"Her, too, I hate," said Miguel de Rueda; "and I think that the holy
angels alone know how profoundly I envy her."
In the afternoon of the same day they neared Ruffec, and at the ford
found three brigands ready, two of whom the Prince slew, and the other
fled.
Next night they supped at Manneville, and sat afterward in the little
square, tree-chequered, that lay before their inn. Miguel had procured
a lute from the innkeeper, and strummed idly as these two debated
together of great matters; about them was an immeasurable twilight,
moonless, but tempered by many stars, and everywhere an agreeable
conference of leaves.
"Listen, my Prince," the boy said more lately: "here is one view of the
affair." And he began to chant, without rhyming, without raising his
voice above the pitch of talk, what time the lute monotonously sobbed
beneath his fingers.
Sang Miguel:
"_A little while and Irus and Menephtah are at sorry unison, and
Guenevere is but a skull. Multitudinously we tread toward oblivion, as
ants hasten toward sugar, and presently Time cometh with his broom.
Multitudinously we tread a dusty road toward oblivion; but yonder the
sun shines upon a grass-plot, converting it into an emerald; and I am
aweary of the trodden path._
"_Vine-crowned is she that guards the grasses yonder, and her breasts
are naked. 'Vanity of Vanities!' saith the beloved. But she whom I
love seems very far away to-night, though I might be with her if I
would. And she may not aid me now, for not even love is all-powerful.
She is fairest of created women, and very wise, but she may never
understand that at any time one grows aweary of the trodden path._
"_Yet though she cannot understand, this woman who has known me to the
marrow, I must obey her laudable behests and serve her blindly. At
sight of her my love closes over my heart like a flood, so that I am
speechless and glory in my impotence, as one who stands at last before
the kindly face of God. For her sake I have striven, with a good
endeavor, to my tiny uttermost. Pardie, I am not Priam at the head of
his army! A little while and I will repent; to-night I cannot but
remember that there are women whose lips are of a livelier tint, that
life is short at best, that wine is a goodly thing, and that I am
aweary of the trodden path._
"_She is very far from me to-night. Yonder in the Horselberg they
exult and make sweet songs, songs which are sweeter, immeasurably
sweeter, than this song of mine, but in the trodden path I falter, for
I am tired, tired in every fibre o' me, and I am aweary of the trodden
path._"
Followed a silence. "Ignorance spoke there," the Prince said. "It is
the song of a woman, or else of a boy who is very young. Give me the
lute, my little Miguel." And presently he, too, sang.
Sang the Prince:
"_I was in a path, and I trod toward the citadel of the land's
Seigneur, and on either side were pleasant and forbidden meadows,
having various names. And one trod with me who babbled of the brooding
mountains and of the low-lying and adjacent clouds; of the west wind
and of the budding fruit-trees; and he debated the significance of
these things, and he went astray to gather violets, while I walked in
the trodden path._
"_He babbled of genial wine and of the alert lips of women, of swinging
censers and of pale-mouthed priests, and his heart was troubled by a
world profuse in beauty. And he leaped a stile to share his allotted
provision with a dying dog, and afterward, being hungry, a wall to
pilfer apples, what while I walked in the trodden path._
"_He babbled of Autumn's bankruptcy and of the age-long lying promises
of Spring; and of his own desire to be at rest; and of running waters
and of decaying leaves. He babbled of the far-off stars; and he
debated whether they were the eyes of God or gases which burned, and he
demonstrated, very clearly, that neither existed; and at times he
stumbled as he stared about him and munched his apples, so that he was
all bemired, but I walked in the trodden path._
"_And the path led to the gateway of a citadel, and through the
gateway. 'Let us not enter,' he said, 'for the citadel is vacant, and,
moreover, I am in profound terror, and, besides, as yet I have not
eaten all my apples.' And he wept aloud, but I was not afraid, for I
had walked in the trodden path._"