After that the old man said:
“The earth itself I waste away into a cinder adrift in that wind which fans the flickering of the stars. I know this assuredly, for my skill is proved, and in heaven I keep always before me the cold, quiet moon as a model of what I mean to make of this earth. Oho, and in heaven also, all gods observe me with the alert eyes which rabbits turn toward the hound who is not yet upon their scent. They know that I alone exalt the Heavenly Ones, and that for some while I humor them, as I today have humored the vexed minds of the gods of Rorn. Yet these Heavenly Ones well know what in the end I make of their omnipotence. Let Kuri and Uwardowa, and Kogi also, have a care of my industry! The road behind me is littered with despoiled temples. The majesty of many gods is the dust in that roadway.”
And this very old, lean man said likewise:
“But the road before me, oho, but the road before me, is obscure. Its goal is not known. If there be any power above me, it is not known. If there be any purpose anywhere in my all-ruining labor, it is not known. Yet if that power exists, and if that purpose and that goal be set, I pray that these may end my endless laboring by and by, for I am old and tired, and there is no joy to be got out of my laboring.”
PART THREE: Of Alfgar in the Grayness
“The Touch of Time does More than the Club of Hercules.”
Chapter XII. The Way of All Women
IT IS told that infirm old Alfgar passed on a gray road beneath gray skies, and about him blew that wind which fans the flickering of the stars. The first woman that he met there was gray and fat as a fed coffin worm. She mumbled, between toothless gums,—
“Tarry! for I am that Cathra who was your first love.”
And it is told also that the second woman he met was gray and lean. A piping voice came out of her lank quivering jaws, and that voice said,—
“Tarry! for I am Olwen whom you loved with your whole heart.”
Then Hrefna, and Guen, and Lliach, and Astrid, and Una, and all the other most dear maids that Alfgar had followed after in his youth, cried out their willingness to reward his love. Ettaine came also, bent and infirm and gray; her withered, hands trembled, and her guts rumbled rattlingly, in the while that Ettaine was saying,—
“Tarry, delight of both my eyes!”
For youth had long ago gone out of these maidens; the years had pilfered their sweet colorings; and time had so nibbled away every part of their comeliness, that these were but gray and decayed old harridans who leered and cackled and broke wind as each plucked at Alfgar’s ragged sleeve in the windy grayness.
The gaunt tall King trudged onward.
But here, the gray way was littered to the right hand and to the left hand with a scattering of papers which flutteringly rose up in the persistent wind, and these also spoke with Alfgar.
“Tarry! for I am Oriana, the most faithful and most fair of all women,” was the first thin whispering that the old King heard: “but Amadis is far from this place, so let us now take our glad fill of love.”
Then another paper rustled: “I am Aude. Roland loved me until his death, and it was of Roland’s death that I died; but for your dear love’s sake I live again.”
And a third paper lisped:” I am Yseult, Mark’s queen. But I loved a harper, and the music of this Tristram made all my life a music. Not even death might still that music, for our names endure as one song that answers to another song. But Alfgar now is my one love.”
He saw then that upon these papers were very crudely drawn the figures of women, in old and faded colors, and he so knew that he was being wooed by the fairest ladies of romance and of legend. But these swept about him futilely, adrift in the wind which fans the flickering of the stars: and all these paper figures were smutched with the thumb marks and the fly droppings and the dim grime of uncountable years. So did they pass as tatterings of soiled, splotched paper in which time had left no magic and no warmth and no beauty.
Alfgar sighed: but he went onward.
Then very many skeletons came crying out to Alfgar. And the first skeleton said:
“Tarry! for I am Cleopatra. I am that one Cleopatra whose name yet lives. All the large world lay in this little hand, as my plaything. I ruled the South and North: and I ruled merrily, as became the daughter of Ra, the Lord of Crowns, and the well beloved of Amen-Ra, the Lord of the Throne of the Two Lands. The war drums and the shoutings of the legions under their tall crests of red horsehair could not prevail against the sweetness of my laughter: with one kiss I conquered Caesar, and all his army. Then Antony brought me new kingdoms, and with each of these, and with him also, I played as I desired, at the price of yet another kiss. But my third lover was more wise and cold than were these Roman captains, and yet I died of his kissing, because that dusty-colored, horned worm was too fiercely enamored of my loveliness.”
The gaunt tall King trudged onward.
But another skeleton cried out: “Nay, do you tarry instead with me. For I am that Magdalene whose body was as a well builded market-place wherefrom men got all their desires. My love was very liberaclass="underline" my love was a highway whereupon glad armies marched in triumph: my love was a not ever ending festival where new guests come and go. Then a god passed, saying, ‘Love ye one another.’ But I stayed perverse, for after that time I loved him alone. In the hour of his tortured dying I did not leave him: when he returned from death I, and I only, awaited him, at the door of the gray tomb, at dawn, beneath the olive-trees, where the birds chattered with a surprising sweetness. But his voice was more sweet than theirs. Whithersoever he went, there I too must be: and for that reason he was followed by many who were enamored of my loveliness.”
Alfgar sighed: but he went onward.
Then yet a third skeleton said: “It were far better that you should tarry with me. For I am Balkis; Sheba bore me, from out of the womb of an antelope; and in all the ways of love I am well skilled. My skill was spoken of throughout the happy land between Negran and Ocelis. King Scharabel chose me to be his queen because of that fine skill I had; and I rewarded him with a sharp troth-plighting. With one dagger thrust I took from him his kingdom and his life also. But it was in a bed builded of gold and carved with triangles that I conquered yet another king, when Solomon shaved from my legs three hairs, and I bereft him of his over-famous wisdom. So did he worship Eblis and Milcom after that midnight, because I served these gods very wantonly in their high places, and the old lewd itching Jew was enamored of my loveliness.”
But Alfgar put aside the lipless mouth, and all the other mouldering cold bones, of wise Balkis, also.
In such fashion did these skeletons, and yet other grinning small skeletons, flock after the tall wanderer and cry out to him. The sweetings of Greece and of Almayne and of Persia foregathered in that endless grayness with the proud whores of the Merovingians and of the Pharaohs, and each of these luxurious women wooed Alfgar. The empresses of Rome and of Byzantium came likewise: the czarinas of Muscovy and the sultanas of Arabia also attended him. The head-wives of the Caziques and of the Incas, the nieces of the Popes, and the maharanees of the Great Khans, all flocked about King Alfgar: and all were mouldy bones, in their torn and rotted gravecloths. Then from the mire along the gray roadway arose the voices of the queens of Assyria and of Babylon, who now were scattered dust and horse dung. All these, whom time had done with, now cried out wooingly to Alfgar.