VI.
A new porter, a garrulous and slipshod wastrel, had taken the place of the old. It appeared that nowadays the Princess had but few visitors despite the fact that she was acknowledged almost as beautiful as ever, albeit in a different style. Her temperament, he learned, was difficult, her wealth greater than ever.
After but short delay he found himself in the antechamber. He acquainted the damsel with his mission. She vanished through the curtains, and the following conversation was borne to Es-siddeeh's ears:
"An old man, calling himself the Very Veracious, has arrived and sues for an interview on the same subject as his forerunners."
"I cannot see him." The maid returned.
"Tell her," said Es-siddeeh, "that she is as beautiful as one red rose in a garden of lilies."
"The compliment," he heard the Princess remark, "though graceful, is not new; in fact so old that I scarcely distinctly recollect when I made a fashion for it. Dismiss him."
"Tell her," said Es-siddeeh, "that her wisdom has the wings of the rukh, the eye of the falcon, the talons of the osprey, and the voice of the dove."
"The Very Veracious," he heard the Princess remark, "is there very much in the wrong. If I have learned nothing else in my life I have at least learned that my wisdom has no such enviable characteristics. Dismiss him."
"Tell her," said Es-siddeeh, suddenly overcome with a novel misgiving, "that I know the answer to all secrets, including the secret of the smile of the Sphinx."
"How original!" cried the Princess. "Does he really know the secret of the Sphinx's smile? Send him in."
Es-siddeeh went in and bowed down.
"Though changed," he said, "O Sa-adeh, you are as beautiful as ever."
"Your beard has grown so long and so white," she answered, "that—surely thou art the (what is the name?) the Es-siddeeh I once knew, are you not?"
"I am."
"And you know all secrets?"
"I do."
Then she plied him with various questions concerning the value as an amulet of this or that precious stone, of the pedigree of famous horses, of music as an Emotional Sound or as an Architecture, and many other matters of a similar nature.
All these questions he answered with such a considerable wealth of detail that Sa-adeh appeared confused. Both fell silent.
After her eyes had rested for some time upon his face in a musing fashion, she asked with a strange inflection, "What is love?"
He was dumbfounded.
"I believe you have forgotten," she said, and in the intonation of her voice there was a hint of the equivocal.
His eyes filled with tears. "I have not forgotten," he said; "perhaps I am only just beginning to learn."
She gave him a curious look; then, moving her head, proceeded with an instant change of tone, "Well, what is the secret of the smile of the Sphinx?"
A wave of emotion swept over him. He smiled and arose.
"With the details of my enquiry I will not trouble you. Suffice it to say that for nearly forty years I have been searching."
"So long as that?"
"Many hard early days I spent in the desert and endured great privations."
"Indeed? I am sorry. Forget them."
"I would not if I could—they were the price of knowledge. At one time I came near losing my wits."
"So? I am sorry."
"Then I spent some years interrogating the wisest of earth."
"Oh?"
"But met with no answer."
"Ah."
"Then I spent further years in acquiring money—years of misery they were and years of degradation—that I might discover the secret. I was ruined. I repeat, I was ruined."
"Pardon me. Yes, you were ruined. I am sorry."
"I served as a soldier. I received wounds. I was captive. I was beaten. I escaped. I rose to power. I exploited all modes of living and fulfilling myself, but my experiments brought me no nearer the secret."
"No nearer...."
"Then I set forth on a dreary journey to renew my memory of the Sphinx's face. I sat down beside her. For a long time I learned nothing—the smile seemed hardly less mysterious than it had ever been. Then—but you are not listening...."
"My friend, I am indeed; you were on a dreary journey and——"
"At length one day a youth—but I will not burden you with that, though it was strange...."
"Why do you look so at me? I am listening."
"That night I learned the secret of the Sphinx."
"At last!"
"I learned it indeed."
"Yes. Well, what is it?"
"A difficult matter. You must listen most carefully, so subtle is its sense; yet in its comprehension lies hid the whole secret of man's possible happiness."
"I am listening."
There was a great stillness in the chamber. Es-siddeeh closed his eyes to concentrate his thought. Then, opening them, he began:
"I learned the secret—that smile is the secret."
"So I supposed."
"Hush, or I shall begin to think that you do not know how to value this gift of my whole life, which I am making you. It is very difficult, but if all men would listen to me their lives would be easier."
"I thought the secret was for me—yet no matter. Proceed. You see how serious I am."
"I learned its secret."
His lips trembled. He could hardly speak; at last with a great effort he said, "Now it comes—upon maintaining that smile, which is the sign of the power of her existence, all her energy is bent. She did not tell me, but I found it written in my heart. For what is she? In the Sphinx, with her ravaged countenance and mutilated smile, I behold Life itself—Life in mysterious might, ignorant of its own origin, conscious only of its own beauty, couchant amid the wilderness of space and eternity."
"Is the smile of the Sphinx all that indeed? I somehow thought it was something more intimate. But how serious you look! Do not frown—I would not offend you for the world."
"Should I not smile?" he said bitterly.
"Yes, like the Sphinx."
"Quick! How, did you know that?"
"Don't frighten me. I was but speaking idly."
"Idly?"
"Seriously then, if you like—since you attach such importance to it. Women always work by miracles and never know when they have performed one.... Excellent, you are smiling, though your smile is ambiguous."
"I do but obey her."
"Not me?"
"That smile which we behold on her face is the smile we see everywhere about us; only in her it has become more august—first by reason of her greater consciousness of isolation in the Desert and beneath the Stars, and, secondly, by consciousness of her strength."
"Will you hand me my fan? Thank you."
"For what are not the properties of the smile—the sovereign beauty, the witness of power—in Nature? Wise indeed the man who knows the bounds of what it is capable. When we are born the first thing we behold is a smile: the Nurse smiles at us, and in that smile we should read—were we then capable—the self-satisfaction of Nature, proud of her reproductive powers, who dandles us in her hands with the assurance that she knows what is best for us. Ah, how universal is the smile! Think of the variety of smiles that exist. 'Tis all for smiles this life! And that is at once its apparent cruelty and its final justification. On the blackness of Eternity it expands in a smile like a rainbow—a rainbow whose arch begins and ends, as rainbow arches do, uncertain where. And this blossoming in Infinity justifies itself.... How? By the beauty of its smile. Therefore smile. Smile and be in harmony with—if not the spirit of the Universe (for the unknown looking down from the Hill of Heaven upon the Rainbow may for all we know smile also, and on the import of that smile opinion may be divided), and be in harmony at least with the beauty of that fragment of the Universe which, if we do not wholly comprehend, we can at least worship and imitate.... But you are yawning."
"No, obedient to you, I was—smiling."
"And for how long? Until we are resolved—as the drops of the rainbow are resolved after refracting supernal colours. Yet as a raindrop glitters, ere it evaporate upon the flower and be again (who knows?) drawn up in the immense cycle, with some reflection of the glory which its passage served to make, so should we maintain that smile to the moment of our dissolution. As indeed I, whose stormy aerial passage is nearly over, shall do till I attain to mine. For what commoner solace do we hear than that 'he died with a smile upon his face'? Such a smile may each have at his passing! How happy our friends will be to see it, how confounded our enemies! How comforted, too, the philosophers, who will not fail to perceive in it the reflection of whatever faith they hold: the ineffable joy of one whose beatified wings even now mingle with the wings of other spirits in divine assumption; the satisfaction of the racked, whom never again the torturers Joy and Sorrow will wake from endless sleep; the profound irony of one who never expected his pleasures to last for ever; and the disdain, too proud to curve itself in a full sneer, of one who opposes to the silent smile of the unknown a smile yet more silent!"
He paused.
"I have been thinking," said the Princess.
"You wish to know more? Shall I explain?"
"No. It is unnecessary; all this amounts to that you wish to marry me, and the announcement that you have earned the right to do so, but I should inform you that since you were last here a gentleman, who as a matter of fact once occupied a position menial enough but of importance in this household, has by signal honesty and perseverance arrived at a position where—well, in fact, to put it shortly, I have formed another attachment."
"Madam, am I reft of my senses? You astonish me! Who?"
"The Executioner."
"Ah, heavens! Well, let me inform you, madam, that I, too, have formed another attachment."
"You say that to my face! How dare you? But I saw directly you entered this room that you had long ago forgotten what true love is. Your long absence from me bears it witness. Who, may I ask, is now the object of your affections?"
"Do not smile—or smile, madam, if you can; I love the Sphinx."
He had but that moment discovered it.
The Princess shrieked and at the sound he bent upon her such a smile as in memory effectually prevented her ever mentioning the Sphinx and its secrets again to anyone.
Then he walked out.