But Manuel was speaking, rather sadly. “Coth, that which you have done because of your given word was very nobly done, and with heroic unreason. Coth, you are heroic, but the others are wise.”
“Master, there was an oath.” Coth’s voice now broke a little. “Master, it was not only the oath. There was a great love, also, in a worsening land, where lesser persons ruled, and there remained nobody like Manuel.”
But Manuel said: “The others are wise. You follow still the Manuel who went about Poictesme. Now in Poictesme all are forgetting that Manuel, and our poets are busied with quite another Manuel, and my own wife has builded a great tomb for that other Manuel.... Coth, that is always so. It is love, not carelessness, which bids us forget our dead, so that we may love them the more whole-heartedly. Unwelcome memories must be recolored and reshaped, the faults and blunders and the vexing ways which are common to all men must be put out of mind, and strange excellencies must be added, until the compound in nothing resembles the man that is dead. Such is love’s way, Coth, to keep love immortal.... Coth, oh, most bungling Coth!” said Manuel, very tenderly, “you lack the grace even to honor your loved dead in a decorous and wise fashion!”
“I follow the true Manuel,” Coth replied, “because to do that was my oath. There was involved, I cannot deny it, sir, some affection.” Coth gulped. “I, for the rest, am not interested in these new-fangled, fine lies they are telling about you nowadays.”
Then there was silence. A small wind went about the pepper plants; and it seemed to whisper of perished things.
Now Manuel said: “Coth, I repeat to you, the others are wise. I have gone, forever. But another Manuel abides in Poictesme, and he is nourished by these fictions. Yearly he grows in stature, this Manuel who redeemed Poictesme from the harsh Northmen’s oppression and lewd savagery. Already this Manuel the Redeemer has become a most notable hero, without fear or guile or any other blemish: and with each generation he will increase in virtue. It is this dear Redeemer whom Poictesme will love and emulate: men will be braver because this Manuel was so very brave; and men, in one or another moment of temptation, will refrain from folly because his wisdom was so well rewarded; and—sometimes, at least,—a few men will refrain from baseness, too, because all his living was stainless.”
“I,” Coth said, heavily, “do not recall this Manuel.”
“Nor do I recall him either, old grumbler. I can remember only one who dealt with each obligation as he best might, and that was always rather inefficiently. I remember many doings which I would prefer not to remember. And I remember a soiled struggler who reeled blunderingly from one half-solved riddle to another, thwarted and vexed, and hiding very jealously his hurt.... Well, it is better that such a person should be forgotten! And so I come from my last home to release you from your oath of service. I release you now, forever, dear Coth, and I now bid you do as all the others have done, and I now lay upon you my last orders. I order that you too forget me, Coth, as those have forgotten who might have known me better than you did.”
Coth said, with a queer noise which was embarrassingly like a sob: “I cannot forget the most dear and admirable of earthly lords. You are requiring, sir, the impossible.”
“Nevertheless, it is necessary that you too—bald realist!—should serve this other Manuel; and should forget, as your fellows have forgotten, that muddied and not ever quite efficient bull-necked straggler who has gone out of life and vigor and out of all persons’ memory. For now is come upon me my last obligation: it is that the figure which I made in the world shall not endure anywhere in any particle; and I accept this obligation also, and I submit to the common lot of all men, without struggling any longer.”