“It would seem so.”
“Bon! The occasion is opportune.” He poked a fat forefinger at me. “Would you favour me, Monsieur, with a few minutes’ private conversation.”
Surprised on the moment, I foresaw the next what was coming.
“Why not?” I answered. “Let us go up the hill, Monsieur. Among the ruins we shall not be interrupted.”
He came, I thought, reluctantly. Perhaps he had had enough of the rocks for one morning. We climbed the irregular street, and, passing by the church, sought the open hill-side above, where, beside a heap of fallen masonry, we rested.
“Now, Monsieur,” said I, “for your communication.”
“Ah!” he exclaimed, like one having the advantage of me in his knowledge of a flattering secret. He dwelt on its taste a moment before inviting me to share in it.
“I am waiting, Monsieur,” I said.
He propped one foot on a stone, and his right arm over his bent knee, and standing thus, his handkerchief drooping from the pendent fingers, apostrophised space rather than me:—
“There comes a time in the life of the spiritual enthusiast, the most ardent pursuer of the sublime and the ideal, when, in the presence of some ravishing beauty, not perfect, yet halting only on the threshold of perfection, he must pause and say to himself, ‘The conditions of this life are fatal to my success. Why for ever drop the substance for the shadow?’ This passion for the elusive, the unattainable, has perhaps its closest analogy in human love, by way of which, though we may not reach the stars, we may attain to a nearer view of them. There is the heart, as well as the soul, to consider, and perhaps, aspiring together in unison, they may touch altitudes hitherto inaccessible to the one alone. The chimney-corner knows the worn huntsman, the tired mountaineer comes down from his heights to sit beside his hearth, and, in dreams of wife and child, project his vision into the beyond of his unsatisfied longings. So why should not I? I am weary of the unfulfilled solitudes, and the sense of man returns upon me as I descend. If the grail is not for me, because of that human weakness in my blood, my search for it has at least shewn me the means by which I may yet doubly strive to approach the nearer precincts of its mystery. Though I am not Parsifal, Parsifal may come to call me father.”