James Branch Cabell

“ Nevertheless, he did not like the hard, pinched little mouth and glittering, very pale blue eyes of this gaunt saint; and the nimbus about the thick white hair of Holy Holmendis was beginning to shine brighter and brighter as the dusk of evening thickened. Ninzian found it uncomfortable to be alone with this worker of miracles; piety is in all things so unpredictable: and Ninzian was unfeignedly glad when Balthis came out of the loved house that was no longer Ninzian’s home, and when Balthis held open the door for Holmendis to enter where Ninzian might not come any more. ”

“ “Nevertheless, I consider the saga of no lord of the Silver Stallion to be worth squabbling over. Your sagas in the end must all be perverted and engulfed by the great legend about Manuel. No matter how you may strive against that legend, it will conquer: no matter what you may do and suffer, my doomed Guivric, your saga will be recast until it conforms in everything to the legend begotten by the terrified imaginings of a lost child. For men dare not face the universe with no better backing than their own resources; ”

“ And the Star Warriors and the Wardens of the Worlds said, soberly, to Koshchei:
“Sir, your protection is established. You are protected as the guide of the things which exist and of the things which are not yet created. You are protected as a dweller in the realm which goes round about Those who are over Hidden Things. For now the Old Ones sleep again, and not any new thing anywhere shall ever gain the mastery over you, who are our only master: and all things as they are stay yours forever.” ”

“ And Miramon said also: “Yet it would be another sad happening were my poor wife permitted eternally to scold the shivering earthquakes in the middle of next week. What does it matter that I do not especially like her? There is a great deal about myself that I do not like, such as my body’s flabbiness and the snub nose which makes ludicrous the face I wear: but do I hanker to be transformed into a sturdy man-at-arms? do I view the snout of an elephant with covetousness? Why, but, Ninzian, I am astonished at your foolish talking! What need have I of perfection? ”

“ Then Ninzian too sat down, and Ninzian leaned toward this other immortal, in the ever-thickening dusk; and Ninzian’s plump face was sad.
“My prince, what does it matter? From the first I have let my fond wife have her will with me, because it pleased her, and did no real good. What do these human notions matter, even in so dear a form? A little while and Balthis will be dead. A little while and there will be no Yair nor Upper Ardra, and no shining holy sepulchre at Storisende, and all Poictesme will be forgotten. A little while and this Earth will be an icecold cinder. ”

“ For such utterly unselfish love as yours, dear Gonfal, is the gift which is worthiest to be my bridal gift: and, no matter what anybody says, it is you who shall be my husband!”
“Ah, but the cried quest, madame!” he answered, “and your promise to those seven other idiots!”
“I shall proclaim to those detestable third sons, and to the Imaun, and to Masu, and to everybody,” the Queen said, “a very weighty and indeed a sacred truth. I shall tell them that there is no gift more great than love.” ”

“ Let us—with suitable apologies to his great shade, and merely for the quicker confounding of his aspersers,—suppose that Dom Manuel was, in point of fact, not anything remarkable. Let us wildly imagine the cult of the Redeemer which now is spread all over our land, to be compact of exaggeration and misunderstanding and to be based virtually upon nothing. The fact remains that this heroic and gentle and perfect Redeemer, whether or no he ever actually existed, is now honored and, within reason and within the reach of human frailty, is emulated everywhere, at least now and then. ”

“ Now in Poictesme all are forgetting that Manuel, and our poets are busied with quite another Manuel, and my own wife has builded a great tomb for that other Manuel.... Coth, that is always so. It is love, not carelessness, which bids us forget our dead, so that we may love them the more whole-heartedly. Unwelcome memories must be recolored and reshaped, the faults and blunders and the vexing ways which are common to all men must be put out of mind, and strange excellencies must be added, until the compound in nothing resembles the man that is dead. ”

“ The stallion now arose, before Guivric could walk widdershins about him, and the stallion went statelily away. And Horvendile gazed after the superb beast, rather wistfully.
“He, too,” said Horvendile, “goes as a phantom here. Is it not a pity, Guivric, that this Kalki will not come in our day, and that we shall not ever behold his complete glory? I cry a lament for that Kalki who will some day bring back to their appointed places high faith and very ardent loves and hatreds; and who will see to it that human passions are never in a poor way to find expression with adequate speech and action. ”

“ Coth answered the dark god, still speaking almost gently. “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. So I elect for neither label. I merely know that, at the end of all my journeying, there remains for me only to settle down, in my comfortable castles yonder in Poictesme, and to live contentedly with my fine-looking wife Azra and with my son Jurgen,—that innocent dear lad, whom his old hypocrite of a father will by and by, beyond any doubt, be exhorting to imitate a Manuel who never lived! ”

“ Miramon cried out, “now indeed has your common-sense completed what your nagging began! This is the doom of all artists that have to do with well-conducted women. Truly has it been said that the marriage-bed is the grave of art. Well, I have put up with much from you, but this settles it, and I will not put up with your infatuation for a reputable and common-sense way of living, and I wish you were in the middle of next week!”
With that he caught the soiled scouring-rag from the hand of Gisèle, and he slapped at one of the remaining bees, and he brushed it from the black cross. ”

“ For the Emperor Vemac will be traveling afar, he will be journeying between two mountains and beyond the lair of the snake and the crocodile, even to the Nine Waters, which he will cross upon the back of a red dog. Nor will the Emperor Vemac ever return from that journeying.”
Vemac shivered a little. But he said:
“It is right that an emperor should die rather than his people perish. I will not degrade my body, but your body I will draw to the Place of the Dead; and I will abide what follows.”
Now Coth cried out, like the cheeping of a bird, from where he sat in the bosom of his wife’s gown. ”

“ Upon its glistering nakedness was left no living plant nor any breathing creature, for the Morrow of Judgment was long past, and Earth’s affairs had been wound up. Upon no planet did any one remember the god whom Donander worshiped, now that Jahveh had ended playing, and his toys were broken or put away. Upon many planets were the temples of Donander Veratyr, and the rising smoke of his sacrifice, and the cries of his worshipers as they murdered one another in their disputing over points of theology which Donander could not clearly understand. ”

“ For is there nowadays, my deluded, lost Surkrag! in candor, is there any virtue howsoever exalted, is there a single revolting decency or any form of godliness, before which your gorge rises? No, my poor friend: you came hither to corrupt mankind, and instead they have made you little worse than human.”
The Angel of Darkness paused. He had spoken, as became such a famous gentleman, very temperately, without rage, but also without any concealing of his sorrow and disappointment. And Ninzian answered, contritely:
“My prince, I have not wholly kept faith, I know. ”

“ I take your coming, rogue, as an omen.”
Then Madame Niafer began to tell him somewhat of her dream. And Jurgen listened, with the patience and the fondness which the plight of very old persons always seemed to evoke in him.
Jurgen was upon excellent terms with Madame Niafer, whom, for Biblical reasons, he was accustomed to refer to as the Centurion. “You say to one man, Go, and he goeth; and you say to another man, Come, and he cometh,” Jurgen explained. “In fine, you are a most terrible person. But when you say to me, Go, I do not obey you, madame, because you are also a dear.” ”

“ Yet the truth does not really matter to the young, who are happy; and who in any case have not the shrewdness nor the power to change anything: and it all seems strange and unimportant now. For you have been a long time gone, my Kerin, and I have lived through many years, with many and many a companion, in the great while that you have been down yonder getting so much knowledge from the bird who has the true wisdom. ”

“ The Countess answered: “I grow old; and with age one is less certain of everything. Oh, I know well enough that the lewd smirking hussies were very slanderously in the wrong! Still, Jurgen, still, dear rogue, there is a haunting whisper which tells me that time means to take all away. I am a lonely powerless old creature now, but I stay Manuel’s wife. That alone had remained to me, to have been the one love and the proud wife of the great Redeemer of Poictesme. ”

“ In fine, no matter where the lords of the Silver Stallion had raised their banner against an adversary, it was in that place they made an end of that adversary: for there was never, in any time, a hardier gang of bullies than was this Fellowship of the Silver Stallion in the season that they kept earth noisy with the clashing of their swords and darkened heaven with the smoke of the towns they were sacking, and when throughout the known world men had talked about the wonders which these champions were performing with Dom Manuel to lead them. Now they were leaderless. ”

“ People, no doubt, were living more quietly and more decorously because of this fictitious Manuel whom they loved and this gaunt ranting Holmendis whom they feared. But that too, to Coth, seemed not to matter. People nowadays were such fools that their doings and the upshot of these doings were equally unimportant, Coth estimated. If they succeeded in worming their way into heaven by existing here as spiritlessly as worms, Coth had not any objection, since he himself was bound for hell and for the company of his peers in a more high-hearted style of living. ”

“ EVEN as the knowledge which Miramon had lost was put back into his mind, just so did life reawaken in all else which had perished in that hour. Gauracy’s baleful sun was gone, and the dislodged and incinerated worlds, with all their satellites, were revolving trimly in their proper places, undamaged. And the gods who were worshiped in these worlds now made a celestial rejoicing, because once more there were only seven Pleiades. The Old Ones had sunk back into their sleeping; things, for the while, stayed as they are; and even Toupan now seemed harmless enough.... ”

“ For example, there are two kinds of camels; the age of the stag can be told by inspection of his horns; the period of gestation among sheep is one hundred and fifty days; and in the tail of the wolf is a small lock of hair which is a supreme love charm.”
“You catalogue, poor Kerin,” said the gander; “you collect your bits of knowledge as a magpie gathers shining pebbles; you toil through one book to another book as methodically as a worm gnaws out the same advance: but you learn nothing, in the wasted while that your youth goes.” ”

“ And Coth answered, rather drearily: “Yes; it is such fools as you and I, Messire Yaotl, who create unnecessary trouble everywhere. Well, I also am now released from my oath! And my master has spoken bitter good sense. The famousness of Manuel is but a dream and a loud jingling of words which happen to sound well together; it is a vanity and a great talking by his old wife and my gray peers: and yet, this nonsense, it may be, will hearten people, and will serve all people always, better than would the truth. ”

“ And Coth drew the moral. “It shows you what parents may expect of their children,” he remarked, with a malevolent glance toward his adored Jurgen. “It shows you what comes of this habit of indulging children.”
“Now, Father—” said the boy.
“Stop storming at me! How dare you attempt to bulldoze me, sir! Do you take me for another Helmas!”
“But, Father—”
“Get out of my sight, you quarrelsome puppy! I will not be thus deafened. Get back to that Dorothy of yours! You care for nobody else,” said jealous old Coth. ”

“ Mild-mannered, blinking Kerin, for one, did not regret Dom Manuel’s passing. The man had kept you fighting always, whether it was with the Easterlings or the Northmen, or with Othmar Black-Tooth or with old yellow Sclaug or with Manuel’s father, blind Oriander. It was a life which left you no time whatever for the pursuit of any culture. Kerin liked fighting, within moderation, with persons of admitted repute. ”

“ This tremulous frail wreckage was not, assuredly, the Coth who had killed single-handed the three Turks at Lacre Kai, and who had kidnapped the fat King of Cyprus and in the sight of two armies had hung the crown of yet another king on the thorn-bush at Piaja, and who had been himself an emperor, and who had held the White Tower at Skeaf against the Comprachos, and who had put that remarkable deception upon the enamored one-legged tyrant of Ran Reigan, and who had shared in so many other splendid rough-and-tumble happenings. ”