The Charwoman's Shadow
by Lord Dunsany
X: The Exposure of the False Shadows
The work of the morning was to learn the correct application of the smooth philosopher’s stone to the surfaces of metals that had been already so blended that they approached in texture and colour to the texture and colour of gold, and were thus already prepared to receive the changes to be given their element by the touch of the stone. “Without this preparation,” the magician warned his pupil, “the change in the element is too violent, and has in former times not merely wrecked, but entirely transmuted, the houses of certain philosophers; whereby the world has lost such store of learning as may in no wise be estimated.
“Nor is it well to attempt the change of the element in too great a bulk at one time, as men have done when too greatly drawn by the lure of material things, seeking to change whole mountains; which, far from bringing them gold, has been the cause of volcanoes.
“Now the application of the philosopher’s stone is made in this manner: having chosen suitable metals to avoid too enormous a change, in such bulk as will cause no calamity, pass this stone over the surface with the exact rhythm that there is in the spell you use. There are many spells as there are many metals.” And he brought from a box in two handfuls a bundle of small scrolls.
Ramon Alonzo, who had believed he was about to be shown the secret, saw then, as the magician slowly sorted the scrolls, that there was still much to be taught. He had been patient all the day before; but now the light that shone through the volume of leaves, coming down cliffs of greenness, called to his inner being with so imperious a call, that it almost seemed as though Spain and the musical summer, and the mighty sun himself and the blue spaces of ether, all longed for Ramon Alonzo to wander to Aragona to toy with the idle maidens through empty hours of merriment. And a bird called out of the wood, and Ramon Alonzo felt that he must go.
“Master,” he said, “may I go once more to the fields of error? I have some business there not worthy for your attention; yet to myself it is pressing.”
The magician made a certain show of reluctance, to conceal the truth that he cared for little but his fee of the young man’s shadow, and meant soon to send him away, content with the vain acquirements of transmutation, for so it seemed to the magician. And then he gave him leave; but, with an earnestness far more real and a vehemence that seemed genuine, he warned his pupil again to be back before evening. And swift as dust on draughts that sometimes moaned in those chambers, and gay and light as the leaves, away went Ramon Alonzo. And once more the golden morning was before him as he came down from the wood, and Aragona twinkled in the distance. And partly his heart was full of a frivolous laughter and partly a wistful feeling all grave and strange, for the spires of Aragona moved even youth to solemnity; and none knew how this was, for the spires were bright and glad.
He gave one glance at his shadow to see that all was well with it; then strode over glittering grass with the shadow striding beside him: and so he came untired to the edge of the village, and saw there the band of maidens where they had promised to be. Blithe on the idle air came the merriment of their welcome.
And not a levity that blew their way all in the azure morning, and not a vanity that reached their thoughts, going from mind to mind, but they welcomed and toyed with and acclaimed as new. So they passed the morning, and when the heat of the day began to increase they loitered to a lane that had one long leafy roof, and there they sat in the shade and ate fruit that they had in baskets and listened while each in turn recounted the idlest tales. And the meed of every tale that pleased was laughter, and not a learned conceit nor studious fancy was allowed to intrude in any tale they told. After the wisdom that burdened the house in the wood, and the learning with which its very gloom was laden, its ancient store of saws and sayings and formulae, Ramon Alonzo rejoiced at every quip that they uttered and every peal of laughter that followed each quip, as the traveller over Sahara welcomes the pools in the mountains and the bands of butterflies that gather about them.
In the heavy leafy shade they laughed or talked continually, while all round them Spain slept through the middle hours of the day. And many a tale they told of surpassing lightness, too light to cross the ages and reach this day, even if they were worthy; but lost with all the little things that founder in the long reaches of Time, to be cast on the coasts of Oblivion, amongst unrecorded tunes and children’s dreams and sceptres of unsuccessful emperors.
But when shafts of sunlight slanted, and voices from beyond their lane showed that Spain was awaking, and the grandeur of the sun was past and he grew genial again, then they loitered out into the light, straying towards the hills. And, as they wandered there, other young men joined them, leaving their work till the morrow, for morrows they said would be many; young dark-skinned men with scarlet sashes flashing around their waists. Then the party drifted asunder as shallow streams in sunny sandy spaces when the water takes many ways, all of them gold and light-laden. And a tall dark maiden drifted with Ramon Alonzo, and one more slender than she; and the first was named Ariona and the second Lolun. And sometimes fair fancies came to Ariona, by which that band of maidens was often guided because they were strange and new. But the slender form of Lolun was driven by any fancy, in whatever mind it arose: a song would guide her, or any merriment lead her, as though she had less weight than these invisible things, as the thistledown has less weight than the south wind.
And as they drifted slowly towards the low western hills Ramon Alonzo saw that the sun was westering, and remembered the warning of the magician.
“I must go,” he said.
“Go?” said the two maidens, as though to leave that low sunlight to go alone through the wood were some monstrous imagination.
“I must return to the learned man with whom I study beyond the wood,” he said. “He desires me to be back with him this evening.”
“Oh!” said Lolun. She was shocked to hear of such a demand.
“He wishes to investigate with me one of the branches of learning.”
Then the two girls’ laughter on the mellow air rang out against learning, and trills of it floated as far as the hills, and echoes came back to the fields, and went wandering fainter and further; and in all the ways that heard them there was no thought of learning. And Ramon Alonzo’s plans were laughed away, as in later days the Armada was broken by storm, and so he forsook his intention to return to the house in the wood. He long remembered those trills of merry laughter, for not for long was he free of care again.
Driven then by those gusts of laughter as small ships are by light breezes, he came with the girls to the hills when the sun was low. And drifting all aimless on, they went up the slope, prattling and laughing and straying, led by whatever fancy led Ariona. And her fancy was to see the willowy lands that lay beyond the hill, with their trees and the shadowed grass looking strange in the evening. At such a place and at such a time, she felt, whatever there was of faery in our world would show clear hints for any girl to guess. And the further they got the eagerer grew Lolun to find whatever it was for which Ariona was searching. And, these impulses holding fair, Ramon Alonzo still went on before them.
And so they came to the ridge of the hill and saw the willowy lands. The low sun glittered in their faces, no longer a flashing centre of power avoided by human eyes; but a mystery, an enchantment, almost to be shared by man; and wholly shared by solitary trees, and bands of shrubs, far off on the wild plain, which now drew a mystery about them, as men in the tended fields began to draw their cloaks. They gazed some while in silence at those strange lands, which none saw from any window in Aragona; seeking their mystery which was almost clear and was coming nearer and nearer; and finding it, but for the tiniest shrubs and shadows, amongst which it hid, though barely, its secret enchantment. And as they looked at that strangeness, part spell and part blessing, descending on all those acres out of the evening, not a ripple of laughter shook the calm of their wonder. And then a cold wind blew for only a moment, rising up from its sleep in nowhere and moving to distant sails; and they stirred as the wind went by, and their search was ended.
They turned round then to look back at Aragona, with the late light on its spires, and its windows flashing; and saw men drawing toward it home from the fields. They stood there wondering to see how far they had come; waiting in idleness for the next whim to guide them, a little band of three with the young man in the middle. The slope they had just climbed lay golden below them.
Then Ariona screamed. Again she screamed before Lolun had followed the gaze of her terrified eyes. Then scream after scream went up from Lolun also.
Ramon Alonzo stood silent in sheer amazement between them. Then they sprang away from him making the sign of the Cross. But just as they sprang away Ramon Alonzo saw for a moment, amidst the shining grass, his shadow between their shadows; theirs lying so far along the golden slope that they ran a little way out to the level fields, his only five feet long.