“It is, in fact, alike our duty and our privilege to be most lenient with this laborious bungler who, after all, is probably doing the best he can. So I, for one, I never dwell even fleetingly upon the awkward fact that the banality of his magic is no excuse for the way he botches its execution. Indeed, I do not know but that a person of very lively imagination might conceive of our confrère’s turning out worse work than he does. Nor do I think I am being over-charitable. For, upon my word,—while I can see that his magic is morbid, that it is sophomoric, that it is malignant, that it is plagiarized, that it is intolerably insipid, that it is sacrilegious, that it is naïve, that it is pseudo whatever or other may happen to sound best, that it is over brutal in cynicism, that it is incurably sentimental, and that it bores me beyond description,—yet otherwise I can, at just this moment, think of no especial other fault to find with his magic.”
So it was that these dripping and affable enchanters went on defending Horvendile with such generous volubility that Gerald could get in no word.
Then each took off the single garment which he wore, and so vanished, because without their wet blankets these enchanters were in no way noticeable. And Gerald rode away from that place contentedly, because it was a natural comfort to know that he traveled with a guide and a patron who was so well thought of by the best judges.
22.
The Paragraph of the Sphinx
NOW upon the outskirts of Turoine, after Gerald had ridden through this city, Gerald paused to talk with the Sphinx who lay there writing with a black pen in a large black-covered book like a ledger. The monster had so long couched in this place as to be half-imbedded in the red earth.
“This partially buried condition, ma’am,” Gerald began,—“or perhaps one ought to say ‘sir’—”
“Either form of address,” replied the Sphinx, “may be applicable, according to which half of me you are considering.”
“—This semi-interment, then, madam and sir, is untidy looking, and cannot be especially comfortable.”
“Yet I may not move,” replied the Sphinx, “in part because I have my writing to complete, in part because I know all movement and all action of every kind to be equally fruitless. So do I retain eternal bodily as well as mental poise.”
“Such acumen borders upon paralysis,” Gerald said: “and paralysis is ugly.”