45 Farewell to All Fair Welfare
When Gerald raised his head he was alone on the naked moor, for the brown man had departed, and Maya had gone away with the first of all her lovers, and her illusions had vanished, including the neat log and plaster cottage. And mists were creeping up from the ruined kingdom of Antan, in billows of ever-thickening gray which seemed to be the smoke from that great burning.
Then Gerald said:
“I have come out of my native home on a gain-less journeying with no profit in it: yet there has been pleasure in that journeying. I do not complain. Let every man that must journey, without ever knowing why, from the dark womb of his mother to the dark womb of his grave, take pattern by me!
“For all that every pleasure is departed from me, I have had pleasure. I do not grieve because I have gained nothing in my journeying. The great and best words of the Master Philologist stay unrevealed; that supreme word which was in the beginning, and which will be when all else has perished, I may not surmise: but I have played with many words which were rather pretty. In the art of magic which I chose to be my art I have performed no earth-shaking wonders, yet in small thaumaturgies I have had some hand. I did not ride the divine steed to my journey’s end: but a part of the way I rode quite royally.
“That which I heard of from afar I have not won to in my foiled journeying. So I now cry farewell to that Queen Freydis whom, I suspect, I might have loved with a great love if lesser women had not solicited me. I cry farewell to the Mirror of the Hidden Children in which, I believe, I might have found myself as I am, and might have come to knowledge of the Third Truth. And I cry farewell to Antan, to that never-won-to goal of all the gods which was, I think, my appointed kingdom. I have surmised high things. I have gained none of them. My doom has been a little doom. It contents me.
“I may well be content, because all that a man may hope for I have had, who have learned at least that the lot of a man is more sure than the lot of any god. For the deceit which you put upon me, O venerable and subtle Æsred, I cry out my gratitude. There was the seeming of a home and of a woman who loved and tended me and of a child. I may not speak of my love for these illusions. Now they have perished. But my memories remain: and they are more dear to me than is any real thing.
“All, all, is perished! It may be that I have offended the two truths which I did not esteem sufficiently august. And I who willed to be Lord of the Third Truth have found no third truth anywhere. I have found only comfortably colored illusions. But I am content with that which I have found here upon Mispec Moor.”
In the while that Gerald had been speaking, the mists rose thicker and thicker from destroyed Antan. He had noted in the while that he spoke how the first wavering thin billows crept tentatively up the hills and along the roadway, creeping upon the ground, and under the low-swinging tree branches, with, as it seemed, a pre-meditated furtiveness; and then, as if emboldened by finding the way unopposed, these mists had risen up from the ground, always swiftlier, until now they had eclipsed all. Gerald, now that he ended his talking, could see nothing palpable anywhere save the little patch of intermingled stone and grass immediately beneath his feet; and about him everywhere were the cool mists, lighted with a diffused gray radiancy which seemed to come from all sides.
PART ELEVEN
THE BOOK OF REMNANTS
“When Wages are Paid, Work is Over.”