Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE XXXVII Opinions of Hinzelmann Now the tale tells that on Michaelmas morning little Melicent, being in a quiet mood that time, sat with her doll in the tall chair by the third window of Ageus while her father wrote at his big table. He was pausing between phrases to think and to bite at his thumb-nail, and he was so intent upon this letter to Pope Innocent that he did not notice the slow opening of the third window: and Melicent had been in conference with the queer small boy for some while before Dom Manuel looked up abstractedly toward them. Then Manuel seemed perturbed, and he called Melicent to him, and she obediently scrambled into her father's lap. There was silence in the Room of Ageus. The queer small boy sat leaning back in the chair which little Melicent had just left. He sat with his legs crossed, and with his gloved hands clasping his right knee, as he looked appraisingly at Melicent. He displayed a beautiful sad face, with curled yellow hair hanging about his shoulders, and he was dressed in a vermilion silk coat: at his left side, worn like a sword, was a vast pair of shears. He wore also a pointed hat of four interblended colors, and his leather gloves were figured with pearls. "She will be a woman by and by," the strange boy said, with a soft and delicate voice, "and then she too will be coming to us, and we will provide fine sorrows for her." "No, Hinzelmann," Count Manuel replied, as he stroked the round straw-colored head of little Melicent. "This is the child of Niafer. She comes of a race that has no time to be peering out of dubious windows." "It is your child too, Count Manuel. Therefore she too, between now and her burial, will be wanting to be made free of my sister Suskind's kingdom, as you have been made free of it, at a price. Oh, very certainly you have paid little as yet save the one lock of your gray hair, but in time you will pay the other price which Suskind demands. I know, for it is I who collect my sister Suskind's revenues, and when the proper hour arrives, believe me, Count Manuel, I shall not be asking your leave, nor is there any price which you, I think, will not be paying willingly." "That is probable. For Suskind is wise and strange, and the grave beauty of her youth is the fulfilment of an old hope. Life had become a tedious matter of much money and much bloodshed, but she has restored to me the gold and crimson of dawn." "So, do you very greatly love my sister Suskind?" says Hinzelmann, smiling rather sadly. "She is my heart's delight, and the desire of my desire. It was she for whom, unwittingly, I had been longing always, since I first went away from Suskind, to climb upon the gray heights of Vraidex in my long pursuit of much wealth and fame. I had seen my wishes fulfilled, and my dreams accomplished; all the godlike discontents which ennobled my youth had died painlessly in cushioned places. And living had come to be a habit of doing what little persons expected, and youth was gone out of me, and I, that used to follow with a high head after my own thinking and my own desires, could not any longer very greatly care for anything. Now I am changed: for Suskind has made me free once more of the Country of the Young and of the ageless self-tormenting youth of the gray depths which maddened Ruric, but did not madden me." "Look you, Count Manuel, but that penniless young nobody, Ruric the clerk, was not trapped as you are trapped. For from the faith of others there is no escape upon this side of the window. World-famous Manuel the Redeemer has in this place his luck and prosperity to maintain until the orderings of unimaginative gods have quite destroyed the Manuel that once followed after his own thinking. For even the high gods here note with approval that you have become the sort of person in whom the gods put confidence, and so they favor you unscrupulously. Here all is pre-arranged for you by the thinking of others. Here there is no escape for you from acquiring a little more wealth to-day, a little more meadowland to-morrow, with daily a little more applause and honor and envy from your fellows, along with always slowly increasing wrinkles and dulling wits and an augmenting paunch, and with the smug approval of everybody upon earth and in heaven. That is the reward of those persons whom you humorously call successful persons." Dom Manuel answered very slowly, and to little Melicent it seemed that Father's voice was sad. Said Manuel: "Certainly, I think there is no escape for me upon this side of the window of Ageus. A bond was put upon me to make a figure in this world, and I discharged that obligation. Then came another and yet another obligation to be discharged. And now has come upon me a geas which is not to be lifted either by toils or by miracles. It is the geas which is laid on every person, and the life of every man is as my life, with no moment free from some bond or another. Heh, youth vaunts windily, but in the end nobody can follow after his own thinking and his own desire. At every turn he is confronted by that which is expected, and obligation follows obligation, and in the long run no champion can be stronger than everybody. So we succumb to this world's terrible unreason, willy-nilly, and Helmas has been made wise, and Ferdinand has been made saintly, and I have been made successful, by that which was expected of us, and by that which none of us had ever any real chance to resist in a world wherein all men are nourished by their beliefs." "And does not success content you?" "Ah, but," asked Manuel slowly, just as he had once asked Horvendile in Manuel's lost youth, "what is success? They tell me I have succeeded marvelously in all things, rising from low beginnings, to become the most lucky and the least scrupulous rogue alive: yet, hearing men's applause, I sometimes wonder, for I know that a smaller-hearted creature and a creature poorer in spirit is posturing in Count Manuel's high cushioned places than used to go afield with the miller's pigs." "Why, yes, Count Manuel, you have made endurable terms with this world by succumbing to its foolishness: but do you take comfort, for that is the one way open to anybody who has not rightly seen and judged the ends of this world. At worst, you have had all your desires, and you have made a very notable figure in Count Manuel's envied station." "But I starve there, Hinzelmann, I dry away into stone, and this envied living is reshaping me into a complacent idol for fools to honor, and the approval of fools is converting the heart and wits of me into the stony heart and wits of an idol. And I look back upon my breathless old endeavors, and I wonder drearily, 'Was it for this?'" "Yes," Hinzelmann said: and he shrugged, without ever putting off that sad smile of his. "Yes, yes, all this is only another way of saying that Béda has kept his word. But no man gets rid of Misery, Count Manuel, except at a price." They stayed silent for a while. Count Manuel stroked the round straw-colored head of little Melicent. Hinzelmann played with the small cross which hung at Hinzelmann's neck. This cross appeared to be woven of plaited strings, but when Hinzelmann shook the cross it jingled like a bell. "Yet, none the less," says Hinzelmann, "here you remain. No, certainly, I cannot understand you, Count Manuel. As a drunkard goes back to the destroying cask, so do you continue to return to your fine home at Storisende and to the incessant whispering of your father's father, for all that you have but to remain in Suskind's low red-pillared palace to be forever rid of that whisper and of this dreary satiating of human desires." "I shall of course make my permanent quarters there by and by," Count Manuel said, "but not just yet. It would not be quite fair to my wife for me to be leaving Storisende just now, when we are getting in the crops, and when everything is more or less upset already—" "I perceive you are still inventing excuses, Count Manuel, to put off yielding entire allegiance to my sister." "No, it is not that, not that at all! It is only the upset condition of things, just now, and, besides, Hinzelmann, the stork is to bring us the last girl child the latter part of next week. We are to call her Ettarre, and I would like to have a sight of her, of course—In fact, I am compelled to stay through mere civility, inasmuch as the Queen of Philistia is sending the very famous St. Holmendis especially to christen this baby. And it would be, Hinzelmann, the height of rudeness for me to be leaving home, just now, as though I wanted to avoid his visit—" Hinzelmann still smiled rather sadly. "Last month you could not come to us because your wife was just then outworn with standing in the hot kitchen and stewing jams and marmalades. Dom Manuel, will you come when the baby is delivered and this Saint has been attended to and all the crops are in?" "Well, but Hinzelmann, within a week or two we shall be brewing this year's ale, and I have always more or less seen to that—" Still Hinzelmann smiled sadly. He pointed with his small gloved hand toward Melicent. "And what about your other enslavement, to this child here?" "Why, certainly, Hinzelmann, the brat does need a father to look out for her, so long as she is the merest baby. And naturally, I have been thinking about that of late, rather seriously—" Hinzelmann spoke with deliberation. "She is very nearly the most stupid and the most unattractive child I have ever seen. And I, you must remember, am blood brother to Cain and Seth as well as to Suskind." But Dom Manuel was not provoked. "As if I did not know the child is in no way remarkable! No, my good Hinzelmann, you that serve Suskind have shown me strange dear things, but nothing more strange and dear than a thing which I discovered for myself. For I am that Manuel whom men call the Redeemer of Poictesme, and my deeds will be the themes of harpers whose grandparents are not yet born; I have known love and war and all manner of adventure: but all the sighings and hushed laughter of yesterday, and all the trumpet-blowing and shouting, and all that I have witnessed of the unreticent fond human ways of great persons who for the while have put aside their state, and all the good that in my day I may have done, and all the evil that I have certainly destroyed,—all this seems trivial as set against the producing of this tousled brat. No, to be sure, she is backward as compared with Emmerick, or even Dorothy, and she is not, as you say, an at all remarkable child, though very often, I can assure you, she does things that would astonish you. Now, for instance—" "Spare me!" said Hinzelmann. "Well, but it really was very clever of her," Dom Manuel stipulated, with disappointment. "However, I was going to say that I, who have harried pagandom, and capped jests with kings, and am now setting terms for the Holy Father, have come to regard the doings of this ill-bred, selfish, ugly, little imp as more important than my doings. And I cannot resolve to leave her, just yet. So, Hinzelmann, my friend, I think I will not thoroughly commit myself, just yet. But after Christmas we will see about it." "And I will tell you the two reasons of this shilly-shallying, Count Manuel. One reason is that you are human, and the other reason is that in your head there are gray hairs." "What, can it be," said the big warrior, forlornly, "that I who have not yet had twenty-six years of living am past my prime, and that already life is going out of me?" "You must remember the price you paid to win back Dame Niafer from paradise. As truth, and not the almanac, must estimate these things you are now nearer fifty-six." "Well," Manuel said, stoutly, "I do not regret it, and for Niafer's sake I am willing to become a hundred and six. But certainly it is hard to think of myself as an old fellow on the brink of the scrap-pile." "Oho, you are not yet so old, Count Manuel, but that Suskind's power is greater than the power of the child: and besides, there is a way to break the power of the child. Death has merely scratched small wrinkles, very lightly, with one talon, to mark you as his by and by. That is all as yet: and so the power of my high sister Suskind endures over you, who were once used to follow after your own thinking and your own desire, for there remains in you a leaven even to-day. Yes, yes, though you deny her to-day, you will be entreating her to-morrow, and then it may be she will punish you. Either way, I must be going now, since you are obstinate, for it is at this time I run about the September world collecting my sister's revenues, and her debtors are very numerous." And with that the boy, still smiling gravely, slipped out of the third window into the gray sweet-smelling dusk, and little Melicent said, "But, Father, why did that queer sad boy want me to be climbing out of the window with him?" "So that he might be kind to you, my dear, as he estimates kindness." "But why did the sad boy want a piece of my hair?" asked Melicent; "and why did he cut it off with his big shiny shears, while you were writing, and he was playing with me?" "It was to pay a price," says Manuel. He knew now that the Alf charm was laid on his loved child, and that this was the price of his junketings. He knew also that Suskind would never remit this price. Then Melicent demanded, "And what makes your face so white?" "It must be pale with hunger, child: so I think that you and I had better be getting to our dinner." XXXVIII Farewell to Suskind But after dinner Dom Manuel came alone into the Room of Ageus, and equipped himself as the need was, and he climbed out of the charmed window for the last time. His final visit to the depths was horrible, they say, and they relate that of all the deeds of Dom Manuel's crowded lifetime the thing that he did on this day was the most grim. But he won through all, by virtue of his equipment and his fixed heart. So when Dom Manuel returned he clasped in his left hand a lock of fine straw-colored hair, and on both his hands was blood let from no human veins. He looked back for the last time into the gray depths. A crowned girl rose beside him noiselessly, all white and red, and she clasped her bloodied lovely arms about him, and she drew him to her hacked young breasts, and she kissed him for the last time. Then her arms were loosed from about Dom Manuel, and she fell away from him, and was swallowed by the gray sweet-scented depths. "And so farewell to you, Queen Suskind," says Count Manuel. "You who were not human, but knew only the truth of things, could never understand our foolish human notions. Otherwise you would never have demanded the one price I may not pay." "Weep, weep for Suskind!" then said Lubrican, wailing feebly in the gray and April-scented dusk; "for it was she alone who knew the secret of preserving that dissatisfaction which is divine where all else falls away with age into the acquiescence of beasts." "Why, yes, but unhappiness is not the true desire of man," says Manuel. "I know, for I have had both happiness and unhappiness, and neither contented me." "Weep, weep for Suskind!" then cried the soft and delicate voice of Hinzelmann: "for it was she that would have loved you, Manuel, with that love of which youth dreams, and which exists nowhere upon your side of the window, where all kissed women turn to stupid figures of warm earth, and all love falls away with age into the acquiescence of beasts." "Oh, it is very true," says Manuel, "that all my life henceforward will be a wearying business because of long desires for Suskind's love and Suskind's lips and the grave beauty of her youth, and for all the high-hearted dissatisfactions of youth. But the Alf charm is lifted from the head of my child, and Melicent will live as Niafer lives, and it will be better for all of us, and I am content." From below came many voices wailing confusedly. "We weep for Suskind. Suskind is slain with the one weapon that might slay her: and all we weep for Suskind, who was the fairest and the wisest and the most unreasonable of queens. Let all the Hidden Children weep for Suskind, whose heart and life was April, and who plotted courageously against the orderings of unimaginative gods, and who has been butchered to preserve the hair of a quite ordinary child." Then said the Count of Poictesme: "And that young Manuel who was in his day a wilful champion, and who fretted under ordered wrongs, and who went everywhither with a high head a-boasting that he followed after his own thinking and his own desire,—why, that young fellow also is now silenced and dead. For the well-thought-of Count of Poictesme must be as the will and the faith and as the need of others may dictate: and there is no help for it, and no escape, and our old appearances must be preserved upon this side of the window in order that we may all stay sane." "We weep, and with long weeping raise the dirge for Suskind—!" "But I, who do not weep,—I raise the dirge for Manuel. For I must henceforward be reasonable in all things, and I shall never be quite discontented any more: and I must feed and sleep as the beasts do, and it may be that I shall even fall to thinking complacently about my death and glorious resurrection. Yes, yes, all this is certain, and I may not ever go a-traveling everywhither to see the ends of this world and judge them: and the desire to do so no longer moves in me, for there is a cloud about my goings, and there is a whispering which follows me, and I too fall away into the acquiescence of beasts. Meanwhile no hair of the child's head has been injured, and I am content." "Let all the Hidden Children, and all else that lives except the tall gray son of Oriander, whose blood is harsh sea-water, weep for Suskind! Suskind is dead, that was unstained by human sin and unredeemed by Christ's dear blood, and youth has perished from the world. Oh, let us weep, for all the world grows chill and gray as Oriander's son." "And Oriander too is dead, as I well know that slew him in my hour. Now my hour passes; and I pass with it, to make way for the needs of my children, as he perforce made way for me. And in time these children, and their children after them, pass thus, and always age must be in one mode or another slain by youth. Now why this should be so, I cannot guess, nor do I see that much good comes of it, nor do I find that in myself which warrants any confidences from the most high controlling gods. But I am certain that no hair of the child's head has been injured; and I am certain that I am content." Thus speaking, the old fellow closed the window. And within the moment little Melicent came to molest him, and she was unusually dirty and disheveled, for she had been rolling on the terrace pavement, and had broken half the fastenings from her clothing: and Dom Manuel wiped her nose rather forlornly. Of a sudden he laughed and kissed her. And Count Manuel said he must send for masons to wall up the third window of Ageus, so that it might not ever be opened any more in Count Manuel's day for him to breathe through it the dim sweet-scented air of spring. XXXIX The Passing of Manuel Then as Dom Manuel turned from the window of Ageus, it seemed that young Horvendile had opened the door yonder, and after an instant's pensive staring at Dom Manuel, had gone away. This happened, if it happened at all, so furtively and quickly that Count Manuel could not be sure of it: but he could entertain no doubt as to the other person who was confronting him. There was not any telling how this lean stranger had come into the private apartments of the Count of Poictesme, nor was there any need for Manuel to wonder over the management of this intrusion, for the new arrival was not, after all, an entire stranger to Dom Manuel. So Manuel said nothing, as he stood there stroking the round straw-colored head of little Melicent. The stranger waited, equally silent. There was no noise at all in the room until afar off a dog began to howl. "Yes, certainly," Dom Manuel said, "I might have known that my life was bound up with the life of Suskind, since my desire of her is the one desire which I have put aside unsatisfied. O rider of the white horse, you are very welcome." The other replied: "Why should you think that I know anything about this Suskind or that we of the Léshy keep any account of your doings? No matter what you may elect to think, however, it was decreed that the first person I found here should ride hence on my black horse. But you and the child stand abreast. So you must choose again, Dom Manuel, whether it be you or another who rides on my black horse." Then Manuel bent down, and he kissed little Melicent. "Go to your mother, dear, and tell her—" He paused here. He queerly moved his mouth, as though it were stiff and he were trying to make it more supple. Says Melicent, "But what am I to tell her, Father?" "Oh, a very funny thing, my darling. You are to tell Mother that Father has always loved her over and above all else, and that she is always to remember that and—why, that in consequence she is to give you some ginger cakes," says Manuel, smiling. So the child ran happily away, without once looking back, and Manuel closed the door behind her, and he was now quite alone with his lean visitor. "Come," says the stranger, "so you have plucked up some heart after all! Yet it is of no avail to posture with me, who know you to be spurred to this by vanity rather than by devotion. Oh, very probably you are as fond of the child as is requisite, and of your other children too, but you must admit that after you have played with any one of them for a quarter of an hour you become most heartily tired of the small squirming pest." Manuel intently regarded him, and squinting Manuel smiled sleepily. "No; I love all my children with the customary paternal infatuation." "Also you must have your gesture by sending at the last a lying message to your wife, to comfort the poor soul against to-morrow and the day after. You are—magnanimously, you like to think,—according her this parting falsehood, half in contemptuous kindness and half in relief, because at last you are now getting rid of a complacent and muddle-headed fool of whom, also, you are most heartily tired." "No, no," says Manuel, still smiling; "to my partial eyes dear Niafer remains the most clever and beautiful of women, and my delight in her has not ever wavered. But wherever do you get these curious notions?" "Ah, I have been with so many husbands at the last, Count Manuel." And Manuel shrugged. "What fearful indiscretions you suggest! No, friend, that sort of thing has an ill sound, and they should have remembered that even at the last there is the bond of silence." "Come, come, Count Manuel, you are a queer cool fellow, and you have worn these masks and attitudes with tolerable success, as your world goes. But you are now bound for a diversely ordered world, a world in which your handsome wrappings are not to the purpose." "Well, I do not know how that may be," replies Count Manuel, "but at all events there is a decency in these things and an indecency, and I shall never of my own free will expose the naked soul of Manuel to anybody. No, it would be no pleasant spectacle, I think: certainly, I have never looked at it, nor did I mean to. Perhaps, as you assert, some power which is stronger than I may some day tear all masks aside: but this will not be my fault, and I shall even then reserve the right to consider that stripping as a rather vulgar bit of tyranny. Meanwhile I must, of necessity, adhere to my own sense of decorum, and not to that of anybody else, not even to the wide experience of one"—Count Manuel bowed,—"who is, in a manner of speaking, my guest." "Oh, as always, you posture very tolerably, and men in general will acclaim you as successful in your life. But do you look back! For the hour has come, Count Manuel, for you to confess, as all persons confess at my arrival, that you have faltered between one desire and another, not ever knowing truly what you desired, and not ever being content with any desire when it was accomplished." "Softly, friend! For I am forced to gather from your wild way of talking that you of the Léshy indeed do not keep any record of our human doings." The stranger raised what he had of eyebrows. "But how can we," he inquired, "when we have so many matters of real importance to look after?" Candid blunt Dom Manuel answered without any anger, speaking even jovially, but in all maintaining the dignity of a high prince assured of his own worth. "That excuses, then, your nonsensical remarks. I must make bold to inform you that everybody tells me I have very positive achievements to look back upon. I do not care to boast, you understand, and to be forced into self-praise is abhorrent to me. Yet truthfulness is all important at this solemn hour, and anyone hereabouts can tell you it was I who climbed gray Vraidex, and dealt so hardily with the serpents and other horrific protectors of Miramon Lluagor that I destroyed most of them and put the others to flight. Thereafter men narrate how I made my own terms with the terrified magician, according him his forfeited life in exchange for a promise to live henceforward more respectfully and to serve under me in the war which I was already planning against the Northmen. Yes, and men praise me, too, because I managed to accomplish all these things while I was hampered by having to look out for and protect a woman." "I know," said the lean stranger, "I know you somehow got the better of that romantic visionary half-brother of mine, and made a warrior out of him: and I admit this was rather remarkable. But what does it matter now?" "Then they will tell you it was I that wisely reasoned with King Helmas until I turned him from folly, and I that with holy arguments converted King Ferdinand from his wickedness. I restored the magic to the robe of the Apsarasas when but for me its magic would have been lost irrevocably. I conquered Freydis, that woman of strange deeds, and single-handed I fought against her spoorns and calcars and other terrors of antiquity, slaying, to be accurate, seven hundred and eighty-two of them. I also conquered the Misery of earth, whom some called Béda, and others Kruchina, and yet others Mimir, after a very notable battle which we fought with enchanted swords for a whole month without ever pausing for rest. I went intrepidly into the paradise of the heathen, and routed all its terrific warders, and so fetched hence the woman whom I desired. Thus, friend, did I repurchase that heroic and unchanging love which exists between my wife and me." "Yes," said the stranger, "Why, that too is very remarkable. But what does it matter now?" "—For it is of common report among men that nothing has ever been able to withstand Dom Manuel. Thus it was natural enough, men say, that, when the lewd and evil god whom nowadays so many adore as Sesphra of the Dreams was for establishing his power by making an alliance with me, I should have driven him howling and terrified into the heart of a great fire. For myself, I say nothing; but when the very gods run away from a champion there is some adequate reason: and of this exploit, and of all these exploits, and of many other exploits, equally incredible and equally well vouched for, all person hereabouts will tell you. As to the prodigies of valor which I performed in redeeming Poictesme from the oppression of the Northmen, you will find documentary evidence in those three epic poems, just to your left there, which commemorate my feats in this campaign—" "Nobody disputes this campaign also may have been remarkable, and certainly I do not dispute it: for I cannot see that these doings matter a button's worth in my business with you, and, besides, I never argue." "And no more do I! because I abhor vainglory, and I know these affairs are now a part of established history. No, friend, you cannot destroy my credit in this world, whereas in the world for which I am bound, you tell me, they make no account of our doings. So, whether or not I did these things, I shall always retain, in this world and in the next, the credit for them, without any need to resort to distasteful boasting. And that, as I was going on to explain, is precisely why I do not find it necessary to tell you about these matters, or even to allude to them." "Oh, doubtless, it is something to have excelled all your fellows in so many ways," the stranger conceded, with a sort of grudging respect: "but, I repeat, what does it matter now?" "And, if you will pardon my habitual frankness, friend, that query with so constant repetition becomes a trifle monotonous. No, it does not dishearten me, I am past that. No, I once opened a window, the more clearly to appraise the most dear rewards of my endeavors—That moment was my life, that single quiet moment summed up all my living, and"—here Manuel smiled gravely,—"still without boasting, friend, I must tell you that in this moment all doubt as to my attested worth went out of me, who had redeemed a kingdom, and begotten a king, and created a god. So you waste time, my friend, in trying to convince me of all human life's failure and unimportance, for I am not in sympathy with this modern morbid pessimistic way of talking. It has a very ill sound, and nothing whatever is to be gained by it." The other answered shrewdly: "Yes, you speak well, and you posture handsomely, in every respect save one. For you call me 'friend.' Hah, Manuel, from behind the squinting mask a sick and satiated and disappointed being spoke there, howsoever resolutely you keep up appearances." "There spoke mere courtesy, Grandfather Death," says Manuel, now openly laughing, "and for the rest, if you again will pardon frankness, it is less with the contents of my heart than with its continued motion that you have any proper concern." "Truly it is no affair of mine, Count Manuel, nor do any of your doings matter to me. Therefore let us be going now, unless—O most unusual man, who at the last assert your life to have been a successful and important business,—unless you now desire some time wherein to bid farewell to your loved wife and worshipped children and to all your other fine works." Dom Manuel shrugged broad shoulders. "And to what end? No, I am Manuel. I have lived in the loneliness which is common to all men, but the difference is that I have known it. Now it is necessary for me, as it is necessary for all men, to die in this same loneliness, and I know that there is no help for it." "Once, Manuel, you feared to travel with me, and you bid Niafer mount in your stead on my black horse, saying, 'Better she than I.'" "Yes, yes, what curious things we do when we are boys! Well, I am wiser now, for since then I have achieved all that I desired, save only to see the ends of this world and to judge them, and I would have achieved that too, perhaps, if only I had desired it a little more heartily. Yes, yes, I tell you frankly, I have grown so used to getting my desire that I believe, even now, if I desired you to go hence alone you also would obey me." Grandfather Death smiled thinly. "I reserve my own opinion. But take it what you say is true,—and do you desire me to go hence alone?" "No," says Manuel, very quietly. Thereupon Dom Manuel passed to the western window, and he stood there, looking out over broad rolling uplands. He viewed a noble country, good to live in, rich with grain and metal, embowered with tall forests, and watered by pleasant streams. Walled cities it had, and castles crowned its eminences. Very far beneath Dom Manuel the leaded roofs of his fortresses glittered in the sunset, for Storisende guarded the loftiest part of all inhabited Poictesme. He overlooked, directly, the turrets or Ranec and of Asch; to the south was Nérac; northward showed Perdigon: and the prince of no country owned any finer castles than were these four, in which lived Manuel's servants. "It is strange," says Dom Manuel, "to think that everything I am seeing was mine a moment since, and it is queer too to think of what a famous fellow was this Manuel the Redeemer, and of the fine things he did, and it is appalling to wonder if all the other applauded heroes of mankind are like him. Oh, certainly, Count Manuel's achievements were notable and such as were not known anywhere before, and men will talk of them for a long while. Yet, looking back,—now that this famed Count of Poictesme means less to me,—why, I seem to see only the strivings of an ape reft of his tail, and grown rusty at climbing, who has reeled blunderingly from mystery to mystery, with pathetic makeshifts, not understanding anything, greedy in all desires, and always honeycombed with poltroonery. So in a secret place his youth was put away in exchange for a prize that was hardly worth the having; and the fine geas which his mother laid upon him was exchanged for the common geas of what seems expected." "Such notions," replied Grandfather Death, "are entertained by many of you humans in the light-headed time of youth. Then common-sense arises like a light formless cloud about your goings, and you half forget these notions. Then I bring darkness." "In that quiet dark, my friend, it may be I shall again become the Manuel whom I remember, and I may get back again my own undemonstrable ideas, in place of the ideas of other persons, to entertain me in that darkness. So let us be going thither." "Very willingly," said Grandfather Death; and he started toward the door. "Now, pardon me," says Manuel, "but in Poictesme the Count of Poictesme goes first in any company. It may seem to you an affair of no importance, but nowadays I concede the strength as well as the foolishness of my accustomed habits, and all my life long I have gone first. So do you ride a little way behind me, friend, and carry this shroud and napkin, till I have need of them." Then the Count armed and departed from Storisende, riding on the black horse, in jeweled armor, and carrying before him his black shield upon which was emblazoned the silver stallion of Poictesme and the motto Mundus vult decipi. Behind him was Grandfather Death on the white horse, carrying the Count's grave-clothes in a neat bundle. They rode toward the sunset, and against the yellow sunset each figure showed jet black. And thereafter Count Manuel was seen no more in Poictesme, nor did anyone ever know certainly whither he journeyed. There was a lad called Jurgen, the son of Coth of the Rocks, who came to Storisende in a frenzy of terror, very early the next morning, with a horrific tale of incredible events witnessed upon Upper Morven: but the child's tale was not heeded, because everybody knew that Count Manuel was unconquerable, and—having everything which men desire,—would never be leaving all these amenities of his own will, and certainly would never be taking part in any such dubious doings. Therefore little Jurgen was spanked, alike for staying out all night and for his wild lying: and they of Poictesme awaited the return of their great Dom Manuel; and not for a long while did they suspect that Manuel had departed homeward, after having succeeded in everything. Nor for a long while was the whole of little Jurgen's story made public. XL Colophon: Da Capo Now Some of Poictesme—but not all they of Poictesme, because the pious deny this portion of the tale, and speak of an ascension,—some narrate that after the appalling eucharist which young Jurgen witnessed upon Upper Morven, the Redeemer of Poictesme rode on a far and troubling journey with Grandfather Death, until the two had passed the sunset, and had come to the dark stream of Lethe. "Now we must ford these shadowy waters," said Grandfather Death, "in part because your destiny is on the other side, and in part because by the contact of these waters all your memories will be washed away from you. And that is requisite to your destiny." "But what is my destiny?" "It is that of all loving creatures, Count Manuel. If you have been yourself you cannot reasonably be punished, but if you have been somebody else you will find that this is not permitted." "That is a dark saying, only too well suited to this doubtful place, and I do not understand you." "No," replied Grandfather Death, "but that does not matter." Then the black horse and the white horse entered the water: and they passed over, and the swine of Eubouleus were waiting for them, but these were not yet untethered. So in the moment which remained Dom Manuel looked backward and downward, and he saw that Grandfather Death had spoken truly. For all the memories of Manuel's life had been washed away from him, so that these memories were left adrift and submerged in the shadowy waters of Lethe. Drowned there was the wise countenance of Helmas, and the face of St. Ferdinand with a tarnished halo about it, and the puzzled features of Horvendile; and glowing birds and glistening images and the shimmering designs of Miramon thronged there confusedly, and among them went with moving jaws a head of sleek white clay. The golden loveliness of Alianora, and the dark splendor of Freydis and, derisively, the immortal young smile of Sesphra, showed each for a moment, and was gone. Then Niafer's eyes displayed their mildly wondering disapproval for the last time, and the small faces of children that in the end were hers and not Manuel's passed with her: and the shine of armor, and a tossing heave of jaunty banners, and gleaming castle turrets, and all the brilliancies and colors that Manuel had known and loved anywhere, save only the clear red and white of Suskind's face, seemed to be passing incoherently through the still waters, like bright broken wreckage which an undercurrent was sweeping away. And Manuel sighed, almost as if in relief. "So this," he said, "this is the preposterous end of him who was everywhere esteemed the most lucky and the least scrupulous rogue of his day!" "Yes, yes," replied Grandfather Death, as slowly he untethered one by one the swine of Eubouleus. "Yes, it is indeed the end, since all your life is passing away there, to be beheld by your old eyes alone, for the last time. Thus I see nothing there but ordinary water, and I wonder what it is you find in that dark pool to keep you staring so." "I do not very certainly know," said Manuel, "but, a little more and more mistily now, I seem to see drowned there all the loves and the desires and the adventures I had when I wore another body than this dilapidated gray body I now wear. And yet it is a deceiving water, for there, where it should reflect the remnants of the old fellow that is I, it shows, instead, the face of a young boy who is used to following after his own thinking and his own desires." "Certainly it is queer you should be saying that; for that, as everybody knows, was the favorite by-word of your namesake the famous Count Manuel who is so newly dead in Poictesme yonder.... But what is that thing?" Manuel raised from looking at the water just the handsome and florid young face which Manuel had seen reflected in the water. As his memories vanished, the tall boy incuriously wondered who might be the snub-nosed stranger that was waiting there with the miller's pigs, and was pointing, as if in mild surprise, toward the two stones overgrown with moss and supporting a cross of old worm-eaten wood. For the stranger pointed at the unfinished, unsatisfying image which stood beside the pool of Haranton, wherein, they say, strange dreams engender.... "What is that thing?" the stranger was asking, yet again.... "It is the figure of a man," said Manuel, "which I have modeled and remodeled, and cannot get exactly to my liking. So it is necessary that I keep laboring at it, until the figure is to my thinking and my desire." Thus it was in the old days. EXPLICIT *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGURES OF EARTH: A COMEDY OF APPEARANCES *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. 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