Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances

by James Branch Cabell

  XXXVIII

  Farewell to Suskind

  But after dinner Dom Manuel came alone into the Room of Ageus, andequipped himself as the need was, and he climbed out of the charmedwindow for the last time. His final visit to the depths was horrible,they say, and they relate that of all the deeds of Dom Manuel's crowdedlifetime the thing that he did on this day was the most grim. But he wonthrough all, by virtue of his equipment and his fixed heart. So when DomManuel returned he clasped in his left hand a lock of fine straw-coloredhair, and on both his hands was blood let from no human veins.

  He looked back for the last time into the gray depths. A crowned girlrose beside him noiselessly, all white and red, and she clasped herbloodied lovely arms about him, and she drew him to her hacked youngbreasts, and she kissed him for the last time. Then her arms were loosedfrom about Dom Manuel, and she fell away from him, and was swallowed bythe gray sweet-scented depths.

  "And so farewell to you, Queen Suskind," says Count Manuel. "You whowere not human, but knew only the truth of things, could neverunderstand our foolish human notions. Otherwise you would never havedemanded the one price I may not pay."

  "Weep, weep for Suskind!" then said Lubrican, wailing feebly in the grayand April-scented dusk; "for it was she alone who knew the secret ofpreserving that dissatisfaction which is divine where all else fallsaway with age into the acquiescence of beasts."

  "Why, yes, but unhappiness is not the true desire of man," says Manuel."I know, for I have had both happiness and unhappiness, and neithercontented me."

  "Weep, weep for Suskind!" then cried the soft and delicate voice ofHinzelmann: "for it was she that would have loved you, Manuel, with thatlove of which youth dreams, and which exists nowhere upon your side ofthe window, where all kissed women turn to stupid figures of warm earth,and all love falls away with age into the acquiescence of beasts."

  "Oh, it is very true," says Manuel, "that all my life henceforward willbe a wearying business because of long desires for Suskind's love andSuskind's lips and the grave beauty of her youth, and for all thehigh-hearted dissatisfactions of youth. But the Alf charm is lifted fromthe head of my child, and Melicent will live as Niafer lives, and itwill be better for all of us, and I am content."

  From below came many voices wailing confusedly. "We weep for Suskind.Suskind is slain with the one weapon that might slay her: and all weweep for Suskind, who was the fairest and the wisest and the mostunreasonable of queens. Let all the Hidden Children weep for Suskind,whose heart and life was April, and who plotted courageously against theorderings of unimaginative gods, and who has been butchered to preservethe hair of a quite ordinary child."

  Then said the Count of Poictesme: "And that young Manuel who was in hisday a wilful champion, and who fretted under ordered wrongs, and whowent everywhither with a high head a-boasting that he followed after hisown thinking and his own desire,--why, that young fellow also is nowsilenced and dead. For the well-thought-of Count of Poictesme must be asthe will and the faith and as the need of others may dictate: and thereis no help for it, and no escape, and our old appearances must bepreserved upon this side of the window in order that we may all staysane."

  "We weep, and with long weeping raise the dirge for Suskind--!"

  "But I, who do not weep,--I raise the dirge for Manuel. For I musthenceforward be reasonable in all things, and I shall never be quitediscontented any more: and I must feed and sleep as the beasts do, andit may be that I shall even fall to thinking complacently about my deathand glorious resurrection. Yes, yes, all this is certain, and I may notever go a-traveling everywhither to see the ends of this world and judgethem: and the desire to do so no longer moves in me, for there is acloud about my goings, and there is a whispering which follows me, and Itoo fall away into the acquiescence of beasts. Meanwhile no hair of thechild's head has been injured, and I am content."

  "Let all the Hidden Children, and all else that lives except the tallgray son of Oriander, whose blood is harsh sea-water, weep for Suskind!Suskind is dead, that was unstained by human sin and unredeemed byChrist's dear blood, and youth has perished from the world. Oh, let usweep, for all the world grows chill and gray as Oriander's son."

  "And Oriander too is dead, as I well know that slew him in my hour. Nowmy hour passes; and I pass with it, to make way for the needs of mychildren, as he perforce made way for me. And in time these children,and their children after them, pass thus, and always age must be in onemode or another slain by youth. Now why this should be so, I cannotguess, nor do I see that much good comes of it, nor do I find that inmyself which warrants any confidences from the most high controllinggods. But I am certain that no hair of the child's head has beeninjured; and I am certain that I am content."

  Thus speaking, the old fellow closed the window.

  And within the moment little Melicent came to molest him, and she wasunusually dirty and disheveled, for she had been rolling on the terracepavement, and had broken half the fastenings from her clothing: and DomManuel wiped her nose rather forlornly. Of a sudden he laughed andkissed her. And Count Manuel said he must send for masons to wall up thethird window of Ageus, so that it might not ever be opened any more inCount Manuel's day for him to breathe through it the dim sweet-scentedair of spring.