The Charwoman's Shadow
by Lord Dunsany
VII: Ramon Alonzo Follows the Art
So fast the magician came striding back to his room with the letter he had from Peter, that Ramon Alonzo’s eye had scarce time to rove, and had not found the long thin box for which it began to seek. One thought alone, to rescue the charwoman’s shadow, was filling his generous young mind, when the magician gave him the letter that came from his father. The letter he read alone though the magician proffered his aid, but Ramon Alonzo was eager to use his new learning; the magician therefore watched his face as he read, and learned thereby as much of the letter as Father Joseph had guessed of its purpose, for the thoughts of men were much the concern of them both.
When Ramon Alonzo had read the letter he sighed. Farewell, he thought, to his shadow. He began to think of it as he had never thought before. A mood came on him such as comes on us sometimes at sunset, when shadows are many and long; yet we never think of shadows as he then thought of his: wistful pictures of the slender intangible thing were brooding in his mind: he too was learning how one may love one’s shadow. Such fancies as we may sometimes have for swallows when we see them gathering to leave us, such feelings as men may have for far-off cliffs of a native land they are losing, such longings as schoolboys have for home on the last day of holidays, all these Ramon Alonzo felt for the first time for his shadow.
And then he thought of his sword and reflected that it could not be for him as it was for that poor old woman; men had not the need, as women had, of the protection of common things that the vulgar set store by; if any would not speak with him because he had lost his shadow the matter could be argued courteously with the sword; and, as for stones, he esteemed that none would dare to throw them, nor he care if they threw. So he looked up at the magician and, with some echo of sorrow touching his tones, said: “Master, I fain would learn the making of gold.”
The Master glanced at a magic book, for a moment refreshing his memory: “The fee is your shadow,” he said.
And once more Ramon Alonzo thought of the grace of his shadow, and the years they had been together: he remembered its lightness, its pranks, its patient followings; he thought of long journeys together, returning at close of day, he growing wearier at every step and the shadow stronger and stronger. He hesitated and the magician saw him. Then, to close his finger and thumb upon that young shadow, and add it to the band of which he was master, the Master of the Art made a sudden concession, and so closed the bargain. “Out of the gratitude I bear to your grandfather,” he said, “I will give you a false one to wear at your heels in its place.”
One shadow were as good as another, thought Ramon Alonzo, unless it had any evil or sinister shape.
“Will it be even as mine?” said he.
“I will shape it exactly so; as artists make their pictures.”
It was enough: who would not have made such a bargain? How could he have guessed the truth of that duplicate shadow?
“Before I receive my fee,” said the magician, “I will make the copy. Stand now in the light of the window that the copy may be exact.”
And Ramon Alonzo stood where he was told.
Then the Master, with eyes intent on the young man’s shadow, cut a copy from out of the gloom that hung in the air, using a blade that he held between finger and thumb, too tiny for earthly uses; while with his left hand, by tense signs and beckonings, he held Ramon Alonzo rigid so that his shadow might make no stir. Then he cut from the gloom a shadow so like to the human one that when he carefully laid it out on the floor side by side with the true one none could have guessed which was which, except that the new one’s heels as yet were attached to nothing mortal. A space of light like the shape of Ramon Alonzo hung for a while in the dark of the air from which the shadow was cut; then the gloom fell gradually in on it.
“See,” said the magician, pointing to the two shadows, and the young man turned his head: certainly no one that wished to part with his shadow could have desired a better copy.
“The likeness,” said Ramon Alonzo, “is admirable.”
Then the magician went to the young man’s heels and severed his shadow with the same curious instrument with which he had cut the other out of the gloom; and, holding it tight in one hand, he picked up the copy in the other and placed it nearer; and as soon as the false shadow came near Ramon Alonzo’s heels it ran to them.
He moved from his place and the false shadow moved with him; there was no appreciable change; and yet he had paid his fee to the magician, and was about to receive that learning that had been the goal of so many philosophers. And now the magician, still holding the shadow tight, leaned over a crocodile, and after a moment’s rummaging, picked up a long thin box from the dark of the cobwebs. By its great length and narrowness and lightness, for the magician lifted it easily with one hand, Ramon Alonzo knew it for the shadow-box. It was padlocked, but in the padlock was no keyhole. He watched the Master go to his lectern and put down the box and turn over several pages of the great Cathayan book: he saw upon which page his eye rested, a page with one spell upon it in three black Cathayan characters; then the Master closed the book and said a spell to the padlock, but in so low a voice that Ramon Alonzo heard never a word. The padlock opened, the Master raised the lid, and in went his shadow. For a moment the young man saw in the box a mass of wriggling greyness, then the lid shut down and the keyless padlock snapped.
Then the Master took down from a shelf the philosopher’s stone, an object no larger than a small bird, and of texture and colour similar to what we call fireclay, but of a slightly yellower tint; its shape resembled the shape of the lumps of pumice we use. This he took to his lectern and put down beside the book, but before lecturing upon its use he explained to Ramon Alonzo that many had sought it, as the world knew; and many had found it, as the world knew not. With this the philosophers made gold by touching certain metals, upon which he would afterwards discourse, in a certain manner, which he would later explain; and when they had done with the gold they usually buried it in the extremes of Africa, or in a continent that there was to the south, or in other places beyond the possessions of Spain, so that the object of their experiments should not corrupt men. He then discoursed on the power of gold to corrupt the unlearned; but this Ramon Alonzo had already studied in the school of the good fathers, so he let his thoughts roam far from the gloomy house, whither his body had not gone since first he had entered it so many days ago. He thought of the village of Aragona, its flowers, its merry houses, the trees with their deep-leaved branches bending over its happy lanes, and its simple mortal people following their earthly callings. So that soon he had planned to see that world again, with its sunlight, movement, and voices, of which he had only known for some days now through the black letters of books.
As the magician ended his lecture on the corrupting power of gold the young man through force of habit murmured Amen. The magician stepped sideways, and made, swift as a parry, a sign to guard himself that was not the sign of the Cross. And then Ramon Alonzo felt again that confusion that had troubled him once when he inadvertently swore, while the Bishop of Salamanca rode near on his mule. The bishop had not heard him and all had been well.
The brief silence was broken by the Master of the Art, who said: “Tomorrow I will discourse on those metals, whose structure most nearly resembling the structure of gold, are therefore most adaptable to the changes of transmutation.”
“Master,” said Ramon Alonzo, “I pray you to give me half a holiday.”
“For what purpose?” asked the magician.
“To see the world,” said Ramon Alonzo, “as far as Aragona.”
“There is nothing,” replied the magician, “to be learned in the world that is not taught in this house. Moreover there is no error in this wood; but fare beyond it and you shall meet much error, to the confusion of true learning.”
“All error that I meet beyond the wood I hope to correct by your teaching,” said Ramon Alonzo.
The ancient mind of the magician, perpetually refreshed through the ages, and stored with wisdom that few have time to acquire, perceived the ring of mere flattery in this statement, and yet he was not immune from this earthly seduction. He let Ramon Alonzo go.
“Go in the morning,” he said, “and be back before the sun is westering.”
Ramon Alonzo rejoiced. But the magician only cared that he had got the young man’s shadow. For his power was chiefly over shadowy things, and he lusted for shadows as others lust for the substance, having learned by ages of learning the utter vanity of substantial things. And he counted the secret of gold well yielded up in exchange for a shadow; for he knew how men set their hearts and hopes on gold, and how it failed them, and wot well that these hopes could not be built on a shadow.
And Ramon Alonzo went, light of heart, to find the charwoman, to let her see how little, as he supposed, he had lost by giving away his shadow. The magician returned to his box and took all his shadows out, and enjoyed amongst them awhile that absolute power that ancient monarchs had, who had no laws to control them or hostile neighbours to fear.
And while the magician was revelling in his power, in the quiet and gloom of his room, Ramon Alonzo, guided by his more human sympathies, was telling the charwoman that he had seen the shadow-box, and knew where it lay in the cobwebs behind a crocodile, and hoped somehow to coax it open and rescue her shadow. While she sighed and shook her head he walked often up and down before a window so that she saw the shadow, and could see she never suspected the price he had paid for the sight he had had of the shadow-box. And he, as he saw that perfect copy running so nimbly behind him, believed with the blindness of youth that he had paid nothing.