"Thank you," said the merchant.
"Yes," I said. He was still there.
"I am surely entitled to something for my trouble," he said. The other fellows had not taken this attitude. Still, they had not been merchants.
"Here," I said, giving him a copper tarsk. That left me with two.
"Thank you," he said, after scrutinizing the change in my palm.
"Your welcome," I said. He then left.
"Alas," said Hurtha, coming up to me disconsolately," I fear I have made a terrible mistake."
"How could that be?" I asked.
"In my good-hearted enthusiasm to assuage our needs," he said, "I fear I may have suffered dishonor, if not ruination."
"How is that?" I asked. That was certainly an interesting thing to hear. "I have been selling my poems," he said, collapsing near Mincon's fire, by the wagon. He sat there, with his head in his hands.
"Oh?" I said.
"Yes," he said. "Surely you recall the four silver tarsks I gave you earlier in the evening."
"Of course," I said.
"I received them from the sale of poems, my poems!" he said, shaking with emotion.
"No," I cried.
"Yes," he said, miserably.
"I had thought it must be from the sale of numerous rich gems, doubtless sewn in your jacket," I said.
"No," he said. "I looked about the yards, and when I found fine-looking, sensitive-looking chaps, splendid-seeming fellows, of apparent refinement and taste, those of a sort I thought might be capable of appreciating my work, I offered them one of my poems, and for no more than a mere token of appreciation, a silver tarsk."
"That was incredibly generous," I said.
"It was a terrible mistake," said Hurtha.
"I am glad you realize that," I said.
"What?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said.
"My poems are priceless," he said. "You think you should of asked for more than a silver tarsk?" I asked, alarmed.
"No," he said, "I should not have sold them at all."
"I see," I said, relieved. "But they are probably not really all that bad." "What," he asked.
"Nothing," I said.
"I realized it with the last poem," he said, miserably. "I looked down at the silver tarsk in my hand, and at the poem in the fellow's hand, and it all became clear to me. I saw then how terrible was the thing I had done, selling my poems, my own poems, my precious, priceless poems! They now belonged to another! Better I had torn my heart out and sold it for a tarsk bit!"
"Perhaps," I said.
"I then begged the fellow to take back his worthless tarsk, and return the poem to me."
"And did he do so?" I asked.
"Yes," said Hurtha, looking up at me.
"Well," I said, "it all ended well then.
"No," he said, tears in his eyes. "You do not understand."
"We are now short a tarsk?" I said.
"No!" cried Hurtha. "There were four other poems sold! I shall never be able to recover those poems! They are gone, gone!" He put his head again in his hands, sobbing. "I shall never be able to find all those fellows again." Scarcely had I sold them the poems then they all hastened away, covetous, lucky, greedy fellows, lest I change my mind. Now I shall never be able to find them again and appeal earnestly, fervently, to their better selves, and higher natures, to take back their filthy money. What a fool I was! My poems, gone! Sold for a mere four silver tarsks! Waste! Dishonor! Misery! Ruin! Tragedy! What if this story should ever get back to the wagons? I am unworthy of my scars!"
"Hurtha, old fellow," I said, gently.
"Yes," he said.
I placed my hand on his shoulder.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Look," I said. He lifted his head and looked up.
"Here," I said, softly. I held forth to him the four copies of poems which had been given to me earlier by his four customers, or patrons.
"Is it they!" he cried, wonderingly, tears in his eyes.
"Yes," I said.
"You knew!" he cried.
I shrugged.
"You could not let me go through with it!" he wept. "You sought them out! You purchased them back! You have saved me from myself, from my own folly!"
"It is little enough to do for a friend," I said.
He leaped to his feet and embraced me, weeping, tears in his eyes. I struggled for breath, clutching the four poems. I speculated that this must be much like the grip of the dreaded, constricting hith. Surely that, capable of pulverizing a fellow, crushing his bones and popping him like a grape, could scarcely be worse.
"How can I ever thank you?" he cried, stepping back, holding me, proudly, looking at me.
"Between friends," I said, "thanks are neither needed, nor possible." "You, too, are overcome with emotion!" he cried, sympathetically.
"I am trying to breathe," I told him.
"Let me have those poems," he said. He took them and put them with the one he kept, that retrieved from his last transaction, the one in which, happily, I had had no part. "I have them back, thanks to you!" he said.
I had now caught my breath, nearly.
"There they are," he said, blissfully, regarding them, "written down, in little marks."
"That is the way most things are written down," I said.
"Are they well transcribed?" he asked.
"I think so," I said. I took a deep breath.
"Are you all right?" asked Hurtha.
"Yes," I said. "Occasionally there is a line which is difficult to make out, and there seems to be a misspelled word here and there," That was to be expected, I supposed, given the fact that they had presumably been written in a condition of some agitation, under a condition of some stress. There was an occasional spot on the parchment. Perhaps sweat had dropped from someone's brow there.
"You are sure you are all right?" he said.
"Yes, I am all right now," he said.
"I am not surprised that a small mistake, perhaps a poorly formed letter, an irregular margin, or such, might have been made," said Hurtha. "Some of the fellows transcribing the poems were actually shaking. They seemed almost over-whelmed."
"I am not surprised," I said. "It was all part of the impact of the experience of hearing them for the first time, I suppose," I added.
"Yes," said Hurtha. "It would seem so."
"You do not know your own power as a poet," I said.
"Few of us do," said Hurtha.
"Well," I said, "fortunately, we have the five poems back. It would be too bad to have lost them."
"A tragedy, yes," said Hurtha, "but I have others."
"Oh?" I said.
"Yes, more than two thousand," he said.
"That is a great many," I said.
"Not really, considering their quality," he said.
"You are prolific," I said.
"All great poets are prolific," he said. "Would you care to hear them?" "Not at the moment," I said. "You see, I have just, this evening, read some of them. I do not know if I could take more, just now."
"I understand," said Hurtha. "I am one well aware of the complexities of coping with grandeur, of the exquisite agonies attendant upon wrestling with nigh ineffable sublimities, with the excruciating intensities of the authentic aesthetic experience, with the travails of poignant significance, with the exhausting consequences of confronting sudden and startling distillations of meaning. No, old friend, I understand these things full well. I shall not force you beyond your strength." "Thank you," I said.
He looked down at the poems in his hand. "Can you believe," he asked, "that these saw light only this evening, that I dictated them upon the spot?"
"Yes," I said.
He stood there, looking down at them, in awe of his own power.