“The foolish, therefore, will find in it foolishness, and will say ‘Bother!’—”
“—And conveys no valuable lesson—”
“The wise, as wisdom goes, will reflect that this paragraph was placed here without its consent being asked; that no wit nor large significance was loaned it by its creator; and that it will be forgotten with the turning of the one page wherein it figures unimportantly—”
“Quite honestly, ma’am, I am not a paragraph! No, I assure you that I really am the Lord of the Third Truth, upon my way to rule over Antan. I am the predestined conqueror who will force that irreligious Master Philologist to refrain from any further evil-doing, and to turn over a new leaf—”
“Do you turn the page forthwith, in just the carefree fashion of old nodding Time as he skims over the long book of life—”
“Yes, yes!” said Gerald, smiling, “I was thinking you could bring in that bit, neatly enough, if I gave you the simile to start on. And I know, of course, how all you authoresses love to quote your own works. So now, ma’am, if I were to remark, in a half puzzled way, that I hardly know what to say about your irrational paragraph—”
“Do you say either ‘Bother!’ or ‘Brother!’ as your wits prompt.”
“Quite so! And that finishes it. You have now had the privilege of quoting in the course of one conversation your complete collected works, from cover to cover: and that ought to leave any authoress in a fairly amiable frame of mind. My complaint, then, ma’am, is that you have exhausted my time rather than your subject. There should be by all means a second paragraph. You see, dear lady,—and I am speaking now from the professional knowledge of a god,—it is the gist of every religion that—still to pursue your bibliomaniacal metaphor,—one has but to turn over that page in order to begin upon the most splendid of romances.”
“What kind of romance can any dead man be getting pleasure out of in his dark grave?” the Sphinx asked, in frank surprise.
“Well, I must not speak over-hastily. I cannot supply offhand your second paragraph until I have learned what the Dirghic religion states to be the nature of this second paragraph.... For, you conceive, ma’am, in the opinion of many wise and virtuous persons that paragraph deals with a voyaging in the great sun boat, to a hidden land very far down in the west, after the heart of each passenger has been weighed against a feather, and forty-two judges have passed favorably upon his claims to free transportation. But dissenters, just as wise and virtuous, and just as numerous, declare the subject of that paragraph to be a pleasure garden in which properly behaved persons will recline in continuous tipsiness upon golden couches covered with green cushions, cosily shaded by lotus- and banana-trees, and will have no other occupation than perpetually to remove the virginity of large-eyed celestial ladies. Yet, other sages declare that paragraph to deal with the crossing of a bridge—in which transit a peculiarly obliging dog will serve as the guide,—into the presence of the bright Amshaspands. Whereas, still other estimable people contend that your second paragraph should treat of a four-square city builded of gold and jasper, upon a twelve-fold foundation of various precious stones, and irrigated by its own private crystal sea.... For, I repeat, ma’am, the best-thought-of religions vary quite noticeably as to the nature of this second paragraph: and it would be wholly a sad thing if by speaking over-hastily I were to run counter to my own mythology. But, in any case, I have no sympathy whatever with the mental morbidity of such materialism as would deny the existence of any kind of second paragraph.” Then Gerald frowned, and he rode on.
23. Odd Transformation of a Towel
GERALD now passed beyond Turoine, and, crossing Mispec Moor, he came thus to the tumbled-down hut of a decrepit old woman. “And how are you called, ma’am?”
“What is that to you?” she answered, peevishly. And this wrinkled creature seemed to Gerald remarkably red and inflamed and regrettably hideous among her tousled tresses.
“Well, ma’am,” replied Gerald, pleasantly, “a name is a word: and words are my peculiar concern.”
“If it matters to you, young Carrot-top, I have had many names. And under one name or another I was used to deal with every man. Now my powers fall into decay, and one month is like another month, with never any changing in it. All about me is bleached, dearie, all is colorless. There is no more employment for me: and I am an old worthless flabby white-haired creature, still palely quivering with desire for the good ever-busy days—oh, and for the nights too, dearie,—that are overpast. Eh, dearie, though you would not ever think it, once I was, a mother of the Little Gods and of much else. And I fared handsomely then, taking liveliness and color out of all things, and turning men into useful domestic animals. But now the world is old, and I am the world’s twin: and all vigorousness has gone from me, and one month is like another month, with never any changing in it.”
“I am a god who bring with me all vigor and all youth,” said Gerald: for he remembered what the Sphinx had said about not despising ugliness.
Gerald spoke the appointed words: and he baptized the old whining trot after the rite of the Lady of the First Water-Gap. He straightway saw the dingy towel about her shaking head transformed. This towel had now become a crown composed, a bit surprisingly, of the four suits from a pack of playing cards. There were four clubs set upright, like the strawberry leaves in a duke’s coronet, and alternated with four spades: and the band of this crown was moulded in bas-relief with eight hearts and with sixteen diamonds.
In fact, everything near Gerald was changed. To Gerald’s right hand and to his left were seen neat fields and green things growing pleasantly, and the tumbled-down hovel was now a spruce new cottage. But what seemed even more interesting to Gerald was the circumstance that the wrinkled angry looking old woman had become a quite personable creature, not young and callow, but in the very prime of life: and the name of AEsred now, as she told him, and as he noted at least two other reasons for believing, was Maya of the Fair Breasts.
But she said also, forthwith: “Now that I am young, and have not any chaperon in the house, it would look better for you to be getting on with your journey, because you know how people talk. Yes, and how quick they are to be talking about all widow women anyhow—”
“Oh! oh!” said Gerald: “are you not, then, prepared to trust me?”
“—With or without,” continued Maya, “the least provocation. As for trusting you or any other young fellow living, I never heard before of such nonsense. It is only the elderly men that any woman can depend on, just as far as she can see them, in broad daylight, a good while after they can be depended on at night.”
“You are not even ready to give me all?”
Maya was reasonable. “I will give you your dinner, and on top of that your hat. For I can have no vagabond god hanging around my neat cottage when I am trying to get the dishes washed, and have the name of a widow to keep respectable.”
“Here,” Gerald stated, with conviction, “is an unusual woman. I search the pages of history in vain to find any parallel to the strange behavior of this woman.”