The Charwoman's Shadow
by Lord Dunsany
II: Ramon Alonzo Comes to the House in the Wood
Ramon Alonzo had travelled all day, and was twenty-five miles from his home; and now alone amongst darkness and storm and rocks he saw yet no sign of the house he sought, or any shelter at all. He had come past the sentinel oaks to the gloom of the wood, and neither saw light of window anywhere nor heard any of those sounds such as rise from the houses of men. He was in that mood that most attracts despair to come to men and tempt them; and indeed it would soon have come, luring him to forsake illusion and give up ambition and hope, but that just in that perilous moment he met a ragged man coming down through the wood. He came with strides, cloak and rags all flapping together, and would have passed the young traveller and hastened on towards the fields and the haunts of men, but Ramon Alonzo hailed him, demanding of him: “Where is the house in the wood?”
“Oh not there, young master, not there,” said the ragged stranger, waving his hands against something upon his left and up the slope a little behind him. “Not there, young master,” he implored again, and shuddered as he spoke. And no despair came near Ramon Alonzo then, to tempt all his aspirations down to their dooms, for he saw by the stranger’s unmistakable terror he had only to keep on upward and a little more to his right to come very soon in sight of the house in the wood.
“I have business with the magician,” replied Ramon Alonzo.
“May all such blessed Saints defend us as can,” said the stranger. He wrapped his cloak round him with a trembling hand and went shuddering down the slope drivelling terrified prayer.
“A fair night to you, señor,” called out Ramon Alonzo.
“Clearly not far,” he added, thinking aloud.
And once more he heard struggling feebly against the eerie voice of the wind those plaintive words imploring: “Not there, young master, not there.” And pressing on in the direction against which those feeble hands had waved so earnestly, he had gone some while against wind and slope and branches when a feeling came dankly upon him, as though exuded from the deep moss all around him, that he came no nearer to the house in the wood. He halted then and called out loud in the darkness: “If there be a magician in this wood let him appear.”
He waited and the wind sang on triumphantly, singing of spaces unconcerned with man, blue fields of the wind’s roving, dark gardens amongst the stars. He waited there and no magician came. So he sat on a boulder that was all deep with moss, and leaned back on it and looked into the wood, and saw nothing there but blackness and outlines of oak-boles. There he pondered how to come to his journey’s end. And then it came to him that this was no common journey, to be guided by the rules of ordinary wayfaring, but, having a magician as its destination and in an ominous wood, it were better guided by spell or magic or omen; and he meditated upon how he should come by a spell. And as he thought of spells he remembered the scroll he bore, with the ink of the magician upon it written eighty years agone. Now Ramon Alonzo’s studies had not extended so far as the art of writing; the good fathers in their school on the high hill near his home had taught him orally all that is needful to know, and much more he had learned for himself, but not by reading. Script therefore in black ink upon a scroll was in itself wonderful to him and, knowing it to have been penned by a magician, he reasonably regarded it as a spell. Arising then from his seat he waved this scroll high in the night and, knowing the liking that secret folk oft show for the number three, he waved it thrice. And there before him was the house in the wood.
It seemed to have slid down quietly from the high places of night, or it quietly appeared out of darkness that had hidden it hitherto, but the silence that cloaked its appearance almost instantly glided away, giving place to Arabian music that haunted the air overhead and plaintive Hindu love-chants that yearned in the dark. Then windows flashed into light, and there just in front of the mossy stone that the young man had made his seat was an old green door all studded with old green knobs. The door was ajar.
Ramon Alonzo stepped forward and pushed the green door open, and the magician came to his door with that alacrity with which the spider descends to the spot in his web that is shaken by some lost winged traveller’s arrival. He was in the great black silk cloak that the young man’s grandfather knew, but he wore great spectacles now, for he was older than he had been eighty years ago, in spite of his magic art. Ramon Alonzo bowed and the master smiled, though whether he smiled for welcome, or at a doom that hung over the strangers who troubled his door, there was no way for unlearned men to know. Then quickly, though still without fear, Ramon Alonzo thrust out the scroll that he bore, with the magician’s own writing upon it all in black ink; saying, word for word as his father had bade him say, “I am the grandson of him that taught you the taking of boars nigh eighty years ago.” The magician received it, and as he read his smile changed its nature and appeared to Ramon Alonzo somewhat more wholesome, having something in common with smiles of unlearned men that they smile at what is pleasant in earthly affairs. With a tact that well became him the master of magic made no enquiry after the young man’s grandfather; for as the rich do not speak of poverty to the poor, or the learned discourse on ignorance to the unlearned, this sage that had mastered the way of surviving the years spoke seldom with common men on the matter of death. But he bowed a welcome as though Ramon Alonzo were not entirely a stranger; and the young man expressed the pleasure that he felt at meeting a master of arts.
“There is but one Art,” answered the Master.
“It is the one I would study,” replied Ramon Alonzo.
“Ah,” said the magician.
And with an air now grown grave, as though somewhat pondering, he raised his arm and summoned up a draught, which closed his green door. When the door was shut and the draught had run home, brushing by the loose silk sleeve of the magician to its haunt in the dark of the house, which Ramon Alonzo perceived to be full of crannies, the host led his guest to an adjacent room, whence the savour of meats arose as he opened the door. And there was a repast all ready cooked and spread, waiting for Ramon Alonzo. By what arts those meats were kept smoking upon that table ready for any stranger that should come in from the wood, ready perhaps since the days of the young man’s grandfather, I tell not to this age, for it is far too well acquainted already with the preservation of meat.
With a bow and a wave of his arm the magician appointed a chair to Ramon Alonzo. And not till his guest was seated before the meats did the magician speak again.
“So you would study the Art,” he said.
“Master,” the young man answered him, “I would.”
“Know then,” the magician said, “that all those exercises that men call arts, and all wisdom and all knowledge, are but humble branches of that worthy study that is justly named the Art. Nor is this to be revealed to all chance-come travellers that may imperil themselves by entering my house in the wood. My gratitude to your grandfather however, for some while now unpaid (I trust he prospers), renders me anxious to serve you. For he taught me a branch of learning that he had studied well: it was moreover one of those studies that my researches had not yet covered, the matter of the hunting of boars; and from this, as from every science that learning knows, the Art hath increase, and becometh a yet more awful and reverend power whereby to astound the vulgar, and to punish error, not only in this wood but finally to drive it out of all worldly affairs.”
And he spoke swiftly past his mention of Ramon Alonzo’s grandfather, lest his guest should have the embarrassment of admitting that his grandfather had shared with all the unlearned the vulgar inability to withstand the flight of the years. For himself he kept on a shelf in an upper room a bottle of that medicine philosophers use, which is named elixir vitae, wherein were sufficient doses to ensure his survival till the time when he knew that the world would begin to grow bad. He took one dose in every generation. By certain turns in the tide of life in those that he watched, a touch of grey over the ears, a broadening or a calming, he knew that the heyday of a generation was past and the time had come for his dose. And then he would go one night by resounding stairs, that were never troubled by anything human but him, whatever the rats might dare, and so he would come with his ponderous golden key, for an iron one would have long since rusted away, to the lock he turned only once every thirty years. And, opening the heavy door at the top of the stairs and entering that upper room, he would find his bottle grey with dust on its shelf, perhaps entirely hidden by little curtains that the spiders had drawn across it, and measuring his dose by moonlight he would drink it full in the rays, as though he shared this secret alone with the moon. Then back he would go down those age-worn steps of oak with his old mind suddenly lightened of the cares of that generation, free from its foibles, untroubled by its problems, neither cramped nor duped by its fashions, unyoked by its causes, undriven by its aims, fresh and keen for the wisdom and folly of a new generation. Such a mind, well stored with the wisdom of several ages and repeatedly refreshed with the nimble alertness of youth, now crossed in brief conversation the young mind of Ramon Alonzo, like a terrible blade of Toledo, sharpened in ancient battles, meeting a well-wrought rapier coming fresh to its first war.
“My grandfather unfortunately came to his death,” said Ramon Alonzo.
“Alas,” said the Master.
“Our family is well used to it,” said the youth with a certain pride, for poverty has its pride as well as wealth, and Ramon Alonzo would not be abashed by his forebears’ lack of years even though he should speak with an immortal.
“Is that so?” said the Master.
“I thank you,” said Ramon Alonzo, “for the noble sentiments you so graciously felt for my grandfather and shall greatly value such learning as you may have leisure to teach me, for I would make gold out of the baser metals, my family having great need of it.”
“There are secrets you shall not learn,” replied the magician, “for I may impart them to none; but the making of gold is amongst the least of the crafts that are used by those skilled in the Art, and were only a poor return for the learning I had from your grandfather concerning the hunting of boars.”
“Beyond this wood,” said Ramon Alonzo, “we set much store by gold, and value it beyond the hunting of boars.”
“Beyond this wood,” replied the Master, “lies error, to extirpate which is the object of my studies. For this my lamp is lit, to the grief of the owls, and often burns till lark-song. Of the things you shall learn here earliest the prime is this, that the pursuit of the philosophers is welfare. To this gold often contributes; often it thwarts it. But it was plainly taught by your grandfather that the hunting of boars is amongst those things that bring pure joy to man. This study must therefore always be preferred to such as only bring us happiness incompletely, or that have been known to fail to bring it at all, as the hunting of boars never failed, so I learned from your grandfather.”
“I fear that my grandfather,” said the young man deprecatingly, “was but ill-equipped for discourse with a philosopher, having had insufficient leisure, as I have often been told, for learning.”
“Your grandfather,” answered the Master, “was a very great philosopher. Not only had he found the way to happiness but of that way was a most constant explorer, till none may doubt that he knew its every turning; for he could track the boars to the forest all the way from the fields where they rooted, knowing what fields they would seek and the hour at which they would leave them, and could hearten his hounds while they hunted, even through watery places, and when scent was lost and all their cunning was gone he still could lead them on; and so he brought them upon many a boar, and slew his quarry with spear-thrusts that he had practised, and took its tusky head, which was his happiness; and rarely failed to achieve it, having so deeply studied the way.
“I also have followed the pursuit of happiness, studying all those methods that are most in use amongst men, as well as some that are hidden from them; and most of these methods are vain, leaving few that are worthy of the investigation of one holding the rank that I now hold amongst wizards. Of these few that have stood the test of my most laborious analysis is this one that I owe to the researches of your grandfather, and which, seeing how few are the ways of attaining happiness, is certainly among the four great branches of learning. Who knows these four great studies hath four different ways of approach to the goal of mankind, and hath that might that is to be got by complete wisdom alone. For this cause I give great honour to your grandfather, and extol his name, and bless it by means of spells, and in my estimation place it high amongst the names of those whose learning has lightened the world. Alas that his studies gave him no time for that last erudition which could have ensured his survival to these days and beyond them.”
The young man was surprised at the value the Master placed upon boar-hunting for, having as yet learned nothing about philosophy, he vaguely and foolishly believed it to be concerned with mere intricate words, and did not know in his youthful ignorance that its real concern was with happiness. Such folly is scarce becoming to young heroes, yet having sought to lure my reader’s interest towards him I feel it my duty to tell the least of his weaknesses, without which my portrait of him would be a false one. And so I expose his ignorance to the eyes of a later age; he will not be abashed by it now; but seated beside the meat at that magic table he felt the triviality of his schoolboy’s scraps of learning before every particle that the magician chose to reveal from his lore. And with all the intensity that trifles can summon up in youth he regretted his disparagement of his grandfather, not on account of his own reverence for him, but because he now perceived him to have been one that the Master held in honour. To cover his confusion he poured himself out some wine from a beaker at his right hand, partly bronze, partly glass, the bronze and glass being intermingled by magic; and, having filled his cup, a clear hollowed crystal, he hastily drank it before he spoke again.
And the wine was a magic wine with a taste of flowers, yet of flowers unknown to Earth, and a flavour of Spices, yet of spices ungathered in any isles Spain knew; and it had in it a memory and a music, and came to the blood like one that was closely kin, and yet of a kinship from ages and ages ago. And all of a sudden the young man saw his folly, in deeming that philosophy prefers the way to the end, and so for a moment he saw his grandfather’s wisdom; but that wonderful wine’s inspiration died swiftly away, and his thoughts were concerned again with the making of gold.
The magician had silently watched him drink of that magic vintage.
“It comes not from these vineyards,” he said. And he waved his arm so wide that he seemed to indicate no vineyard of Spain, nor the neighbouring kingdom of Portugal; nor France, nor Africa, nor the German lands; Italy, Greece, nor the islands.
“Whence?” asked Ramon Alonzo, leaning forward in earnest wonder.
And the Master extended his arm, pointing it higher. It seemed to point towards the Evening Star, that low and blue and large was blinking beyond the window.
“It is magic,” said Ramon Alonzo.
“All’s magic here,” said the Master.