"To think," replied the bull, "that you should mistake me for Nandi! No, tired man, the Bull of the Gods is white, and nothing of that serene color may ever come into these woods."
And the bull nodded very gravely, shaking the blue curls that were between his cruel horns.
"Ah, then, sir, I must entreat your forgiveness for the not unnatural error into which I was betrayed by the majesty of your appearance."
While Anavalt was speaking, he wondered why he should be at pains to humor an illusion so trivial as he knew this bull to be. For this of course was just the ruler of the Kittle cattle which everywhere feed upon the dewpools. The Queen of Elfhame, in that low estate to which the world's redemption had brought her, could employ only the most inexpensive of retainers, the Gods served her no longer.
"So you consider my appearance majestic! To think of that now!" observed the flattered bull; and he luxuriously exhaled blue flames. "Well, certainly you have a mighty civil way with you, to be coming from that overbearing world of souls. Still, my duty is, as they say, my duty; fine words are less filling than moonbeams: and, in short, I do not know of any sound reason why I should let you pass toward Queen Vae."
Anavalt answered:
"I must go to your thin mistress because among the women yonder whose bodies were not denied to me there is one woman whom I cannot forget. We loved each other once; we had, as I recall that radiant time, a quaint and callow faith in our shared insanity. Then somehow I stopped caring for these things, I turned to matters of more sensible worth. She took no second lover, she lives alone. Her beauty and her quick laughter are put away, she is old, and the home of no man is glad because of her who should have been the tenderest of wives and the most merry of mothers. When I see her there is no hatred in the brown eyes which once were bright and roguish, but only forgiveness and a puzzled grieving. Now there is in my mind no reason why I should think about this woman differently from some dozens of other women who were maids when I first knew them, but there is in my mind an unreason that will not put away the memory of this woman's notions about me."
"Well," said the bull, yawning, "for my part, I find one heifer as good as another; and I find, too, that in seeking Queen Vae one pretext is as good as another pretext, especially from the mouth of such a civil gentleman. So do you climb over my back, and go your way, to where there are no longer two sides to everything."
Thus Anavalt passed the King of the Kittle cattle.
§ 41