Something About Eve

    “You astound me. I would have supposed the name of Gaston Bulmer to be in all infernal circles a household word, because the dear old rascal is an adept, sir, of wide parts, of taste, and of sound judgment. Then, too, since Mrs. Townsend is his daughter, he has now for some while been my father-in-law for all practical purposes—But, where was I? Ah, yes! Through Gaston Bulmer, I repeat, I became initiate into the greatest of all arts. Now I desire to excel in that art. I note that I falter in the little art of letters, that my prose is no longer superb and breath-taking in its loveliness, because my heart is not any longer really interested in writing, on account of my heart’s ever-pricking desire to revive in its full former glories the far nobler and—at all events, in the United States of America,—the unjustly neglected art of the magician. And from whom else—just as you have suggested, my dear fellow,—from whom else save the Master Philologist can I get the great and best words of magic? Do you but answer me that very simple question!”

    “From no one else, to be sure—”

    “So, now, you see for yourself!”

    “Yet the Master Philologist is nowadays a married man, and is ruled in everything by his wife. And this Queen Freydis has a mirror which must, they say, be faced by those persons who venture into the goal of all the gods of men—”

    “That mirror, too,” said Gerald, airily, “I may be needing. Mirrors are employed in many branches of magic.”

    Glaum now was speaking with rather more of graveness than there seemed any call for. And Glaum said:

    “For one, I would not meddle with that mirror. Even in the land of Dersam, where a mirror is sacred, we do not desire any dealings with the Mirror of the Hidden Children and with those strange reflections which are unclouded by either good or evil.”

    “I shall face the Mirror of the Hidden Children,” Gerald said, with his chin well up, “and should I see any particular need for it, I shall fetch that mirror also out of Antan. When a citizen of the United States of America takes up the pursuit of an art, sir, he does not shilly-shally about it.”

    “For my part,” the Sylan answered, “I wearied, some centuries ago, of all magic: and I hanker, rather, after the more material things of life. For five hundred years and over, in my untroubled abode at Caer Omn, in the land of Dersam, I have reigned among the dreams of a god—”

    “But how did you come by these dreams?”

    “They forsook him, Gerald, when his hour was come to descend into Antan.”

    “That saying, sir, I cannot understand.”

    “It is not necessary, Gerald, that you should. Meanwhile, I admit, the life of a Sylan has no fret in it, a Sylan has nothing to be afraid of: and there is in me a mortal taint which cannot endure interminable contentment any longer. You conceive, I also was once a mortal man, with my deceivings and my fears and my doubts to spice my troubled deference to the ever-present folly of my fellows and to the ever-present ruthlessness of time and chance. And, as I remember it, Gerald, that Guivric, whom people so preposterously called the Sage, got more zest out of his subterfuges and compromises than I derive from being care-free and rather bored twenty-four hours to each insufferable day. Therefore, I repeat, I will take over your natural body—”

    “But that, my dear fellow, would leave me without any carnal residence.”

    “Why, Gerald, but I am surprised at such skepticism in you who pay your pew-rent so regularly! We have it upon old, fine authority that for every man there is a natural body and a spiritual body.”

    Then Gerald colored up. He felt that both his erudition and his piety stood reproved. And he said, contritely:

    “In fact, as a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, I am familiar with the Burial Service—Yes, you are right. I have no desire to take issue with St. Paul. The religion of my fathers assures me that I have two bodies. I can live in only one of them at a time. It is, for that matter, a bit ostentatious, it has a vaguely disreputable sound, for any unmarried man to be maintaining two establishments. So, let us get on!”

    “Therefore, I repeat, I will take over your natural body, just as that first Glaum once took over my body; and I will take over all your body’s imbroglios, even with your mistress,—who can hardly be more tasking to get along with than are the seven official wives and the three hundred and fifty-odd concubines I am getting rid of.”

    “You,” Gerald said, morosely, “do not know Evelyn Townsend.”

    “I trust,” the Sylan stated, more gallantly, “to have that privilege to-morrow.”

    It was in this way the bargain was struck. And then the Sylan who was called Glaum of the Haunting Eyes did what was requisite.

3 . Two Geralds