“I will give you the master-word of darkness, that single word which death speaks to life, and which none answers. I will give you the power of the crucified serpent, and the spell which draws the sun and the moon to bathe in a silver tub and do your will. There is wealth in that spell, the wealth which purchases kingdoms. And I will give you, who have smiled so long, the power to laugh. I will do more, my proud little master: for I will give you the bravery to weep—”
But Florian answered: “You cannot give me anything worthy of comparison with that which I once had, and now have lost. I had my dreams of beauty and of holiness. I had the noblest dreams imaginable. These dreams I have embodied as no other man has ever done before me: these dreams I have made vital things, and I have introduced them into my living, full measure. No, you can give me nothing worthy of comparison with what I have lost. And you are free. In all these years the one service I have asked of you, who have been so long the mainstay and the destroyer of Puysange, is now at the last to reveal to me the shortest way to my patron saint.”
“From these saints you will get a quick and ugly shrift: from me long years of ease and wisdom, master,—utter wisdom, and no more restless doubtings about anything.”
Florian felt of a sudden that this small fawning creature was loathsome: and just as suddenly, Florian too was weary of all things that are and of all that was ever to happen anywhere.
“No, Collyn, I repudiate your wicked aid; and I set you free, not really hating evil or good either. But I honestly prefer to owe allegiance to nobody except myself. Because of that preference I shall go undefended to yet another high place in quest of my embodied dreams,—now for a second time, and now with a somewhat different intent.”
“You march toward death and toward utter destruction, my proud little master, when even now my power might save you. There is no other power that would befriend you now, for you march up against Heaven.”
“Yes, yes! that is regrettable of course, it tends to establish a bad precedent. But it is my ill luck to be both a gentleman and a poet,—a poet who, I can assure you,” Florian said, hastily, “has never written any verses. That, at least, nobody can charge me with. Now to a gentleman destruction is preferable to dishonor: and to a married poet, Collyn, there are worse things than death.”
24.
Marie-Claire
