VIII
THE DELTA OF RADEGONDE
"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."
"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
Theliterary 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 inunflagging 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 Holdenlife 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 throughthe 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 tombResurgam."
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."
But Holden answered, "Bosh! Do I owe nothing to myself?"
So the high-hearted lovers followed the way of which Guivric had told them. This way is not to be talked about; but blood was shed in the Delta, and the worm that dies not was imprisoned: and after other appalling happenings, Holden the Brave climbed out rheumatically from the canvas, and gave his hand to Queen Radegonde; and she also stepped from the triangular frame, and entered into life asthe mortal woman that Radegonde had been in the old time.
§ 77
Straightway she recollected her husband and her children and many of her lovers, and the gilded domes of Elphànor's seven proud cities, where now not even a hut was, and all the perfumed wasteful living which Radegonde had known in the old time; and straightway, too, she saw that Holden was a tedious decrepit fellow, well past the love of women. And Holden saw that his Radegonde was a flighty and a rather silly barbarian wench, sufficiently good-looking to be sure, but in no way remarkable. And the two gazed at each other rather forlornly.
The queen began to shiver and to whimper. "I never," she said, "I never for one moment was so lonely in my Delta as I am now."
Avuncularly he patted her white shoulder. "Do not give way, my dear. We have acted unwisely, and nobody denies it: but do you come out of this draught, and I will get you some clothes and have you baptised; and then I will present you to our young Count Emmerick, and you can entertain yourself, within Christian limits, by making a fool of him."
"A vigorous and handsome count would be better than nothing," the fair girl conceded.
So this presentation was arranged. And tall Emmerick was infatuated the moment he saw the queen's beguiling innocent young face. Forthwith the high Count of Poictesme proclaimed a banquet: and when all were dancing, Holden returned to the void frame; and he considered that lost tropic garden, bereft now forever of the radiant and gray-eyed slip of womanhood whom he had loved, and who would content his life no more.
Guivric came with him: and these two old men kept silence.
§ 78
"We may deduce that the painter loved her thirteen centuries ago," says Guivric,—"erecting loveliness where there was little to build upon. Thus it is that the brain of man creates women more desirable than may be created by other means: and such women endure. But the women children that have two parents, may endure only a very little longer than may the scant delights a man can get in gardens that bear bitter fruit or else insipid fruit: for these women have no such Delta as had your lost Radegonde, no more than has that dispossessed lean ogling flirt of whom young Emmerick will presently be tiring."
Moreover Guivric said:
"The women who are born of man's brain have noflaw in them and no seed of death. There was a Radegonde conceived in Camwy, that walked the glittering pavements of Lacre Kai, and wedded Elphànor, King of Kings, and trysted with many lovers, and later trysted with small worms: but in the artist's brain was conceived another Radegonde, a maid who walks the sun-paths of eternity, and who is new-born with every April. Thus it was of old: and this tale is not ended."
And Guivric said also:
"The women who are born of man's brain bear to their lovers no issue save dissatisfaction. Their ways are lovely, but contentment does not abide in these ways: and he that follows after the women who are born of man's brain is wounded subtilely with wounds which may not ever be quite healed. So let no woman with two parents cosset him: for she toils vainly and in large peril; because it is upon her that he will requite his subtile wounding, just as you, poor Holden, were the destruction of that golden-haired young wife who loved you, and whom you could not love."
§ 79
Thus said Guivric the Sage; and Holden, a spent man, much hurt but very proud, who now foreknew his fate, replied with resolute smiling:
"Blessed above all men that live am I, in that inthe days of my folly I have been lord of the Delta of Radegonde. I know this, Guivric, as you may not ever know it,—not you, who are as old as I, and who have only wisdom to look back upon."
Guivric the Sage answered very soberly:
"That is true. For, to have been wise throughout one's youth becomes by and by a taunt; and to remember it is a disease."
And Holden the Brave said now, with another sort of smiling:
"There is in attendance upon everybody a physician that heals all disease. Pending his coming, old friend, I mean to beat you at one more game of chess."
Whereon these aged men fell to such staid diversion as was suited to their remainder of life. But slim gray-eyed Radegonde danced merrily with her new lover.