42.Generalities at Ogde
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NOW the tale tells that it was in the winter after Guivric’s encounter with the Sylan that Kerin of Nointel returned into Poictesme to become yet another convert to the great legend of Manuel; and tells also of how for the first time men learned why and in what fashion Kerin had gone out of Poictesme.
Therefore the tale harks back to very ancient days, in the May month which followed the passing of Manuel, and the tale speaks of a season wherein it appeared to Kerin of Nointel that he could understand his third wife no better than he had done the others. But for that perhaps unavoidable drawback to matrimony, he was then living comfortably enough with this Saraïde, whom many called a witch, in her ill-spoken-of, eight-sided home beside the notorious dry Well of Ogde. This home was gray, with a thatched roof upon which grew abundant mosses and many small wild plants; a pair of storks nested on the gable; and elder-trees shaded all.
It was a very quiet and peaceful place, in which, soKerin estimated, two persons might well have lived in untroubled serenity, now that the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion was disbanded, and a younger Kerin’s glorious warfaring under Dom Manuel was done with forever.
Mild-mannered, blinking Kerin, for one, did not regret Dom Manuel’s passing. The man had kept you fighting always, whether it was with the Easterlings or the Northmen, or with Othmar Black-Tooth or with old yellow Sclaug or with Manuel’s father, blind Oriander. It was a life which left you no time whatever for the pursuit of any culture. Kerin liked fighting, within moderation, with persons of admitted repute. But Kerin, after four years of riding into all quarters of the earth at the behest of this never-resting Manuel, was heartily tired of killing strangers in whom Kerin was in no way interested.
So, upon the whole, it was a relief to be rid of Manuel and to be able once more to marry, and to settle down at Ogde in the eight-sided house under the elder-trees. Yet, even in this lovely quietude, the tale repeats, the third wife of Kerin seemed every night to bother herself, and in consequence her husband, about a great many incomprehensible matters.
Now of the origin of Saraïde nothing can here be told with profit and decorum: here it is enough to say that an ambiguous parentage had provided this Saraïde with a talisman by which you might know the truthwhen truth was found. And one of the many things about Kerin’s wife which Kerin could not quite understand, was her constant complaining that she had not found out assuredly the truth about anything, and, in particular, the truth as to Saraïde.
“I exist,” she would observe to her husband, “and I am in the main as other women. Therefore, this Saraïde is very certainly a natural phenomenon. And in nature everything appears to be intended for this, that or the other purpose. Indeed, after howsoever hasty consideration of the young woman known as Saraïde, one inevitably deduces that so much of loveliness and wit and aspiration, of color and perfume and tenderness, was not put together haphazardly; and that the compound was painstakingly designed to serve some purpose or another purpose. It is about that purpose I want knowledge.”
And Kerin would reply, “As you like, my dear.”
So this young Saraïde, whom many called a witch, had sought, night after night, for the desired knowledge, in widely various surroundings, from the clergy, from men of business, from poets, and from fiends; and had wakened in her talisman every color save only that golden shining which would proclaim her capture of the truth. This clear soft yellow ray, as she explained to Kerin, would have to be evoked, if ever, in the night season, because by day its radiance might pass unnoticed and her perception of the truth be lost.
Kerin could understand the common-sense of this, at any rate. And so young Saraïde was unfailingly heartened in all such nocturnal experiments by the encouragement of her fond husband.
“And do not be discouraged, wife,” he would exhort her, as he was now exhorting upon this fine spring evening, “for women and their belongings are, beyond doubt, of some use or another, which by and by will be discovered. Meanwhile, my darling, what were you saying there is for supper? For that at least is a matter of real importance—”
But Saraïde said only, in that quick, inconsequential childish way of hers, “O Kerin of my heart, I do so want to know the truth about this, and about all other matters!”
“Come, come, Saraïde! let us not despair about the truth, either; for they tell me that truth lies somewhere at the bottom of a well, and at virtually the door of our home is a most notable if long dried well. Our location is thus quite favorable, if we but keep patience. And sooner or later the truth comes to light, they tell me, also,—out of, it may be, the darkness of this same abandoned Well of Ogde,—because truth is mighty and will prevail.”
“No doubt,” said Saraïde: “but throughout all the long while between now and then, my Kerin, you will be voicing just such sentiments!”
“—For truth is stranger than fiction. Yes, and asLactantius tells us, truth will sometimes come even out of the devil’s mouth.”
Saraïde fidgeted. And what now came out of her own angelic mouth was a yawn.
“Truth is not easily found,” her Kerin continued. “The truth is hard to come to: roses and truth have thorns about them.”
“Perhaps,” said Saraïde. “But against banalities a married woman has no protection whatever!”
“Yet truth,” now Kerin went on with his kindly encouragement, “may languish, but can never perish. Isidore of Seville records the fine saying that, though malice may darken truth, it cannot put it out.”
“Husband of mine,” said Saraïde, “sometimes I find your wisdom such that I wonder how I ever came to marry you!”
But Kerin waved aside her tribute modestly. “It is merely that I, too, admire the truth. For truth is the best buckler. Truth never grows old. Truth, in the words of Tertullian, seeks no corners. Truth makes the devil blush.”
“Good Lord!” said Saraïde. And for no reason at all she stamped her foot.
“—So everybody, in whatsoever surroundings, ought to be as truthful as I am now, my pet, in observing that this hour is considerably past our usual hour for supper, and that I have had rather a hard day of it—”
But Saraïde had gone from him, as if in meditation,toward the curbing about the great and bottomless Well of Ogde. “Among these general observations, about devils and bucklers and supper time, I find only one which may perhaps be helpful. Truth lies, you tell me, at the bottom of a well just such as this well.”
“That is the contention alike of Cleanthes and of Democritos the derider.”
“May the truth not lie indeed, then, just as you suggested, at the bottom of this identical well? For the Zhar-Ptitza alone knows the truth about all things, and I recall an old legend that the bird who has the true wisdom used to nest in this part of Poictesme.”
Kerin looked over the stone ledge about the great and bottomless Well of Ogde, peering downward as far as might be. “I consider it improbable, dear wife, that the Zhar-Ptitza, who is everywhere known to be the most wise and most ancient of birds and of all living creatures, would select such a cheerless looking hole to live in. Still, you never can tell: the wise affect profundity; and this well is known to be deep beyond the knowledge of man. Now nature, as Cicero informs us,in profundo veritatem penitus abstruserit—”
“Good Lord!” said Saraïde again, but with more emphasis. “Do you slip down there, then, like a dear fellow, and find the truth for me.”
Saying this, she clapped both hands to his backside, and she pushed her husband into the great and bottomless Well of Ogde.