thing -in our social chaos which is making for -beauty and righteousness—”</p> - -<p>“Why, but, Monsieur the Duke,” said Janicot, -“but what—!”</p> - -<p>“I must tell you I perceive, in honest sorrow, that -with a desire for fescennine expression you combine -a vulgar atheism and an iconoclastic desire to -befoul the sacred ideas of the average man or -woman, collectively scorned as the bourgeoisie—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, doubtless, this is excellent talking. Still, -what—?”</p> - -<p>“I must tell you also that I very gravely suspect -you to be one of those half-baked intellectuals who -confuse cheap atheism, and the defiling of other -men’s altars, with deep thinking; one of those moral -and spiritual hooligans who resent all forms of order -as an encroachment upon their diminutive, unkempt -and unsavory egos; one of the kind of people -who relish nasty books about sacred persons and -guffaw over the amours of the angels.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I concede the sonority of your periods; -but what does all this talking mean?”</p> - -<p>“Why, monsieur,” said Florian, doubtfully, “I -do not imagine that it means anything. These are -merely the customary noises of well-thought-of persons -in reply to the raising of any topic which they -prefer not to pursue. It is but an especially dignified -manner of saying that I do not care to follow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> -the line of thought you suggest, because logic here -might lead to uncomfortable conclusions and to -deductions without honorable precedents.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, now I understand you,” said Janicot, smiling. -He looked down, and stroked the tumble-bug, -which under his touch shrank and vanished. “I -should have noticed the odor before; and as it is, -I confess that, in this frank adhesion to your folly -without pretending it is anything else, I recognize -a minim of wisdom. So let us say no more about -it. Let us return to the question of that sword -with which the loyal servant of him who also came -not to bring peace, but a sword, has need to sever -his family ties. Those persons just behind you -were very pretty swordsmen in their day: and I -imagine that they can give you all the necessary -information as to the sword Flamberge.”</p> - - - -<div class="figcenter illowp80" id="image009" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image009.jpg" alt="Serpent woman" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_16"><i>16.</i><br /> - -<i>Some Victims of Flamberge</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image097.jpg" alt="I" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">T was really no affair of Florian’s, -how these five vaguely-hued and -quaintly appareled persons happened -to be standing just behind him. -They had not been there a moment -ago: but Janicot seemed partial to -these small wonder-workings, and such foibles, -while in dubious taste, did not greatly matter.</p> - -<p>So Florian was off again with his silver-laced hat, -and Florian saluted these strangers with extreme -civility. And Florian inquired of the gray and -great-thewed champion if he knew of the whereabouts -of Flamberge; and this tall man answered:</p> - -<p>“No. It was a fine sword, and I wore it once -when I had mortal life and was very young. But -I surrendered this sword to a woman, in exchange -for that which I most desired. So I got no good -of Flamberge, nor did anyone else so far as I could -ever hear, for there is a curse upon this sword.”</p> - -<p>“A curse, indeed!” said Florian, somewhat aston<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span>ished. -“Why, but I have always been told, monsieur, -that the wearer of Flamberge is unconquerable.”</p> - -<p>“That I believe to be true. Thus the wearer of -Flamberge can get all his desires, and he usually -does so: and, having them, he understands that -the sword is accursed.”</p> - -<p>“And did you too get your desire in this world, -monsieur, and perceive the worth of it?”</p> - -<p>“My boy, there is a decency in these matters, and -an indecency. I got my desire. And having it, I -did not complain. Let that suffice.”</p> - -<p>With that, the speaker picked up his shield, upon -which was blazoned a rampant and bridled stallion, -and this tall gray squinting soldier was there no -longer.</p> - -<p>Then came a broad and surly man, in garments of -faded scarlet, and with gems dangling from his -ears, and he said: “From him, who was in his day -a Redeemer, the sword came to my mother, and -from her to me, and with it I slew my father, as -was foreordained. And the sword made me unconquerable, -and I went fearing nobody, and I ruled -over much land, and I was dreaded upon the wide -sea. And the sword won for me the body of that -woman whom I desired, and the sword won for -me long misery and sudden ruin.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span></p> - -<p>“A pest!” said Florian. “So you also, monsieur, -were the victim of your own triumph!”</p> - -<p>“Not wholly,” the other answered. “For I -learned to envy and to admire that which I could -not understand. That is something far better worth -learning than you, poor shallow-hearted little posturer, -are ever likely to suspect.”</p> - -<p>And now came a third champion, who said: -“From him, who was in his day a most abominable -pagan and a very gallant gentleman as well, the -sword came to me. And I cast it into the deep sea, -because I meant to gain my desire unaided by sorcery -and with clean hands. And I did get my -desire.”</p> - -<p>“And did you also live unhappily ever afterward?”</p> - -<p>“Our marriage was as happy as most marriages. -My love defied Time and Fate. Because of my -love I suffered unexampled chances and ignominies, -and I performed deeds that are still rhymed about; -and in the end, through my unswerving love, I -got me a wife who was as good as most wives. So -I made no complaint.”</p> - -<p>And Florian nodded. “I take your meaning. -There was once a king and a queen. They had three -sons. And the third prince succeeded in everything—Your -faces and your lives are strange to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span> -me. But it is plain all four of us have ventured -into the high place, that dreadful place wherein a -man attains to his desires.”</p> - -<p>Then said another person: “That comes of -meddling with Flamberge. Now my weapon was, -at least upon some occasions, called Caliburn. And -I ventured into a great many places, but I was careful -of my behavior in all of them.”</p> - -<p>“And did you never attain to your desire, monsieur?”</p> - -<p>“Never, my lad, although I had some narrow -shaves. Why, once there was only a violet coverlet -between me and destruction, but I was poet enough -to save myself.”</p> - -<p>“Parbleu, now that is rather odd! For I first -saw my wife—I mean, my present duchess,—asleep -beneath a violet coverlet.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” said the other, drily, “so that is where you -sought a woman to be, of all things, your wife! -Then you are braver than I: but you are certainly -not a monstrous clever fellow.”</p> - -<p>“Well, well!” said Florian, “so the refrain of -this obsolescent quartet is a jingle-jangle of shallow -and cheap pessimism: and the upshot of the matter -is that Flamberge is lost somewhere in the old -time, and that I know not how to come to it.”</p> - -<div class="echap"></div> -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="facing162-caption" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img src="images/facing162-caption.jpg" alt="Caption" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="facing162" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/facing162.jpg" alt="" /> - <div class="caption">Now FLORIAN came forward.<br /> -<i>See page <a href="#Page_234">234</a></i></div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p> - - -<p>“That is easy,” said the fifth person, the only one -who now remained. “You must adventure as they -once adventured, who were your forefathers, and -you must go with me, who am called Horvendile, -into Antan.”</p> - -<p>“Were those evaporating gentlemen my forefathers?” -asked Florian. “And how does one go -into Antan?”</p> - -<p>“They were,” answered Horvendile. “And one -goes in this way.” He explained the way, and the -need for traveling on it.</p> - -<p>And Florian looked rather dubious and took snuff. -He saw that Janicot had vanished from the asherah -stone, with that ostentatious simplicity the brown -creature seemed to affect. Then Florian shrugged, -and said he would go wherever Horvendile dared -go, since this appeared now the only chance of coming -by the sword Flamberge.</p> - -<p>“And as for those who were my forefathers, and -begot me, I would of course have said something -civil to express my appreciation of their exertions, -if I had known. But between ourselves, Monsieur -Horvendile, I would have preferred to meet some -of the more imposing progenitors of Puysange,—say, -heroic old Dom Manuel or the great Jurgen,—instead -of these commonplace people. It is depressing -to find any of one’s own ancestors just ordinary -persons, persons too who seem quite down -in the mouth, and with so little life in them—”</p> - -<p>“To be quite ordinary persons,” replied Horven<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span>dile, -“is a failing woefully common to all men and -to the daughters of all men, nor does that foible -shock anybody who is not a romantic. As for having -very little life in them, what more do you expect -of phantoms? The life that was once in these -persons to-day endures in you. For it is a truism—preached -to I do not, unluckily, know how many -generations,—that the life which informed your ancestor, -tall Manuel the Redeemer, did not perish -when Manuel passed beyond the sunset, but remained -here upon earth to animate the bodies of -his children and of their children after them.”</p> - -<p>“But by this time Manuel must have the progeny -of a sultan or of a town bull—”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Horvendile conceded, “in a great many -bodies, and in countless estates, that life has known -a largish number of fruitless emotions. At least, -they appear to me to have been rather fruitless. -And to-day that life wears you, Monsieur de Puysange, -as its temporary garment or, it may be, as -a mask: to-morrow you also will have been put by. -For that is always the ending of the comedy.”</p> - -<p>“Well, so that the comedy wherein I figure be -merry enough—”</p> - -<p>“It is not ever a merry comedy,” replied Horvendile, -“though, for one, I find it amusing. For I -forewarn you that the comedy does not vary. The -first act is the imagining of the place where con<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span>tentment -exists and may be come to; and the second -act reveals the striving toward, and the third act -the falling short of, that shining goal,—or else the -attaining of it to discover that happiness, after all, -abides a thought farther down the bogged, rocky, -clogged, befogged heart-breaking road.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but,” said Florian, “these reflections are -doubtless edifying, since they combine gloom with -verbosity and no exact meaning. Still, it is not -happiness I am looking for, but a sword to which -all this philosophizing brings us no step nearer. -No, it is not happiness I seek. For through that -sword, when I have got it, will come such misery -as I cannot bear to think of, since its sharp edge -must sever me irrevocably from that perfect beauty -which I have adored since boyhood. None the less, -I have given my word; and these old phantoms -have unanimously reassured me that it is better to -have love end at fulltide. So let us be logical, and -let us go forward, Monsieur Horvendile, as merrily -as may be possible.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="image065-1" style="max-width: 37.5em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image065.jpg" alt="Lizard emerging from pot" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_17"><i>17.</i><br /> - -<i>The Armory of Antan</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image123.jpg" alt="T" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">HE way to Antan was made difficult -by darkness and obstacles and illusions, -and the three that guarded the -cedar-shadowed way were called -Glam of the Haunting Eyes and -Ten-jo of the Long Nose and Maya -of the Fair Breasts. But these warders did not -greatly bother Horvendile, who passed them by the -appointed methods and through means which -Florian found remarkable if not actually indelicate. -In no other way than through these cedar-groves -and the local customs might you win to Freydis, -whom love brought out of Audela to suffer as a -mortal woman, and whom the druids and satirists -had brought, through Sesphra’s wicked aid, to -Antan. Thus had she come to reign in Antan, and -to attest, with many dreadful instances, her ardor -to do harm and work great mischief.</p> - -<p>Now this Antan was a queer place, all cloudiness -and grayness, but full of gleamings which reminded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span> -you of sparks that linger insecurely among ashes: -and there were no real noises, not even when you -talked. And when Horvendile had departed, you -asked this gray and dimly golden woman if the -sword Flamberge was to be come by anywhere in -madame’s most charming and tasteful residence? -She replied, a shadow speaking with the shadow of -a voice, that it was very probably somewhere in her -armory: and she led the way into a misty place -wherein were the famous swords whereby came -many deaths and a little fame.</p> - -<p>Very curious it was to see them coldly shining in -the mistiness, and to handle them. Here was long -Durandal, with which Sir Roland split a cleft in -the Pyrenees; and beside it hung no less redoubtable -Haulte-Claire, with which Sir Oliver had held -his own against Durandal and Durandal’s fierce -master, in that great battling which differed from -other military encounters by resulting in something -memorable and permanent, in the form of a proverb. -Here was Lancelot’s sword Aroundight, here was -Ogier’s Courtain, and Siegfried’s Balmung. One -saw in this dim place the Cid’s Colada, Sir Bevis’s -Morglay, the Crocea Mors of Cæsar, and the -Joyeuse of Charlemagne. Nor need one look in -vain for Curtana and Quernbiter, those once notable -guardians of England and Norway, nor for Mistelstein, -nor Tizona, nor Greysteel, nor Angurvadel,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span> -nor any other charmed sword of antiquity. All -were here: and beside Joyeuse was hung Flamberge; -for Galas made both of them.</p> - -<p>Well, you estimated, Flamberge was by no means -the handsomest of the lot: but it would serve your -turn, you did not desire to seem grasping. And -since madame appeared somewhat oversupplied with -cutlery—</p> - -<p>Indeed that was the truth, as Freydis could not -deny, in the thin tones which people’s voices had in -Antan, since not only these patrician murderers harbored -here. Here too were death’s plebeian tools -in every form. Here were Italian stilettoes heaped -with Malay krisses, the hooked Turkish scimitar -with the Venetian schiavona; curved Arab yataghans, -sabres that Yoshimitzu had tempered, the -Albanian cutlass, and the notched blades of Zanzibar; -the two-handed claymores of Scotland, the -espada of the Spanish matador, the scalping-knives -of the Red Indians and the ponderous glaives of -executioners: swords from all cities and all kingdoms -of the world, from Ferrara and Toledo and -Damascus, from Dacia and Peru and Muscovy and -Babylon.</p> - -<p>To which you replied that, while you had never -greatly cared for the cataloguing method in literature, -you allowed its merits in conversation. These -crisp little résumés indicated a really firm grasp of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> -the subject. For the rest, it was most interesting to -note what ingenuity people had displayed in contriving -how to kill one another.</p> - -<p>Freydis assented as to men’s whole-heartedness -in malignity, but was disposed to view without -optimism the support it got from human ingenuity. -She considered these swords in any event to be outmoded -lumber, as concerned the needs of anybody -who really desired to do harm and work any actually -great mischief.</p> - -<p>Still, you, whose speaking seemed even to you a -whisper in the grayness, declined to be grasping: -and Flamberge would serve your turn. Therefore -it was vexatious that, instead of gracefully presenting -you with the sword, the Queen of Antan went -through a gray vague corridor, wherein upon a -table lay a handful of rusty iron nails and a spear, -and then into another twilit place.</p> - -<p>Here, as you hastily observed, were madame’s -pistols, cannons, culverins, grenades, musketoons, -harquebusses, bombs, petronels, siege-guns, falconets, -carbines, and jingals, and swivels. Yes, it -was most interesting.</p> - -<p>Freydis looked at you somewhat queerly: and it -was, again, as outmoded lumber that she appraised -this arsenal. Then Freydis almost proudly showed -the weapons she had in store for men’s needs when -men should go to war to-morrow, and such as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span>sistants -would further every patriot’s desire to do -harm and work great mischief. And you felt rather -uncomfortable to see the sleek efficiency of these -gleaming things in this ambiguous place.</p> - -<p>Yes, they were very interesting, and beside them, -Flamberge certainly seemed inadequate. Still, you -admitted, you had never been grasping: and Flamberge -would serve your turn.</p> - -<p>It was really maddening how the woman kept -turning to irrelevant matters. These engines of -destruction, although ingenious and devastating toys -within their limits, should not be regarded overseriously. -A million or so of persons, or at most a -few nations, could be removed with these things, -but that was all. So speaking, she passed into a -room wherein were books,—but not many books,—and -four figures modelled in clay, as she told you, -by old Dom Manuel very long ago. It was more -important, her thin talking went on, that as occasion -served she was sending into the world these figures, -to follow their six predecessors, to all whom she -had given a life empoisoned with dreams, with -dreams that were immortal and contagious; and so -would infect others and yet others eternally, and -would make living as unhappy and detestable a business -as dying. What were these dreams? she was -asked: and she in turn asked, Why should I tell -you? Your dream is different, nor may you escape<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span> -it. This must suffice: that these dreams are the -most subtle and destructive of poisons, and do harm -and work great mischief, in that they enable men -to see that life and all which life can afford is inadequate -to men’s desires.</p> - -<p>This seemed rather morbid talk. To evade it -tactfully, the four changelings as yet unborn were -examined, with civil comments: and indeed there -was about one little hook-nosed figure a something -which quite took the fancy. He reminds me of a -parrot, was your smilingly tendered verdict: and -Freydis, with her habitual tired shrugging, replied -that others, later, would detect, without much reticence, -a resemblance to that piratical and repetitious -bird.</p> - -<p>Now then, all this was very interesting, most interesting, -and you really regretted having to return -to the topic of the sword Flamberge—Freydis had -not made up her mind: she might or might not give -the sword, and her deciding must pivot upon what -harm you meant to do with it. Her visitor from -the more cheery world of daylight was thus forced -to make a clean breast of why he needed Flamberge, -the only sword that may spill the blood of the Léshy, -so that he might give, by the old ritual, his unborn -child, and rid himself of his wife.</p> - -<p>Whereon Queen Freydis expressed frank indignation, -because the child would by this plan be res<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span>cued -from all, and the woman from much, sorrow. -Could even a small madman in bottle-green and silver -suppose that the Queen of Antan, after centuries -of thriving malevolence, was thus to be beguiled -into flagrant philanthropy?</p> - -<p>But it was not, in the long run, philanthropy, you -insisted. It was depressing to have to argue about -anything in this gray, vague, gleaming, endless -place, wherein you seemed only to whisper: and you -were, privately, a little taken aback by the unaccustomed -need to prove an action, not amply precedented -and for the general good, but the precise -contrary. Aloud,—though not actually aloud, but -in the dim speech one uses in Antan,—you contended -that when a man thus rid himself of his wife he -did harm and worked great mischief, because the -spectacle made all beholders unhappy. Women of -course had obvious reasons for uneasiness lest the -example be followed generally: and men were -roused to veritable frenzies of pious reprovings -when they saw the thing they had so often thought -of doing accomplished by somebody else.</p> - -<p>Did married men, then, at heart always desire to -murder their wives? was what Freydis wondered. -No, you did not say that: not always; some wives -let weeks go by without provoking that desire. And -to appearances, most men became in the end more -or less reconciled to having their wives about. Still,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span> -let us not go wholly by appearances. Let us be -logical! Whom does any man most dislike?</p> - -<p>Freydis had settled down, with faint golden -shimmerings, upon a couch that was covered with -gray cushions, and she meditated. What person -does any man most dislike? Why, Freydis estimated, -the person who most frequently annoys him, -the person with whom he finds himself embroiled -in the most bitter quarrels, the person whose imperfections -are to him most glaringly apparent, and, -in fine, the person who most often and most poignantly -makes him uncomfortable.</p> - -<p>Just so, you assented: and in the life of any possible -married man, who was that person? The -question was rhetorical. You did not have to answer -it, any more than did most husbands. None -the less, you esteemed it a question which no married -man had failed to consider, if gingerly and as -if from afar, with the mere tail of his mental eye, -in unacknowledged reveries. It was perhaps the -memory of these cloistered considerations which -made married men acutely uncomfortable when any -other man disposed of his wife without all this half-hearted -paltering with the just half-pleasant notion -that some day she would go so far as to make justifiable—A -gesture showed what, as plainly as one -could show anything in this vague endlessness of -grays and gleamings. No, madame might depend<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span> -upon it, to assist any gentleman in permanently disposing -of his wife was not, in the long run, philanthropy. -It really did make the majority of other -husbands uncomfortable, whether through envy or -though a conscience-stricken recalling of unacknowledged -reveries, you did not pretend to say.</p> - -<p>All that might be true enough, Freydis admitted, -from her dim nook among the gray cushions, without -alluring her into the charitable act of preventing -a child’s enduring the sorrows and fatigues of -living.</p> - -<p>Ah, but here again, madame must not reason so -carelessly, nor be misled by specious first appearances. -Let us, instead, be logical! The child, -knowing nothing, would not know what it was escaping: -and it would not be grateful, it would derive -no æsthetic pleasure from the impressive ceremony -of giving by the old ritual, it would even resent -the moment’s physical pain. But the beholders -of the deed, and all that heard of it, would be -acutely uncomfortable, since the father that secured -for his child immunity from trouble and annoyance, -did harm and worked great mischief by setting an -example which aroused people to those frenzies -evocable by no other prodigy than a display of -common-sense.</p> - -<p>For people would turn from this proof of paternal -affection, to the world from which the child was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span> -being removed: and people would be unhappy, because, -with all their natural human propensity for -fault-finding tugging them toward denunciation, nobody -would be able to deny the common-sense of -rescuing a child from discomforts and calamities. -What professional perjurer anywhere, madame, -whether in prison or politics or the pulpit, could -muster the effrontery to declare life other than a -long series of discomforts diversified only by disasters? -What dignity was possible in an arena we -entered in the manner of urine and left in the -shape of ordure? What father endowed with any -real religious faith could, after the most cursory -glancing over of the sufferings he had got gratis in -this life and had laboriously earned in the next,—could -then appraise without conscience-stricken remorse -the dilemma in which he had placed his offspring?</p> - -<p>Well, to see thus revealed the one sure way of -rescuing the child from this disastrous position, and -to know himself too much a poltroon to follow the -example of which his judgment and all his better -instincts approved, was a situation that, madame, -must make every considerate parent actually and -deeply miserable, through self-contempt. In one -manner alone might every man be made really miserable,—by -preventing him from admiring himself -any longer.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span></p> - -<p>For people would look, too, toward the nearest -police officer and toward the cowardice in their own -hearts: and these commingled considerations would -prevent many fathers from doing their plain duty. -They would send many and it might be the hapless -majority of fathers to bed that night with clean -hands, with the pallid hands of self-convicted dastards: -and self-contempt would make these fathers -always unhappy. No, here again, madame might -depend upon it that to assist a gentleman in this -giving, by the old ritual, of his offspring was not, -in the long run, and whatever the deed might seem -to a first glance, philanthropy. It did some good: -one could not deny that: but, after all, the child -was absolutely the only person who profited, and -through the benefits conferred upon the child was -furthered the greatest ill and discomfort for the -greatest number, who, here as in every other case, -replied to any display of common-sense with frenzies -that did harm and everywhither splutteringly -worked mischief.</p> - -<p>And you spoke with such earnestness, and so -much logic, that in the end the vaguely golden -Queen of Antan smiled through the gray mist, and -said that you reminded her of her own children. -You were enamored of words, you delighted in any -nonsense which was sonorous. You were like all -her children, she told you, the children whom,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span> -in spite of herself, she pitied. Here Freydis sighed.</p> - -<p>Pity has kindred, you stated. Freydis leaned -back among the gray cushions of her couch, so as -to listen in perfect ease, and bade you explain that -saying.</p> - -<p>And as you sat down beside her, Puysange arose -to the occasion. Here was familiar ground at last, -the ground on which Puysange thrust forward with -most firmness. And you reflected that it would be -inappropriate to lament, just now, that not even in -Antan did a rigidity of logic seem to get for anyone -the victory which you foresaw to be secured by -your other gifts....</p> - -<p>When Florian left Antan, the needed sword -swung at his thigh.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp80" id="image177" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image177.jpg" alt="Chicken-man and mountains" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span></p> - -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_18"><i>18.</i><br /> - -<i>Problems of Holiness</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image064.jpg" alt="T" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">HUS it was not until Handsel Monday -that Florian took the serious -step which led from the realm in -which Queen Freydis ruled, to the -world of every day: and Florian -found there, standing on the asherah -stone upon which Janicot had received homage, no -other person than Holy Hoprig.</p> - -<p>“So I catch you creeping out of Antan,” observed -the saint, and his halo glittered rather -sternly. “I shall not pry into your actions there, -because Antan is not a part of this world, and it is -only your doings in this world which more or less -involve my heavenly credit. Upon account of that -annoying tie I now admonish you. For now we enter -a new year, and this is the appropriate season -for making good resolutions. It would be wise for -you to make a great many of them, my son, for I -warn you that I am a resolute spiritual father, and -do not intend to put up with any wickedness now -that you return to the world of men.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span></p> - -<p>This was to Florian a depressing moment. He -had been to a deal of trouble to get the sword -Flamberge, upon whose powers depended his whole -future. And the instant he had it, here in his path -was a far stronger power, with notions which bid -fair to play the very devil with Florian’s plans. -Now one could only try what might be done with -logic and politeness.</p> - -<p>“Your interest in my career, Monsieur Hoprig, -affects me more deeply than I can well express; and -I shall treasure your words. Still, Monsieur -Hoprig, in view of your own past, and in view -of all your abominable misdeeds as a priest of -heathenry, one might anticipate a little broad-mindedness—”</p> - -<p>“My past is quite good enough for any saint in -eternity, and so, my son, ought not to be sneered -at by any whippersnapper of a sorcerer—”</p> - -<p>“Putting aside your delusion as to my necromantic -accomplishments, I had always supposed, monsieur, -that the living of a saint would be distinguished -by meritorious actions, by actions worthy -of our emulation. And so—!”</p> - -<p>Hoprig sat down, sitting where Janicot had sat, -and Hoprig made himself comfortable. “That is -as it may be. People get canonized in various ways, -and people, if you have ever noticed it, are human—”</p> - -<p>“Still, for all that, monsieur—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span></p> - -<p>“—With human frailties. Now my confrères, I -find since the extension of my acquaintance in -heavenly circles, are no exception to this rule. St. -Afra, the patroness of Augsburg, was for many -years a courtesan in that city, conducting a brothel -in which three other saints, the blessed Digna, -Eunomia and Eutropia, exerted themselves with -equal vigor and viciousness. St. Aglae and St. -Boniface for a long while maintained an illicit -carnal connection. St. Andrea of Corsini conducted -himself in every respect abominably until his mother -dreamed that she had given birth to a wolf, and so, -of course, converted him. As for St. Augustine, I -can but blush, my dear son, and refer you to his -Confessions—”</p> - -<p>“Still, monsieur, I think—”</p> - -<p>“You are quite wrong. St. Benedict led for fifteen -years a sinful life, precisely as St. Bavon was a -profligate for fifty. St. Bernard Ptolemei was a -highly successful lawyer, than which I need say no -more—”</p> - -<p>“Yet, monsieur, if I be not mistaken—”</p> - -<p>“You are mistaken,” replied Hoprig. “The -Saints Constantine and Charlemagne committed -every sort of atrocity and abomination, excepting -only that of parsimony to the Church. St. Christopher -made a pact with Satan, and St. Cyprian of -Antioch was, like you, my poor child, a most in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span>iquitous -sorcerer until he was converted through his -lust for the very holy Justina—”</p> - -<p>“Let us go no further in the alphabet, for there -are twenty-six letters, of which, I perceive, you have -reached only the third. I was merely about to observe,” -said Florian, at a venture, “that you, after -living dishonestly—”</p> - -<p>“Now, if you come to that, St. George of Cappadocia -was an embezzler, St. Guthlac of Croydon -was by profession a cut-throat and a thief—”</p> - -<p>“—After,” continued Florian, where guessing -seemed to thrive, “I know not how many escapades -with women—”</p> - -<p>“Whom I at worst accompanied in just the physical -experiments through which were graduated into -eternal grace St. Margaret of Cortona, St. Mary -the Egyptian, St. Mary the Penitent, St. Mary Magdalene, -and I cannot estimate how many other ladies -now canonized.”</p> - -<p>“—And, worst of all, after your persecuting and -murdering of real Christians—”</p> - -<p>“St. Paul stoned Stephen the Protomartyr, St. -Vitalis of Ravenna and St. Torpet of Pisa both -served under Nero, that arch-persecutor of the -faithful, and St. Longinus conducted the Crucifixion. -No, Florian: no, I admit that at first I -was a trifle uncertain. For I did remember some -incidents that were capable of misconstruction and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> -exaggeration, and people talk too much upon this -side of the grave for burial quite to cure them of -the habit. But since moving more widely among -the elect, it has been extremely gratifying to find -my past as blameless as that of most other holy -persons.”</p> - -<p>“—You, after all these enormities, I say, have -been canonized by the lost tail of an R, and through -mistake have been fitted out with a legend in which -there is no word of truth—”</p> - -<p>“The histories of many of my more immaculate -confrères have that same little defect. St. Hippolytus, -who never heard of Christianity, since he -lived, if at all, several hundred years before the -Christian era, was canonized by a mistake. St. -Filomena’s legend rests upon nothing save the -dreams of a priest and an artist, who were thus -favored with unluckily quite incompatible revelations. -The name of St. Viar was presented for -beatification because of a time-disfigured tombstone, -like mine, a stone upon which remained only part -of the Latin word <i>viarum</i>: and two syllables of a -road-inspector’s vocation were thus esteemed worthy -of being canonized. The record of St. Undecimilla -was misread as relating to eleven thousand virgins, -and so swelled the Calendar with that many saints -who were later discovered never to have existed. -No, Florian, mistakes seem to occur everywhere, in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span> -awarding the prizes of celestial as well as earthly -life: but not even those of the elect who have without -any provocation been thrust into the highest -places of heaven ought to complain, for one never -really gains anything by being hypercritical.”</p> - -<p>“Why, then, monsieur, I say that all these legends—”</p> - -<p>“You are quite wrong. They are excellent legends. -I know that, for one, I have been moved -to tears and to the most exalted emotions of every -kind through considering my own history. What -boy had ever a more edifying start in life than that -ten years of meditation in a barrel? It was not a -beer barrel either, I am sure, for stale beer has a -vile odor. No, Florian, you may depend upon it, -that barrel had been made aromatic by a generous -and full-bodied wine, by a rather sweetish wine, I -think—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but, monsieur—”</p> - -<p>Still Hoprig’s rolling voice went on, unhurriedly -and very nobly, and with something of the stateliness -of an organ’s music: and in the saint’s face -you saw unlimited benevolence, and magnanimity, -and such deep and awe-begetting wisdom as seemed -more than human.</p> - -<p>And Hoprig said: “Wonder awakens in me -when I consider my travels, and stout admiration -when I regard the magnificence of my deeds. Why,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span> -but, my son, I defied two emperors to their pagan -faces, I sailed in a stone trough beyond the sunset, -I killed five dragons, I forget how many barbarous -tribes I converted, and I intrepidly went down into -Pohjola and into the fearful land of Xibalba, among -big tigers and blood-sucking bats, to the rescue of -my poor friend Hork! Now I consider these things -with a pride which is not selfish, but with pride in -the race and in the religion which produces such -heroism: and I consider these things with tears also, -when I think of my steadfastness under heathen -persecution. Do you but recall, my dear child, what -torments I endured! I was bound to a wheel set -with knives, I was given poison to drink, I was -made to run in red-hot iron shoes, I was cast into -quicklime—But I abridge the list of my sufferings, -for it is too harrowing. I merely point out -that the legend is excellent.”</p> - -<p>“But, monsieur, this legend is not true.”</p> - -<p>“The truth, my son,” replied the saint, “is that -which a person, for one reason or another, believes. -Now if I had really been put to the horrible inconvenience -of doing all these splendid things, and -they had been quite accurately reported, my legend -would to-day be precisely what it is: it would be no -more or less than the fine legend which piety has -begotten upon imagination. You will grant that, I -hope?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span></p> - -<p>“Nobody denies that. It is only—”</p> - -<p>“Then how can it to-day matter a pennyworth -whether or not I did these things?” asked the saint, -reasonably.</p> - -<p>“Well, truly now, Monsieur Hoprig, the way you -put it—”</p> - -<p>“I put it, my son, in the one rational way. We -must zealously preserve those invigorating stories -of the heroic and virtuous persons who lived here -before our time so gloriously, because people have -need of these excellent examples. It would be a -terrible misfortune if these stories were not known -everywhere, and were not always at hand to hearten -everybody in hours of despondency by showing what -virtuous men can rise to at need. These examples -comfort the discouraged with a sentiment of their -importance as moral beings and of the greatness of -their destinies. So, since the actual living of men -has at no time, unluckily, afforded quite the necessary -examples, the philanthropic historian selects, -he prunes, he colors, he endeavors, like any other -artist, to make something admirable out of his raw -material. The miracles which the painter performs -with evil-smelling greases, the sculptor with mud, -and the musician with the intestines of a cat, the -historian emulates through the even more unpromising -medium of human action. And that is as it -should be: for life is a continuous battle between<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span> -the forces of good and evil, and news from the front -ought to be delivered in the form best suited to -maintain our morale. Yes, it is quite as it should -be, for fine beliefs do everybody good.”</p> - -<p>“Parbleu, monsieur, I cannot presume to argue -with you; but this sort of logic is unsettling. It -is also unsettling to reflect that all the magnificent -gifts I have been offering to your church were sheer -waste, since you have not been at your post attending -to the forgiveness of my irregularities. You -conceive, monsieur, I had kept very exact accounts, -with an equitable and even generous assessment for -every form of offence; and to find that all this -painstaking has gone for nothing has upset my conscience.”</p> - -<p>“That is probable. Still, I suspect that famous -conscience of yours is as much good to you upset as -in any other position.”</p> - -<p>“Well, but, monsieur, now that my other troubles -seem in every likelihood to approach a settlement,” -said Florian, caressing the pommel of Flamberge, -“what would you have me do about rectifying my -unfortunate religious status?”</p> - -<p>The saint looked now at Florian for a long while. -In the great shining pale blue eyes of Hoprig was -much of knowledge and of pity. “You must repent, -my son. What are good works without repentance?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span></p> - -<p>“A pest! if that is all which is needful, I shall put -my mind to it at once,” said Florian, brightening. -“And doubtless, I shall find something to repent of.”</p> - -<p>“I think that more than probable. What is certain -is that I have no more time to be wasting on -you. I have given you my fair warning, in the -most delicate possible terms, without even once alluding -to my enjoyment of thaumaturgic powers -and my especial proficiency in blasting, cursing and -smiting people with terrible afflictions. I prefer, -my dear child, to keep matters on a pleasant footing -as long,” the saint said meaningly, “as may -prove possible. So I have not in any way alluded -to these little personal gifts. I have merely warned -you quite affably that, for the sake of my celestial -credit, I intend to put up with no wickedness from -you; and I have duly called you to repentance. -With these duties rid of, I can be off to Morven. -After having seen, during the last five months, as -much of this modern world as particularly appeals -to a saint in the prime of life, I am establishing a -hermitage upon Morven.”</p> - -<p>“And for what purpose, may one ask?” Florian -was reflecting that Morven stood uncomfortably -near to Bellegarde.</p> - -<p>The saint regarded Florian with some astonishment. -“One may ask, to be sure, my son: but why -should one answer?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span></p> - -<p>“Well, but, monsieur, Morven is a place of horrible -fame, a place which is reputed still to be given -over to sorcery—”</p> - -<p>“I would feel some unavoidable compassion for -any sorcerer that I caught near my hermitage: but, -none the less, I would do my duty as a Christian -saint with especial proficiency—”</p> - -<p>“—And, monsieur, you would be terribly lonely -upon Morven.”</p> - -<p>It appeared to Florian that the saint’s smile was -distinctly peculiar. “One need never be lonely,” -St. Hoprig stated, “when one is able to work -miracles.”</p> - -<p>With that he slightly smacked his lips and vanished.</p> - -<p>And Florian remained alone with many and firm -grounds for depression, and with forebodings which -caused him to look somewhat forlornly at the sword -Flamberge. For there seemed troubles ahead with -which Flamberge could hardly cope.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="image065_2" style="max-width: 37.5em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image065.jpg" alt="lizard emerging from pot" /> -</div> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_19"><i>19.</i><br /> - -<i>Locked Gates</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image036.jpg" alt="F" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">LORIAN did not at once set forth -for Bellegarde, to make the utmost -of the four months of happiness -he might yet hope to share with -Melior. Instead, he despatched a -very loving letter to his wife, lamenting -that business matters would prevent his returning -before February.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile he had gone to the Hôtel de Puysange. -Along with Clermont, Simiane, the two Belle-Isles, -and all the rest of Orléans’ fraternity of roués, -Florian found himself evicted from Versailles. His -rooms there had already been assigned to the de -Pries, by the new minister, Monsieur de Bourbon, -whom Florian esteemed to have acted with unbecoming -promptness and ingratitude.</p> - -<p>Florian, in any event, went to the Hôtel de Puysange, -where he lived rather retiredly for a month. -He did not utterly neglect his social duties between -supper-and breakfast-time. But during the day he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span> -excused himself from participation in any debauchery, -and save for three trivial affairs of honor,—in -which Florian took part only as a second, and killed -only one of his opponents, an uninteresting looking -young Angevin gentleman, whose name he did not -catch,—with these exceptions, Florian throughout -that month lived diurnally like an anchorite.</p> - -<p>Nobody could speak certainly of what went on -in the day-time within the now inhospitable gates -of the Hôtel de Puysange, but the rumors as to -Florian’s doings were on that account none the less -numerous.</p> - -<p>It was public, in any event, that he had retained -Albert Aluys, the most accomplished sorcerer then -practising in the city. What these two were actually -about at this time, behind the locked gates of -the Hôtel de Puysange, remains uncertain, for -Florian never discussed the matter. Aluys, when -questioned,—though the value of his evidence is -somewhat tempered by his known proficiency and -ardor at lying,—reported that Monsieur the Duke -made use of his services only to evoke the most -famous and beautiful women of bygone times. -That was reasonable enough: but, what the deuce! -once these marvelous creatures were materialized -and ready for all appropriate employment, monseigneur -asked nothing of the loveliest queens and empresses -except to talk with him. It was not as if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span> -he got any pleasure from it, either: for after ten -minutes of the prettiest woman’s talking about how -historians had misunderstood her with a fatuity -equalled only by that of her husband and his relatives, -and about what had been the true facts in -her earthly life,—after ten minutes of these friendly -confidences, monseigneur would shake his head, and -would sometimes groan outright, before he requested -that the lady be returned to her last home.</p> - -<p>Monseigneur, in point of fact, seemed put out -by the circumstance that these ladies manifested so -little intelligence. As if, a shrugging Aluys demanded -of Heaven’s common-sense, it were not for -the benefit of humanity at large that all beautiful -women were created a trifle stupid. The ladies -whom one most naturally desired to seduce were -thus made the most apt to listen to the seducer: -for the good God planned the greatest good for the -greatest number.</p> - -<p>When February had come, and Florian might -hope to share with Melior only three more months -of happiness, Florian sent a letter to his wife to -bewail the necessity of his remaining away from -home until March. The rumors as to his doings -were now less colorful but equally incredible. Yet -nothing certainly was known of his pursuits, beyond -the fact that Aluys reported they were evoking the -dead persons who had been most famed for holiness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span> -and other admirable virtues. And with these also -Monsieur de Puysange seemed unaccountably disappointed.</p> - -<p>For he seemed, Aluys lamented, really not to -have comprehended that when men perform high -actions or voice impressive sentiments, this is by -ordinary the affair of a few moments in a life of -which the remainder is much like the living of all -other persons. Monsieur de Puysange appeared to -have believed that famous captains won seven battles -every week, that authentic poets conversed in -hexameters, and that profound sages did not think -far less frequently about philosophy than their family -affairs. As if too, Aluys cried out, it were not -very pleasant to know the littlenesses of the great -and the frailties of the most admirable! Æschylus -had confessed to habitual drunkenness, the prophet -Moses stuttered, and Charlemagne told how terribly -he had suffered with bunions. Monsieur de Puysange -ought to be elated by securing these valuable -bits of historical information, but, to the contrary, -they seemed to depress him. He regretted, one -judged, that his colloquies with the renowned dead -revealed that human history had been shaped and -guided by human beings. A romantic! was Aluys’ -verdict: and you cannot cure that. The gentleman -will have an unhappy life.</p> - -<p>“His wives die quickly,” was hazarded.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span></p> - -<p>“They would,” Aluys returned: “and it makes -for the benefit of all parties.”</p> - -<p>Upon the first day of March, when Florian could -hope at most to share only two more months of -happiness with Melior, Florian sent a letter to his -wife announcing the postponement until April of -his homecoming. And throughout this month too -he lived in equal mystery, except that toward the -end of March he entertained a party of young persons -at a supper followed by the debauch just then -most fashionable, a fête d’Adam.</p> - -<p>“Let us not be epigrammatic,” Florian had said, -at outset. “Love differs from marriage; and men -are different from women; and a restatement of -either of these facts is cleverness. It is understood -that we are all capable of such revamping. So let -us, upon this my birthnight, talk logically.”</p> - -<p>They discussed, in consequence, the new world -and the new era that was upon them. For Europe -was just then tidying up the ruin into which the -insane ambition of one man, discredited Louis -Quatorze, had plunged civilization. All the conventions -of society had given way under the strain -of war, so that the younger generation was left -without any illusions. Those older people, who had -so boggled matters, had been thrust aside in favor -of more youthful and more vigorous exponents of -quite new fallacies, and everyone knew that he was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> -privileged to live at a period in the world’s history -hitherto unparalleled. So they had a great deal to -talk over at supper, with the errors of human society -at last triumphantly exposed, and with the -younger generation at last permitted utter freedom -in self expression, and with recipes for all the needful -social regeneration obtainable everywhere.</p> - -<p>“We live,” it was confidently stated, “in a new -world, which can never again become the world we -used to know.”</p> - -<p>Thus it was not until the coming of spring that -Florian rode away from the Hôtel de Puysange, -wherein he had just passed the first actually unhappy -period of Florian’s life. For this man had -long and fervently cherished his exalted ideals: and -since his boyhood the beauty of Melior and the -holiness of Hoprig had been at once the criteria -and the assurance of human perfectibility. To -think of these two had preserved him in faith and -in wholesome optimism: for here was perfect beauty -and perfect holiness attained once by mankind, and -in consequence not unattainable. To dream of these -two had kept Florian prodigally supplied with lofty -thoughts of human excellence. And these two had -thus enriched the living of Florian with unfailing -streams of soothing and ennobling poesy, of exactly -the kind which, in Hoprig’s fine phrase, was best -suited to impress him with a sentiment of his im<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span>portance -as a moral being and of the greatness of -man’s destiny.</p> - -<p>Now all was changed. Now in the saint he -found, somehow, a sort of ambiguity; not anything -toward which one could plump a corporeal fore-finger, -but, rather, a nuance of some indescribable -inadequacy. Florian could not but, very respectfully -and with profound unwillingness, suspect that -any daily living, hour in and hour out, with Holy -Hoprig—in that so awkwardly situated hermitage -upon Morven,—would bear as fruitage discoveries -woefully parallel to the results of such intimacy -with Melior.</p> - -<p>And of Melior her husband thought with even -more unwillingness. At Bellegarde he had found -her, to the very last, endurable. But now that -Florian was again at court, the exigencies of his -social obligations had drawn him into many boudoirs. -One could not be uncivil, nobody would -willingly foster a reputation for being an eccentric -with a mania for spending every night in the same -bed. In fact, a husband who had lost four wives -in a gossip-loving world had obvious need to avoid -the imputation of being a misogynist. So Florian -followed the best-thought-of customs; and in divers -bedrooms had, unavoidably and logically, drawn -comparisons.</p> - -<p>For at this time Florian was brought into quite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span> -intimate contact with many delightful and very various -ladies: with Madame de Polignac, just then -in the highest fashion on account of her victory in -the pistol duel she had fought with Madame de -Nesle; with La Fillon, most brilliant of blondes,—though, -to be sure, she was no longer in her first -youth,—who was not less than six feet in height; -with Madame du Maine (in her Cardinal’s absence), -who was the tiniest and most fairy-like -creature imaginable; with La Tencin, the former -nun, and with Emilie and La Souris, those most -charming actresses; with Madame de Modena and -the Abbess de Chelles, both of whom were poor -Philippe’s daughters; with dashing Madame de Prie, -who now ruled everything through her official lover, -Monsieur de Bourbon, and who in the apartments -from which Florian had been evicted accorded him -such hospitality as soon removed all hard feeling; -and with some seven or eight other ladies of the -very finest breeding and wit. These ladies now -were Florian’s companions night after night: it was -as companions that he compared them with Melior: -and his deductions were unavoidable.</p> - -<p>He found in no tête-à-tête, and through no personal -investigation, any beauty at all comparable to -the beauty of Melior. This much seemed certain: -she was the most lovely animal in existence. But -one must be logical. She was also an insufferable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span> -idiot: she was, to actually considerate eyes, a garrulous -blasphemer who profaned the shrine of -beauty by living in it: and Florian was tired of -her, with an all-possessing weariness that troubled -him with the incessancy of a physical aching.</p> - -<p>Time and again, in the soft arms of countesses -and abbesses of the very highest fashion, even there -would Florian groan to think how many months -must elapse before he could with any pretence of -decency get rid of that dreadful woman at Bellegarde. -For the methods formerly available would -not serve here: his pact with brown Janicot afforded -to a man of honor no choice except to wait -for the birth of the child that was to be Janicot’s -honorarium, of the dear child, already beloved with -more than the ordinary paternal fondness, whose -coming was to ransom its father from so much -discomfort. No, it was tempting, of course, to have -here, actually in hand, the requisite and unique -means for killing any of the Léshy. But to return -to Bellegarde now, and to replace that maddening -idiotic chatter by the fine taciturnity of death, would -be a reprehensible action in that it would impugn -the good faith of a Puysange. For to do this -would be to swindle Janicot, and to evade an explicit -bargain. One had no choice except to wait -for the child’s birth.</p> - -<p>So Florian stood resolutely, if rather miserably,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span> -upon his point of honor. He must—since a Puysange -could not break faith, not even with a fiend,—carry -out his bargain with Janicot, so far as went -the reach of Florian’s ability. He could foresee a -chance of opposition. Melior might perhaps have -other views as to the proper disposal of the child: -and Melior certainly had the charmed ring which -might, if she behaved foolishly with it, overspice -the affair with a tincture of Hoprig’s officiousness. -And this at worst might result in some devastating -miracle that would destroy Florian; and at best -could not but harrow his conscience with the spectacle -of a Duke of Puysange embroiled in unprecedented -conflict with his patron saint.</p> - -<p>His conscience, to be sure, was already in a sad -way. Ever since the awakening of Hoprig, Florian -had stayed quite profoundly conscience-stricken by -the discovery that all the irregularities of his past -remained unforgiven. That was from every aspect -a depressing discovery. It had not merely a personal -application: it revealed that in this world the -most painstaking piety might sometimes count for -nothing. It was a discovery which troubled your -conscience, which darkened your outlook deplorably, -and which fostered actual pessimism.</p> - -<div class="echap"></div> -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="facing198-caption" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img src="images/facing198-caption.jpg" alt="Caption" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="facing198" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/facing198.jpg" alt="" /> - <div class="caption">Presently the COLLYN of PUYSANGE -had opened her yellow eyes and was -licking daintily her lips.<br /><i>See page <a href="#Page_237">237</a></i></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span></p> - - -<p>For what was he to do now? “Repent!” the -saint had answered: it was the sort of saying one -expected of a saint, and indeed, from Hoprig, who -was secure against eternity, such repartees were natural -enough. The serene physician had prescribed, -but who would compound, the remedy? Florian -himself was ready to do anything at all reasonable -about those irregularities which had remained unforgiven -through, as he must respectfully point out -to inquirers, no remissness of his; he quite sincerely -wanted to spare Heaven the discomfort of -having a Duke of Puysange in irrevocable opposition: -but he did not clearly see how repentance was -possible. The great majority of such offences as -antedated, say, the last two years had, after putative -atonements, gone out of his mind, just as one -puts aside and forgets about receipted bills: he could -not rationally be expected to repent for misdemeanors -without remembering them. That was the -deuce of having placed unbounded faith in this—somehow—ambiguous -Hoprig and in Hoprig’s celestial -attorneyship.</p> - -<p>Even such irregularities as Florian recalled -seemed unprolific of actual repentance. Florian -now comprehended that he—perhaps through a too -careful avoidance of low company, perhaps, he -granted, through a tinge of pharisaism,—had never -needed to incite the funerals of any but estimable -and honorable persons who were upon the most excellent -footing with the Church. He could not, -with his rigid upbringing, for one instant doubt that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span> -all these had passed from this unsatisfactory world -to eternal bliss. He could not question that he had -actually been the benefactor of these persons. The -only thing he could be asked to repent of here was -a benevolent action, and to do that was, to anyone -of his natural kindliness, out of all thinking.</p> - -<p>His irregularities in the way of personal friendship, -too, appeared, upon the whole, to have resulted -beneficially. Girls and boys that he had -raised from sometimes the most squalid surroundings, -even rescuing them in some cases from houses -of notorious ill fame, had passed from him to other -friends, and had prospered. Louison had now her -duke, Henri his prince, and little Sapho her princess -of the blood royal,—and so it went. All were -now living contentedly, in opulence, and they all -entertained the liveliest gratitude for their discoverer. -You could not repent of having given the -ambitious and capable young a good start in life. -Among Florian’s married friends of higher condition, -among a host of marquises and duchesses and -countesses, his passing had tinged the quiet round -of matrimony with romance, had left a plenitude of -pleasant memories, and not infrequently had improved -the quality of that household’s progeny. -Here too he had in logic to admit he had scattered -benefactions, of which no kindly-hearted person -could repent.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span></p> - -<p>He had never, he rather wistfully reflected, either -coveted or stolen anything worth speaking of: he -might have had some such abominable action to -repent of, if only he had not always possessed a -plenty of money to purchase whatever he fancied. -That over-well filled purse had also kept him from -laboring upon the Sabbath, or any day. And it -had, by ill luck, never even occurred to him to worship -a graven image.</p> - -<p>Nor had it ever occurred to him to break his -given word. Philippe, he remembered, had referred -to that as being rather queer, but it did not -seem queer to Florian: this was simply a thing that -Puysange did not do. The word of honor of a -Puysange, once given, could not in any circumstances -be broken: to Florian that was an axiom -sufficiently obvious.</p> - -<p>He had told many falsehoods, of course. For -an instant the reflection brightened him: but he -found dejectedly, on looking back, that all these -falsehoods appeared to have been told either to -some woman who was chaste or to some husband -who was suspicious, entirely with the view of curing -these failings and making matters more pleasant -for everybody. A Puysange did not lie with -the flat-footed design of getting something for himself, -because such deviations from exactness, somehow, -made you uncomfortable; nor through fear,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span> -because a Puysange, quite candidly, did not understand -what people meant when they talked about -fear.</p> - -<p>No, one must be logical. Florian found that his -sins—to name for once the quaint term with which -so many quaint people would, he knew, label the -majority of his actions,—seemed untiringly to have -labored toward beneficence. Florian was not prepared -to assert that this established any general rule: -for some persons, it well might be that the practise -of these technical irregularities produced actual unhappiness: -but Florian was here concerned just with -his own case. And it did not, whatever a benevolent -saint advised,—and ought, of course, in his exalted -position to advise,—it did not afford the material -for any rational sort of repentance. And to prevaricate -about this deficiency, or to patch up with -Heaven through mutual indulgence some not quite -candid compromise, was not a proceeding in which -Florian cared to have part, or could justify with -honorable precedents. Say what you might, even -though you spoke from behind the locked gates of -paradise, Puysange remained Puysange, and wholly -selfish and utilitarian lying made Puysange uncomfortable.</p> - -<p>In fine, Florian earnestly wanted to repent, where -repentance was so plainly a matter of common-sense, -and seemed his one chance for an inexcruciate fu<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span>ture: -but the more he reflected upon such of his -irregularities as he could for the life of him recollect, -the less material they afforded him for repentance. -No, one must be logical. And logic -forced him to see that under the present divine -régime there was slender hope for him. So his -conscience was in these days in a most perturbed -state: he seemed to be deriving no profit whatever -from a wasted lifetime of pious devotion: and the -more widely he and Aluys had conducted their -investigations, the less remunerative did Florian -everywhere find the pursuit of beauty and holiness.</p> - -<div class="echap"></div> -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="image203" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image203.jpg" alt="woman, man and hippopotamus" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_20"><i>20.</i><br /> - -<i>Smoke Reveals Fire</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image123.jpg" alt="T" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">HUS it was not until the coming in -of spring that Florian rode away -from the Hôtel de Puysange, riding -toward Bellegarde and the business -which must be discharged. -Florian went by way of Storisende, -the home of his dead brother, for Florian’s son -still lived there, and Florian now felt by no means -certain he would ever see the boy again, now that -Holy Hoprig roosted over the Bellegarde to which -Florian returned.</p> - -<p>Florian came to Storisende unannounced, as was -his usage. Madame Marguerite de Puysange and -Raoul’s children kept her chamber, with a refusal -to see Florian which the steward, to all appearance, -had in transmission considerably censored. Florian -thought that this poor fellow faced somewhat inadequately -the problem of the proper demeanor toward -a great peer who had very recently killed your -master; and that too much fidgeting marred his en<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span>deavor -to combine the politeness appropriate to a -duke with the abhorrence many persons feel to be -demanded by fratricide.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the father wished to know of his -son’s whereabouts. Monsieur the Prince de Lisuarte -had left the house not long after breakfast, it was -reported, and might not return until evening. -Florian shrugged, dined alone, and went out upon -the south terrace, walking downward, into gardens -now very ill tended. Raoul had let the gardens fall -from their old, well remembered, sleek estate....</p> - -<p>So much of Florian’s youth had been passed here -that with Florian went many memories. He had -made love to a host of charming girls in this place, -in these gardens which were now tenantless and -half ruined: and none of these girls had he been -able to love utterly, because of his mad notions -about Melior. He comprehended now of how much -he had been swindled by this lunacy. His dislike -of Melior—of that insufferable bright-colored imbecile,—rose -hot and strong.</p> - -<p>So many women had been to him only the vis-à-vis -in a pleasurable coupling, when he might have -got from them the complete and high insanity which -other lads got out of loving! He remembered, for -example, another April afternoon in this place, the -April before his first marriage.... Yes, it had -happened just yonder.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span></p> - -<p>Florian turned to the right, passing the little tree -from the East, which seemed no bigger now than -he remembered it in boyhood; and then trampled -through a thick undergrowth which hid what he -remembered as a trim lawn. Raoul had really let -the gardens fall into a quite abominable state. A -person who had taken no better care of Storisende -had not deserved to inherit such a fine property: -and Florian remembered now with some compunction -how easily, when he disposed of their father, -he could also have disposed of their father’s foolish -will. But Florian too, as he admitted, had always -spoiled Raoul.</p> - -<p>Florian came to a boulder some four feet in -height, before which stood a smaller rock that was -flat-topped and made a natural seat. Both were -overgrown with patches of gray-green lichen. He -looked downward. Against the boulder, partly -hidden by old withered leaves, lay two flat stones -which were each near a foot in length and about an -inch thick, two valueless unextraordinary stones -which he remembered.</p> - -<p>He lifted these stones. Where they had lain, the -ground showed dark and wet, and was perforated -with small holes. The raising of the first stone -disclosed a bloodless yellow centipede, which flustered -and wavered into hiding among the close-matted -dead leaves. Under the other stone, a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span> -many ants were hastily carrying their small white -eggs into those holes in the ground. Some twenty -gray winged ants remained clustering together futilely. -There was adhering to the under side of -this second stone a clotted web. Florian saw the -evicted spider, large and clumsy looking but very -quick of movement, trundling away from molestation -much as the centipede had fled.</p> - -<p>It seemed to him that no life ought to be in this -place; not even the life of insects should survive -in this ruined haunt of memories. He set the two -rocks at right angles to the boulder, just as he and -a girl, who no longer existed anywhere, had placed -them eighteen years ago. Moss had grown upon -the boulder, so that the rocks did not fit against it -so snugly as they had done once, but they stood upright -now a foot apart. Florian gathered five -fallen twigs, broke them, and piled the fragments -in this space. From his pocket he took a letter, -from the Abbess de Chelles, which he crumpled and -thrust under the twigs. He took out flint and steel, -and struck a spark, which fell neatly into the crevice -between his left thumb and the thumbnail. The -pensive gravity of his face was altered as he said -“Damn!” and sucked at his thumb. Then he tried -again, and soon had there just such a tiny fire as -he and that dark-haired girl had once kindled in -this place.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span></p> - -<p>He sat there, feeding the small blaze with twigs -and yet more twigs: and through his thinking flitted -thoughts not wholly seized. But this fire was to -him a poem. So went youth, and by and by, life. -Brief heat and bluster and brilliancy, a little noise, -then smoke and ashes: then youth was gone, with -all its sparkle and splutter. You were thirty-six: -you still got love-letters from abbesses of the blood -royal, but your heart was a skuttle of cold cinders. -And all that which had been, in these gardens and -in so many other places, did not matter to you. It -probably did not matter to anybody, and never had -mattered. Yes, like this tiny blazing here, so went -youth, and by and by, life....</p> - -<p>“Why, what the devil, my friend—!”</p> - -<p>Someone was speaking very close at hand. -Florian looked up, strangely haggard, looked into -the face of his son Gaston. The young Prince de -Lisuarte was not alone, for a little behind him stood -a dark-haired staring peasant girl. She was rather -pretty, in a fresh and wholesome way that acquitted -her of rational intelligence; and her bodice, Florian -noted, had been torn open at the neck. Well, after -all, Gaston was sixteen.</p> - -<p>“My father!” the boy said now. But Florian -observed with approval that the embarrassment was -momentary. “This is in truth a delightful surprise, -monsieur,” Gaston continued. “We saw the smoke,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span> -and could not imagine what caused it here in the -park—”</p> - -<p>“So that,” said Florian, “you very naturally investigated—”</p> - -<p>He was reflecting that, after all, he was not answerable, -and owed no explanation, to his son for -making a small fire in the spring woods. That -was lucky, for the boy would not understand the -poetry of it. Florian saw too with approval that -the young woman had disappeared. For her to -have remained would have been wholly tactless, -since it would have committed him to some expression -of elevated disapproval. As it was, he needed -only to rise and shake hands with this tall son of -his, and then sit down again.</p> - -<p>Gaston was rather picturesquely ugly: he indeed -most inconsiderately aspersed his grandmother’s -memory by this injudicious resemblance to the late -King of England whom rumor had credited with -the begetting of Gaston’s mother. Carola, though, -had been quite pretty. Florian thought for a while -of his first wife with less dislike than he had entertained -toward her for years. Still, he perceived, -he did not actually like this tall boy who waited -before him, all in black. That would be for -Raoul....</p> - -<p>“My son,” said Florian, slowly, “I am on my -way homeward to dispose of an awkward business<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span> -in which there is an appreciable likelihood of my -getting my death. So the whim took me to see you, -it may be, for the last time.”</p> - -<p>“But, monsieur, if there is danger you should -remember that I count as a man now that I am -seventeen next month. I have already two duels -to my credit, I must tell you, in which I killed nobody, -to be sure, but gave very handsome wounds. -So may I not aid in this adventure?”</p> - -<p>“Would you fight then in my defence, Gaston?”</p> - -<p>“Assuredly, monsieur.”</p> - -<p>“But why the devil should you? Let us be logical, -Gaston! You loved that handsome hulking -uncle of yours, not me, as people are customarily -supposed to love their fathers: and I have recently -killed him. Your damned aunt, I know, has been -telling you that I ill-treated and murdered your -mother also. To cap all, you have a great deal to -gain by my death, for you are my heir. And I am -too modest to believe that my engaging qualities -have ever ensnared you into any personal affection.”</p> - -<p>The boy reflected. “No, there has been no love -between us. And they say you are wicked. But -I would fight for you. I do not know why.”</p> - -<p>Florian smiled. He nodded his head, in a sort -of unwilling approval. “We come of a queer race, -my son. That is the reason you would fight in my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span> -cause. It is also a reason why we may speak -candidly.”</p> - -<p>“Is candor, monsieur, quite possible between -father and son?”</p> - -<p>Florian liked that too, and showed as much. He -said: “All eccentricities are possible to our race. -There are many quaint chronicles to attest this, for -there has always been a Puysange somewhere or -another fluttering the world. To-day I am Puysange. -To-morrow you will be Puysange. So I -sit here with my little blaze of spluttering twigs already -half gray ashes. And you stand there, awaiting -my leisure, I will not ask how patiently.”</p> - -<p>“I regard you, monsieur, with every appropriate -filial sentiment. But you can remember, I am -afraid, just what that comes to.”</p> - -<p>“I remember most clearly. In these matters we -are logical. So it is the defect of our race not ever -to love anybody quite whole-heartedly; and certainly -we are not so ill-advised as to squander adoration -upon one another. Rather, we must restively seek -everywhither for our desire, even though we never -discover precisely what is this desire. That also, -Gaston, is logic: for we of Puysange know, incommunicably -but very surely, that this unapprehended -desire ought to be gratified. It is this lean -knowledge which permits us no rest, no complacent -living in the usual drowsiness....”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span></p> - -<p>“They tell me, monsieur, that we derive this trait -from that old Jurgen who was our ancestor, and -from tall Manuel too, whose life endures in us of -Puysange.”</p> - -<p>“I do not know. I talked lately with a Monsieur -Horvendile, who had extreme notions about an Author -who compiles an endless Biography, of the -life that uses us as masks and temporary garments. -But I do not know. I only know that this life was -given me by my father, without any knowledge as -to what use I should preferably make of the unsought -gift. I only know that I have handed on -this life to you, on the same terms. Do with the -life I gave you whatever you may elect. Now that -I see you for the last time, my premonitions tell me, -I proffer no advice. I shall not even asperse the -effects of vice and evil-doing by protesting that I -in person illustrate them. No, I am conscious of -a little compassion for you, but that is all: I do -not really care what becomes of you. So I proffer -no advice.”</p> - -<p>“Therein, monsieur, at least, you do not deal with -me as is the custom of fathers.”</p> - -<p>“No,” Florian replied. “No, I find you at sixteen -already fighting duels and tumbling wenches -in the spring woods: and I spare you every appropriate -paternal comment. For one thing, I myself -had at your age indulged in these amusements; in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span> -fact, at your age, with my wild oats sown, I was -preparing to settle down to quiet domesticity with -your mother: and for another thing, I cannot see -that your escapades matter. It is only too clear to -me as I sit here, with my little blaze of spluttering -twigs already half gray ashes, that in a while you -and your ardors and your adversaries and your -plump wenches will be picked bones and dust about -which nobody will be worrying. These woods will -then be as young as ever: and nobody anywhere will -be thinking about you nor your iniquities nor your -good actions, or about mine either; but in this place -every April will still be anemones.”</p> - -<p>“Meanwhile I have my day, monsieur—”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Florian agreed,—“the bustling, restless -and dissatisfying day of a Puysange. That is your -right, it is your logical inheritance. Well, there has -always been a Puysange, since Jurgen also made the -most of day and night,—a Puysange to keep his -part of the world atwitter until he had been taught, -with bruises and hard knocks, to respect the great -law of living. Yes, there has always been a Puysange -at that schooling, and each in turn has mastered -the lesson: and I cannot see how, in the end, -this, either, has mattered.”</p> - -<p>“But what, monsieur, is this great law of living?”</p> - -<p>Florian for a moment stayed silent. He could -see yonder the little tree from the East, already<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span> -budding in the spring. He was remembering how, -a quarter of a century ago, another boy had asked -just this question just here. And living seemed to -Florian a quite futile business. Men’s trials and -flounderings got them nowhither. A wheel turned, -that was all. Too large to be thought about, a -wheel turned, without haste and irresistibly. Men -clung a while, like insects, to that wheel. The -wheel had come full circle. Now it was not Florian -but Florian’s son who was asking of his father, -“What is this great law of living?” And no response -was possible except the old, evasive and -cowardly answer. So Florian gave it. One must -be logical, and voice what logic taught.</p> - -<p>“Thou shalt not offend against the notions of -thy neighbor,” Florian replied,—“or not, at least, -too often or too openly. I do not say, mark you, -my son, but that in private, and with the exercise -of discretion, one may cultivate one’s faculties.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but, monsieur, I do not see—”</p> - -<p>“No,” Florian conceded, with a smiling toward -his tall son which was friendly but a little sad, “no, -naturally you do not. How should you, infamous -seducer of the peasantry, when this is a law which -no young person anywhere is able to believe? Yet -it is certain, dear child, that if you openly offend -against these notions you will be crushed: and it -is certain that if you honor them,—with, I am pre<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span>supposing, -a suitable appreciation of the charms of -privacy and sympathetic companions,—then all -things are permitted, and nobody will really bother -about your discreet pursuing of your desires. A -wise man will avoid, though, for his comfort’s -health, all over-high and over-earnest desires.... -This is the knowledge, Gaston, which every father -longs to communicate to his son, without caring to -confess that his own life has been such as to permit -the acquiring of this knowledge.”</p> - -<p>And the boy shook his head. “I understand your -words. But your meaning, monsieur, I do not -see....”</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="image215" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image215.jpg" alt="Dionaea Masculina" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PART_THREE">PART THREE<br /> - - -<i>THE END OF LEAN WISDOM</i></h2></div> - -<p> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>“Ne point aller chercher ce qu’on fait dans la lune,</i></span><br /> -<i>Et vous mesler un peu de ce qu’on fait chez vous,</i><br /> -<i>Où nous voyons aller tout sans-dessus-dessous.”</i> -</p></div> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_21"><i>21.</i><br /> - -<i>Of Melior Married</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image114.jpg" alt="N" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">OW Florian returned to Bellegarde -to face the disillusion appointed for -every husband in passing from infatuation -to paternity. His disenchanted -princess now was hardly -recognizable. Her face was like -dough, her nose seemed oddly swollen; under and -about the blood-shot eyes were repulsive yellow -splotches. As for the bloated body, he could not -bear to look at it. He was shaken with hot and -sick disgust when he saw this really perfectly -dreadful looking creature.</p> - -<p>Perhaps, though, Florian reflected, he saw her -through emotions which exaggerated every blemish -unfairly. He knew all other pregnant women had -seemed to him unattractive rather than actually -loathsome. But here, here was the prize he had so -long and fervently desired, the prize to gain which -he had sacrificed those dearest to him in this world, -and had parted with the comforting assurances of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span> -religion.... For, Melior, then, had flawless and -unequalled beauty. So he had bought, at an exceedingly -stiff price, this shining superficies, to -learn almost immediately thereafter that she possessed -not one other desirable quality. And now -Melior had not even the thin mask of loveliness. -Worse still, the beauty which he had worshipped -since boyhood now existed nowhere. To -purchase an hour or two of really not very remarkable -entertainment, he had himself destroyed -this beauty....</p> - -<p>“My love,” said Florian, “now if only I were a -conceited person, I would dare to hope that the -long months since I last saw you have passed as -drearily with you as with me.”</p> - -<p>He kissed her tenderly. Even the woman’s -breath was now unpleasant. It seemed to Florian -that nothing was being spared him.</p> - -<p>“Yes, that sort of talk is all very well,” replied -Melior, fretfully. “But I do think that at a time -when I have every right to expect particular attention -and care, you might at least have made an -effort to get home sooner, and not leave everything -upon my shoulders, especially with all the neighbors -everywhere pretending, whenever I come into the -room, that they were not talking about your having -killed your brother—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, a most regrettable affair! But what,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span> -sweetheart, has been going amiss at Bellegarde?”</p> - -<p>“That is a pretty question for you to ask, with -me in my condition, with all these other worries on -top of it, about your friend Orléans. Because, -knowing you as well as I do, Florian, and not being -able to feel as you do that a prime minister is -no more than a house fly or a flea,—and seeing quite -well, too, how little you consider what my feelings -naturally would be if they cut off your head—”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but let us take one thing at a time, and for -the present leave my head where it is. Do you -mean that you have been unwell, my pet?”</p> - -<p>“Have you no eyes in the head you keep talking -about just to keep me upset! But I do not wonder -you prefer not to look at me, now I am such a -fright, and that is you men all over. Still, you -might at least have the decency to remember who -is responsible for it, and that much I must say.”</p> - -<p>“But, dearest, I have both the eyes about which -you inquire, and in those doubtless partial orbs you -happen not to look a fright. So I cannot quite -follow you. No, let us be logical! There is a -slight pallor, to be sure—But, no! No, dear -Melior, upon the whole, I never saw you looking -lovelier, and I wonder of what you are talking.”</p> - -<p>“I mean, you fool, that I am sick and miserable -because now almost any day I am going to have -a baby.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span></p> - -<p>Florian was honestly shocked. He could remember -no precedent among his mistresses of anybody’s -having put this news so bluntly: and when he recalled -the behavior of his first wife in precisely these -circumstances, he could not but feel that women -were deteriorating. A wife endowed with proper -sensibility would have hidden her face upon his -shoulder, just as Carola had done, and would in -this posture have whispered her awed surmise that -Heaven was shortly to consign them a little cherub. -But this big-bellied vixen appeared to have no sensibilities. -“You fool, now almost any day I am going -to have a baby!” was neither a loving nor a -dignified way of announcing the nearness of his -freedom.</p> - -<p>But Florian’s plump face was transfigured, as he -knelt before his Melior, and very reverently lifted -to his lips her hand. He slipped a cushion under -his knee, made himself comfortable, and, kneeling -still, went on to speak of his bliss and of his love -for her and of how sacred in his eyes appeared the -marks of her condition. She listened: he could see -that Melior was pleased; and he in consequence continued -his gallant romanticizing.</p> - -<p>For Florian really wanted to be pleasant to the -woman; and was resolved politely to ignore even -this last disillusionment, and to condone as far as -was humanly possible, the lack of consideration<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span> -through which this dreadful creature had now added -to stupidity and garrulity even physical ugliness.</p> - -<p>But while Florian was talking he could see, too, -that the central diamond in the charmed ring that -Melior wore was to-day quite black, like an onyx, -so that he took care to keep it covered with his hand -all the while he was talking about his adoration. -Here was an appalling omen, a portent, virtually, of -open conflict between Florian and his patron saint. -The central stone of this ring had become as black -and as bright and as inimical looking as though, he -reflected, one of the small eyes of Marie-Claire -Cazaio stared thence. This was a depressing sight: -and it seemed to Florian quite vexingly illogical -that the ring should change in this fashion when, -after all, he was planning no harm against Melior.</p> - -<p>When she had borne her child, he meant of course -to carry out his bargain with brown Janicot,—a -bargain that Florian considered an entirely private -matter, and an affair with which Hoprig could not -meddle without exhibiting absolute ill breeding. -Then Melior would disappear, Florian did not know -whither, to be sure, but her destination would be -none of his selecting or responsibility. A really -logical ring would not call that contriving any harm -against Melior. Even Holy Hoprig must be reasonable -enough to see that much. So Florian for -the while put aside his foreboding, and assured him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span>self -that, with anything like fair luck, he was on -the point of getting rid of this dreadful woman forever. -The reflection spurred him to eloquence and -to the kindliness which Florian had always felt to -be due his wives in their last hours.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp80" id="image224" style="max-width: 62.5em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image224.jpg" alt="Demon and baby" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_22"><i>22.</i><br /> - -<i>The Wives of Florian</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image089.jpg" alt="F" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">LORIAN watched his Melior with a -not unnatural care. She remained, -to the eye, unperturbed, and was -her usual maddening self throughout -the evening: it seemed to him -she must inevitably have noticed the -changing of her ring; and in that event, he granted -the woman’s duplicity at least to be rather magnificent.</p> - -<p>For Melior talked, on and on and on,—with that -quite insupportable air of commingled self-satisfaction -and shrewdness,—about Monsieur du Belloc’s -new liveries, which were the exact color, my dear, -of Madame des Roches’ old wig, the one she was -wearing that day she drove in here in all that rain; -and about how that reminded Melior of what a -thunderstorm had come up only last Thursday without -the least warning; and about how Marie-Claire -had been looking at Melior again in that peculiar -way and ought not to be permitted to raise storms -and cast spells that dried up people’s cows.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span></p> - -<p>Even so, Melior continued, milk was fattening -and was not really good for you in large quantities, -and, for one, she meant to give it up, though if you -were intended to be fat you had in the end simply -to put up with it, just as some persons got bald -sooner than others, and no hair-dresser could help -you, not even if he was as airy and as pleased with -himself as that high-and-mighty François over at -Manneville. Oh, yes, but Florian must certainly -remember! He was the very skinny one whom she -had in two or three times last autumn, and who -had turned out to be a Huguenot or a Jansenist or -something of that sort, so that, people did say, the -dear old Bishop was going to take the proper steps -the very instant he was out again. That was the -trouble, though, with colds at his age, you never -knew what they might lead to at the moment you -were least expecting it—</p> - -<p>So her talking went, on and on and on, while -Florian looked at the woman,—who was repulsive -now even to the eye,—and he reflected: “And it -was for this that I intrepidly assailed the high place, -and slaughtered all those charming monsters! It -was for this that I have sacrificed poor Philippe -and my dear Raoul!”</p> - -<p>Bed-time alone released him from listening to -her; but not from prudent watchfulness.</p> - -<p>That night he roused as Melior slipped from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span> -their bed. Through discreetly half-closed eyelids -Florian saw her take from the closet that queer -carved staff which had once belonged to her sister -Mélusine. Now Melior for a while regarded this -staff dubiously. She replaced it in the closet. She -took up the night-light from the green-covered table -beside the bed, and she passed out of the room.</p> - -<p>He lay still for a moment, then put on his dressing-gown -and slippers, and followed her. Melior -turned, with her lamp, at the second corridor, and -went out into the enclosed Thoignet Court-yard, -skirted the well, and so disappeared through the -small porch into the Chapel. Florian followed, -quite noiselessly. The paved court was chilly underfoot: -as he went into the porch a spray of ivy -brushed his cheek in the dark.</p> - -<p>Inside the Chapel three hanging lamps burned -before the altar, like red stars, but they gave virtually -no illumination. Florian saw that Melior -had carried her yellow lamp into the alcove where -his earlier wives were buried. She knelt there. -She was praying, no doubt, for the intercession of -that meddlesome Hoprig. Florian was rather interested. -Then his interest was redoubled, for of a -sudden the place was flooded with a wan throbbing -bluish luminousness. The effigies upon the tombs -of Florian’s wives were changed; and the recumbent -marble figures yawned and stretched themselves.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span> -Thus, then, began the unimaginative working of -Hoprig’s holy ring, with a revamping of the affliction -put upon Komorre the Cursed in the old nursery -tale, Florian decided; and these retributory resurrections -were rather naïve. He drew close his -dressing-gown, and got well into the shadow of his -great-grandfather’s tomb, the while that his four -earlier wives sat erect and looked compassionately -at Melior.</p> - -<p>“Beware, poor lovely child,” said the likeness of -Aurélie, “for it is apparent that Florian intends to -murder you also.”</p> - -<p>“I was beginning to think he had some such -notion,” Melior replied, “for otherwise, of course, -he would hardly be fetching home the sword Flamberge.”</p> - -<p>She had arisen from her knees, and there was in -the composure with which she now sat sociably beside -the ghost of Carola, on top of Carola’s tomb, -something that Florian found rather admirable. -And he recalled too with admiration the innocence -and the unconcern with which Melior had commented -upon his having acquired such a delightfully -quaint and old-fashioned looking sword....</p> - -<p>“Yes, for, my dear,” said Carola, “you have permitted -him to get tired of you. It was for that -oversight he murdered all of us.”</p> - -<p>“But I have no time to put up with the man’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span> -foolishness just now, when I am going to have a -baby,” said Melior, with unconcealed vexation.</p> - -<p>“Go seek protection of St. Hoprig,” advised -Hortense.</p> - -<p>“And how may she escape,” asked Marianne, -“when Florian’s lackeys are everywhere, and Florian’s -great wolfhounds guard the outer courts?”</p> - -<p>“She can give them the sweet-scented poison -which destroyed me,” said Carola. “But all the -gates of Bellegarde are locked fast; and how could -anyone climb down the unscalable high walls of the -outer fortress?”</p> - -<p>“By means of the strong silken cord which -strangled me,” answered Marianne.</p> - -<p>“But who would guide her through the dark to -sorcerous Morven?”</p> - -<p>“The molten lead which was poured into my -ear,” replied Aurélie, “will go before her glowing -like a will-o’-the-wisp.”</p> - -<p>“And how can she, in her condition, make so long -a journey?”</p> - -<p>“Let her take the fine ebony cane which broke my -skull,” rejoined Hortense. “For now the cup of -Florian’s iniquity runs over, and all the implements -of his wickedness revolt against him.”</p> - -<p>“Come now,” said Melior, “there has been a -great deal of nonsense talked. But you have at last, -poor ghost, suggested something really practical, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span> -something that had occurred to me also. Yes, you -are entirely right, and your suggestion is most sensible, -though, to be sure, it can hardly be ebony: -for now that I am quite certain about Florian I -simply owe it to my self-respect to leave him before -he murders me too, and the easiest way to do that -of course is to use my unfortunate and misguided -sister’s staff. But ebony, you know, is perfectly -black—”</p> - -<p>“Now of what staff can you be talking?”</p> - -<p>“Why, but, my dear! As anybody at Brunbelois, -even the veriest tidbits of children, could tell you, it -was presented to Mélusine by one of the most fearful -and ruthless demons resident in the Red Sea. It -was the staff the poor darling always rode on. I -do not, of course, mean him: in fact, I only saw -him once, on a Saturday, when I was the merest -child. And with all those scales, he could hardly -expect anybody to call him a darling, even if you -overlooked his having a head like a cat. Only -much more so, of course, on account of his being -larger. No, I meant that Mélusine rode on it—”</p> - -<p>Now Florian was reflecting, “With what a lovely -air of innocence she lied to me about that staff!” -And Aurélie was saying, ineffectively, “Yes, but—”</p> - -<p>“—Not as a steady thing, of course, but when -she was about some particularly important enchantment, -and wanted to make an impression. Mélusine<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span> -was accomplished, and all that, and nobody denies -it, but, if you ask me about being vain, then I can -only say that, sister or not, I believe in being truthful. -And as for leaving her things about helter-skelter, -even the crown jewels—for Mélusine was -the oldest of us girls, and Father always spoiled her -quite terribly, and Mother never cared especially for -dressing up,—why, we all know what clever people -are in that way: and I need only say that I found -this very staff stuck away in a cupboard, like an old -worn-out broom—”</p> - -<p>Said Marianne, “Yes, but—”</p> - -<p>“—When I was getting my things together to -leave Brunbelois. And, much as I hate to contradict -anybody, it has a distinctly red tinge, so that it -could not possibly be ebony. So, what with all the -talk, and Hoprig’s suspicions about Florian, it simply -occurred to me that this staff was not the sort of -thing my dear father would care to be stirring up -unpleasant old memories with, by seeing it, after all -his trouble with Mélusine. For, even if Hoprig had -been quite wrong, still, marriage, as I so often -think, is really just a lottery—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but,” said Hortense, “but, but, but! one -needs to know the charm that controls the staff—”</p> - -<p>“My dear creature! But you are Hortense, are -you not? Yes, I remember Florian told me all -about you: and after the manner in which he has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span> -behaved to me, I am perfectly willing to believe -that he misrepresented you in every way. Even if -you used to make it a regular habit of flying at -people’s throats like that, I know how many perfectly -well meaning women simply do not realize -what an annoyance it is for any one person to want -to do all the talking—”</p> - -<p>“I think so too, but—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I am not in the least offended, my dear. It -is merely that, as I was telling you, Hortense, my -sister Mélusine was one of the most potent sorceresses -in the known world, and so utterly devoted -to her art that hardly a day passed without at any -rate a little parlor conjuring. And I used often to -be playing in the corner with my building blocks -and my dolls when she was at her practising. If I -were to tell you half the things I have witnessed with -my own eyes, you simply would not believe a word -of it. Yes, Mélusine was quite accomplished, there -is no denying that. And as I was saying, you know -how children are, and how often they surprise you -when you had no notion they were paying the least -attention. Yes, as I often think, it is the littlest -pitchers that have the largest ears—”</p> - -<p>“If you know how the cantraps run, then, to be -sure—”</p> - -<p>“Why, but,” said Melior, now with her air of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span> -one who is dealing patiently with an irrational person, -“but everybody knows if it is not the <i>Eman -hetan</i> charm, it has to be either the <i>Thout tout a tout</i> -or the <i>Horse and hattock</i> one. And so, I do hope, -you see my feeling in the matter. Because, of -course, appreciating as I do the perfectly well-meant -suggestions of every one of you, still nobody in my -delicate condition exactly likes to go about sliding -down ropes and poisoning the servants, not to speak -of the dogs, who, after all, are not responsible for -their master’s doings, and walking nobody knows -how many miles in the dark. So I shall go to Hoprig -more carefully, and quickly too, upon the demon’s -staff, vexatious as it is not to be remembering his -name. I distinctly remember there was a Z in it, because -there always seemed to me something romantic -about a Z, and that he had talons like an eagle; -but it was not Bembo, or Celerri, or El-Gabal—No, -it has quite gone out of my mind, but, in any -event, I am much obliged to all of you. And no -doubt it will come back to me the moment I stop -trying to remember—”</p> - -<p>Thus speaking, Melior arose from the tomb, and -left the Chapel reflectively. A brief silence followed, -a silence that was broken by Marianne. She -said, “Poor Florian!”</p> - -<p>“He had his faults of course,” assented Hortense,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span> -“but really, to a person of any sensibility—Do -peep, my love, and tell me if my skirts are down -properly—”</p> - -<p>Now Florian came forward, as statelily as anybody -can walk in bedroom slippers, just as his wives -were settling back upon their various tombs.</p> - -<p>“Dear ladies,” said he, “I perceive with real regret -that not even death is potent enough to allay your -propensities for mischief making.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, oh!” they cried, each sitting very erect, -“here is the foul murderer!”</p> - -<p>“Parbleu, my pets, what grievance, after all, have -you against me? Are you not happier in your -present existence than when you lived with me?”</p> - -<p>“I should think so, indeed!” replied Carola, indignantly. -“Why, wherever do you suppose we -went to?”</p> - -<p>“I do not inquire. It is a question raised by no -widower of real discretion: he merely inclines in this, -as in most matters, to be optimistic. Yet come now, -let us be logical! Is it quite right for you four to -complain against me, and to harbor actual animosity, -on account of what was in the beginning just the -natural result of my rather hasty disposition, and in -the end my quadruple misfortune? Do you, Carola, -for example, honestly believe that, after having been -blessed with your affection, I could ever be actually -satisfied with Melior?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span></p> - -<p>“For one, I certainly see nothing in her. And I -really do think, Florian—”</p> - -<p>“Nor I, either,” said Aurélie, “nor could any rational -person. And for your own good, I must -tell you quite frankly, Florian—”</p> - -<p>“Though, heaven knows,” said Marianne, “it -is not as if any of us could envy the poor idiot for -being your wife—”</p> - -<p>“It is merely that one cannot help wondering,” -said Hortense, “that even you should have had no -more sense or good taste—”</p> - -<p>So for an instant the sweet voices were like a -choir of birds in fourfold descant: and they thrilled -him with remembered melodies, vituperative and -plaintive and now strangely dear. Then came the -changing. All, Florian saw in that queer bluish -light, were pitiably eager to talk about Melior, and -to explain to him exhaustively just what a fool he -had been, and how exactly like him was such behavior. -But the magic of Hoprig’s revivifying -ring was spent: and color and flexibility were going -away from the pretty bodies, so that their lips could -but move stiffly and feebly now, without making the -least noise. It was really heart-breaking, Florian -thought, to see these lovely women congeal into -stone, and be thus petrified upon the verge of candors -which would have completely freed their minds.</p> - -<p>Then that strange throbbing bluish light was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span> -gone: and Florian was alone in the dark Chapel -where only three dim lamps were glowing like red -stars. An ordinary person would have estimated -that this gloom did but very inadequately prefigure -Florian’s future. But a Puysange knew perfectly -where next to apply for help against any and all -saints.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="image236" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image236.jpg" alt="Naked woman with dragon and fairy" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_23"><i>23.</i><br /> - -<i>The Collyn in the Pot</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image036.jpg" alt="F" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">LORIAN went from the Chapel to -the secret chamber which nobody else -cared to enter. At this last pinch he -was resolved to enlist in his defence -that power which was at least as -strong as Hoprig’s power. So Florian -carried with him wine and wafers.</p> - -<p>He opened a wicker basket, wherein was an -earthen pot. Inside this pot lay, upon strips of -white and black wool, a small, very smooth dun-colored -creature that had the appearance of a cat. -Florian with a green-handled little knife pricked -the end of his ring-finger until he got the necessary -blood; and presently the Collyn of Puysange had -opened her yellow eyes and was licking daintily her -lips so as to lose no drop of the offering. Florian -fed her also with the wine and wafers.</p> - -<p>“Whither,” asked Florian then, “will the staff -carry Melior?”</p> - -<p>The Collyn answered, in a tiny voice: “To the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span> -hut which is between Amneran and Morven. For -that hut is the outpost of romance, and is as near as -the demon’s staff may dare approach to the hermitage -of Holy Hoprig.”</p> - -<p>“Where is that hermitage?”</p> - -<p>“Upon Morven, upon the highest uplands of -Morven, between a thorn-tree and an ash-tree, and -beneath an oak-tree.”</p> - -<p>“What is my patron saint doing in this place?”</p> - -<p>“Master, I also keep away from these saints. -But it is rumored that this Hoprig is now somewhat -recklessly exercising the privileges of sainthood; -that his doings are not very favorably looked down -upon; and that the angels, in particular, are complaining -because of his frequent demands on them.”</p> - -<p>“That does not sound at all well,” said Florian, -“and certainly there is no precedent for the wife of -a Puysange consorting with people who annoy the -angels.”</p> - -<p>The Collyn yawned: and for a while she looked -at Florian somewhat as ordinary cats regard a -mouse-hole.</p> - -<p>“Master, I would not bother about this last wife. -Why should you count so scrupulously one woman -more or less on the long list?”</p> - -<p>“It is not the woman I wish to keep. Faith of -a gentleman, no! But I must keep my plighted -word.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span></p> - -<p>“Master,” said the cool and tiny voice, “you are -thrusting yourself into a dangerous business. For -this woman is now under Hoprig’s protection, and -the powers of these saints are not to be despised.”</p> - -<p>“That is true, but I must hold to my bargain with -Monsieur Janicot. The pious old faith that made -my living glad has been taken away from me, the -dreams that I preserved from childhood have been -embodied for my derision. I see my admirations -and my desires for what they are, and this is a -spectacle before which crumbles my self-conceit. -The past, wherein because of these empoisoned -dreams I stinted living, has become hateful: and of -my hopes for the future, the less said the better. -All crumbles, Collyn: but Puysange remains Puysange.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder, now,” the cat asked, innocently, “if -that means anything?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Collyn,” Florian answered: “it means that -I shall keep my own probity unstained, keep honor -at least, whatever else goes by the board. One -must be logical. My quiet unassuming practise of -religion and my constant love which once derided -time and change—and in fact, the entire code of -ideals by which I have lived so comfortably for -all of thirty-six years,—appear to have been founded -everywhere upon delusion and half-knowledge. -Yet Helmas, I find, was truly wise. I also shall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span> -keep up my dignity by not letting even fate and -chance upset me with their playfulness, and I shall -continue to do what was expected of me yesterday. -For the code by which I have lived contents me, or, -rather, I am subdued to it. So I must go on living -by it while living lasts.”</p> - -<p>“Yet if this romantic code of yours be based upon -nothing—”</p> - -<p>“If I have wholly invented it, without the weaving -into its fabric of one strand of fact,—why, then, -all the more reason for me to be proud of and to -cherish what is peculiarly mine. Do my dreams -fail me? That is no reason why I should fail my -dreams, which indeed, Collyn, have erred solely in -contriving a more satisfactory world than Heaven -seems able to construct.”</p> - -<p>“And does all this, too, mean something?”</p> - -<p>“A pest! it seems to mean at least my destruction, -since it is an article of my code that a gentleman -may not in any circumstances break his word. For -the rest, I find that abstract questions of right and -wrong are too deep for me, too wholly based upon -delusion and half-knowledge, so I shall meddle with -them no more. Good and evil must settle their own -vaporous battles, with which I am no longer concerned.”</p> - -<p>“To fling down your cards in a rage profits nobody.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span></p> - -<p>“But do I indeed rage? Do I speak bitterly? -Well, for thirty-six years I have taken sides, and -for thirty-six years I have been the most zealous -of churchmen, only to find at the last that not one of -my irregularities has been charged off. I can assure -you, Collyn, that it is quite vexing to have the -business credit of one’s religion thus shaken by the -news that so much piety has ended with more debts -than assets.”</p> - -<p>The small predatory beast still waited warily: and -never for an instant did her unwinking tilted yellow -eyes leave looking at Florian.</p> - -<p>“So many of you I have served! your father, and -your grandfather, and all the others that for a brief -while were here. And in the end you all come to -nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Collyn, if the life of a Puysange be of no -account,—although that is an unprecedented contention, -let me tell you,—then so much the more -reason for me to shape what remains of that life -to my own liking.”</p> - -<p>Florian thought for a while. Florian shrugged. -That was the deuce of listening to yourself when -you were talking. Florian, who had come hither -to purchase aid from the Collyn, had logically convinced -himself, through this sad trick of heeding his -own words, that Puysange must stand or fall unaided. -Yes, vexing as it was, that which he had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span> -spoken with so much earnestness was really true.</p> - -<p>“All these years,” said Florian, rather sadly, “you -have lain here at my disposal, prepared to serve me -in my need, with no small power. And I, unlike -the others of my race, have bought of you nothing. -What I have wanted I have taken, asking no odds of -anyone, whether here or below. It is true I have -made to Heaven some civil tenders, in the shape of -good works and church-windows, just as I have -been at pains to supply you with blessed wine and -wafers. It seemed well in logic to preserve a -friendly relation with both sides. For the rest, -whatever I felt my life to lack I have myself fetched -into it, even holiness and beauty, even”—Florian -smiled,—“even Melior and Hoprig. It is perhaps -for this self-sufficiency that I am punished in a -world wherein people are expected to live and to -act in herds because of their common distrust of -the future and of one another. I do not complain; -and I remain self-sufficient.”</p> - -<p>“In fact, with me to aid you, master, you need -lack for nothing.”</p> - -<p>That was precisely what Florian had been thinking -when he came hither. But Florian had since -then been listening to that most insidious of counsellors, -himself. He was utterly convinced; and -one must be logical.</p> - -<p>So Florian replied languidly:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span></p> - -<p>“My dear creature! but I do not require your -aid. Instead, I am come to declare you free from -your long bondage to the house of my fathers. Yes, -you are free, with no claim upon me, alone of all -my race, since now that I renounce good I shall put -away evil also. For I am Puysange: I dare to look -into my own heart, and I can find there no least -admiration for Heaven or for Heaven’s adversaries. -It may be I am fey: I speak under correction, since -that is not a condition with which I have had any -experience. But it seems to me that gods and devils -are poor creatures when compared to man. They -live with knowledge. But man finds heart to live -without any knowledge or surety anywhere, and -yet not to go mad. And I wonder now could any -god endure the testing which all men endure?”</p> - -<p>At this sort of talking the Collyn purred.</p> - -<p>“Master, you shall evade that testing, for you -shall have unbounded knowledge. Ah, but what -secrets and what powers I will give you, my proud -little master, for a compact and a price.”</p> - -<p>“No: I have no doubt the powers you offer are -very pleasant, very amusing to exercise, and all -that; but I have had quite enough of compacts.”</p> - -<p>“I will give you the master-word of darkness, -that single word which death speaks to life, and -which none answers. I will give you the power -of the crucified serpent, and the spell which draws<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span> -the sun and the moon to bathe in a silver tub and -do your will. There is wealth in that spell, the -wealth which purchases kingdoms. And I will give -you, who have smiled so long, the power to laugh. I -will do more, my proud little master: for I will -give you the bravery to weep—”</p> - -<p>But Florian answered: “You cannot give me -anything worthy of comparison with that which -I once had, and now have lost. I had my dreams -of beauty and of holiness. I had the noblest dreams -imaginable. These dreams I have embodied as no -other man has ever done before me: these dreams -I have made vital things, and I have introduced them -into my living, full measure. No, you can give me -nothing worthy of comparison with what I have -lost. And you are free. In all these years the -one service I have asked of you, who have been so -long the mainstay and the destroyer of Puysange, -is now at the last to reveal to me the shortest way -to my patron saint.”</p> - -<p>“From these saints you will get a quick and ugly -shrift: from me long years of ease and wisdom, -master,—utter wisdom, and no more restless doubtings -about anything.”</p> - -<p>Florian felt of a sudden that this small fawning -creature was loathsome: and just as suddenly, -Florian too was weary of all things that are and -of all that was ever to happen anywhere.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span></p> - -<p>“No, Collyn, I repudiate your wicked aid; and -I set you free, not really hating evil or good either. -But I honestly prefer to owe allegiance to nobody -except myself. Because of that preference I shall -go undefended to yet another high place in quest of -my embodied dreams,—now for a second time, and -now with a somewhat different intent.”</p> - -<p>“You march toward death and toward utter destruction, -my proud little master, when even now -my power might save you. There is no other -power that would befriend you now, for you march -up against Heaven.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes! that is regrettable of course, it tends -to establish a bad precedent. But it is my ill luck -to be both a gentleman and a poet,—a poet who, I -can assure you,” Florian said, hastily, “has never -written any verses. That, at least, nobody can -charge me with. Now to a gentleman destruction -is preferable to dishonor: and to a married poet, -Collyn, there are worse things than death.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="image065-2" style="max-width: 37.5em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image065.jpg" alt="lizard ermerging from pot" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_24"><i>24.</i><br /> - -<i>Marie-Claire</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image089.jpg" alt="F" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">LORIAN left Bellegarde at dawn. -For once, he did not travel in his -favorite bottle-green and silver. -Good taste suggested that a plain -black suit with his best Mechlin ruffles, -was the appropriate wear in -which to court destruction. Thus clad, he girded -on Flamberge, and set out as merrily as might be, -afoot: no horse could come to the top of Morven, -where once had stood the grove of Virbius.</p> - -<p>Florian journeyed first to Amneran, and went -to a very retired cottage built of oak and plaster -upon a stone foundation. Here was his last hope -of aid, and of succour which he might accept without -any detriment to the pride of Puysange, for this -was the ill spoken-of home of his half-sister, Marie-Claire -Cazaio. She was alone at her spinning -when he came into the room. He took her hand. -He kissed it.</p> - -<p>“You told me once, dear Marie-Claire, a long<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span> -while since, that in the end I would come to you in -an old garden where dead leaves were falling, and -would kiss your hand, and tell you I had loved you -all my life. I wonder, Marie-Claire, if you remember -that?”</p> - -<p>“I have forgotten,” she said, “nothing.”</p> - -<p>“You were wrong as to the garden and as to the -dead leaves. But in all else you were right. This -is the end, Marie-Claire. And in the end I fulfill -your prophecy.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him, for no brief while, with -those small darkened eyes which seemed to see beyond -him. “Yes, you are speaking the truth. I -had thought that when this happened it would matter. -And it does not matter.”</p> - -<p>“Only one thing has mattered in all our lives, -Marie-Claire. I was at Storisende last week. I -remembered you and our youth.”</p> - -<p>“And were you”—she smiled faintly,—“and were -you properly remorseful?”</p> - -<p>“No. I have regretted many of my doings. But -I can find nowhere in me any of the highly requisite -repentance for those of my actions which people -would describe as criminal. I suppose it is because -we of Puysange are so respectful of the notions -of others that we do not commit crimes rashly. We -enter into no illegal turpitude until rather careful -reflection has assured us of its expediency. I, in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span> -any event, have sometimes been virtuous with unthinking -levity, and with depressing upshots: but -my vices, which my judgment had to endorse before -prudence would venture on them, have resulted -well enough. So I can regret no irregularities, -and certainly not the happiness of our far-off -youth.”</p> - -<p>Again Marie-Claire was in no hurry to reply. -When she spoke, it was without any apparent conviction -either one way or the other. “Our happiness -involved, they say, considerable misdoing.”</p> - -<p>This stirred him to mild indignation. “And is -love between brother and sister a misdoing? Come, -Marie-Claire, but let us be logical! All scientists -will tell you that endogamy is natural to mankind -as long as men stay uncorrupted by over-civilization. -The weight of history goes wholly one way. The -Pharaohs and the Ptolemies afford, I believe, precedents -that are tolerably ancient. Strabo is explicit -as to the old Irish, Herodotus as to the Persians. -In heaven also Osiris and Zeus and I know -not how many other supreme gods have, in cherishing -extreme affection for their sisters, set the example -followed upon earth by the Kings of Siam -and of Phœnicia, and by the Incas of Peru—”</p> - -<p>She shook that small dark head. “But, none the -less—”</p> - -<p>“—An example followed by the Sinhalese, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span> -Romans of the old Republic, the Tyrians, the -Guanches of the Canary Islands—”</p> - -<p>“Let us say no more about it—”</p> - -<p>“—An example, in short, of the best standing in -all quarters of the globe. In the Rig-Veda you -will find Yami defending with unanswerable eloquence -the union of brother and sister. In Holy -Writ we see Heaven’s highest blessings accorded -to the fruit of Abraham’s affection for his sister -Sarah, nor need I allude to the marriage of Azrun -with her two brothers, Abel and Cain. And in the -Ynglinga Saga—”</p> - -<p>She laid her hand upon his mouth. “Yes, yes, -you have your precedents: and in your eyes, I know, -that is the main thing, because of your dread of -being unconventional and offending the neighbors. -We were not wicked, then, whatever our less well-read -father thought: we were merely”—and here -she smiled,—“we were merely logical in our youth. -In any event, we wasted our youth.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Florian admitted, “for I was then logical, -but not sufficiently logical. I could, as easily at -that time as later, have cured our father of his habit -of meddling with my affairs. But I turned unthinkingly -away from the contented decades of -technical criminality which we might have shared. -For I was in those days enamored of the beauty that -I in childhood had, however briefly, seen: even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span> -while my body rioted, my thoughts remained bewilderedly -aware of a beguiling and intoxicating -brightness which stayed unwon to; and I could care -whole-heartedly about nothing else.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” she answered. “You were a dear boy. -And it does not matter, now, that you went away -from me, and played at being a man about whom -I knew nothing and cared nothing. For old times’ -sake my sending followed you to Brunbelois, and -even there for old times’ sake I warned you. But -you would not heed—”</p> - -<p>“I cared for nothing then save the beauty of -Melior. And now her beauty,” he said, with a wry -smile, “is gone. And that also does not matter. -For months her beauty has been the one thing about -her I never think of.”</p> - -<p>“She is flesh and blood,” said Marie-Claire, as -if that explained everything. “It is a combination -which does not long detain Puysange. What is -this peril that you go to encounter to-day?”</p> - -<p>“I go up upon Morven to keep my word as frankly -and as utterly as I gave it; and thereby to be embroiled, -I am afraid, in open conflict with my -patron saint.”</p> - -<p>“That is bad. You must keep your word of -course, because favoritism to anybody is wrong. -But these saints do not understand this; they build -all upon Heaven’s favoritism: and these holy persons -are stronger than we, precisely because they -are immune to such clear seeing as we are cursed -with.”</p> - -<div class="echap"></div> -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="facing250-caption" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img src="images/facing250-caption.jpg" alt="Caption" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="facing250" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/facing250.jpg" alt="" /> - <div class="caption">He closed upon <span class="allsmcap">FLORIAN</span>, straightforwardly, -without any miracle-working.<br /><i>See page <a href="#Page_281">281</a></i></div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span></p> - - -<p>“But your powers of sending and perverting and -blighting and so on,” he said,—“are none of these -to be enlisted in my favor?”</p> - -<p>“Not against Hoprig,” she replied, “for the elect -have that invincible unreason and stupidity against -which alone our powers are feeble. No, my dearest, -I cannot aid you. For these saints are stronger -than we are: and in the end, whatever grounds they -may afford us for contempt or for laughing at them, -they conquer us.”</p> - -<p>It was in some sort a relief to know there was not -hope anywhere. Florian spoke now with more animation. -“No, Marie-Claire. Even at the last let -us adhere to logic! These saints do not conquer; -they destroy us, that is all. The ruthless power of -holiness is strong enough for that, but it is not strong -enough to hold me, not for one instant, in subjection.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, and must you still be playing, dear boy that -was, at being a most tremendous fellow?” she said, -still smiling very tenderly. “Heaven will destroy -you, then: and this is the hour of your return, the -hour which I once prophesied, the hour which comes—so -unportentously!—to end our living. So let us -not waste that hour in quibbles.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span></p> - -<p>“You are so practical,” he lamented, “and with -all that is lovable you combine such a dearth of admirable -sentiments. In brief, you are Puysange.”</p> - -<p>She said pensively: “You were not lonely in my -little time of happiness. You would not ever have -been lonely with me.”</p> - -<p>“Have you divined that also, Marie-Claire? Yes, -it has been lonely. I have had many friends and -wives and mistresses. Perhaps I have had everything -which life has to give—”</p> - -<p>Florian sat looking moodily at two queer drawings -done in red and black upon the plaster of the -wall: one represented a serpent swallowing rods, the -other a serpent crucified. Beneath these drawings -was a dark shining stone, and in its gleaming he saw -figures move.</p> - -<p>Florian turned, and said without any apparent -emotion: “But I have lived quite alone, with no -comprehension of anyone, and with so much distrust -of everybody! And now it is too late.”</p> - -<p>She considered this: she spread out her hands, -smiling without mirth. “Yes, it is too late, even -with me. Nothing is left, where all was yours once, -Florian. I seem a husk. I do not either love or -hate you any longer. Only,”—again that dark -blind staring puzzled over him,—“only, it is not -you who wait here in this fine black suit.”</p> - -<p>That made him too smile, and shrug a little. “It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span> -is what remains of me, my dear,—all that remains -anywhere to-day. Such is the end of every person’s -youth and passion. I sometimes think that -we reside in an ill-managed place. For look, Marie-Claire!” -He waved toward the window, made up -of very small panes of leaded glass, through which -you saw the first vaporous green of the low fruit -trees and much sunshine. “Look, Marie-Claire! -spring is returning now, on every side. That seems -so tactless.”</p> - -<p>But Marie-Claire replied, with more tolerance: -“That is Their notion of humor. I suppose it -amuses the poor dears, so let us not complain.”</p> - -<p>Then they fell to talking of other matters, and -they spoke of shared small happenings in that spring -of eighteen years ago, talking quite at random as -one trifle reminded them of another. The son of -Marie-Claire, young Achille Cazaio, was away from -home in the way of business: for at seventeen he -had just set up as a brigand, and he was at this -time only a hopeful apprentice in the trade through -which he was to prosper and to win success and some -fame. So they were undisturbed; and Florian that -day saw nothing of the stripling bandit, whom gossip -declared remarkably to resemble his half-uncle.</p> - -<p>And Florian stayed for some while in this neat -sparsely furnished room. He was content. At -the bottom of his mind had always been the knowl<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span>edge -that by and by he would return to Marie-Claire. -Such events as had happened since he left -her, and the things that people had said and thought -and done because of him, and in particular the responsibilities -with which he had been entrusted,—his -dukedom, his wives, his order of the Holy -Ghost, a whole château to do with whatever he -pleased,—were the materials of a joke which he was -to share with his sister some day, when the boy -that had left her came back after having hoodwinked -so many persons into regarding him as mature and -efficient and unprincipled and all sorts of other -amusing things. Marie-Claire alone knew that -this fourth Duke of Puysange was still the boy who -had loved her; and her blind gazing seemed always -to penetrate the disguise.</p> - -<p>Well! he had come back to her, to find that both -of them were changed. The fact was sad, because -it seemed to him that boy and girl had been rather -wonderful. But it did not matter. Probably nothing -mattered. Meanwhile he was again with Marie-Claire. -It was sufficient to be home again, for the -little while which remained before his destruction -by that pig-headed and meddlesome Hoprig. And -Florian was content....</p> - -<p>Toward mid-day Florian parted with his sister -for the last time. He found it rather appalling that -neither she nor he was moved by this leave-taking.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span> -Then he reflected: “But we are dead persons, dead -a great while ago. This is the calm of death.”</p> - -<p>He saw that this was true, and got from it the -comfort which he always derived from logic.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, he went back very softly, and he -peered through the door he had left not quite closed. -Marie-Claire now knelt before the dark polished -stone in whose gleaming moved figures.</p> - -<p>“Lalle, Bachera, Magotte, Baphia—” she had begun.</p> - -<p>Florian shrugged as, this time, he really went -away from the house of oak and plaster. He knew -whom she invoked. But that did not matter either. -And in fact, for Marie-Claire to pass from him to -that other was profoundly logical.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="image035" style="max-width: 68.75em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image035.jpg" alt="Florian bowing to Assyrian god" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_25"><i>25.</i><br /> - -<i>The Gander That Sang</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image089.jpg" alt="F" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">LORIAN followed the brook. Florian -went hillward, walking upon -what seemed a long-ruined roadway. -As he went upstream, the brook was -to his left hand: to his right was the -hillside thick with trees. Florian, -whose familiarity with rural affairs was limited, -was perforce content to recognize among these trees -the maples, the oaks, the pines and the chestnuts.</p> - -<p>“Only, I should by every precedent, now that I -go to inevitable destruction, be observing everything -with unnatural vividness,” he reflected: “and to -have about me so many familiar looking but to me -anonymous trees and bushes makes my impression -of the scenery quite unbecomingly vague.”</p> - -<p>Midges danced vexatiously about his face, and -now and again he slapped at them without gaining -the least good. So much of the ruined roadway -had collapsed into the brook, in disorderly jumbles -of stones and clay and splintered slate, that what re<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span>mained -was very awkward to walk on: your right -foot was always so much higher up the hill than -your left. All was peculiarly still this afternoon: -it startled you, when, as happened once or twice, -a grasshopper sprang out of your way, rising from -between your feet with vicious unexpected whirrings. -That did not seem wholly natural, in April.</p> - -<p>Florian came at last to a log hut beside three -trees. Here then was the hermitage of Holy Hoprig, -wherein Florian was to encounter the unpredictable. -Florian regarded this hut with disfavor. He -had never thought to be destroyed in such an unimpressive -looking building.</p> - -<p>He shrugged, he loosened Flamberge in the scabbard, -he went forward, and he pushed open the door. -“Now if only,” he reflected, “I had the height and -the imposing appearance of Raoul!” Florian made -the most of every inch; and entered with the bearing -becoming to a Duke of Puysange.</p> - -<p>The hut was unoccupied, save that in one corner -was a cage painted brown; and inside this sat, upon -a red silk cushion, a large gander.</p> - -<p>“Do not disturb me,” said this bird, at once, “for -I have had quite enough to upset me already.”</p> - -<p>Florian for an instant stayed silent and somewhat -confused. For this evidently was not the -saint’s hermitage, and a talking gander seemed not -wholly natural. Then Florian recollected that Mor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span>ven -had always been the home of sorcery. So -Florian replied, with great civility, that he had not -meant to intrude, but merely happened to be passing. -And Florian then talked with this gander, -who told of the quite disgusting scene he had witnessed -when a woman, riding upon a magic staff, -had come into the hut, and had there been delivered -of a child.</p> - -<p>“Children are not usually acquired so,” said the -gander, “for as a rule, a stork brings them, and that -is a much nicer method.”</p> - -<p>“But where,” said Florian, “is now this honorarium?”</p> - -<p>“I do not know what that means,” the bird replied, -“but I do know that if it means anything -objectionable it has almost certainly been in here to-day -to annoy me.”</p> - -<p>And the bird told of how a dove had come and -had carried off in its beak the ring the woman had -given it. He told how presently had come a fine -looking man with a shining about his head, not flying -but luxuriously riding through the air upon a -gold cloud, with cherubs’ heads floating about him; -and how the woman and the child had gone away -upon this same cloud, surrounded by, the gander -thought, extremely fretful looking cherubs.</p> - -<p>“The whole affair has upset me very much,” said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span> -the gander, “for I was composing, and I can never -bear to be interrupted.”</p> - -<p>And the gander sang to Florian of the proper -way in which children should be born and should -live thereafter. About the glory of love and the -felicities of marriage, about patriotism and success in -business and about the high assurances of religion, -the gander sang, and about optimism and philanthropy -and about the steady advancing of every kind -of social improvement. And of man that is the -child and heir of God, and of the splendor of man’s -works, and of the magnanimity of human nature, -and of the wonder of man’s living upon earth, the -gander sang also.</p> - -<p>“Parbleu, but let us be logical about this!” said -Florian. “Your art is very pleasing; but it embellishes -a lazar-house with pastels. For human -living is not at all like the song you have made -concerning it.”</p> - -<p>“So much the worse for human living,” the gander -answered. “It does not bother me here in my -cage. Besides, the purpose and the effect of my -singing, like that of all great singing, is to fill my -fellows with a sentiment of their importance as -moral beings and of the greatness of their destinies. -So I do not mimic. I create.”</p> - -<p>Florian looked at the gander for some while, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span> -Florian sighed. This creature too had in it nothing -of the realist, Florian reflected, and it preferred to -live by its own code; but its æsthetic theories coincided -with Hoprig’s. And the hermitage of that—somehow—ambiguous -Hoprig was still to seek.</p> - -<p>Florian left the imprisoned gander singing very -gloriously, and Florian went now across Morven, -that place of abominable fame. These uplands were -thickly overgrown with a queer vine that had large -oval leaves, the green of which was mottled with -red, somewhat like the skin of snakes. Here also -grew strawberry vines. As he walked this undergrowth -was continually catching in the buckles of -Florian’s shoes. Everywhere were inexplicable soft -noises, and about his face danced a small cloud of -midges.</p> - -<p>There was no other sign of life except that once -five large black and white birds rose from the ground -immediately before him, seeming to rise from between -his feet as the grasshoppers had done. This -did not frighten Florian, exactly, but the suddenness -of it, in this lonely place, gave him a shock -not wholly delightful. These birds, he saw, had -been feeding there upon the berries of a small bush, -upon purple berries which were about the size of a -wren’s egg, and whose outer sides had been pecked -away by the birds, leaving the seeds exposed. All -this was natural enough until you reflected that in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span> -these latitudes no bush produced berries as early as -April.</p> - -<p>Now toward twilight Florian came to clumps of -big and vividly yellow toad-stools, which seemed fat -and poisonous and very evil. He passed among -these, breaking many of them with his feet, and -reflecting that the tiny screams which appeared to -be uttered by these broken, loathsomely soft things -must be the cry of some other sort of queer bird -hidden somewhere near at hand. And he presently -saw the appearance of a man coming toward him, -and about the head of this man was a shining, as -Florian perceived from afar, and was so assured -that this was Hoprig.</p> - -<p>Florian went forward intrepidly, once he had -loosened Flamberge in the scabbard. But this was -not Hoprig. It was, instead, an incredibly old -man in faded blue, who carried upon his arm an -open basket filled with small roots. At his heel -came a blue and white dog. The old man looked -once at Florian, with peculiarly bright eyes, like -the eyes of those who had watched the Feast of the -Wheel, and he passed without speaking. The dog -paused, and without making any noise, sniffed about -Florian’s legs once or twice, as if this inspection -were a matter of duty, and then followed this old -man who had about his head a shining. It was -odd, but the dog made no noise when he sniffed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span> -thus close to you; and neither the man in blue nor -the blue and white dog made any least noise as -they passed through the thick and tangled vines -underfoot; nor did their passing at all move these -vines which caught at the buckles of Florian’s -shoes so that he was continually tripping. These -things rendered it difficult to believe that the man -and the dog could be wholly natural.</p> - -<p>And still those pertinacious midges danced before -Florian’s eyes: and he was tired of slapping at -them without ever driving them away. Morven did -not appear a merry place, upon this the last day of -April, as Florian toiled through Morven’s thickening -twilight, in search of Holy Hoprig’s hermitage, -wherein was now the child that Florian had need of.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="image079-2" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image079.jpg" alt="Adam, Eve, serpent, apple tree" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_26"><i>26.</i><br /> - -<i>Husband and Wife</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image064.jpg" alt="T" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">OWARD evening Florian came into -the saint’s hermitage. Inside, it -proved a most comfortable hermitage, -having walls builded of logs -with the interstices filled with plaster. -It seemed rather luxuriously -furnished, to Florian’s glance, which took exact -note of nothing more specific than the skull upon -the lectern and the three silver-gilt candelabra. -These twelve candles, as you came in from the twilight, -made the room quite cosy. Florian did not, -however, look at the room’s equipment with the interest -he reserved for his wife.</p> - -<p>Melior sat there, alone except for the newborn -child in her lap. At the sound of Florian’s entrance -she had drawn the child closer, raising her blue -mantle about it in an involuntary movement of protection: -and as she faced him thus, Florian could -see, without any especial interest, that with motherhood -all her lost beauty had returned. It seemed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span> -inexplicable, but Melior was, if anything, more -lovely than she had ever been: it was probably one -of Hoprig’s miracles: and Florian found time to -wonder why he should be, so unquestionably and so -actively, irritated by the sight of a person in everything -so pleasing.</p> - -<p>Neither spoke for a while.</p> - -<p>“I thought that you would be here before long: -and all I have to say is that I wonder how you can -look me in the face,” observed Melior, at last. -“Still, that you should be so bent upon your own -destruction that you have followed us even here, -does, I confess, astonish me. Why, Florian, have -you no sense at all!”</p> - -<p>“My dearest, you underestimate the power of -paternal affection.” Florian came to her, and gently -uncovered the child’s face. The baby, having supped, -was asleep. Florian looked at it for a moment -and for yet another moment. He shrugged. “No: -I am aware of none of the appropriate emotions. -The creature merely seems to me unfinished. Its -head, in particular, has been affixed most unsatisfactorily; -and I lament the general appearance of -having been recently boiled. No, I sacrifice little.”</p> - -<p>Melior put the sleeping child into the cradle yonder, -a cradle which Florian supposed that Hoprig -must have created extempore and miraculously when<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span> -a cradle was needed. It hardly seemed the most -natural appurtenance of an anchorite’s retreat.</p> - -<p>Then Melior turned, and she regarded Florian -with her maddening air of dealing very patiently -with an irrational person.</p> - -<p>“Do you actually think, Florian, that, now, you -can harm the little pet? Florian, that is one fault -you have, though I am far from saying it is the only -one. Still, as I so often think, no one of us is -perfect: and perpetual fault-finding never gets you -anywhere, does it? Even so, Florian, there is no -denying you do not like to take a common-sense view -of the most self-evident facts when the facts are -not quite what you want them to be, and that much -I feel I ought to tell you frankly. Otherwise, Florian, -you would comprehend at once that I have only -to cry out to St. Hoprig, who is back yonder chopping -the wood to cook our supper, after those -cherubs were positively rude about being asked to -do it, and then he will blast you with a miracle.”</p> - -<p>She had gone back to her outlandish mediæval -clothing. He recognized, now, the dreadful gown -she was wearing the morning he first came to her -upon the mountain top,—that glaring, shiny, -twinkling affair, which reminded you of an Opera -dancer’s costume in some spectacular ballet. For a -Duchess of Puysange to be thus preposterously at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span>tired -was unbecoming, and was in quite abominable -taste.</p> - -<p>“First, madame,” said Florian, with a vexed, -rather tired sigh, “let us explain matters. I have -loved you since my boyhood, Melior, with a love -which no woman, I think, can understand. For I -loved you worshipfully, without hope, without any -actual desire: and I loved you, by ill-luck, with a -whole-heartedness which has prevented my ever -loving anything else. It is droll that a little color -and glitter and a few plump curves, seen once and -very briefly, should be able to make all other things -not quite worth troubling about. But the farce is -old. They used to call us nympholepts; and they -fabled that the beauty which robbed us of all normal -human joys was divine. Well, I have no desire -to discuss the nature of divinity, madame, nor to -bore you with any further talking about what no -woman understands. It suffices that I loved you in -this pre-eminently ridiculous fashion; and that a way -was offered me by which I might very incredibly -win to you.”</p> - -<p>To which Melior replied: “You mean about your -bargaining with Janicot, I suppose, and I am sure -I never heard of such nonsense in my life. Why, -Florian, to think that the moment I let you out of my -sight, even if it was a little while before I first -actually saw you, because that does not in the least<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span> -alter the principle of the thing,—quite apart from its -happening the same morning, anyhow,—that you -should be mixing yourself up with such people! It -is positively incredible! But, as for your supposing -that I am going to let you and your Janicots lay -one finger on my precious lamb—!”</p> - -<p>“Madame,” he replied, “let us be logical! I can -conceive of no possible reason why you should especially -value this child. It may be no more repulsive -looking than other babies: that is a point upon -which I cannot pretend to speak with authority. -But it is certainly not in itself an attractive animal. -And your acquaintance with it, dating only from this -morning, is far too brief to have permitted the forming -of any personal attachment. For the rest, this -bargain with Monsieur Janicot is an affair in which -I have given my word. I can say no more. It -is in your power, of course, to summon my patron -saint, who, from what I know of him, will probably -attempt to coerce me into rank dishonesty; -and in that case the issue remains doubtful. The -most probable outcome—need I say?—in view of his -boasted proficiency in blasting, cursing and smiting, -seems my annihilation. Would you, madame, who -are of royal blood and are born of a race that is -more than human,—would you have me, on that account, -hold back in an affair in which my honor is -involved?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span></p> - -<p>“Why, Florian, since you are asking my advice, -I think it is not quite nice to speak of the power -of a saint as being at all doubtful. We both know -perfectly well that he would resent any impudence -from you with a palsy or an advanced case of leprosy -or perhaps a thunderbolt, and make things -most unpleasant for everybody. And besides, it is -just as well to avoid the subject of doubtfulness, -because after talking with your other wives, I confess, -Florian, that I have the very gravest doubts -as to what you are planning to have become of -me.”</p> - -<p>“You will vanish, madame, after the usual custom -of your race. I am sure I do not know whither -the Léshy usually vanish.”</p> - -<p>“I decline to vanish. Now that I am a Christian, -Florian, I should think that even you would know -I must decline to take any part in any such silly and -irreligious proceedings—”</p> - -<p>To which he answered patiently, “But I have -given my word, madame.”</p> - -<p>And still this obstinate woman clung to her pretence -that he was behaving irrationally. She said, -with an effect of being almost sorry for him:</p> - -<p>“My poor Florian! now but let us be perfectly -friendly about this. I am disposed to bear no -malice, because, as I so often think, what is the -odds? In the long run, I mean—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span></p> - -<p>“Madame, it is my misfortune never quite to -know what you mean.”</p> - -<p>“Why, I mean that we all make mistakes, and -that it is to be expected, and the least said about it, -the soonest mended. Besides, as I was telling you, -I do not know of course who it was that first set -women upon a pedestal, and even if I did, I would -be willing to overlook his mistakes too—”</p> - -<p>“But you have not been telling me about this over-imaginative -unmarried person! You were talking -about malice and vanishing—”</p> - -<p>“—Still, I certainly would not thank him, because -I have had to pay for that mistake, even more -heavily than women do now. Ah, Florian, as I so -often think, it is always the woman who pays! -For, you conceive, in my first life, back at Brunbelois, -I mean, in those perfectly awful days of -chivalry, I used to be worshipped, or at least that -was what it came to in practise, as a symbol of -heavenly excellence—”</p> - -<p>Florian said, with an attempt at gallantry, “I -can well imagine—”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it was without any actually personal application, -you understand: it was just that all ladies -were regarded in that light. It was considered that -in making women Heaven had revealed the full extent -of Heaven’s powers. So they made us sit upon -uncomfortable thrones at their tournaments—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span></p> - -<p>“But,” Florian protested, “these honorable and -extremely picturesque customs—”</p> - -<p>“My dear, that is all very well! but they used to -last for a week sometimes. And there we would -have to sit, from six to seven hours a day, with -canopies but no cushions, and with no toilet conveniences, -and with nothing whatever to do except -to watch them sticking and poking and chopping -one another in order to show how they respected -us,—though I could never understand just how that -came in, because my back hurt me too much, apart -from my other troubles—”</p> - -<p>“But as a symbol—” This horrible woman -seemed resolved to leave him no one last shred of his -dream.</p> - -<p>“It was not the symbolism I objected to, Florian, -but the endless inconvenience. The tournaments -were only a part of it; and of course even after them -you could get liniment, and you soon learned not to -drink anything with your breakfast. But they -walked off with your sleeves and handkerchiefs, -with or without your leave: and when you go to -put on your gloves, let me tell you, it is most annoying -to find that the other one is several miles away -in somebody’s helmet—”</p> - -<p>“Now,” Florian said, yet more and more shocked, -“you illogically apply prosaic standards to the entirely -poetic attitude of chivalry—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span></p> - -<p>“Oh, as for their poetry, telling what marvelous -creatures they thought us, they were all over the -place with it. That was trying enough in the day-time: -but when it came to being waked up long -before dawn, and prevented from getting a wink -of beauty-sleep at night, by their aubades and serenas -about how wonderful you were, I do assure you, it -was really very tiresome—”</p> - -<p>“I can see that.” Logic compelled the admission, -however repulsive it was to find a woman blundering -into logic. “But, still, madame—”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you can see that, Florian, now, because you -now comprehend you have been as foolishly exaggerative -as any of them. Florian, you are a -romantic: and from the first that has been the trouble, -because it was that which made you fall in love -with your notion of Melior. That was just what -you did, without even having talked with me—”</p> - -<p>“Parbleu, but certainly it was without having -heard you talk—”</p> - -<p>“And as far as it went, it was quite nice of you, -Florian, for you appear even to have imperilled -your soul—which, to be sure, must have been in a -rather dangerous way already,—through your desire -to have me for your wife. Nobody thinks of -denying that was a very pretty compliment, but, -if you ask me, it was a mistake—”</p> - -<p>This seemed to Florian such a masterpiece in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span> -art of understatement that he said almost sullenly, -“We needs must love the highest—”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, Florian, I am far from being the -highest. And so, let me tell you, is any other -woman. After a month or two of sleeping with -and mooning around me,—who, you must do me the -justice to admit, never laughed at you once, though -I do not deny that I was tempted, for, Florian, my -dear, it seems only fair to tell you that at times -you are simply—! But then, it is not as if other -men were very different—”</p> - -<p>“Let us,” said Florian,—who was reflecting that -he had never really detested anybody before he met -this woman,—“let us turn to more profitable topics -than masculine romanticism—”</p> - -<p>“So you made the appalling discovery that I did -not belong upon a pedestal. That was inevitable, -though I must say it was not as if I had endeavored -to hide it from you. And you resented it fiercely. -That too, I suppose, was only you romantic men all -over, though it was just as foolish as the mooning. -And from what I can gather, you appear to have -been equally rash and—if you do not mind my saying -so, dear,—equally inconsiderate, in your treatment -of your other wives. Though, to be sure, -whatever you could see in those women, even at the -first—!”</p> - -<p>“I am a Puysange. We are ardent—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span></p> - -<p>“In any event, it is not as if anything could be -done about them now. So, really, Florian, taking -one consideration with another, I do not see why, -now that we have talked it over amicably, and you -have more or less explained yourself,—and, I am -willing to believe, are quite properly sorry,—we -should not get on tolerably well. And about men -I say nothing, because one does want to be kind, -but I doubt if any woman anywhere really hopes for -more than that when she marries.”</p> - -<p>Melior had stopped talking. Not that fact alone -had roused Florian to chill amazement. He said, -“You plan, madame—?”</p> - -<p>“Why, first of all, I plan for both of us to appeal, -in a suitably religious and polite manner, to your -patron saint. That is the plain duty of a Christian. -For if this Janicot has any real claim upon the little -darling, you surely must see how much nicer it -would be, in every way, for Hoprig to be working -miracles against him instead of smiting you with -something unpleasant. And besides, I do not see -how he can have any real claim—”</p> - -<p>Florian resolutely thrust aside the suspicion that -this obstinate and shiny and gross-minded woman -was now planning, among other enormities, to return -to living with him. He said only:</p> - -<p>“I am astounded. I am grieved. You would -have me meanly crawl out of my bargain by invok<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span>ing -the high powers of Heaven to help me in a -swindle, very much as one hears of dishonest persons -repudiating fair debts through the chicanery -of a death-bed repentance. Pardieu, madame! -since you suggest such infamies, and since you will -not hear reason, I can but leave you, to defy this -Hoprig to his ugly nose, and to perish, if necessary, -upon his woodpile with untarnished faith.”</p> - -<p>He turned sadly from this woman who appeared -to have no sense of logic or honor, not even any -elementary notion of fair-dealing. And as Florian -turned, he saw the door open, and through the doorway -came first an armful of faggots and behind it -the flushed but still benevolent face of Hoprig.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="image274" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image274.jpg" alt="Saint copping off devil’s tail" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_27"><i>27.</i><br /> - -<i>The Forethought of Hoprig</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image148.jpg" alt="C" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">OME now,” said St. Hoprig, as he -laid down the wood, “but here is that -abominable ward of mine! and upon -the point of defying me too!” -Whereon he shook hands cordially -with Florian.</p> - -<p>“Ah, but, monsieur,” said Florian, “be logical! -We meet as enemies.”</p> - -<p>“Frequently,” observed the saint, “that is the -speediest way of reaching a thorough understanding. -I suppose that you have come about your -foolish bargain with Janicot.”</p> - -<p>“Upon my word,” replied Florian, “but all my -business affairs appear to be well known to everybody -upon Morven!”</p> - -<p>The saint had turned to Melior, with a wise nod. -“So, you perceive, madame, our precautions were -justified. Now, my dear son, do not worry any -more about your contract with the powers of evil, -but off with your things, and have some supper with -us. For I have excellent news for you. You were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span> -to sacrifice to Janicot the first child that you and -Madame Melior might have, and she was then to -vanish. Your bargain is void, or, rather, the terms -have not yet been fulfilled.”</p> - -<p>Florian looked forlornly at his wife, then toward -the cradle, and he said, “I fail to perceive the omission, -Monsieur Hoprig.”</p> - -<p>“Luckily for human society, my son, a great many -persons are similarly obtuse.”</p> - -<p>“Ah,” said Florian, “but let us have no daring -coruscations of wit where plain talking is needed.”</p> - -<p>“I must tell you, then,” the saint continued, “that, -when my suspicions were aroused at Brunbelois, I -communicated with higher powers, and the Recording -Angel obliged me with a fair copy of your first -interview with Janicot. He objected to giving it: -but I stood up for my rights as a saint, and in the -end, after some little unpleasantness, he did give it. -One really has to be firm with these angels, I find, -in order to get the least bit of service. After that, -at all events, the way to foil your wicked scheme -was clear enough: in fact, it was the one possible -way to prevent, without open scandal, your begetting -of a child upon your wife for deplorable purposes. -I advised the Princess to follow this way, -and to make sure before marrying you that you -should win to her embraces a bit too late to be the -father of her child.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span></p> - -<p>“That seems to be unprecedented advice,” said -Florian, sternly, “to have come from a saint of the -Calendar.”</p> - -<p>He tried, at least, to speak sternly: but a dreadful -thought had smitten him, and Florian knew that he, -who had wondered what people meant when they -talked about fear, had done with wondering.</p> - -<p>“It was for your own good and eternal salvation,” -observed Melior, “though, to be sure, all men -are like that, and, as I often think, the more you do -for them the less they seem to appreciate your -trouble—”</p> - -<p>Florian said only, “May I inquire, madame, without -appearing unduly intrusive, who was your collaborator -in arranging this infant’s début?”</p> - -<p>“Why, but of course she received all the necessary -assistance,” replied St. Hoprig, “from me. I never -grudge the efforts necessary to a good action of this -sort: and all night long, my son, I labored cheerfully -for your salvation. For it was my plain duty as -your celestial patron to save you, at any cost, from -falling into grave sin: and, besides, it was a matter -hardly to be entrusted to any other gentleman without -considerable possibilities of scandal.”</p> - -<p>Florian looked from one to the other. “So it was -to prevent scandal that my wife and my patron saint -have put together their heads: and beauty and holiness—they -also!—must combine to avoid offending<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span> -against the notions of the neighbors. You will -permit the remark that here is ambiguous logic.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but my dear,” replied Melior, “can you with -logic deny that we did it for your own good? So -often, when affairs look wrong, if you will just regard -the spirit of the thing—”</p> - -<p>“Madame,” said Florian, without unkindliness, -“let us not argue about that. I am sure you were -persuaded as to the spirit of the thing, when no -doubt Monsieur Hoprig went into it at full length—”</p> - -<p>Yet Florian spoke perturbedly, for in his heart -remained despair and terror. To find that he had -been hoodwinked was not a discovery to upset a person -used to the ways of the world and of more wives -than he had ever married: to be hoodwinked was the -métier of husbands. Moreover, reflection had already -suggested that the saint had followed the -honorable old tradition of various nations who -deputed exactly the task which Hoprig had spared -Florian to their most holy persons.</p> - -<p>Florian took snuff. With his chin well up, he inhaled -luxuriously....</p> - -<p>Yes, Florian reflected, there were priests everywhere,—the -Brahmans of Malabar, the Piaches of -the Arawaks, the Dedes of Lycia, the Chodsas of -the Dersim uplands, and the Ankuts of the Esquimaux,—to -all these priests was formally relegated -the performing of this task when a woman was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span> -about to marry. Every part of the world wherein -mankind remained unspoiled by civilization, reflected -Florian, afforded an exact and honorable precedent: -and he could advance no ground for complaint. -For one was logical. Certain physical reservations -were made much of, to be sure, in Holy Writ and -in the sermons preached in convents to auditories -of schoolgirls. And this theory perhaps did no great -harm. But, after all, there was a grain of folly in -this theory that to-day’s letters still in the post contained -of necessity more virtuous matter than did -yesterday’s letters, whose seals had been broken. -No, let us be logical about this theory.</p> - -<p>He closed his snuff-box. The lid bore the portrait -of poor Philippe. He regretted Philippe, who had -been destroyed with no real gain to anybody. Florian -slipped the box into his waistcoat pocket....</p> - -<p>Hoprig’s painstaking forethought, then, gave a -philosopher no ground for wonder or dissatisfaction. -But none the less, in the heart of Florian was -despair and terror. The terms of his bargain had -not been fulfilled, and the one course open to a -gentleman who held by his word was to go on living -with his disenchanted princess for, at the very least—he -estimated, appalled,—another full year.</p> - -<p>Florian extended his right hand, dusting the -fingers one against the other. He liked those long -white fingers. But this was simply dreadful: and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span> -he would have to speak now, he would have to say -something. They were both waiting. Negligently -he straightened the Mechlin ruffles at his throat....</p> - -<p>Then with a riotous surge of joy, he recollected -that the current conventions of society afforded him -a colorable pretext to provoke the saint into annihilating -him. As against continuing to live within -earshot of Melior’s insufferable jabbering,—as -against a year of hourly frettings under a gross-minded -idiot’s blasphemies against the bright and -flawless shrine of beauty which she inhabited,—the -everywhere betrayed romantic had still the refuge -of bodily destruction in this world and damnation -in the next. And all because of a graceful social -convention! all because of one of those fine notions -which, precisely as he had always contended, made -human living among the amenities of civilization so -much more comely and more satisfying than was the -existence of such savages as lived ignobly with no -guide except common-sense. The Piaches and the -Brahmans and the Ankuts were all savages, and -their obscene notions were wholly abominable.</p> - -<p>“Madame,” said Florian, with his best dignity, -“whatever the contrast between the purity of your -intentions and of your conduct, I shall cling to the -old simple faith of my ancestors. I am a Puysange. -I do not care for airdrawn abstractions, I do not -palter with such dangerous subtleties as you suggest.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span> -I act with the forthright simplicity which becomes a -gentleman, and I avenge my wounded honor.”</p> - -<p>Whereupon, with due respect for the possible incandescence -of a halo, Florian struck Hoprig on -the jaw.</p> - -<p>“Now, holy Michael aid me!” cried the saint, and -he closed upon Florian, straightforwardly, without -any miracle-working.</p> - -<p>And as Hoprig spoke, there was a great peal of -thunder. The crash, with its long shuddering -reverberations was utterly appalling, but Hoprig -was not appalled. Instead, he had drawn away -from Florian, and Hoprig was now smiling deprecatingly.</p> - -<p>“Dear me!” the saint observed, “but I am always -forgetting. And now, I suppose, they will be vexed -again.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="image065_3" style="max-width: 37.5em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image065.jpg" alt="Lizard crawling from pot" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span></p> -</div> -<div class="btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_28"><i>28.</i><br /> - -<i>Highly Ambiguous</i></h3></div> - - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image282.jpg" alt="A" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">ND then as the last shaken note of -thunder died away, and as Melior -fell to comforting the awakened -baby, a tall warrior entered. He -wore the most resplendent of ancient -corselets, and embossed greaves -protected his legs, but no helmet hid his flaxen curls. -He now laid down an eight-sided shield, emblazoned -argent with a cross gules, and he rustled his wings -rather indignantly.</p> - -<p>“Really, Hoprig,” said the new-comer, “this is -carrying matters entirely too far; and you must not -summon the princes of Heaven from their affairs to -take part in your fisticuffs.”</p> - -<p>“What more can you expect, good Michael, of -misguided efforts to make saints of my people?”</p> - -<p>This was a voice which was not unknown to -Florian. And he saw that Janicot too had come,—not -in that unreserved condition in which Florian -had last seen him, but discreetly clothed and showing -in everything as the neat burgess of Florian’s first<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span> -encounter. And it was evident that this Janicot -was not a stranger to St. Michael, either, when the -archangel answered:</p> - -<p>“It is well enough for you to grin, but with us the -matter is no joke. This Hoprig has been duly -canonized. When he invokes any of us we are under -formal obligations to minister unto him, for -he is entitled to all the perquisites of a saint: and he -puts them to most inappropriate uses. For I must -tell you—”</p> - -<p>“Come, Monseigneur St. Michael,” observed -Hoprig, waving toward Melior’s back, where she -was comforting the mewing baby without the least -attention to anything else,—“come, let us remember -that a lady is present.”</p> - -<p>“And for that matter, upon how many nights -since you began going about earth—But I shall -say no more upon a topic so painful. It is sufficient -to state that the entire affair is most unsettling, and -has displeased those high in authority. The Church -has canonized you, and we have of course to stand -by the Church, with which our relations have for -some while been, in the main, quite friendly. I do -not deny that if anything could have been done -about you, just quietly—But we find the Church -has provided no method whatever for removing -saints from the Calendar—”</p> - -<p>“You might remove him from earth, however,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span> -Janicot suggested, helpfully. “A thunderbolt is -not expensive.”</p> - -<p>“It has been considered. But the effect, we believe, -would not upon the whole be salutary. It -would discourage the pious in their efforts toward -sanctity to observe that bolt coming from, of all -quarters, heaven. Besides, as a saint, he must, directly -after being killed, ascend to eternal glory. -You ought to understand that we would be the last -persons actually to hurry him.”</p> - -<p>“I think I see,” said Janicot. “You are bound to -stand by the Church as faithfully as I do, if not -through quite the same motives. Now, I hold no -brief for this saint. He has swindled me,—cleverly -enough, but with that lack of common honesty -which as a rule lends ambiguity to pious actions,—out -of Madame Melior’s child. I name only the -mother, because, as I understand—?”</p> - -<p>He had turned to Florian, and Janicot’s raised -eyebrows were sententious.</p> - -<p>Florian answered them, “Yes, Monsieur Janicot; -it appears that I have acquired an increase of grace -through works of supererogation.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! and I had thought you were ardent! The -child, in any event, is a detail about which there is -no hurry. I am not fond of children myself—”</p> - -<p>And Florian marvelled. “Then, why—?”</p> - -<p>“It is merely that my servants have a use for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span> -them. Yes, my servants make them quite useful, -by adding the juice of water parsnip and soot and -cinquefoil and some other ingredients. And I endeavor -to supply my servants’ needs. However!”—and -Janicot waved the matter aside,—“when I am -beaten I acknowledge it. The disenchanted princess -remains yours: and I shall have no claim upon you -until”—here Janicot smiled again,—“until the great -love between your wife and you has approached a -somewhat more authentic fruition.”</p> - -<p>“Monsieur Janicot,” replied Florian, “you set the -noble example of confessing when one is beaten. -I was very careful when we made the compact -which secured me this flawlessly beautiful lady as -my wife. I am no longer careful. I cannot live -with her for another year, not for a month, not for -a half-hour! As you perceive, at the bare thought I -grow hysterical. I tell you I cannot face the thought -that this is the woman whom I have worshipped so -long! I am a broken man, and I repent of every -crime I committed in order to get her. Therefore -let us make a second compact, my dear Monsieur -Janicot, a compact by which she will be taken away -from me! And you may name your own terms.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but you are all alike!” sighed Janicot. “You -palter and haggle about the securing of your desires: -but once you have your desires, no price appears -too high to rid you of them. I cannot under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span>stand -my people, and my failure quite to comprehend -them troubles me: yet I could have told you, -Florian, the first day we met, that it would come to -this. But you were that droll creature the romantic, -the man who cherishes superhuman ideals. And -I really cannot put up with ideals—” Janicot -ceased from talking half as if in meditation. He -now glanced from one to another of the company -with a sort of friendly petulance. “However, why -is everybody looking so solemn? I like to have -happy faces about me.”</p> - -<p>“It is well enough for you to philosophize and -grin,” Michael returned, in lordly indignation. -“But grinning settles few religious difficulties, and -philosophy muddles them worse than ever. Yet, if -you ask why I look solemn, it is because this saint -here has become a scandal on earth, a nuisance in -heaven, and an impossibility in hell. And after all -our conferences we can find no place for him anywhere -to-day.”</p> - -<p>“Yet the affair is really very simple,” replied -Janicot. “Let Hoprig and Melior, and their child -too, return to Brunbelois and to the old time before -he was a saint. Let them return to the high place -and to the old time that is overpast now everywhere -except at Brunbelois. Thus earth will be rid of -your scandal-breeding saint, and Hoprig of his halo -and Florian of his threatened hysteria. And this -Melior and this Hoprig will no longer be real persons, -but will once more blend into an ancient -legend of exceeding beauty and holiness. And nobody -anywhere will be dissatisfied. This I suggest -because I like to have happy faces about me, and -happy faces everywhere, even in heaven.”</p> - -<div class="echap"></div> -<div class="figcenter illowp60" id="facing286-caption" style="max-width: 50em;"> - <img src="images/facing286-caption.jpg" alt="Caption" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="facing286" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/facing286.jpg" alt="" /> - <div class="caption">“—And this is the last cloud going -west.”<br /><i>See page <a href="#Page_291">291</a></i></div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span></p> - - -<p>Michael said: “You are subtle. That is not -our strong point, of course. Still, I really do wonder -why, after so many conferences, we never -thought of such an obvious solution as to antedate -him at Brunbelois.”</p> - -<p>And Michael looked at Hoprig.</p> - -<p>Hoprig smiled, benevolently as always, but not -in the least repentantly, and Hoprig said: “Why, -after all, I have seen quite as much of this modern -world as interests a saint in the prime of life; this -halo certainly is, in ways we need not go into, sometimes -in inconvenience; and there is no real pleasure -in being ministered unto by unwilling angels. So -that I am ready to leave it to the lady.”</p> - -<p>Now Melior arose from beside the cradle, wherein -the child was now once more asleep. And Melior -looked at Florian, without saying anything: but she -was smiling rather sadly; and Florian knew that -nowhere in this world, at any time, had there been -any person more lovely than was his disenchanted -princess.</p> - -<p>And Florian said: “A pest! but, in the name of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span> -earth and sky and sea, in the name of Heaven and -all the fiends, let this be done! For the moment -you are again a legend, madame, I shall recapture -the dear misery of my love for you and for that -perfect beauty which should be seen and not heard.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed,” she replied, “I daresay that is the truth. -So, for all our sakes, Hoprig and I will go back to -the time before I married you: and then, on account -of the baby, I suppose I will have to marry Hoprig, -who at least takes women as he finds them.”</p> - -<p>“You speak, I assume, metaphorically,” observed -the saint, “but, in any case, I believe you exhibit -good sense. So let us be going.”</p> - -<p>Then Florian said farewell to Melior and to Hoprig -also. Florian had put aside his dapper look: -he had quite lost his usual air of tolerating a mixture -of vexation and mirth: and for that moment he -did not show in anything as a jaunty little person -of the very highest fashion.</p> - -<p>“Now that you two,” said Florian, “become again -a legend and a symbol, I can believe in and love and -worship you once more. It is in vain, it is with -pitiable folly, that any man aspires to be bringing -beauty and holiness into his daily living. These -things are excellent for dilettanti to admire from -afar. But they are not attainable, in any quantity -that suffices. We needs believe in beauty: and -there needs always flourish the notion that beauty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span> -exists in human living, so long as memory transfigures -what is past, and optimism what is to come. -And sometimes one finds beauty even in the hour -which is passing, here and there, at wide intervals: -but it is mixed—as inextricably as is mixed your -speaking, bright-colored enemy of all romance,—with -what is silly and commonplace and trivial.”</p> - -<p>“It seems so very vexatious,” Melior stated, as if -from depths of long deliberation, “when you can -distinctly remember having brought your hat, to be -quite unable—Yes, go on talking, Florian. It -is on the peg by the door, and we are all listening.”</p> - -<p>“And I would like to believe,” continued Florian, -“that there is holiness in human living; but I at -least have always found this also mixed with, I do -not say hypocrisy, but ambiguity.... Mankind -have their good points, but—to my knowledge,—no -firm claim of any sort on admiration. I have -been familiar with no person without finding that -intimacy made some liking inevitable and any real -respect preposterous. I deduce that in no virtue, -and in no viciousness, does man excel: his endowments, -either way, are inadequate. So holiness and -beauty must remain to me just notions very pleasant -to think about, and quite harmless to aim at if you -like, if only because such aiming makes no noticeable -difference anywhere. But they remain also unattained -by mortal living. I do not know why this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span> -should be the law. I merely know that I overrode -the law which says that only mediocrity may thrive -in any place; and that I have been punished, with -derision and with too clear seeing.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but,” said Janicot, “you are punishing -everybody else with verbosity—”</p> - -<p>“I also can perceive no reason, my son,” declared -St. Hoprig, “for talking highflown bombast and attempting -to drag an apologue from the snarls of a -most annoying affair. It should be sufficient to -reflect that your romantic hankerings have upset -heaven, and have given rise—I gather from the -sneers of this brown fiend,—to unfavorable comment -even in hell. And there is simply no telling -into what state my temple of Llaw Gyffes may -have got during the months you have held me in -this frivolous modern world.”</p> - -<p>“Your temple of Llaw Gyffes!” said Florian, -sadly. “But can it be, monsieur, that, after having -been a saint of the Calendar, now that you return to -heathen Brunbelois and the old time—?”</p> - -<p>“My son, in any time,” Hoprig replied, “and in -any place, my talents are such as qualify me only -for the best-thought-of church. My nature craves -stability and the support of tradition and of really -nice people. New faiths sometimes allure unthinking -hot-heads like that poor dear Horrig, but not -ever me: for I find that any religion, when once it is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span> -endowed and made respectable, works out in its -effect upon human living pretty much like any other -religion. Meanwhile, of course, one naturally prefers -to retain a solid position in society. So that -really it does seem foolish to quarrel, in any time -or place, with the best-thought-of faith. No, Florian, -creeds shift and alter in everything except -in promising salvation through church-work: but -the prelate remains immortal. And I will tell you -another thing, Florian, that you should remember -when we are gone: and it is that all men and all -women are human beings, and that nothing can be -done about it.” And Hoprig at this point regarded -Florian for some while with a sort of pity. “In any -case,” the saint said then, “do you look out for -another celestial patron, and for a second father in -the spirit, now that sunset approaches, and this is -the last cloud going west.”</p> - -<p>And Melior took up the still sleeping child, without -saying anything, but smiling very lovelily at -Florian: and she and Hoprig entered into a golden -cloud, and these two went away from Florian forever. -And they went as a blurred shining: for -Florian was recollecting a child’s desire to be not -in all unworthy of these bright, dear beings; and -Florian somewhat wistfully recalled that brave aspiring, -and that glad ignorance, which nothing now -could ever reawaken any more.</p> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_29"><i>29.</i><br /> - -<i>The Wonder Words</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image292.jpg" alt="B" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">UT now,” said Florian, “what now -is to become of me, who have no -longer any standards of beauty and -holiness?” And he looked expectantly -from Janicot to the archangel, -and back again, to see when they -would begin their battling for possession of the -Duke of Puysange. Both spirits seemed almost -unflatteringly unbellicose.</p> - -<p>“I have no instructions about you,” replied -Michael. “I did not come hither in the way of official -duty, but only at the summons of that fellow—It -is really a very great comfort to reflect that, now -he has gone back to the old time before he was canonized, -he is no longer a saint! Still, as for you, -your ways have been atrocious, and it is hardly -doubtful that your end should be the same.”</p> - -<p>Florian at that had out the magic sword Flamberge. -“Then, Monseigneur St. Michael, logic -prompts one to make the best of this: and I entreat<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span> -that you do me the honor of crossing blades with -me, so that I may perish not ignobly.”</p> - -<p>“Come,” Michael said, “so this shrimp challenges -an archangel! That is really a fine gesture.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, there is spirit in this romantic,” Janicot -declared. “It seems to take the place of his intelligence. -I cannot see it matters what becomes of the -creature, but, after all, old friends will welcome any -excuse to chat together. See, here is excellent wine -in the saint’s cupboard, and over a cup of it let us -amicably decide what we should do with this little -Florian.”</p> - -<p>“It is well thought of,” Michael estimated, “for -I have been working all day upon the new worlds -behind Fomalhaut, with the air full of comet dust. -Yes, that rapscallion Hoprig fetched me a long way, -and I am thirsty.”</p> - -<p>So these two sat down at the table to settle the -fate of Florian. Janicot poured for Florian also: -and Florian took the proffered cup, and a chair too, -which he modestly placed against the log-and-plaster -wall at some distance from his judges.</p> - -<p>Florian’s judges made an odd pair. For resplendent -Michael showed in everything as divine, and in -his face was the untroubled magnanimity of a great -prince of Heaven. But Janicot had the appearance -of a working man, all a sober and practical brown, -which would show no stains after the performance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span> -of any necessary labor, and his face was the more -shrewd.</p> - -<p>“First,” said Janicot, “let us drink. That is the -proper beginning of any dispute, for it makes each -think his adversary a splendid fellow, it promotes -confidence and candor alike.”</p> - -<p>“Nobody should lack confidence and candor when -it comes to dealing with sin,” replied Michael: and -with one heroic draught he emptied his cup.</p> - -<p>Florian sipped his more tentatively: for this -seemed uncommonly queer wine.</p> - -<p>“Sin,” Janicot said now, as if in meditation, “is -a fine and impressive monosyllable.”</p> - -<p>“Sin,” Michael said, with sternness, “is that which -is forbidden by the word of God.”</p> - -<p>“But, to be sure!” Florian put in. “Sin is a -very grave matter: and to expiate it requires stained -windows and candles and, above all, repentance—”</p> - -<p>“Ah, but a word,” said Janicot, “has no inherent -meaning, it has merely the significance a mutual -agreement arbitrarily attaches to that especial sound. -Let me refill your cup, which I perceive to be empty: -and, Monsieur the Duke, do you stop talking to your -judges. That much—to resume,—is true of all -words. And the word of your god has been so -variously pronounced, my good Michael, it has been -so diversely interpreted, that, really, men begin -to wonder—”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span></p> - -<p>“I did not sit down,” cried Michael, “to hear -blasphemies, but to settle the doom of this sinner. -Nor will I chop logic with you. I am a blunt soldier, -and you are subtle. Yes, the world knows -you are subtle, but how far has your subtlety got -you? Why, it has got you as far as from heaven -to hell.”</p> - -<p>Florian vastly admired that just and pious summing-up -as he leaned back in his chair, and looked -toward Janicot. Florian was feeling strangely -complacent, though, for Hoprig’s wine was extraordinarily -potent tipple to have come from the -cupboard of a saint.</p> - -<p>“Ah, friend,” returned Janicot, smiling, “and do -you really put actual faith in that sensational modern -story that I was an angel who rebelled against your -Jahveh?”</p> - -<p>“It was before my time, of course,” Michael conceded. -“I only know that my Lord created me -with orders to conquer you, who call yourself the -Prince of this World. So I did this, though, to give -the devil his due, it was no easy task. But that is -far-off stuff: a soldier bears no malice when the -fighting is over: and I drink to you.”</p> - -<p>“Your health, bright adversary! Yet what if I -were not conquered, but merely patient? Why -should not I, who have outlived so many gods, remain -as patient under the passing of this tribal god<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span> -come out of Israel as I stayed once under Baal and -Beltane? Both of these have had their adorers and -tall temples hereabouts: and Mithra and Zeus and -Osiris and I know not how many thousands of other -beautiful and holy deities have had their dole of -worship and neglect and oblivion. Now I have -never been omnipotent, I am not worshipped in any -shining temple even to-day; but always I have been -served.”</p> - -<p>Florian, through half-closed eyelids,—for he felt -a trifle drowsy after that extraordinary wine,—was -admiring the curious proud look which had come -into the brown face of Janicot. Florian began complacently -to allow this fiend had his redeeming -points. This Janicot was quite distinguished looking.</p> - -<p>“For I,” said Janicot, “am the Prince of this -World, not to be ousted: and I have in my time, good -Michael, had need to practise patience. You think -with awed reverence of your Jahveh: and that in -your station is commendable. Yet you should remember, -too, that to me, who saw but yesterday your -Jahveh’s start in life as a local storm-god upon -Sinai, he is just the latest of many thousands of -adversaries whom I have seen triumph and pass -while I stayed patient under all temporary annoyances. -For in heaven they keep changing dynasties, -and every transient ruler of heaven is bent upon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span> -making laws for my little kingdom. Oh, I blame -nobody! The desire is natural in omnipotence: and -many of these laws I have admired, as academic -exercises. The trouble seemed to be that they were -drawn up in heaven, where there is nothing quite -like the nature of my people—”</p> - -<p>“A very sinful people!” said Michael.</p> - -<p>“There, as in so many points, bright adversary, -our opinions differ. You perceive only that they -are not what, in accordance with your master’s -theories, they ought to be. I am more practical: I -accept them as they are, and I make no complaint. -That which you call their lust and wantonness, I -know to be fertility—” And Janicot spread out -both hands. “But it is an old tale. God after god -has set rules to bridle and to change the nature of -my people. Meanwhile I do not meddle with their -natures, I urge them to live in concord with their -natures, and to make the most of my kingdom. To -be content and to keep me well supplied with subjects, -is all that any reasonable prince would require. -And as for sin, I have admitted it is a fine word. -But the wages of sin—in any event, very often,” -said Janicot, and with a smile he illuminated the -parenthesis,—“is life.”</p> - -<p>“To all this,” said Michael, extending his empty -cup, “the answer is simple. You are evil, and you -lie.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span></p> - -<p>“Before your days, before there were men like -those of to-day,” said Janicot, indulgently, as he -poured sombre wine, “and when the dwarf peoples -served me in secret places, even they had other official -gods. When your Jahveh is forgotten, men will -yet serve me, if but in secrecy. Creeds pass, my -friend, just as that little Hoprig said. And it is -true, too, that the prelate remains always, as my -technical opponent. But the lingham and the yoni -do not pass, they do not change, they keep their -strong control of all that lives: and these serve me -alone.”</p> - -<p>“If my Lord passes,” Michael answered, very -nobly and very simply, “I pass with Him. We that -love Him could then desire no other fate. Meanwhile -I have faith in Him, and in His power and -in His wisdom, and my faith contents me.”</p> - -<p>“Faith!” Janicot said, rather wistfully. “Ah, -there we encounter another fine word, a wonder -word: and I admit that your anodyne is potent. But -it is not to my taste. However, this wine here is -emphatically to my taste. So let us drink!”</p> - -<p>“It is a good wine. But it begets a treacherous -softness of heart and an unsuitable, a quite un-Hebraic -tendency to let bygones be bygones. I -mean, unsuitable for one in my service. For, after -all, old adversary, without intending any disrespect, -of course, we were originally for martial law and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span> -military strictness, for smiting hip and thigh when -the least thing went wrong: and in spite of our recent -coming over to these new Christian doctrines—And, -by the way, that reminds me of this sinner -here. We seem to keep wandering from the point.”</p> - -<p>They had looked toward Florian, who discreetly -remained lying back in his chair, watching them -between nearly closed lids.</p> - -<p>“Indeed, we have so utterly neglected him that he -has gone to sleep. So let us drink, and be at ease,” -said Janicot, “now that we are relieved of his eavesdropping. -This little Florian annoys me, rather. -For he makes something too much of logic: so he -rebels against your creed of faith and of set laws -to be obeyed, asking Why? Did you never hear -the creature crying out, Let us be logical! in, of all -places, this universe? And he rebels against my -creed, which he believes a mere affair of the lingham -and the yoni, saying This is not enough. Such men -as he continue to dream, my friend, and I confess -such men are dangerous: for they obstinately aspire -toward a perfectibility that does not exist, they will -be content with nothing else; and when your master -and I do not satisfy the desire which is in their dreams, -they draw their appalling logical conclusions. To -that humiliation, such as it is, I answer Drink! -For the Oracle of Bacbuc also—that oracle which -the little curé of Meudon was not alone in misun<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span>derstanding,—that -oracle speaks the true wonder -word.”</p> - -<p>Michael had listened, with one elbow on the table, -and with one hand propping his chin. Michael had -listened with a queer mingling, in his frank face, -of admiration and distrust.</p> - -<p>The archangel now slightly raised his head, just -free of his hand, and he asked rather scornfully, -“But what have we to do with their dreams?”</p> - -<p>“A great deal. Men go enslaved by this dream -of beauty: but never yet have they sought to embody -it, whether in their wives or in their equally -droll works of art, without imperfect results, without -results that were maddening to the dreamer. -Men are resolved to know that which they may -whole-heartedly worship. No, they are not bent -upon emulating what they worship: it is, rather, that -holiness also is a dream which allures mankind resistlessly. -But thus far,—by your leave, good -Michael,—they have found nothing to worship which -bears logical inspection much better than does Hoprig. -The dangerous part of all this is that men, -none the less, still go on dreaming.”</p> - -<p>“They might be worse employed.” Michael himself -refilled his cup. “For I could tell you—”</p> - -<p>“Pray spare my blushes! Yes, they obstinately -go on dreaming. Your master is strong, as yet, and -I too am strong, but neither of us is strong enough<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span> -to control men’s dreams. Now, the dreaming of -men—mark you, I do not say of humankind, for -women are rational creatures,—has an aspiring -which is ruthless. It goes beyond decency, it aspires -to more of perfectibility than any god has -yet been able to provide or even to live up to. So -this quite insane aspiring first sets up beautiful and -holy gods in heaven, then in the dock; and, judging -all by human logic, decrees this god not to be good -enough. Thus their logic has dealt with Baal and -Beltane and Mithra; thus it will deal—” Janicot -very courteously waved a brown and workmanlike -hand. “But let us not dwell upon reflections that -you may perhaps find unpleasant. In the meanwhile, -me too this human dreaming thrusts aside, as -not good enough.”</p> - -<p>It was plain that Michael distrusted Janicot in all -and yet in some sort admired him most unwillingly. -Michael asked, with a reserved smiling, “What follows, -O subtle one?”</p> - -<p>“It follows that all gods must pass until—perhaps—a -god be found who satisfies the requirements of -this disastrously exigent human dreaming. It follows -that I must perforce go quietly about my kingdom -because of this insane toplofty dreaming.” -And Janicot sighed. “Yes, it is humiliating: but -I also have my anodyne, I have my wonder word. -And it is Drink!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span></p> - -<p>“Of course it would be,” Michael replied, with -the most dignified of hiccoughs, “since drunkenness -is a particularly low form of sin.”</p> - -<p>“The drinking I advocate is not merely of the -grape. No, it is from the cup of space that I would -have all drink, accepting all that is, in one fearless -draught. Some day, it may be, my people here will -attain to my doctrine: and even these fretful little -men will see that life and death, and the nature of -their dreams, and of their bodies also, are but ingredients -in a cup from which the wise drink fearlessly.”</p> - -<p>Janicot had risen now. He came toward Florian, -and stood there, looking down. And Florian discreetly -continued his mimicry of untroubled slumber.</p> - -<p>“Meanwhile he does not drink, he merely dreams, -this little Florian. He dreams of beauty and of -holiness fetched back by him to an earth which -everywhere fell short of his wishes, fetched down -by him intrepidly from that imagined high place -where men attain to their insane desires. He dreams -of aspiring and joy and color and suffering and -unreason, and of those quaint taboos which you and -he call sin, as being separate things, not seeing how -all blends in one vast cup. Nor does he see, as -yet, that this blending is very beautiful when properly -regarded, and very holy when approached with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span>out -human self-conceit. What would you have, -good Michael? He and his like remain as yet just -fretted children a little rashly hungry for excitement.”</p> - -<p>Michael stood now beside Janicot. Michael also -was looking at Florian, not unkindlily.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” Michael said. “Yes, that is true. He is -yet a child.”</p> - -<p>Then the two faces which bent over Florian were -somehow blended into one face, and Florian knew -that these two beings had melted into one person, -and that this person was prodding him very gently.</p> - -<div class="figcenter illowp90" id="image303" style="max-width: 60em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/image303.jpg" alt="Tilting at awindmill" /> -</div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span></p> - -<div class= "btitle"> -<h3 class="nobreak" id="c_30"><i>30.</i><br /> - -<i>The Errant Child</i></h3></div> -</div> - -<div class="ddropcapbox"><img class="idropcap" - src="images/image304.jpg" alt="H" /></div> - -<p class="pfirst">IS father, after all these years, was -still wearing the blue stockings with -gold clocks. Florian noted that -first, because his father’s foot was -gently prodding Florian into wakefulness, -as Florian’s father sat there -under the little tree from the East. Beyond the -Duke’s smiling countenance, beyond the face which -was at once the face of Michael and of Janicot, -Florian could now see a criss-crossery of stripped -boughs, each one of which was tipped with a small -bud of green.</p> - -<p>“Come, lazibones, but you will get your death of -cold, sleeping here on the bare ground, at harvest-time.”</p> - -<p>“At harvest-time—I have been dreaming—” -Florian sat erect, rubbing at his eyes with a hand -whose smallness he instantly noted with wonder. -The ground, too, seemed surprisingly close to him, -the grass blades looked bigger than was natural. He<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span> -could feel sinking away from him such childish -notions about God and wickedness, and about being -a grown man, as the little boy—who was he, as he -now recollected,—had blended in his callow dreaming: -and Florian sat there blinking innocent and -puzzled eyes. He was safe back again, he reflected, -in the seventeenth century: Louis Quatorze was -King once more: and all the virtues were again -modish. And this really must be harvest-time, for -the sleek country of Poictesme appeared inexpressibly -asleep, wrapped in a mellowing haze.</p> - -<p>Florian said, “It was a very queer dream, monsieur -my father—”</p> - -<p>“A pleasant dream, however, I hope, my son. No -other sort of dream is worth inducing by sleeping -under what, they used to tell me, is a charmed tree, -and by using for your pillow a book that at least -is charming.”</p> - -<p>And the Duke pointed to the book by Monsieur -Perrault of the Academy, in which Florian had that -very morning read with approving interest about -the abominable Bluebeard and about the Cat with -Boots and about the Sleeping Beauty and about -Cendrillon and about a variety of other delightful -persons.</p> - -<p>But Florian just now was not for fairy tales, -rather all his thoughts still clung to his queer dream. -And the child said, frowning:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span></p> - -<p>“It was pleasant enough. But it was puzzling. -For there were beautiful ladies that nobody could -stand living with, and a saint that was an out-and-out -fraud, and”—Florian slightly hesitated,—“and -a wicked man, as bad almost as Komorre the Cursed, -that did everything he wanted to, without ever being -exactly punished, or satisfied either—”</p> - -<p>“Behold now,” Monsieur de Puysange lamented, -“how appalling are the advances of this modern -pessimism! My own child, at ten, advises me that -beauty and holiness are delusions, and that not -even in untrammeled wickedness is to be found contentment.”</p> - -<p>“No: that was not the moral of my dream. That -is what bothers me, monsieur my father. There was -not any moral: and nothing seemed to be leading up -to anything else in particular. I seemed to live a -long while, monsieur my father, I had got to be -thirty-six and over, without finding any logic and -reasonableness anywhere—”</p> - -<p>“Doubtless, at that advanced age, your faculties -were blunted, and you had become senile—”</p> - -<p>“—And the people that wanted things did not -want them any longer once they had got them. -They seemed rather to dislike them—”</p> - -<p>“From your pronominal disorder,” the Duke -stated, “I can deduce fancies which are not a novelty -here in Poictesme. Such was the crying, in a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span> -somewhat more poetic and grammatical version, of -our reputed begetters, men say,—of Dom Manuel -and of Jurgen also,—in the old days before there -was ever a Puysange.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, but that was so long ago! when people -were hardly civilised. And what with all the -changes that have been since then—! Well, but it -really seems to me, monsieur my father, that—just -taking it logically,—now that we have almost reached -the eighteenth century, and all the nations have -signed that treaty at Ryswick to prevent there ever -being any more wars, and people are riding about -peaceably in sedan chairs, and are living in America, -and even some of the peasants have glass windows -in their houses—”</p> - -<p>“Undoubtedly,” said the Duke, “we live in an -age of invention and of such material luxury as the -world has never known. All wonders of science -have been made our servants. War, yesterday our -normal arbiter, has now become irrational, even to -the most unreflective, since one army simply annihilates -the other with these modern cannons that shoot -for hundreds of feet. To cross the trackless Atlantic -is now but the affair of a month or two in our -swift sailing ships. And we trap and slaughter -even the huge whale to the end that we, ignoring -the sun’s whims, may loan to nights of feverish dissipation -the brilliancy of afternoon, with our oil<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span>lamps. -We have perhaps exhausted the secrets of -material nature. And in intellectual matters too we -have progressed. Yet all progress, I would have -you note, is directed by wise persons who discreetly -observe the great law of living—”</p> - -<p>“And what is that law, monsieur my father?”</p> - -<p>“Thou shalt not offend,” the Duke replied, -“against the notions of thy neighbor. Now to the -honoring of this law the wise person will bring -more of earnestness than he will bring to the weighing -of discrepancies between facts and well-thought-of -ideas about these facts. So, at most, he will -laugh, he will perhaps cast an oblique jest with -studied carelessness: and he will then pass on, upon -the one way that is safe—for him,—without ever -really considering the gaucherie of regarding life -too seriously. And his less daring fellows will follow -him by and by, upon the road which they were -going to take in any event. That is progress.”</p> - -<p>“Thou shalt not offend against the notions of thy -neighbor!” Florian repeated. “Yes, I remember. -That was a part of my dream, too.” He was silent -for an instant, glancing eastward beyond the gardens -of his home. The thronged trees of Acaire, -as Florian now saw them just beyond that low -red wall, seemed to have golden powder scattered -over them, a powder which they stayed too motionless -to shake off. “But—in my dream, you know,—<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span> -that had been learned by living wickedly. And you -have always taught Little Brother and me to be very -good and religious—”</p> - -<p>“My son, my son! and have I reared an errant -child, an actual atheist, who doubts that in the next -world also we have—a Neighbor?”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean the good God, monsieur my -father?”</p> - -<p>“Eh,” said the Duke, “I would distinguish, I -would avoid anthropomorphology, I would speak -here with exactness. I mean that in this world we -must live always in subjection to notions which a -moment’s thought shows always to be irrational; -and that nothing anywhere attests the designer of -this world, however high His place or whatever -His proper title, to be swayed at all by what we -describe as justice and logic.”</p> - -<p>“I can see that,” said Florian: “though I have -been thinking about another sort of high place—”</p> - -<p>But the Duke was still speaking: and now, to -Florian’s ear, his father’s tone was somewhat of a -piece with this sun-steeped and tranquil and ineffably -lazy October afternoon, which seemed to show the -world as over-satisfied with the done year’s -achievements.</p> - -<p>“So life, my son, must always display, to him -who rashly elects to think about it, just the incoherency -and the inconclusiveness of a child’s dream<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span>making. -No doubt, this is to be explained by our -obtuseness: I design, in any event, no impiety, for -to be impious is unwise. I merely mean that I -assume Someone also to be our neighbor, in His -high place, and that I think His notions also should -be treated with respect.”</p> - -<p>“I see,” said Florian. But all that was youthful -in him seemed to stir in dim dissent from unambitious -aims.</p> - -<p>“I mean, in short, that the wise person will conform—with, -it may be, a permissible shrug,—to each -and every notion that is affected by those neighbors -whose strength is greater than his. I would also -suggest that, if only for the sake of his own comfort, -the wise person will cultivate a belief that these -notions, however incomprehensible, may none the -less be intelligent and well-meaning.”</p> - -<p>“I see,” the boy said, yet again. He spoke abstractedly, -for he was now thinking of brown Janicot -and of resplendent Monseigneur St. Michael, in -that queer dream. His father appeared in some -sort to agree with both of them.</p> - -<p>And as the Duke continued, speaking slowly, and -with something of the languor of this surrounding -autumnal world,—which seemed to strive toward -no larger upshots than the ripening of grains and -fruits,—it occurred to Florian, for the first time in -Florian’s life, that this always smiling father of his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span> -was, under so many graces, an uneasy and baffled -person.</p> - -<p>The Duke said: “To submit is the great lesson. -I too was once a dreamer: and in dreams there are -lessons. But to submit, without dreaming any -more, is the great lesson; to submit, without either -understanding or repining, and without demanding -of life too much of beauty or of holiness, and without -shirking the fact that this universe is under no -least bond ever to grant us, upon either side of the -grave, our desires. To do that, my son, does not -satisfy and probably will not ever satisfy a Puysange. -But to do that is wisdom.”</p> - -<p>The boy for some while considered this. He considered, -too, the enigmatic, just half-serious face of -his father, the face that was at once the face of -Michael and of Janicot. To accept things as they -were, in this world which was now going to sleep as -if the providing of food-stuffs and the fodder for -people’s cattle were enough; and to have faith without -reasoning over-logically about it: all these grown -persons seemed enleagued to proffer him this stupid -and unaspiring advice.</p> - -<p>But Florian, at ten, had learned to humor the -notions of his elders. So he said affably, if not -quite without visible doubtfulness, “I see....”</p> - - -<p>EXPLICIT</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span></p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<hr class="full" /> -<p>It is gratifying to relate that, in a world wherein most -moral lessons go to waste, young Florian duly honored the -teaching of his dream. Therefore, as the boy grew toward -maturity, he reduplicated in action all the crimes he had committed -in fancy, and was appropriately grateful for his fore-knowledge -that all would turn out well. But, when he had -reached the thirty-sixth year of his living and the fourth chapter -of this history, he then, at the conclusion of his talking -with Marie-Claire Cazaio, decorously crossed himself, and he -shrugged.</p> - -<p>“Let sleeping ideals lie,” said Florian: “for over-high and -over-earnest desires are inadvisable.”</p> - -<p>Thereafter he rode, not into Acaire, but toward the Duardenez. -He forded this river uneventfully; and four days later, -at Storisende, was married, <i>en cinquièmes noces</i>, to Mademoiselle -Louise de Nérac.</p> - -<p>It is likewise pleasant to know that this couple lived together -in an amity sufficient to result in the begetting of -three daughters, and to permit, when the fourth Duke of -Puysange most piously and edifyingly quitted this life, in the -November of 1736, the survival of his widow.... The moral -of all which seems to be that no word of this book, after the -fourth chapter, need anybody regard with any least seriousness, -unless you chance to be one of those discomfortable -folk who contend that a fact is something which actually, but -only, happens. A truth—so these will tell you,—does not -merely “happen,” because truth is unfortuitous and immortal. -This rather sweeping statement ought to be denied—outright—by -none who believe that immortals go about our world -invisibly.</p> -<hr class="full" /> -</div> -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGH PLACE ***</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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