“Well, but, you see,” said Miramon, very miserably, “or perhaps I ought to say that, while of course, still, when you come to look at it more carefully, Ninzian, what I really mean is that the fact is, as it seems to me—”
“The fact is,” Ninzian returned, with a depressed but comprehending smile, “you are a married man. So am I. Well, then, you have one wish remaining, and no more. You can at will desire to have back again the control of your lost magics or you can have back your wife to control you—”
“Yes,” Miramon agreed, forlornly.
“And indeed,” sleek Ninzian went on, with that glib optimism reserved for the dilemmas of one’s friends, “indeed it is in many ways a splendid thing for you to have the choice clear cut. Nobody can succeed alike at being an artist and a husband. I hold no brief for either career, because I think that art is an unreasonable mistress, and I think also that a wife is amenable to the same description. But I am certain no man can serve both.”
Miramon sighed. “That is true. There is no marriage for the maker of dreams, because he is perpetually creating finer women than earth provides. The touch of flesh cannot content him who has arranged the shining hair of angels and modeled the breasts of the sphinx. The woman that shares his bed is there of course, much as the blanket or the pillow is there, and each is an aid to comfort. But what has the maker of dreams, what has that troubled being who lives inside the creature which a mirror reveals to him, to do with women? At best, these animals provide him with models to be idealized beyond the insignificant truth, somewhat as I have made a superb delirium with only a lizard to start on. And at worst, these animals can live through no half-hour without meddling where they do not understand.”
Now Miramon kept silence. He was fingering the magic colors with which he blazoned the first sketches of his dreams. Here was his white, which was the foam of the ocean made solid, and the black he had wrung from the burned bones of nine emperors. Here was the yellow slime of Scyros, and crimson cinnabaris composed of the mingled blood of mastodons and dragons, and here was the poisonous blue sand of Puteoli. And Miramon, who was no longer a potent sorcerer, considered that loveliness and horror which a moment ago he had known how to evoke with these pigments, he who had now no power to lend life to his designs, and who kept just skill enough it might be to place the stripings on a barber’s pole.
And Miramon Lluagor said: “It would be a sad happening if I were never again to sway the sleeping of men, and grant them yet more dreams of distinction and clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and truth and urbanity. For whether they like it or not, I know what is good for them, and it affords to their starved living that which they lack and ought to have.”
And Miramon said also: “Yet it would be another sad happening were my poor wife permitted eternally to scold the shivering earthquakes in the middle of next week. What does it matter that I do not especially like her? There is a great deal about myself that I do not like, such as my body’s flabbiness and the snub nose which makes ludicrous the face I wear: but do I hanker to be transformed into a sturdy man-at-arms? do I view the snout of an elephant with covetousness? Why, but, Ninzian, I am astonished at your foolish talking! What need have I of perfection? what would I have in common with anybody who was patient with me and thought highly of my doings?”
Miramon shook his head, with some sternness. “No, Ninzian, it is in vain that you pester me with your continuous talking, for I am as used to her shortcomings as I am to my own shortcomings. I regard her tantrums with the resignation I extend to inclement weather. It is unpleasant. All tempests are unpleasant. Ah, yes, but if life should become an endless clear May afternoon we could not endure it, we who have once been lashed by storms would cross land and sea to look for snow and pelting hail. Just so, to have Gisèle about keeps me perpetually fretted; but now that she is gone I am miserable. No, Ninzian, you may spare your talking, you need say no more, for I simply could not put up with being left to live in comfort.”
Ninzian had heard him through without impatience, because they were both married men. Now Ninzian, shrugging, said, “Then do you choose, Miramon, for your wife and no more dreams, or for your art and loneliness?”