18.Koshchei is Vexed
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EVEN as the knowledge which Miramon had lost was put back into his mind, just so did life reawaken in all else which had perished in that hour. Gauracy’s baleful sun was gone, and the dislodged and incinerated worlds, with all their satellites, were revolving trimly in their proper places, undamaged. And the gods who were worshiped in these worlds now made a celestial rejoicing, because once more there were only seven Pleiades. The Old Ones had sunk back into their sleeping; things, for the while, stayed as they are; and even Toupan now seemed harmless enough....
For the eyes were closed wherein lurked tireless and unappeasable malignity, and a remembrance of all that which was before Koshchei’s time, and an undivulged foreknowledge which withered Toupan shared with brisk little Koshchei alone. Nobody could speak certainly about this: yet it was whispered that both of these well knew that, in the end, the Old Ones would return, and that only Toupan knew in what manner and at what hour....
But above the gods who in the multitudinous heavens and paradises were now rejoicing over their regained omnipotence, far higher than these junketing gods stood the Star Warriors and the Wardens of the Worlds, each in the appointed place, and each once more set in eternal watchfulness over all things as they are. And the Star Warriors and the Wardens of the Worlds said, soberly, to Koshchei:
“Sir, your protection is established. You are protected as the guide of the things which exist and of the things which are not yet created. You are protected as a dweller in the realm which goes round about Those who are over Hidden Things. For now the Old Ones sleep again, and not any new thing anywhere shall ever gain the mastery over you, who are our only master: and all things as they are stay yours forever.”
Koshchei replied, rather absent-mindedly: “What need was there to worry? Did I not make my creatures male and female? and did I not make the tie which is between them, that cord which I wove equally of love and of disliking? Eh, sirs, but that is a strong cord, and though all things that are depend upon it, my weaving holds.”
They answered him, “Your weaving holds, sir, assuredly: yet you do not rejoice, as we rejoice.”
“Why, but,” said Koshchei, “but I do so hate flat incivility! And after overlooking my handiwork, the fellow might very well have said something intelligent.Nobody minds an honest criticism. Just to say nothing—and in that rather marked way, you know,—is stupid!”
For Koshchei also, they relate, was, in his fashion, an artist.