"The same mode of teaching was not adopted by all, nor, indeed, did
individuals always confine themselves to the same system, but each
varied his plan of instruction according to circumstances. For they
were accustomed, in stating their argument with the utmost clearness,
to use figures and apologies, and to put cases as circumstances
required; and these might be either cases which came under trial in
the courts or fictitious cases."
_8._
_The Delta of Radegonde_
§ 72
The literary artist plays, I had said, at the game of lending to his
personal notions a life which will survive the life of his body. But,
as I prepared to go on to that, I was stayed by an uneasy doubt lest
here was needed some further explanation as to why I should label the
younger Joseph Hergesheimer, and for that matter every other valid
artist, an anchorite. The especial word, I reflected, might still be
considered inappropriate by persons who in their muddled minds had
somehow associated anchorites with extreme religious zeal and with
physical asceticism and pietistic self-denials.
Yet an anchorite was, of course, a person who lived in actual rather
than specious retirement: among the great anchorites of all time, whose
real living was "in the little farm of one's own mind, where a silence
so profound may be enjoyed," had been that Marcus Aurelius who walked
and spoke in unflagging imperial publicity and slept with Faustina....
But, I knew, here again was a matter most nearly explicable by a
parable: and my thoughts turned to another old tale out of Poictesme,
the story of that gallant Holden who was for all the bustle of his
daily living an anchorite and also, in his way, I suspect, an artist.
§ 73
It was, the tale declares, just after the followers of the Silver
Stallion had sacked Lacre Kai that young Holden found, among his
plunder, the triangular portrait of Elphànor's queen: and for the time
young Holden thought little about the picture. He could not foreknow
that its old frame, in shape like the Greek letter Delta, was to
bind all his living. But after a few months of peace the lad went to
Guivric, afterward called the Sage, who was already coming into esteem
as a most promising thaumaturgist.
"Guivric," says Holden, "the lady in this three-cornered picture is the
lady of my love; and you must tell me how I may win her affections."
Guivric looked at the portrait for some while, scratched off a fleck of
paint from it with his finger-nail, and answered:
"There are impediments to your winning this Queen Radegonde. For one
thing, she has been dead for thirteen centuries."
"I admit that thirteen is proverbially an unlucky number; but my
all-consuming love is not to be intimidated by superstitions."
Guivric thereupon consulted the oldest and most authentic poems, and
Guivric admitted:
"Well, perhaps her being dead such an unlucky number of centuries does
not matter, after all, because my authorities appear agreed that love
defies time and death. Yet it does matter, I suspect, that the woman
in this picture was the notion which a dead artist perpetuated of the
Queen Radegonde whom he saw in the flesh."
"So would I see her, Guivric."
"Holden, my meaning is more respectable than your meaning. I mean
that, if the man labored as a tradesman executing an order, your cause
may prosper: but there is the ugly chance that this radiant, slim,
gray-eyed girl was born of the man's brain, very much as, even more
anciently, they say, King Jove brought forth a gray-eyed daughter to
devastate the world with wisdom: and in that case, I fear the worst."
"What, then, is the worst that can happen?"
"Thinking about it too much beforehand," replied Guivric, drily.
Whereupon the young mage gave directions which must be followed to the
letter if one wished to avoid an indescribable fate. But Holden was
cautious, and did follow these instructions to the letter; and when it
proved to be the Greek letter Delta he entered it, and so came to his
desire, and communicated his love to Queen Radegonde.
Now this Radegonde had been alone ever since she was first painted,
because in filling in the background, and in completing her portrait,
the painter had provided her with no company in the quaint triangular
tropic garden he had painted to enhance her charms. So to have Holden
thus thrusting himself into the vacancy was welcome to Radegonde. And
to him her loveliness, and the dearness of her, was greater than he
could quite believe in after he had left the Delta, and had returned,
in the gray and abject way which Guivric had foretold, to the world of
men.
§ 74
Holden thereafter kept the picture in a secret place, and the years
wore on: and in the spring of one of these years Sir Holden rescued
a bright-haired princess, from an enchanter in a large and appalling
line of business near Perdigon: and Holden married her, and they got on
together very nicely. But times had changed in Poictesme, for Manuel
the Redeemer had ridden away to a far place beyond the sunset, and
his wife Dame Niafer ruled over-strictly in the tall hero's stead:
and to Holden life seemed not the affair it once had been, and all
his pleasuring was to go into the Delta that belonged to tender and
warm-blooded Radegonde. The delights of that small tropic garden were
joys unknown in the world of men, wherein there are no such women as
Elphànor's queen: and therefore the poets have not invented any words
to describe these delights, and they must stay untold.
But these delights contented Holden. "Blessed above all men that live
am I, in that I am lord of the Delta of Radegonde," said Holden, who
could not foreknow his fate.
§ 75
And it was to Holden an unfailing cordial, thus to steal away
from his prosaic workaday life of fighting dragons and ogres, and
discomfiting wicked monarchs by guessing their riddles out of hand,
and riding about in every kind of weather redressing the afflictions
of downtrodden strangers in whom he was not interested; and from the
strain of pretending to be wise and admirable in all things for the
benefit of his numerous children; and from living among many servitors
somewhat lonelily. For comeliness and mirth had soon departed from his
bright-haired princess wife, through much child-bearing, and presently
life too had gone out of her; and her various informal successors
proved to be rather stupid once you got to know them. But tender and
warm-blooded Radegonde, whom alone Sir Holden loved, and the engaging
ever-new endearments of Elphànor's queen, were to the knight an
unfailing cordial.
"Blessed above all men that live am I, in that I am lord of the Delta
of Radegonde," still said, in his gray beard, Sir Holden, who could not
foreknow his fate.
§ 76
But as the years went, so went youth; and the appearance and the
abilities of Holden were altering, and bashfully Radegonde asked
questions about certain noticeable changes. The aging champion
explained, as well as he could, the ways of nibbling age and of
devouring death, to Elphànor's ageless queen, who knew nothing of
these matters, because her painter had willed to put other affairs in
the triangular garden. And it troubled Radegonde that Holden must be
stripped by such marauders of all vigor. Her love for her sole lover,
and her horror of being left alone where no other man was ever apt to
come thrusting himself into the vacancy, were so great that, with a
shedding of resistless tears, the gray-eyed girl persuaded Holden to
consult once more with Guivric the Sage; and to discover through the
aid of his magic if there were no wizardry by which Radegonde could be
made mortal.
"For then," said she, "we shall abate in vigor together, my dearest,
and die together; and not even after death need we dread separation,
when I lie buried at your side where men will have engraved upon your
tomb _Resurgam_."
And wise Guivric said that certainly there was a way in which Radegonde
might come out of the picture, and assume mortality. But Guivric,
shaking his white head, advised against it.
And Guivric said:
"It would be better, old friend, to accept the common lot of men; and
to be content to see your dreams played with a while and then put by,
rather than see them realized. Besides, you have many grandchildren,
and you owe them an example."