For comeliness and mirth had soon departed from his bright-haired princess wife, through much child-bearing, and presently life too had gone out of her; and her various informal successors proved to be rather stupid, once you got to know them. But tender and warm-blooded Radegonde, whom alone he loved, and the engaging, ever-new endearments of Elphanor’s queen, were to brave Holden of Nerac an unfailing cordial.
“Blessed above all men that live am I, in that I am lord of the Delta of Radegonde,” still said, in his gray beard, brave Holden, who could not foreknow his fate.
§3
But as the years went, so went youth; and the appearance and the abilities of Holden were altering. Bashfully, Radegonde asked questions about certain noticeable changes. The aging champion explained, as well as he could, the ways of nibbling age and of devouring death, to Elphanor’s ageless queen, who knew nothing of these matters, because her painter had willed to put other affairs in the triangular garden.
Thereafter it much troubled Radegonde to know that Holden must be stripped by such marauders of all vigor. Her love for her sole lover, and her horror of being left alone where no other man was ever apt to come thrusting himself into the vacancy, were so great that, with a shedding of resistless tears, the gray-eyed girl persuaded Holden to consult once more with Guivric the Sage; and to discover through the aid of his magic if there were no wizardry by which Radegonde could be made mortal.
“For then,” said she, “we shall abate in vigor together, my dearest, and die together; and not even after death need we dread separation, when I lie buried at your side where men will have engraved upon your tomb, Resurgam.”
Then wise Guivric said that, certainly, there was a way in which Radegonde might come out of the picture, and assume mortality. But Guivric, shaking his white head, advised against it.
And Guivric said:
“It would be better, old friend, to accept the common lot of men; and to be content to see your dreams played with for a while and then put by, rather than see them realized. Besides, you have many grandchildren, and you owe them an example.”
But Holden answered: “Bosh! Do I owe nothing to myself?” So the high-hearted lovers followed the way of which Guivric had told them. This way is not to be talked about; but blood was shed in the Delta, and the worm that dies not was imprisoned: and after other appalling happenings, Holden the Brave climbed out rheumatically from the canvas, and gave his hand to Queen Radegonde; and she also stepped from the triangular frame, and entered into life as the mortal woman that Radegonde had been in the old time.
§4
Straightway she recollected her husband and her children and many of her lovers, and the gilded domes of Elphanor’s seven proud cities, where now not even a hut was, and all the perfumed wasteful living which Radegonde had known in the old time; and straightway, too, she saw that Holden was a tedious and decrepit fumbler long past the love of women. And Holden saw that his Radegonde was a flighty and a rather silly barbarian wench, sufficiently good-looking to be sure, but in no way remarkable.
So did it come about that the two gazed at each other forlornly.
The queen began to shiver and to whimper. “I never,” she said, “I never for one moment was so lonely in my Delta as I am now.”
Avuncularly he patted her white shoulder in the while that gray Holden answered her:
“We have acted unwisely, and nobody denies it. But do you come out of this draught, and I will get you some clothes and have you baptised; and then I will present you to our young Count Emmerick, and you can entertain yourself, within Christian limits, by making a fool of him.”
“A vigorous and handsome count would be better than nothing,” the fair girl conceded.
So this presentation was arranged. And Count Emmerick was infatuated the moment that he saw the queen’s beguiling, innocent, young face. Forthwith the high Count of Poictesme proclaimed a banquet in honor of Elphanor’s queen: and when all were dancing, Holden returned to the void frame; and he considered that lost tropic garden, bereft now forever of the radiant and gray-eyed slip of womanhood whom he had loved, and who would content his life no more.
Guivric came with him: and these two old men kept silence.
“We may deduce that the painter loved her thirteen centuries ago,” says Guivric,—“erecting loveliness where there was little to build upon. Thus it is that the brain of man creates women more desirable than may be created by other means: and such women endure. But the women children that have two parents, may endure only a very little longer than may the scant delights a man can get in gardens that bear bitter fruit or else insipid fruit. For these women have no such Delta as had your lost Radegonde, no more than has that dispossessed, lean, ogling flirt of whom young Emmerick will presently be tiring.”
Moreover Guivric said:
“The women who are born of man’s brain have no flaw in them and no seed of death. There was a Radegonde conceived in Camwy, that walked the glittering pavements of Lacre Kai, and wedded Elphanor, King of Kings, and trysted with many lovers, and later trysted with small worms. But in the artist’s brain was conceived another Radegonde, a maid who walks the sun-paths of eternity, and who is new-born with every April. Thus it was of old: and this tale is not ended.”
And Guivric said also:
“The women who are born of man’s brain bear to their lovers no issue save dissatisfaction. Their ways are lovely, but contentment does not abide in these ways: and he that follows after the women who are born of man’s brain is wounded subtly with wounds which may not ever be quite healed. So let no woman with two parents cosset him: for she toils vainly and in large peril; because it is upon her that he will requite his subtle wounding, just as you, poor Holden, were the destruction of that golden-haired young wife who loved you, and whom you could not love.”
§5
Thus said Guivric the Sage; and Holden, a spent man, much hurt but very proud, who now foreknew his fate, replied with a resolute smiling:
“Blessed above all men that live am I, in that in the days of my folly I have been lord of the Delta of Radegonde. I know this, Guivric, as you may not ever know it,—not you, who are as old as I, and who have only your long years of prudent dealings to look back upon.”
Guivric the Sage answered very soberly:
“That is true. For, to have been wise throughout one’s youth becomes by and by a taunt; and to remember it is a disease.”
And Holden the Brave said now, with another sort of smiling:
“There is in attendance upon everybody a physician that heals all disease. Pending his coming, old friend, I mean to beat you at one more game of chess.”
Whereon these aged men fell to such staid diversion as was suited to their remainder of life. But slim, gray-eyed Radegonde danced merrily with her new lover.
NOTES
[1] Among other places, in a volume called Straws and Prayer-Books. Also see Appendix B of this volume.
[2] See note upon page 147. See also Appendix C.
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