“Hence,” said the Master of the Art, “we see the superiority of spiritual things, which are of a vast multiplicity, while matter is but one. Moreover spirits have much control over matter; while matter has neither the will nor knowledge nor power to affect one spirit, even though it may chance, upon a journey, to come close to a whole world.” And the magician continued his theme, so that never was the cause of the spirit so ably pleaded, nor matter more humbled, nor all its pretensions more completely exposed. But Ramon Alonzo’s daydreams were in arbours of Aragona, and they did not return thence until the magician, looking out carefully at the height of the sun, said: “Now you may go down to the haunts of error until the sun is westering. And now this lesson concludes. Be sure that you have learned a greater wisdom in learning the oneness of matter than is to be found in the changing of its manifestation out of its leaden form to that form which is held in greater esteem by the vulgar.”
Once he warned the young man against lateness, who then sped blithely away, passing out through the old green door through which he had come only once, and seeming to see in his shadow a sprightly merriness that was as eager as he to be out in the summer morning away from the gloom of the house. The young man and the still younger shadow went laughing and leaping together down the slope; and soon between trunks of the trees came glimpses of Aragona, a village sunning itself in the merry glint of the golden Spanish air. Blithe in that glittering air as they came from the wood the shadow revelled over the flowers and grass, and felt the soft touch of small leaves that it had not known before.
It was in the afternoon that they came to Aragona, but a little before the hour at which the Master had made the shadow; it was nearly one day old. Ramon Alonzo turned then and looked at it carefully to see if it had paled in twenty-three hours: it was as strong a grey as ever. Untroubled then by any lingering anxiety he strode manfully into the village and his shadow strode beside him. He glanced at it once or twice to see that it still was there, until, finally reassured, he forgot it entirely.
And soon he saw a gathering of maidens who had come out to be merry together, lest there should be a hush in the little street while all the men were working in the fields. They laughed when they saw him come by the way from the wood, for so few came that way. He halted a little way from them and doffed his hat, and the blue plume floated from it large and long. And they all laughed again.
“Who are you?” said one; and laughed to hear herself speak out thus to a stranger.
“Don Ramon Alonzo of the Tower and Rocky Forest,” he answered simply.
“That’s over there,” said one, “but you come from the wood.”
“I am studying there with a learned man,” he said.
“The Saints defend us,” cried another, “there’s no learned man in the wood.”
“You know the wood, señorita?” he asked.
“The Saints forbid!” she said. “None goes to the wood. There may be aught there; but there’s no learned man.”
And at a look of alarm that he saw on their faces he added: “His house is beyond the wood, upon the other side.”
And the fear went from their faces and they were merry again.
Long after he confessed to Father Joseph that he had made this statement that fell short of the truth or, to be exact, went over it; and Father Joseph put the matter away with a wave of the hand and the words, “A geographical error”: he had heavy work to do that day giving absolution for traffic with the Black Art.
And then one or two called out to him: “What do you study?”
“The different branches of learning,” said Ramon Alonzo.
And then they all cried out such questions as “What is three times twenty-seven?” “What is nine times ninety?” “Can you divide a hundred and eighty by seven?”
“That is arithmetic,” answered Ramon Alonzo. And they were a little awed by his learning, though they did not cease to laugh.
Then he sought to make some remark that would be pleasing to them, and many a happy phrase came fast to his mind; and yet he said none of them, for there were so many maidens, and if they should all laugh together he feared for his tender phrases, which were such as should have been said softly at evening when all voices are low and laughter has all been hushed by the rise of a huge moon.
Instead he asked them some question as to what they did, without even wishing an answer.
“We are watching for strangers,” said the tallest.
“Why?” he asked; for she stood there waiting for him to speak.
“For our amusement,” she said.
There was no evading their laughter.
But when they had laughed enough they turned again to their former occupation, which had been to watch a beetle that crawled on the road, leaving tracks on the thick white dust; and they let Ramon Alonzo watch it with them, for during the ordeal of laughter not one of those frivolous
