XXIX + 

Of Poetic Love: Treated with Poetic Inefficiency + 

So much for what Kennaston termed his “serious reading” in chance-opened pages of the past. There were other dreams quite different in nature, which seemed, rather, to fulfil the function of romantic art, in satisfying his human craving for a full-fed emotional existence⁠—dreams which Kennaston jestingly described as “belles lettres.” For now by turn⁠—as murderer, saint, herdsman, serf, fop, pickpurse, troubadour, monk, bravo, lordling, monarch, and in countless other estates⁠—Kennaston tasted those fruitless emotions which it is the privilege of art to arouse⁠—joys without any inevitable purchase-price, regrets that were not bitter, and miseries which left him not a penny the worse. + 

But it was as a lover that his role most engrossed him, in many dreams wherein he bore for Ettarre such adoration as he had always wistfully hoped he might entertain toward some woman some day, and had not ever known in his waking hours. It was sober truth he had spoken at Storisende: “There is no woman like you in my country, Ettarre. I can find no woman anywhere resembling you whom dreams alone may win to.” But now at last, even though it were only in dreams, he loved as he had always dimly felt he was capable of loving.⁠ ⁠… Even the old lost faculty of verse-making seemed to come back to him with this change, and he began again to fashion rhymes, elaborating bright odd vignettes of foiled love in out-of-the-way epochs and surroundings. These were the verses included, later, under the general title of “Dramatis Personae,” in his Chimes at Midnight. + 

He wrote of foiled love necessarily, since not even as a lover might he win to success. It was the cream of some supernal jest that he might not touch Ettarre; that done, though but by accident, the dream ended, and the universe seemed to fold about him, just as a hand closes. He came to understand the reason of this. “Love must look toward something not quite accessible, something not quite understood,” he had said at Storisende: and this phrase, so lightly despatched, came home to him now as pregnant truth. For it was this fact which enabled him to love Ettarre, and had always prevented his loving any other woman. + 

All mortal women either loved some other man, and went with him somewhither beyond the area of your daily life, and so, in time were forgotten; or, else, they loved you, and laid bare to you their minds and bodies⁠—and neither of these possessions ever proved so remarkable, when calmly viewed, as to justify continued infatuation therewith. Such at least Felix Kennaston had always found to be the case: love did not live, as lovers do, by feeding; but, paradoxically, got strength by hungering. It should be remembered, however, that Felix Kennaston was a poet.⁠ ⁠… + 

He would sometimes think of the women who had loved him; and would speculate, with some wistfulness, if it was invariably true, as with his own amorous traffic, that love both kept and left its victims strangers to each other? He knew so little of these soft-lipped girls and women, when everything was said.⁠ ⁠… + 

Yet there had been⁠—he counted⁠—yes, time had known eight chaste and comely gentlewomen, in all, who had “given themselves to him,” as the hackneyed phrase was. These eight affairs, at any event, had conformed to every tradition, and had been as thoroughgoing as might romantically be expected: but nothing much seemed to have come of them; and he did not feel in the upshot very well acquainted with their heroines. His sole emotion toward them nowadays was that of mild dislike. But six of them⁠—again to utilize a venerable conjunction of words⁠—had “deceived their husbands” for the caresses of an impecunious Kennaston; and the other two had anticipatorily “deceived” the husbands they took later: so that they must, he reflected, have loved Felix Kennaston sincerely. He was quite certain, though, that he had never loved any one of them as he had always wanted to love. No one of these women had given him what he sought in vain. Kennaston had felt this lack of success dispiritedly when, with soft arms about him, it was necessary to think of what he would say next. He had always in such circumstances managed to feign high rapture, to his temporary companion’s entire satisfaction, as he believed; but each adventure left him disappointed. It had not roused in him the overwhelming emotions lovers had in books, nor anything resembling these emotions: and that was what he had wanted, and had not ever realized, until the coming of Ettarre.⁠ ⁠… + 

He had made love, as a prevalent rule, to married women⁠—allured, again, by bookish standards, which advanced the commerce of Lancelot with Guinevere, or of Paolo Malatesta with his brother’s wife, as the supreme type of romantic passion. On more practical grounds, Kennaston preferred married women, partly because they were less stupid to converse with in general, and in particular did not bring up the question of marrying you; and in part because the husband in the background helped the situation pictorially⁠—this notion also now seemed to be of literary origin⁠—besides furnishing an unfailing topic of conversation. For unfaithful or wavering wives, to Kennaston’s finding, peculiarly delighted in talking about their husbands; and in such prattle failed either to exhibit the conventional remorse toward, or any very grave complaint against, the discussed better-half. The inconsistency would have worried Kennaston’s sense of justice, had not these husbands always been so transparently certain of Kennaston’s insignificance.⁠ ⁠… Although judging of necessity only from his own experience, Kennaston was unable conscientiously to approve of adulterous love-affairs: they tended too soon toward tediousness; and married women seemed horribly quick to become matter-of-fact in the details of a liaison, and ready almost to confuse you with the husband. + 

The giggle and chatter of young girls Kennaston had always esteemed unalluring, even in his own youth. He had admired a number of them extravagantly, but only as ornamental objects upon which very ill-advisedly had been conferred the gift of speech. Today he looked back wistfully at times, as we must all do, to that girl who first had asked him if he was sure that he respected her as much as ever: but it was with the mental annotation that she had seven children now, and, as Kathleen put it, not a ray of good looks left. And he would meditate that he had certainly been fond of Margaret Hugonin, even though in the beginning it was her money which attracted him; and that Marian Winwood, despite her underhanded vengeance in publishing his letters, had been the most delectable of company all that ancient summer when it had rained so persistently. Then there had been tall Agnés Faroy, like a statue of gold and ivory; Kitty Provis, with those wonderful huge green eyes of hers; and Celia Reindan, she who wore that curious silver band across her forehead; and Helen Strong; and Blanche Druro; and Muriel.⁠ ⁠… In memory they arose like colorful and gracious phantoms, far more adorable than they had ever been on earth, when each of these had loaned, for a season, the touch of irresolute soft hands and friendly lips to a half-forgotten Felix Kennaston. All these, and others, had been, a long while since, the loveliest creatures that wore tender human flesh: and so, they had kissed, and they had talked time-hallowed nonsense, and they had shed the orthodox tears; and⁠—also a long while since⁠—they had died or they had married the conventional someone-else: and it did not matter the beard of an onion to the pudgy pasty man that Felix Kennaston had come to be. He had possessed, or else of his own volition he had refrained from possessing, all these brightly-colored moth-brained girls: but he had loved none of them as he had always known he was capable of loving: and at best, these girls were dead now, or at worst, they had been converted into unaccountable people.⁠ ⁠… + 

Kathleen was returning from the South that day, and Kennaston had gone into Lichfield to meet her train. The Florida Express was late by a full hour; so he sat in their motorcar, waiting, turning over some verses in his torpid mind, and just half-noticing persons who were gathering on the station platform to take the noon train going west. He was reflecting how ugly and trivial people’s faces appear when a crowd is viewed collectively⁠—and wondering if the Author, looking down into a hot thronged street, was never tempted to obliterate the race as an unsuccessful experiment⁠—when Kennaston recognized Muriel Allardyce. + 

“I simply will not see her,” he decided. He turned his back that way, picked up the morning paper on the seat beside him, and began to read an editorial on immigration. What the deuce was she doing in Lichfield, anyway? She lived in St. Louis now. She was probably visiting Avis Blagden. Evidently, she was going west on the noon train. If Kathleen’s train arrived before midday he would have to get out of the car to meet her, and all three would come together on the platform. If Muriel spied him there, in the open car, it would be not uncharacteristic of her to join him. And he could not go away, because Kathleen’s train was apt to arrive any minute. It was perfectly damnable. Why could the woman not stay in St. Louis, where she belonged, instead of gadding about the country? Thus Kennaston, as he reread the statistics as to Poles and Magyars. + 

“I think there’s two ladies trying to speak to you, sir,” the chauffeur hazarded. + 

“Eh?⁠—oh, yes!” said Kennaston. He looked, perforce, and saw that across the railway track both Muriel Allardyce and Avis Blagden were regarding him with idiotic grins and wavings. He lifted his hat, smiled, waved his own hand, and retired between the pages of the Lichfield Courier-Herald. Muriel was wearing a light traveling veil, he reflected; he could pretend not to know who she was. With recognition, of course, he would be expected to come over and speak to her. He must remember to ask Avis, the very next time he saw her, who had been that familiar-looking person with her, and to express regret for his shortsightedness.⁠ ⁠… + 

He decided to step out of the car, by way of the farther door, and buy a package of cigarettes on the other side of the street. He could loaf there and pray that Muriel’s train left before Kathleen’s arrived.⁠ ⁠… + 

“I don’t believed you recognized us,” said Avis Blagden, at his elbow. “Or else you are trying to cut your old playmates.” The two women had brazenly pursued him. They were within a yard of him. It was indelicate. It was so perfectly unnecessary. He cordially wished some friendly engine had run them both down when they were crossing the tracks.⁠ ⁠… + 

“Why, bless my soul!” he was saying, “this is indeed a delightful surprise. I had no idea you were in town, Mrs. Allardyce. I didn’t recognize you, with that veil on⁠—” + 

“There’s Peter, at last,” said Avis. “I really must speak to him a moment.” And she promptly left them. Kennaston reflected that the whole transaction was self-evidently prearranged. And Muriel was, as if abstractedly, but deliberately, walking beyond earshot of the chauffeur. And there was nothing for it save to accompany her. + 

“It’s awfully jolly to see you again,” he observed, with fervor. + 

“Is it? Honestly, Felix, it looked almost as if you were trying to avoid me.” Kennaston wondered how he could ever have loved a woman of so little penetration. + 

“No, I didn’t recognize you, with that veil on,” he repeated. “And I had no idea you were in Lichfield. I do hope you are going to pay us all a nice long visit⁠—” + 

“But, no, I am leaving on this train⁠—” + 

“Oh, I say, but that’s too bad! And I never knew you were here!” he lamented. + 

“I only stopped overnight with Avis. I am on my way home⁠—” + 

“To Leonard?” And Kennaston smiled. “How do you get on with him nowadays?” + 

“We are⁠—contented, I suppose. He has his business⁠—and politics. He is doing perfectly splendidly now, you know. And I have my memories.” Her voice changed. “I have my memories, Felix! Nothing⁠—nothing can take that from me!” + 

“Good God, Muriel, there are a dozen people watching us⁠—” + 

“What does that matter!” + 

“Well, it matters a lot to me. I live here, you know.” + 

She was silent for a moment. “You look your latest role in life so well, too, Felix. You are the respectable married gentleman to the last detail. Why, you are an old man now, Felix,” she said wistfully. “Your hair is gray about the ears, and you are fat, and there are wrinkles under your eyes⁠—But are you happy, dear?” she asked, with the grave tender speech that he remembered. And momentarily the man forgot the people about them, and the fact that his wife’s train was due any minute. + 

“Happier than I deserve to be, Muriel.” His voice had quavered⁠—not ineffectively, it appeared to him. + 

“That’s true, at least,” the woman said, as in reflection. “You treated me rather abominably, you know⁠—like an old shoe.” + 

“I am not altogether sorry you take that view of it. For I wouldn’t want you to regret⁠—anything⁠—not even that which, to me at least, is very sacred. But there was really nothing else to do save just to let things end. It was as hard,” he said, with a continuous flight of imagination, “it was as hard on me as you.” + 

“Sometimes I think it was simply because you were afraid of Leonard. I put that out of my mind, though, always. You see, I like to keep my memories. I have nothing else now, Felix⁠—” She opened the small leather bag she carried, took out a handkerchief, and brushed her lips. “I am a fool, of course. Oh, it is funny to see your ugly little snub nose again! And I couldn’t help wanting to speak to you, once more⁠—” + 

“It has been delightful. And some day I certainly do hope⁠—But there’s your train, I think. The gates are going down.” + 

“And here is Avis coming. So goodbye, Felix. It is really forever this time, I think⁠—” + 

It seemed to him that she held in her left hand the sigil of Scoteia.⁠ ⁠… He stared at the gleaming thing, then raised his eyes to hers. She was smiling. Her eyes were the eyes of Ettarre. All the beauty of the world seemed gathered in this woman’s face.⁠ ⁠… + 

“Don’t let it be forever! Come with me, Felix! There is only you⁠—even now, there is only you. It is not yet too late⁠—” Astounding as were the words, they came quite clearly, in a pleading frightened whisper. + 

The man was young for just that one wonderful moment of inexplicable yearning and self-loathing. Then, “I⁠—I am afraid my wife would hardly like it,” he said, equably. “So goodbye, Muriel. It has been very delightful to see you again.” + 

“I was mistaken, though, of course. It was the top of a vanity-box, or of a toilet water flask, or of something else, that she took out of the bag, when she was looking for her handkerchief. It was just a silly coincidence. I was mistaken, of course.⁠ ⁠… And here is Kathleen’s train. Thank goodness, it was late enough.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Thus Kennaston, as he went to receive his wife’s cool kiss. And⁠—having carefully mentioned as a matter of no earthly importance that he had just seen Muriel Allardyce, and that she had gone off terribly in looks, and that none of them seem to hold their own like you, dear⁠—he disbarred from mind that awkward moment’s delusion, and tried not to think of it any more. + 

XXX + 

Cross-Purposes in Spacious Times + 

So Kennaston seemed to have got only disappointment and vexation and gainless vague regret from his love-affairs in the flesh; and all fleshly passion seemed to flicker out inevitably, however splendid the brief blaze. For you loved and lost; or else you loved and won: there was quick ending either way. And afterward unaccountable women haunted you, and worried you into unreasonable contrition, in defiance of common-sense.⁠ ⁠… + 

But for Ettarre, who embodied all Kennaston was ever able to conceive of beauty and fearlessness and strange purity, all perfections, all the attributes of divinity, in a word, such as his slender human faculties were competent to understand, he must hunger always in vain. Whatever happened, Ettarre stayed inaccessible, even in dreams: her beauty was his to look on only; and always when he came too near that radiant loveliness which was Ettarre’s⁠—that perfect beauty which was so full of troubling reticences, and so, was touched with something sinister⁠—the dream would end, and the universe would seem to fold about him, just as a hand closes. Such was the law, the kindly law, as Kennaston now believed, through which love might thrive even in the arid heart of a poet. + 

Sometimes, however, this law would lead to odd results, and left the dream an enigma. For instance, he had a quaint experience upon the night of that day during which he had talked with Muriel Allardyce.⁠ ⁠… + 

“You are in all things a fortunate man, Master⁠—ah⁠—whatever your true name may be,” said the boy, pettishly flinging down the cards. + 

“Ods life, and have we done?” says Kennaston.⁠ ⁠… + 

The two sat in a comfortable paneled room. There was a big open fire behind Kennaston; he could see its reflections flicker about the woodwork. The boy facing him was glowingly attired in green and gold, an ardent comely urchin, who (as Kennaston estimated) might perhaps be a page to Queen Elizabeth, or possibly was one of King James’s spoilt striplings. Between them was a rough deal table, littered with playing-cards; and upon it sat a tallish blue pitcher half-full of wine, four lighted candles stuck like corks in as many emptied bottles, and two coarse yellow mugs.⁠ ⁠… + 

“Yes, we have done,” the boy answered; and, rising, smiled cherubically. “May I ask what the object may be that you conceal with such care in your left hand?” says he. + 

“To be candid,” Kennaston returned, “it is the King of Diamonds, that swarthy bearded Spaniard. I had intended it should serve as a corrective and encourager of Lady Fortune, when I turned it, my next deal, as the trump card. I’faith, I thank God I have found the jade is to be influenced by such feats of manual activity. Oh, ay, sir, I may say it without conceit that my fingers have in these matters tolerable compass and variety.” + 

“A cardsharp!” sneers the boy. “La, half of us suspected it already; but it will be rare news to the town that Master Lionel Branch⁠—as I must continue to call you⁠—stands detected in such Greek knaveries.” + 

“Nay, but you will hardly live to moralize of it, sir. Oh, no, sir, indeed my poor arts must not be made public: for I would not seem to boast of my accomplishments. Harkee, sir, I abhor vainglory. I name no man, sir; but I know very well there are snotty-nosed people who regard expedients toward amending the quirks of fate with puritan disfavor. Hah, but, signior, what is that to us knights of the moon, to us gallants of generous spirit?⁠—Oh, Lord, sir, I protest I look upon such talents much as I do upon my breeches. I do consider them as possessions, not certainly to be vaunted, but indispensable to any gentleman who hopes to make a pleasing figure in the world.” + 

“All this bluster is wordy foolery, Master Branch. What I have seen, I have seen; and you will readily guess how I mean to use my knowledge.” + 

“I would give a great deal to find out what he is talking about,” was Kennaston’s reflection. “I have discovered, at least, that my present alias is Branch, but that I am in reality somebody else.” Aloud he said: “ ’Fore God, your eyesight is of the best, Master Skirlaw⁠—(How the deuce did I know his name, now?)⁠—Hah, I trust forthwith to prove if your sword be equally keen.” + 

“I will fight with no cheats⁠—” + 

“I’faith, sir, but I have heard that wine is a famed provoker of courage. Let us try the byword.” So saying, Kennaston picked up one mug, and flung its contents full in the boy’s face. It was white wine, Kennaston noted, for it did not stain Master Skirlaw’s handsome countenance at all. + 

“The insult is sufficient. Draw, and have done!” the lad said quietly. His sword gleamed in the restive reflections of that unseen fire behind Kennaston. + 

“Na, na! but, my most expeditious cockerel, surely this place is a thought too public? Now yonder is a noble courtyard. Oh, ay, favored by tonight’s moon, we may settle our matter without any hindrance or intolerable scandal. So, I will call my host, that we may have the key. Yet, upon my gentility, Master Skirlaw, I greatly fear I shall be forced to kill you. Therefore I cry you mercy, sir, but is there no business on your mind which you would not willingly leave undischarged? Save you, friend, but we are all mortal. Hah, to a lady whom I need not name, it is an affair of considerable import what disposition a bold man might make of this ring⁠—” + 

Leering, Kennaston touched the great signet-ring on the lad’s thumb; and forthwith the universe seemed to fold about him, just as a hand closes. In this brief moment of inexplicable yearning and self-loathing he comprehended that the boy’s face was the face of Ettarre. + 

And Kennaston, awake, was pleading, with meaningless words: “Valentia! forgive me, Valentia!⁠ ⁠…” + 

And that was all. This dream remained an enigma. Kennaston could never know what events had preceded this equivocal instant, or how Ettarre came to be disguised as a man, or what were their relations in this dream, nor, above all, why he should have awakened crying upon the name of Valentia. It was simply a law that always when he was about to touch Ettarre⁠—even unconsciously⁠—everything must vanish; and through the workings of that law this dream, with many others, came to be just a treasured moment of unexplainable but poignant emotion. + 

XXXI + 

Horvendile to Ettarre: At Whitehall + 

To Kennaston the Lord Protector was saying, with grave unction: “You will, I doubt not, fittingly express to our friends in Virginia, Master Major, those hearty sentiments which I have in the way of gratefulness, in that I have received the honor and safeguard of their approbation; for all which I humbly thank them. To our unfriends in that colony we will let action speak when I shall have completed God’s work in Ireland.” + 

“Yet the Burgesses, sir, are mostly ill-affected; and Berkeley, to grant him justice, does not lack bravery⁠—” + 

“With Heaven’s help, Master Major, I have of late dealt with a king who did not lack bravery. Nay, depend upon it, I shall some day grant William Berkeley utter justice⁠—such justice as I gave his master, that proud curled man, Charles Stuart.” Then the Lord Protector’s face was changed, and his harsh countenance became a little troubled. “Yes, I shall do all this, with Heaven’s help, I think. But in good faith, I grow old, Master Major. I move in a mist, and my deeds are strange to me.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Cromwell closed and unclosed his hands, regarding them; and he sighed. Then it was to Ettarre he spoke: + 

“I leave you in Master Major’s charge. It may be I shall not return alive into England; indeed, I grow an old man and feel infirmities of age stealing upon me. And so, farewell, my lass. Truly if I love you not too well, I err not on the other hand much. Thou hast been dearer to me than any other creature: let that suffice.” And with this leave-taking he was gone. + 

As the door closed upon Cromwell’s burly figure, “No, be very careful not to touch me,” Kennaston implored. “The dream must last till I have found out how through your aid, Ettarre, this bull-necked country squire has come to rule England. It is precisely as I expected. You explain Cromwell, you explain Mohammed⁠—Richelieu and Tamburlaine and Julius Caesar, I suspect, and, as I know, Napoleon⁠—all these men who have inexplicably risen from nothing to earthly supremacy. How is it done, Ettarre?” + 

“It is not I who contrive it, Horvendile. I am but an incident in such men’s lives. They have known me⁠—yes: and knowing me, they were bent enough on their own ends to forget that I seemed not unlovely. It is not the sigil and the power the sigil gives which they love and serve⁠—” + 

“And that small square mirror, such as Cromwell also carried⁠—?” Kennaston began. “Or is this forbidden talk?” + 

“Yes, that mirror aids them. In that mirror they can see only themselves. So the mirror aids toward the ends they chose, with open eyes.⁠ ⁠… But you cannot ever penetrate these mysteries now, Horvendile. The secret of the mirror was offered you once, and you would not bargain. The secret of the mirror is offered to no man twice.” + 

And he laughed merrily. “What does it matter? I am perfectly content. That is more than can be said for yonder sanctimonious fat old rascal, who has just told me he is going into Ireland ‘for the propagating of the gospel of Christ, the establishing of truth and peace, and the restoring of that bleeding nation to its former happiness and tranquillity.’ Why is it that people of executive ability seem always to be more or less mentally deficient? Now, you and I know that, in point of fact, he is going into Ireland to burn villages, massacre women, hang bishops, and generally qualify his name for all time as a Hibernian synonym for infamy. Oh, no, the purchase-price of grandeur is too great; and men that crown themselves in this world inevitably perform the action with soiled hands. Still, I wish I had known I was going visiting tonight in seventeenth-century England,” said Kennaston, reflectively; “then I could have read up a bit. I don’t even know whether Virginia ever submitted to him. It simply shows what idleness may lead to! If I had studied history more faithfully I would have been able tonight to prophesy to Oliver Cromwell about the results of his Irish campaigns and so on, and could have impressed him vastly with my abilities. As it is, I have missed an opportunity which will probably never occur again to any man of my generation.⁠ ⁠…” + 

XXXII + 

Horvendile to Ettarre: At Vaux-le-Vicomte + 

“What fun!” says Kennaston; “we are at Vaux-le-Vicomte, where Fouquet is entertaining young Louis Quatorze. Yonder is La Vallière⁠—the thin towheaded girl, with the big mouth. People are just beginning to whisper scandal about her. And that tall jade is Athenaïs de Tonnay-Charente⁠—the woman who is going to be Madame de Montespan and control everything in the kingdom later on, you remember. The King is not yet aware of her existence, nor has Monsieur de Montespan been introduced.⁠ ⁠… + 

“The Troupe of Monsieur is about to present an open-air comedy. It is called Les Facheux⁠—The Bores. It is rumored to take off very cleverly the trivial tedious fashion in which perfectly well-meaning people chatter their way through life. But that more fittingly would be the theme of a tragedy, Ettarre. Men are condemned eternally to bore one another. Two hundred years and more from today⁠—perhaps forever⁠—man will lack means, or courage, to voice his actual thoughts adequately. He must still talk of weather probabilities and of having seen So-and-so and of such trifles, that mean absolutely nothing to him⁠—and must babble of these things even to the persons who are most dear and familiar to him. Yes, every reputable man must desperately make small-talk, and echo and reecho senseless phrases, until the crack of doom. He will always be afraid to bare his actual thoughts and interests to his fellows’ possible disapproval: or perhaps it is just a pitiable mania with the race. At all events, one should not laugh at this ageless aspersion and burlesque of man’s intelligence as performed by man himself.⁠ ⁠… + 

“The comedy is quite new. A marquis, with wonderful canions and a scented wig like an edifice, told me it is by an upholsterer named Coquelin, a barnstormer who ran away from home and has been knocking about the provinces unsuccessfully for nearly twenty years: and my little marquis wondered what in the world we are coming to, when Monsieur le Surintendent takes up with that class of people. Is not my little marquis droll?⁠—for he meant Poquelin, soon to be Poquelin de Molière, of course. Molière, also, is a name which is not famous as yet. But in a month or so it will be famous for all time; and Monsieur le Surintendent will be in jail and forgotten.⁠ ⁠… + 

“You smile, Ettarre? Ah, yes, I understand. Molière too adores you. All poets have had fitful glimpses of you, Ettarre, and of that perfect beauty which is full of troubling reticences, and so, is touched with something sinister. I have written as to the price they pay, these hapless poets, in a little book I am inditing through that fat pudgy body I wear in the flesh.⁠ ⁠… Do not frown: I know it is forbidden to talk with you concerning my life in the flesh.⁠ ⁠… + 

“Ah, the King comes⁠—evidently in no very amiable frame of mind⁠—and all rise, like a flurry of great butterflies. It is the beginning of the play. See, a woman is coming out of the big shell in the fountain.⁠ ⁠… + 

“I wish my old friend Jonas d’Artagnan were here. It is a real pity he is only a character in fiction⁠—just as I once thought you were, Ettarre. Eh, what a fool I was to imagine I had created you! and that I controlled your speech and doings! I know much better now.⁠ ⁠… + 

“Ettarre, your unattainable beauty tears my heart. Is that black-browed Molière your lover too? What favors have you granted him? You perceive I am jealous. How can I be otherwise, when there is nothing, nothing in me that does not cry out for love of you? And I am forbidden ever to win quite to you, ever to touch you, ever to see you even save in my dreams!” + 

XXXIII + 

Horvendile to Ettarre: In the Conciergerie + 

They waited in a big dark room of the Conciergerie, with many other condemned émigrants, until the tumbrils should come to fetch them to the Place de la Révolution. They stood beneath a narrow barred window, set high in the wall, so that thin winter sunlight made the girl’s face visible. Misery was about them, death waited without: and it did not matter a pennyworth. + 

“Ettarre, I know today that all my life I have been seeking you. Very long ago when I was a child it was made clear that you awaited me somewhere; and, I recollect now, I used to hunger for your coming with a longing which has not any name. And when I went about the dusty world I still believed you waited somewhere⁠—till I should find you, as I inevitably must, or soon or late. Did I go upon a journey to some unfamiliar place?⁠—it might be that unwittingly I traveled toward your home. I could never pass a walled garden where green treetops showed without suspecting, even while I shrugged to think how wild was the imagining, that there was only the wall between us. I did not know the color of your eyes, but I knew what I would read there. And for a fevered season I appeared to encounter many women of earth who resembled you⁠—” + 

“All women resemble me, Horvendile. Whatever flesh they may wear as a garment, and however time-frayed or dull-hued or stained by horrible misuse that garment may seem to be, the wearer of that garment is no less fair than I, could any man see her quite clearly. Horvendile, were that not true, could our great Author find anywhere a woman’s body which wickedness and ugliness controlled unchecked, all the big stars which light the universe, and even the tiny sun that our earth spins about, would be blown out like unneeded candles, for the Author’s labor would have been frustrated and misspent.” + 

“Yes; I know now that this is true.⁠ ⁠… See, Ettarre! Yonder woman is furtively coloring her cheeks with a little wet red rag. She does not wish to seem pale⁠—or is it that she wishes to look her best?⁠—in the moment of death.⁠ ⁠… Ettarre, my love for you whom I could not ever find, was not of earth, and I could not transfer it to an earthly woman. The lively hues, the lovely curvings and the fragrant tender flesh of earth’s women were deft to cast their spells; but presently I knew this magic was only of the body. It might be I was honoring divinity; but it was certain that even in such case I was doing so by posturing before my divinity’s effigy in tinted clay. Besides, it is not possible to know with any certainty what is going on in the round glossy little heads of women. ‘I hide no secrets from you, because I love you,’ say they?⁠—eh, and their love may be anything from a mild preference to a flat lie. And so, I came finally to concede that all women are creatures of like frailties and limitations and reserves as myself, and I was most poignantly lonely when I was luckiest in love. Once only, in my life in the flesh, it seemed to me that a woman, whom I had abandoned, held in her hand the sigil visibly. That memory has often troubled me, Ettarre. It may be that this woman could have given me what I sought everywhere in vain. But I did not know this until it was too late, until the chance and the woman’s life alike were wasted.⁠ ⁠… And so, I grew apathetic, senseless and without any spurring aspiration, seeing that all human beings are so securely locked in the prison of their flesh.” + 

“When immortals visit earth it is necessary they assume the appearance of some animal. Very long ago, as we have seen, Horvendile, that secret was discovered, which so many myths veil thinly: and have we not learned, too, that the animal’s fleshly body is a disguise which it is possible to put aside?” + 

“That knowledge, so fearfully purchased at the Sabbat, still troubles me, Ettarre.⁠ ⁠… Monsieur le Prince, I regret the circumstance, but⁠—as you see⁠—my snuffbox is quite empty. Ah, but yes, as you very justly observe, rappee, repose and rationality are equally hard to come by in these mad days.⁠ ⁠… Is that not droll, Ettarre? This unvenerable old Prince de Gâtinais⁠—once Grand Duke of Noumaria, you remember⁠—has been guilty in his career of every iniquity and meanness and cowardice: now, facing instant death, he finds time to think of snuff and phrase-making.⁠ ⁠… But⁠—to go back a little⁠—I had thought the Sabbat would be so different! One imagined there would be cauldrons, and hags upon prancing broomsticks, and a black goat, of course⁠—” + 

“How much more terrible it is⁠—and how beautiful!” + 

“Yet⁠—even now I may not touch you, Ettarre.” + 

“My friend, all men have striven to do that; and I have evaded each one of them at the last, and innumerable are the ways of my elusion. There is no man but has loved me, no man that has forgotten me, and none but has attempted to express that which he saw and understood when I was visible.” + 

“Do I not know? There is no beauty in the world save those stray hints of you, Ettarre. Canvas and stone and verse speak brokenly of you sometimes; all music yearns toward you, Ettarre, all sunsets whisper of you, and it is because they waken memories of you that the eyes of all children so obscurely trouble and delight us. Ettarre, your unattainable beauty tears my heart. There is nothing, nothing in me that does not cry out for love of you. And it is the cream of a vile jest that I am forbidden ever to win quite to you, ever to touch you, ever to see you even save in my dreams!” + 

“Already this dream draws toward an end, my poor Horvendile.” + 

And he saw that the great doors⁠—which led to death⁠—were unclosing: and beyond them he saw confusedly a mob of red-capped men, of malignant frenzied women, of wide-eyed little children, and the staid officials, chatting pleasantly among themselves, who came to fetch that day’s tale of those condemned to the guillotine. But more vividly Kennaston saw Ettarre and how tenderly she smiled, in thin wintry sunlight, as she touched Kennaston upon the breast, so that the dream might end and he might escape the guillotine. + 

XXXIV + 

Of One Enigma That Threatened to Prove Allegorical + 

Then again Kennaston stood alone before a tall window, made up of many lozenge-shaped panes of clear glass set in lead framework. He had put aside one of the two great curtains⁠—of a very fine stuff like gauze, stitched over with transparent glittering beetle-wings, and embroidered with tiny seed pearls⁠—which hung before this window. + 

Snow covered the expanse of housetops without, and the sky without was glorious with chill stars. That white city belonged to him, he knew, with a host of other cities. He was the strongest of kings. People dreaded him, he knew; and he wondered why anyone should esteem a frail weakling such as he to be formidable. The hand of this great king⁠—his own hand, that held aside the curtain before him⁠—was shriveled and colorless as lambs’ wools. It was like a horrible birdclaw. + 

(“But then I have the advantage of remembering the twentieth century,” he thought, fleetingly, “and all my contemporaries are superstitious ignorant folk. It is strange, but in this dream I appear to be an old man. That never happened before.”) + 

A remote music resounded in his ears, and cloying perfumes were about him.⁠ ⁠… + 

“I want to be happy. And that is impossible, because there is no happiness anywhere in the world. I, a great king, say this⁠—I, who am known in unmapped lands, and before whom nations tremble. For there are but three desirable things in life⁠—love and power and wisdom: and I, the king, have sounded the depths of these, and in none is happiness.” + 

Despairing words came to him now, and welled to his lips, in a sort of chaunt: + 

“I am sad tonight, for I remember that I once loved a woman. She was white as the moon; her hair was a gold cloud; she had untroubled eyes. She was so fair that I longed for her until my heart was as the heart of a God. But she sickened and died: worms had their will of her, not I. So I took other women, and my bed was never lonely. Bright poisonous women were brought to me, from beyond the sunset, from the Fortunate Islands, from Invallis and Planasia even; and these showed me nameless endearments and many curious perverse pleasures. But I was not able to forget that woman who was denied me because death had taken her: and I grew a-weary of love, for I perceived that all which has known life must suffer death. + 

“There was no people anywhere who could withstand my armies. We traveled far in search of such a people. My armies rode into a country of great heat and endless sands, and contended with the Presbyter’s brown horsemen, who fought with arrows and brightly painted bows; and we slew them. My armies entered into a land where men make their homes in the shells of huge snails, and feed upon white worms which have black heads; and we slew them. My armies passed into a land where a people that have no language dwell in dark caves under the earth, and worship a stone that has sixty colors; and we slew them, teaching ruthlessly that all which has known life must suffer death. + 

“Many stiff-necked kings, still clad in purple and scarlet and wearing gold crowns⁠—monarchs whose proud faces, for all that these men were my slaves, kept their old fashion and stayed changeless as the faces of statues⁠—such were my lackeys: and I burned walled cities. Empires were my playthings, but I had no son to inherit after me. I had no son⁠—only that dead horrible mangled worm, born dead, that I remember seeing very long ago where the woman I loved lay dead. That would have been my son had the thing lived⁠—a greater and a nobler king than I. But death willed otherwise: the life that moved in me was not to be perpetuated: and so, the heart in my body grew dried and little and shriveled, like a parched pea: for I perceived that all which has known life must suffer death. + 

“Then I turned from warfare, and sought for wisdom. I learned all that it is permitted any man to know⁠—oh, I learned more than is permissible. Have I not summoned demons from the depths of the sea, and at the Sabbat have I not smitten haggard Gods upon the cheek? Yea, at Phigalia did I not pass beneath the earth and strive with a terrible Black Woman, who had the head of a horse, and wrest from her what I desired to know? Have I not talked with Morskoi, that evil formless ruler of the Sea-Folk, and made a compact with him? And has not even Phobetor, whose real name may not be spoken, revealed to me his secrets, at a paid price of which I do not care to think, now I perceive that all which has known life must suffer death? + 

“Yea, by the Hoofs of the Goat! it seems to me that I have done these things; yet how may I be sure? For I have learned, too, that all man’s senses lie to him, that nothing we see or hear or touch is truthfully reported, and that the visible world at best stands like an island in an uncharted ocean which is a highway, none the less, for much alien traffic. Yet, it seems to me that I found means whereby the universe I live in was stripped of many veils. It seems to me that I do not regret having done this.⁠ ⁠… But presently I shall be dead, and all my dearly-purchased, wearily-earned wisdom must lie quiet in a big stone box, and all which has known life must suffer death. + 

“For death is mighty, and against it naught can avail: it is terrible and strong and cruel, and a lover of bitter jests. And presently, whatever I have done or learned or dreamed, I must lie helpless where worms will have their will of me, and neither the worms nor I will think it odd. For all which has known life must suffer death.” + 

A remote music resounded in his ears, and cloying perfumes were about him. Turning, he saw that the walls of this strange room were of iridescent lacquer, worked with bulls and apes and parrots in raised gold: black curtains screened the doors: and the bare floor was of smooth seagreen onyx. A woman stood there, who did not speak, but only waited. At length he knew what terror was, for terror possessed him utterly; and yet he was elated. + 

“You have come, then, at last.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“To you at last I have come as I come to all men,” she answered, “in my good hour.” And Ettarre’s hands, gleaming and half-hidden with jewels, reached toward his hands, so gladly raised to hers; and the universe seemed to fold about him, just as a hand closes. + 

Was it as death she came to him in this dream?⁠—as death made manifest as man’s liberation from much vain toil? Kennaston, at least, preferred to think his dreams were not degenerating into such hackneyed crude misleading allegories. Or perhaps it was as ghost of the dead woman he had loved she came, now that he was age-stricken and nearing death, for in this one dream alone he had seemed to be an old man. + 

Kennaston could not ever be sure; the broken dream remained an enigma; but he got sweet terror and happiness of the dream, for all that, tasting his moment of inexplicable poignant emotion: and therewith he was content. + 

XXXV + 

Treats of Witches, Mixed Drinks, and the Weather + 

Meanwhile, I used to see Kennaston nearly every day.⁠ ⁠… Looking back, I recollect one afternoon when the Kennastons were calling on us. It was the usual sort of late-afternoon call customarily exchanged by country neighbors.⁠ ⁠… + 

“We have been intending to come over for ever so long,” Mrs. Kennaston explained. “But we have been in such a rush, getting ready for the summer⁠—” + 

“We only got the carpets up yesterday,” my wife assented. “Riggs just kept promising and promising, but he did finally get a man out⁠—” + 

“Well, the roads are in pretty bad shape,” I suggested, “and those vans are fearfully heavy⁠—” + 

“Still, if they would just be honest about it,” Mrs. Kennaston bewailed⁠—“and not keep putting you off⁠—No, I really don’t think I ever saw the Loop road in worse condition⁠—” + 

“It’s the long rainy spell we ought to have had in May,” I informed her. “The seasons are changing so, though, nowadays that nobody can keep up with them.” + 

“Yes, Felix was saying only today that we seem no longer to have any real spring. We simply go straight from winter into summer.” + 

“I was endeavoring to persuade her,” Kennaston amended, “that it was foolish to go away as long as it stays cool as it is.” + 

“Oh, yes, now!” my wife conceded. “But the paper says we are in for a long heat period about the fifteenth. For my part, I think July is always our worst month.” + 

“It is just that you feel the heat so much more during the first warm days,” I suggested. + 

“Oh, no!” my wife said, earnestly; “the nights are cool in August, and you can stand the days. Of course, there are apt to be a few mosquitoes in September, but not many if you are careful about standing water⁠—” + 

“The drainpipe to the gutter around our porch got stopped somehow, last year”⁠—this Kennaston contributed, morosely⁠—“and we had a terrible time.” + 

“⁠—Then there is always so much to do, getting the children started at school,” my wife continued⁠—“everything under the sun needed at the last moment, of course! And the way they change all the schoolbooks every year is simply ridiculous. So, if I had my way, we would always go away early, and be back again in good time to get things in shape⁠—” + 

“Oh, yes, if we could have our way!”⁠—Mrs. Kennaston could not deny that⁠—“but don’t your servants always want August off, to go home? I know ours do: and, my dear, you simply don’t dare say a word.” + 

“That is the great trouble in the country,” I philosophized⁠—“in fact, we suburbanites are pretty well hag-ridden by our dusky familiars. The old-time darkies are dying out, and the younger generation is simply worthless. And with no more sense of gratitude⁠—Why, Moira hired a new girl last week, to help out upstairs, and⁠—” + 

“Oh, yes, hag-ridden! like the unfortunate magicians in old stories!” Kennaston broke in, on a sudden. “We were speaking about such things the other day, you remember? I have been thinking⁠—You see, everyone tells me that, apart from being a master soapboiler, Mr. Harrowby, you are by way of being an authority on witchcraft and similar murky accomplishments?” And he ended with that irritating little noise, that was nearly a snigger, and just missed being a cough. + 

“It so often comes over me,” says Moira⁠—which happens to be my wife’s name⁠—“that Dick, all by himself, is really Harrowby & Sons, Inc.”⁠—she spoke as if I were some sort of writing-fluid⁠—“and has his products on sale all over the world. I look on him in a new light, so to speak, when I realize that daily he is gladdening Calcutta with his soaps, delighting London with his dentifrice, and comforting Nova Zembla with his talcum powder.” + 

“Well, but I inherited all that. It isn’t fair to fling ancestral soap-vats in my face,” I reminded her. “And yes, I have dabbled a bit in forces that aren’t as yet thoroughly understood, Mr. Kennaston. I wouldn’t go so far as to admit to witchcraft, though. Very certainly I never attended a Sabbat.” + 

I recollect now how his face changed. “And what in heaven’s name was a Sabbat?” Then he fidgeted, and crossed his legs the other way. + 

“Well! it was scarcely heaven’s name that was invoked there, if old tales are to be trusted. Traditionally, the Sabbat was a meeting attended by all witches in satisfactory diabolical standing, lightly attired in smears of various magical ointments; and their vehicle of transportation to this outing was, of course, the traditional broomstick. Good Friday,” I continued, seeing they all seemed willing enough to listen, “was the favorite date for these gatherings, which were likewise sometimes held on St. John’s Eve, on Walburga’s Eve, and on Halloween Night. The diversions were numerous: there was feasting, music, and dancing, with the devil performing obligatos on the pipes or a cittern, and not infrequently preaching a burlesque sermon. He usually attended in the form of a monstrous goat; and when⁠—when not amorously inclined, often thrashed the witches with their own broomsticks. The more practical pursuits of the evening included the opening of graves, to despoil dead bodies of finger- and toe-joints, and certain portions of the winding-sheet, with which to prepare a powder that had strange uses.⁠ ⁠… But the less said of that, the better. Here, also, the devil taught his disciples how to make and christen statues of wax, so that by roasting these effigies the persons whose names they bore would be wasted away by sickness.” + 

“I see,” says Kennaston, intently regarding his fingernails: “they must have been highly enjoyable social outings, all around.” + 

“They must have been worse than family reunions,” put in Mrs. Kennaston, and affected to shudder. + 

“Indeed, there are certain points of resemblance,” I conceded, “in the general atmosphere of jealous hostility and the ruthless digging-up of what were better left buried.” + 

Then Kennaston asked carelessly, “But how could such absurd superstitions ever get any hold on people, do you suppose?” + 

“That would require rather a lengthy explanation⁠—Why, no,” I protested, in answer to his shrug; “the Sabbat is not inexplicable. Hahn-Kraftner’s book, or Herbert Perlin’s either, will give you a very fair notion of what the Sabbat really was⁠—something not in the least grotesque, but infinitely more awe-inspiring than is hinted by any traditions in popular use. And Le Bret, whom bookdealers rightly list as ‘curious’⁠—” + 

“Yes. I have read those books, it happens. My uncle had them, you know. But”⁠—Kennaston was plainly not quite at ease⁠—“but, after all, is it not more wholesome to dismiss such theories as fantastic nonsense, even if they are perfectly true?” + 

“Why, not of necessity,” said I. “As touches what we call the ‘occult,’ delusion after delusion has been dissipated, of course, and much jubilant pother made over the advance in knowledge. But the last of his delusions, which man has yet to relinquish, is that he invented them. This too must be surrendered with time; and already we are beginning to learn that many of these wild errors are the illegitimate children of grave truths. Science now looks with new respect on folklore⁠—” + 

“Mr. Kennaston,” says Moira, laughing, “I warn you, if you start Dick on his hobbies, he will talk us all to death. So, come into the house, and I will mix you two men a drink.” + 

And we obeyed her, and⁠—somehow⁠—got to talking of the recent thunderstorms, and getting in our hay, and kindred topics. + 

Yes, it was much the usual sort of late-afternoon call customarily exchanged by country neighbors. I remember Moira’s yawning as she closed the cellarette, and her wondering how Mrs. Kennaston could keep on rouging and powdering at her age, and why Kennaston never had anything in particular to say for himself? + 

“Do you suppose it is because he has a swelled head over his little old book, or is he just naturally stupid?” she wanted to know. + 