“We weep, and with long weeping raise the dirge for Suskind—!”
“But I, who do not weep—I raise the dirge for Manuel. For I must henceforward be reasonable in all things, and I shall never be quite discontented any more: and I must feed and sleep as the beasts do, and it may be that I shall even fall to thinking complacently about my death and glorious resurrection. Yes, yes, all this is certain, and I may not ever go a-traveling everywhither to see the ends of this world and judge them: and the desire to do so no longer moves in me, for there is a cloud about my goings, and there is a whispering which follows me, and I too fall away into the acquiescence of beasts. Meanwhile no hair of the child’s head has been injured, and I am content.”
“Let all the Hidden Children, and all else that lives except the tall gray son of Oriander, whose blood is harsh seawater, weep for Suskind! Suskind is dead, that was unstained by human sin and unredeemed by Christ’s dear blood, and youth has perished from the world. Oh, let us weep, for all the world grows chill and gray as Oriander’s son.”
“And Oriander too is dead, as I well know that slew him in my hour. Now my hour passes; and I pass with it, to make way for the needs of my children, as he perforce made way for me. And in time these children, and their children after them, pass thus, and always age must be in one mode or another slain by youth. Now why this should be so, I cannot guess, nor do I see that much good comes of it, nor do I find that in myself which warrants any confidences from the most high controlling gods. But I am certain that no hair of the child’s head has been injured; and I am certain that I am content.”
Thus speaking, the old fellow closed the window.
And within the moment little Melicent came to molest him, and she was unusually dirty and disheveled, for she had been rolling on the terrace pavement, and had broken half the fastenings from her clothing: and Dom Manuel wiped her nose rather forlornly. Of a sudden he laughed and kissed her. And Count Manuel said he must send for masons to wall up the third window of Ageus, so that it might not ever be opened any more in Count Manuel’s day for him to breathe through it the dim sweet-scented air of spring.
XXXIX
The Passing of Manuel
Then as Dom Manuel turned from the window of Ageus, it seemed that young Horvendile had opened the door yonder, and after an instant’s pensive staring at Dom Manuel, had gone away. This happened, if it happened at all, so furtively and quickly that Count Manuel could not be sure of it: but he could entertain no doubt as to the other person who was confronting him. There was not any telling how this lean stranger had come into the private apartments of the Count of Poictesme, nor was there any need for Manuel to wonder over the management of this intrusion, for the new arrival was not, after all, an entire stranger to Dom Manuel.
So Manuel said nothing, as he stood there stroking the round straw-colored head of little Melicent. The stranger waited, equally silent. There was no noise at all in the room until afar off a dog began to howl.
“Yes, certainly,” Dom Manuel said, “I might have known that my life was bound up with the life of Suskind, since my desire of her is the one desire which I have put aside unsatisfied. O rider of the white horse, you are very welcome.”
The other replied: “Why should you think that I know anything about this Suskind or that we of the Léshy keep any account of your doings? No matter what you may elect to think, however, it was decreed that the first person I found here should ride hence on my black horse. But you and the child stand abreast. So you must choose again, Dom Manuel, whether it be you or another who rides on my black horse.”
Then Manuel bent down, and he kissed little Melicent. “Go to your mother, dear, and tell her—” He paused here. He queerly moved his mouth, as though it were stiff and he were trying to make it more supple.
Says Melicent, “But what am I to tell her, Father?”
“Oh, a very funny thing, my darling. You are to tell Mother that Father has always loved her over and above all else, and that she is always to remember that and—why, that in consequence she is to give you some ginger cakes,” says Manuel, smiling.
So the child ran happily away, without once looking back, and Manuel closed the door behind her, and he was now quite alone with his lean visitor.
“Come,” says the stranger, “so you have plucked up some heart after all! Yet it is of no avail to posture with me, who know you to be spurred to this by vanity rather than by devotion. Oh, very probably you are as fond of the child as is requisite, and of your other children too, but you must admit that after you have played with any one of them for a quarter of an hour you become most heartily tired of the small squirming pest.”
Manuel intently regarded him, and squinting Manuel smiled sleepily. “No; I love all my children with the customary paternal infatuation.”
“Also you must have your gesture by sending at the last a lying message to your wife, to comfort the poor soul against tomorrow and the day after. You are—magnanimously, you like to think—according her this parting falsehood, half in contemptuous kindness and half in relief, because at last you are now getting rid of a complacent and muddleheaded fool of whom, also, you are most heartily tired.”
“No, no,”
