asking."
Horvendile looked grave, and yet whimsical too. "Why, I have heard
somewhere," says he, "that at its uttermost this success is but the
strivings of an ape reft of his tail, and grown rusty at climbing, who
yet feels himself to be a symbol and the frail representative of
Omnipotence in a place that is not home."
Manuel appeared to reserve judgment. "How does the successful ape employ
himself, in these not quite friendly places?"
"He strives blunderingly, from mystery to mystery, with pathetic
makeshifts, not understanding anything, greedy in all desires, and
honeycombed with poltroonery, and yet ready to give all, and to die
fighting for the sake of that undemonstrable idea, about his being
Heaven's vicar and heir."
Manuel shook his small bright head. "You use too many long words. But so
far I can understand you, that is not the sort of success I want. No, I
am Manuel, and I must follow after my own thinking and my own desire,
without considering other people and their notions of success."
"As for denying yourself consideration for other people, I am of the
opinion, after witnessing your recent disposal of your sweetheart, that
you are already tolerably expert in that sort of abnegation."
"Hah, but you do not know what is seething here," replied Manuel,
smiting his broad chest. "And I shall not tell you of it, Horvendile,
since you are not fate nor any of the Léshy, to give me my desire."
"What would be your desire?"
"My wish would be for me always to obtain whatever I may wish for. Yes,
Horvendile, I have often wondered why, in the old legends, when three
wishes were being offered, nobody ever made that sensible and economical
wish the first of all."
"What need is there to trouble the Léshy about that foolish wish when it
is always possible, at a paid price, to obtain whatever one desires? You
have but to go about it in this way." And Horvendile told Manuel a queer
and dangerous thing. Then Horvendile said sadly: "So much knowledge I
can deny nobody at Michaelmas. But I must tell you the price also, and
it is that with the achieving of each desire you will perceive its
worth."
Thus speaking, Horvendile parted the thicket beside the roadway. A
beautiful dusk-colored woman waited there, in a green-blue robe, and on
her head was a blue coronet surmounted with green feathers: she carried
a vase. Horvendile stepped forward, and the thicket closed behind him,
concealing Horvendile and this woman.
Manuel, looking puzzled, went on a little way, and when he was assured
of being alone he flung himself face downward and wept. The reason of
this was, they relate, that young Manuel had loved Niafer as he could
love nobody else. Then he arose, and went toward the pool of Haranton,
on his way homeward, after having failed in everything.
[Illustration]
VI
Economics of Math
What forthwith happened at the pool of Haranton is not nicely adapted to
exact description, but it was sufficiently curious to give Manuel's
thoughts a new turn, although it did not seem, even so, to make them
happy thoughts. Certainly it was not with any appearance of merriment
that Manuel returned to his half-sister Math, who was the miller's wife.
"And wherever have you been all this week?" says Math, "with the pigs
rooting all over creation, and with that man of mine forever flinging
your worthlessness in my face, and with that red-haired Suskind coming
out of the twilight a-seeking after you every evening and pestering me
with her soft lamentations? And for the matter of that, whatever are you
glooming over?"
"I have cause, and cause to spare."
Manuel told her of his adventures upon Vraidex, and Math said that
showed what came of neglecting his proper business, which was attendance
on her husband's pigs. Manuel then told her of what had just befallen by
the pool of Haranton.
Math nodded. "Take shame to yourself, young rascal with your Niafer
hardly settled down in paradise, and with your Suskind wailing for you
in the twilight! But that would be Alianora the Unattainable Princess.
Thus she comes across the Bay of Biscay, traveling from the far land of
Provence, in, they say, the appearance of a swan: and thus she bathes in
the pool wherein strange dreams engender: and thus she slips into the
robe of the Apsarasas when it is high time to be leaving such impudent
knaves as you have proved yourself to be."
"Yes, yes! a shift made all of shining white feathers, Sister. Here is a
feather that was broken from it as I clutched at her."
Math turned the feather in her hand. "Now to be sure! and did you ever
see the like of it! Still, a broken feather is no good to anybody, and,
as I have told you any number of times, I cannot have trash littering up
my kitchen."
So Math dropped this shining white feather into the fire, on which she
was warming over a pot of soup for Manuel's dinner, and they watched
this feather burn.
Manuel says, sighing, "Even so my days consume, and my youth goes out of
me, in a land wherein Suskind whispers of uncomfortable things, and
wherein there are no maids so clever and dear as Niafer, nor so lovely
as Alianora."
Math said: "I never held with speaking ill of the dead. So may luck and
fair words go with your Niafer in her pagan paradise. Of your Suskind
too"--Math crossed herself,--"the less said, the better. But as for your
Alianora, no really nice girl would be flying in the face of heaven and
showing her ankles to five nations, and bathing, on a Monday too, in
places where almost anybody might come along. It is not proper, but I
wonder at her parents."
"But, Sister, she is a princess!"
"Just so: therefore I burned the feather, because it is not wholesome
for persons of our station in life to be robbing princesses of anything,
though it be only of a feather."
"Sister, that is the truth! It is not right to rob anybody of anything,
and this would appear to make another bond upon me and another
obligation to be discharged, because in taking that feather I have taken
what did not belong to me."
"Boy, do not think you are fooling me, for when your face gets that look
on it, I know you are considering some nonsense over and above the
nonsense you are talking. However, from your description of the affair,
I do not doubt that gallivanting, stark-naked princess thought you were
for taking what did not belong to you. Therefore I burned the feather,
lest it be recognized and bring you to the gallows or to a worse place.
So why did you not scrape your feet before coming into my clean kitchen?
and how many times do you expect me to speak to you about that?"
Manuel said nothing. But he seemed to meditate over something that
puzzled him. In the upshot he went into the miller's chicken-yard, and
caught a goose, and plucked from its wing a feather.
Then Manuel put on his Sunday clothes.
"Far too good for you to be traveling in," said Math.
Manuel looked down at his half-sister, and once or twice he blinked
those shining strange eyes of his. "Sister, if I had been properly
dressed when I was master of the doubtful palace, the Lady Gisèle would
have taken me quite seriously. I have been thinking about her
observations as to my elbows."
"The coat does not make the man," replied Math piously.
"It is your belief in any such saying that has made a miller's wife of
you, and will keep you a miller's wife until the end of time. Now I
learned better from my misadventures upon Vraidex, and from my talking
with that insane Horvendile about the things which have been and some
things which are to be."
Math, who was a wise woman, said queerly, "I perceive that you are
letting your hair grow."
Manuel said, "Yes."
"Boy, fast and loose is a mischancy game to play."
"And being born, also, is a most hazardous speculation, Sister, yet we
perforce risk all upon that cast."
"Now you talk stuff and nonsense--"
"Yes, Sister; but I begin to suspect that the right sort of stuff and
nonsense is not unremunerative. I may be wrong, but I shall afford my
notion a testing."
"And after what shiftless idiocy will you be chasing now, to neglect
your work?"
"Why, as always, Sister, I must follow my own thinking and my own
desire," says Manuel, lordlily, "and both of these are for a flight
above pigs."
Thereafter Manuel kissed Math, and, again without taking leave of
Suskind in the twilight, or of anyone else, he set forth for the far
land of Provence.
VII
The Crown of Wisdom
So did it come about that as King Helmas rode a-hunting in Nevet under
the Hunter's Moon he came upon a gigantic and florid young fellow, who
was very decently clad in black, and had a queer droop to his left eye,
and who appeared to be wandering at adventure in the autumn woods: and
the King remembered what had been foretold.
Says King Helmas to Manuel the swineherd, "What is that I see in your
pocket wrapped in red silk?"
"It is a feather, King, wrapped in a bit of my sister's best petticoat"
"Now, glory be to your dark magics, friend, and at what price will you
sell me that feather?"
"But a feather is no use to anybody, King, for, as you see, it is a
quite ordinary feather?"
"Come, come!" the King says, shrewdly, "do people anywhere wrap ordinary
feathers in red silk? Friend, do not think to deceive King Helmas of
Albania, or it will be worse for you. I perfectly recognize that shining
white feather as the feather which was moulted in this forest by the
Zhar-Ptitza Bird, in the old time before my grandfathers came into this
country. For it was foretold that such a young sorcerer as you would
bring to me, who have long been the silliest King that ever reigned over
the Peohtes, this feather which confers upon its owner perfect wisdom:
and for you to dispute the prophecy would be blasphemous."
"I do not dispute your silliness, King Helmas, nor do I dispute
anybody's prophecies in a world wherein nothing is certain."
"One thing at least is certain," remarked King Helmas, frowning uglily,
"and it is that among the Peohtes all persons who dispute our prophecies
are burned at the stake."
Manuel shivered slightly, and said: "It seems to me a quite ordinary
feather: but your prophets--most deservedly, no doubt,--are in higher
repute for wisdom than I am, and burning is a discomfortable death. So I
recall what a madman told me, and, since you are assured that this is
the Zhar-Ptitza's feather, I will sell it to you for ten sequins."
King Helmas shook a disapproving face. "That will not do at all, and
your price is out of reason, because it was foretold that for this
feather you would ask ten thousand sequins."
"Well, I am particularly desirous not to appear irreligious now that I
have become a young sorcerer. So you may have the feather at your own
price, rather than let the prophecies remain unfulfilled."
Then Manuel rode pillion with a king who was unwilling to let Manuel out
of his sight, and they went thus to the castle called Brunbelois. They
came to two doors with pointed arches, set side by side, the smaller
being for foot passengers, and the other for horsemen. Above was an
equestrian statue in a niche, and a great painted window with traceries
of hearts and thistles.
They entered the larger door, and that afternoon twelve heralds, in
bright red tabards that were embroidered with golden thistles, rode out
of this door, to proclaim the fulfilment of the prophecy as to the
Zhar-Ptitza's feather, and that afternoon the priests of the Peohtes
gave thanks in all their curious underground temples. The common people,
who had for the last score of years taken shame to themselves for living
under such a foolish king, embraced one another, and danced, and sang
patriotic songs at every street-corner: the Lower Council met, and voted
that, out of deference of his majesty, All Fools' Day should be stricken
from the calendar: and Queen Pressina (one of the water folk) declared
there were two ways of looking at everything, the while that she burned
a quantity of private papers. Then at night were fireworks, the King
made a speech, and to Manuel was delivered in wheel-barrows the sum of
ten thousand sequins.
Thereafter Manuel abode for a month at the court of King Helmas, noting
whatever to this side and to that side seemed most notable. Manuel was
well liked by the nobility, and when the barons and the fine ladies
assembled in the evening for pavanes and branles and pazzamenos nobody
danced more statelily than Messire Manuel. He had a quiet way with the
ladies, and with the barons a way of simplicity which was vastly admired
in a sorcerer so potent that his magic had secured the long sought
Zhar-Ptitza's feather. "But the most learned," as King Helmas justly
said, "are always the most modest."
Helmas now wore the feather from the wing of the miller's goose affixed
to the front of Helmas' second best crown, because that was the one he
used to give judgments in. And when it was noised abroad that King
Helmas had the Zhar-Ptitza's feather, the Peohtes came gladly to be
judged, and the neighboring kings began to submit to him their more
difficult cases, and all his judgings were received with reverence,
because everybody knew that King Helmas' wisdom was now infallible, and
that to criticize his verdict as to anything was merely to expose your
own stupidity.
And now that doubt of himself had gone out of his mind, Helmas lived
untroubled, and his digestion improved, and his loving-kindness was
infinite, because he could not be angry with the pitiable creatures
haled before him, when he considered how little able they were to
distinguish between wisdom and unwisdom where Helmas was omniscient: and
all his doings were merciful and just, and his people praised him. Even
the Queen conceded that, once you were accustomed to his ways, and
exercised some firmness about being made a doormat of, and had it
understood once for all that meals could not be kept waiting for him,
she supposed there might be women worse off.
And Manuel got clay and modeled the figure of a young man which had the
features and the wise look of King Helmas.
"I can see the resemblance," the King said, "but it does not half do me
justice, and, besides, why have you made a young whipper-snapper of me,
and mixed up my appearance with your appearance?"
"I do not know," said Manuel, "but I suppose it is because of a geas
which is upon me to make myself a splendid and admirable young man in
every respect, and not an old man."
"And does the sculpture satisfy you?" asks the King, smiling wisely.
"No, I like this figure well enough, now it is done, but it is not, I
somehow know, the figure I desire to make. No, I must follow after my
own thinking and my own desire, and wisdom is not requisite to me."
"You artists!" said the King, as people always say that "Now I would
consider that, for all the might of your sorceries, wisdom is rather
clamantly requisite to you, Messire Manuel, who inform me you must soon
be riding hence to find elsewhere the needful look for your figure. For
thus to be riding about this world of men, in search of a shade of
expression, and without even being certain of what look you are looking
for, does not appear to me to be good sense."
But young Manuel replied sturdily:
"I ride to encounter what life has in store for me, who am made certain
of this at least, that all high harvests which life withholds for me
spring from a seed which I sow--and reap. For my geas is potent, and,
late or soon, I serve my geas, and take my doom as the pay well-earned
that is given as pay to me, for the figure I make in this world of men.
"This figure, foreseen and yet hidden away from me, glimpsed from afar
in the light of a dream,--will I love it, once more, or will loathing
awake in me after its visage is plainlier seen? No matter: as fate says,
so say I, who serve my geas, and gain in time such payment, at worst, as
is honestly due to me, for the figure I make in this world of men.
"To its shaping I consecrate youth that is strong in me, ardently
yielding youth's last least gift, who know that all grace which the gods
have allotted me avails me in naught if it fails me in this. For all
that a man has, that must I bring to the image I shape, that my making
may live when time unmakes me and death dissevers me from the figure I
make in this world of men."
To this the King rather drily replied: "There is something in what you
say. But that something is, I can assure you, not wisdom."
So everyone was satisfied in Albania except Manuel, who declared that he
was pleased but not contented by the image he had made in the likeness
of King Helmas.
"Besides," they told him, "you look as though your mind were troubling
you about something."
"In fact, I am puzzled to see a foolish person made wise in all his
deeds and speeches by this wisdom being expected of him."
"But that is a cause for rejoicing, and for applauding the might of your
sorceries, Messire Manuel, whereas you are plainly thinking of vexatious
matters."
Manuel replied, "I think that it is not right to rob anybody of
anything, and I reflect that wisdom weighs exactly the weight of a
feather."
Then Manuel went into King Helmas' chickenyard, and caught a goose, and
plucked from its wing a feather. Manuel went glitteringly now, in
brocaded hose, and with gold spurs on his heels: the figure which he had
made in the likeness of King Helmas was packed in an expensive knapsack
of ornamented leather, and tall shining Manuel rode on a tall dappled
horse when he departed southward, for Manuel nowadays had money to
spare.
VIII
The Halo of Holiness
Now Manuel takes ship across the fretful Bay of Biscay, traveling always
toward Provence and Alianora, whom people called the Unattainable
Princess. Oriander the Swimmer followed this ship, they say, but he
attempted to do Manuel no hurt, at least not for that turn.
So Manuel of the high head comes into the country of wicked King
Ferdinand; and, toward All-Hallows, they bring a stupendous florid young
man to the King in the torture-chamber. King Ferdinand was not idle at
the moment, and he looked up good-temperedly enough from his employment:
but almost instantly his merry face was overcast.
"Dear me!" says Ferdinand, as he dropped his white hot pincers
sizzlingly into a jar of water, "and I had hoped you would not be
bothering me for a good ten years!"
"Now if I bother you at all it is against my will," declared Manuel,
very politely, "nor do I willingly intrude upon you here, for, without
criticizing anybody's domestic arrangements, there are one or two things
that I do not fancy the looks of in this torture-chamber."
"That is as it may be. In the mean time, what is that I see in your
pocket wrapped in red silk?"
"It is a feather, King, wrapped in a bit of my sister's best petticoat."
Then Ferdinand sighed, and he arose from his interesting experiments
with what was left of the Marquess de Henestrosa, to whom the King had
taken a sudden dislike that morning.
"Tut, tut!" said Ferdinand: "yet, after all, I have had a brave time of
it, with my enormities and my iniquities, and it is not as though there
were nothing to look back on! So at what price will you sell me that
feather?"
"But surely a feather is no use to anybody, King, for does it not seem
to you a quite ordinary feather?"
"Come!" says King Ferdinand, as he washed his hands, "do people anywhere
wrap ordinary feathers in red silk? You squinting rascal, do not think
to swindle me out of eternal bliss by any such foolish talk! I perfectly
recognize that feather as the feather which Milcah plucked from the left
pinion of the Archangel Oriphiel when the sons of God were on more
intricate and scandalous terms with the daughters of men than are
permitted nowadays."
"Well, sir," replied Manuel, "you may be right in a world wherein
nothing is certain. At all events, I have deduced, from one to two
things in this torture-chamber, that it is better not to argue with King
Ferdinand."
"How can I help being right, when it was foretold long ago that such a
divine emissary as you would bring this very holy relic to turn me from
my sins and make a saint of me?" says Ferdinand, peevishly.
"It appears to me a quite ordinary feather, King: but I recall what a
madman told me, and I do not dispute that your prophets are wiser than
I, for I have been a divine emissary for only a short while."
"Do you name your price for this feather, then!"
"I think it would be more respectful, sir, to refer you to the prophets,
for I find them generous and big-hearted creatures."
Ferdinand nodded his approval. "That is very piously spoken, because it
was prophesied that this relic would be given me for no price at all by
a great nobleman. So I must forthwith write out for you a count's
commission, I suppose, and must write out your grants to fertile lands
and a stout castle or two, and must date your title to these things from
yesterday."
"Certainly," said Manuel, "it would not look well for you to be
neglecting due respect to such a famous prophecy, with that bottle of
ink at your elbow."
So King Ferdinand sent for the Count of Poictesme, and explained to him
as between old friends how the matter stood, and that afternoon the high
Count was confessed and decapitated. Poictesme being now a vacant fief,
King Ferdinand ennobled Manuel, and made him Count of Poictesme.
It was true that all Poictesme was then held by the Northmen, under Duke
Asmund, who denied King Ferdinand's authority with contempt, and
defeated him in battle with annoying persistence: so that Manuel for the
present acquired nothing but the sonorous title.
"Some terrible calamity, however," as King Ferdinand pointed out, "is
sure to befall Asmund and his iniquitous followers before very long, so
we need not bother about them."
"But how may I be certain of that, sir?" Manuel asked.
"Count, I am surprised at such scepticism! Is it not very explicitly
stated in Holy Writ that though the wicked may flourish for a while they
are presently felled like green bay-trees?"
"Yes, to be sure! So there is no doubt that your soldiers will soon
conquer Duke Asmund."
"But I must not send any soldiers to fight against him, now that I am a
saint, for that would not look well. It would have an irreligious
appearance of prompting Heaven."
"Still, King, you are sending soldiers against the Moors--"
"Ah, but it is not your lands, Count, but my city of Ubeda, which the
Moors are attacking, and to attack a saint, as you must undoubtedly
understand, is a dangerous heresy which it is my duty to put down."
"Yes, to be sure! Well, well!" says Manuel, "at any rate, to be a count
is something, and it is better to ward a fine name than a parcel of
pigs, though it appears the pigs are the more nourishing."
In the mean while the King's heralds rode everywhither in fluted armor,
to proclaim the fulfilment of the old prophecy as to the Archangel
Oriphiel's feather. Never before was there such a hubbub in those parts,
for the bells of all the churches sounded all day, and all the people
ran about praying at the top of their voices, and forgiving their
relatives, and kissing the girls, and blowing whistles and ringing
cowbells, because the city now harbored a relic so holy that the vilest
sinner had but to touch it to be purified of iniquity.
And that day King Ferdinand dismissed the evil companions with whom he
had so long rioted in every manner of wickedness, and Ferdinand lived
henceforward as became a saint. He builded two churches a year, and
fared edifyingly on roots and herbs; he washed the feet of three
indigent persons daily, and went in sackcloth; whenever he burned
heretics he fetched and piled up the wood himself, so as to
inconvenience nobody; and he made prioresses and abbesses of his more
intimate and personal associates of yesterday, because he knew that
people are made holy by contact with holiness, and that sainthood is
retroactive.
Thereafter Count Manuel abode for a month at the court of King
Ferdinand, noting whatever to this side and to that side seemed most
notable. Manuel was generally liked by the elect, and in the evening
when the court assembled for family-prayers nobody was more devout than
the Count of Poictesme. He had a quiet way with the abbesses and
prioresses, and with the anchorites and bishops a way of simplicity
which was vastly admired in a divine emissary. "But the particular favor
of Heaven," as King Ferdinand pointed out, "is always reserved for
modest persons."