47. Economics of Saraïde

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KERIN went forward, beneath naked elder boughs, toward his dear home; and he saw coming out of the door of the gray house the appearance of a man who vaguely passed to the right hand of Kerin in the twilight. But a woman’s figure waited at the door; and Kerin, still going onward, came thus, in the November twilight, again to Saraïde.

“Who is that man?” said Kerin, first of all. “And what is he doing here?”

“Does that matter?” Saraïde answered him, without any outcry or other sign of surprise.

“Yes, I think it matters that a naked man with a red shining about his body should be seen leaving here at this hour, in the dead of winter, for it is a thing to provoke great scandal.”

“But nobody has seen him, Kerin, except my husband. And certainly my own husband would not stir up any scandal about me.”

Kerin scratched his white head. “Yes, that,” said Kerin, “that seems reasonable, according to the best of my knowledge. And the word ‘knowledge’ reminds me, Saraïde, that you sent me in search of knowledge as to why life is given to human beings, so that you might in the light of this knowledge appropriately dispose of your youth. Well, I have solved your problem, and the answer is, Nobody knows. For I have acquired all knowledge. All that any man has ever known, I am now familiar with, from the medicinal properties of the bark aabec to the habits of the dragonfly called zyxomma: but no man, I find, has ever known for what purpose life was given him, nor what ends he may either help or hinder in any of his flounderings about earth and water.”

“I remember,” Saraïde said now, as if in a faint wonder. “I wanted, once, when I was young and when the eye of no man went over me without lingering, then I wanted to know the truth about everything. Yet the truth does not really matter to the young, who are happy; and who in any case have not the shrewdness nor the power to change anything: and it all seems strange and unimportant now. For you have been a long time gone, my Kerin, and I have lived through many years, with many and many a companion, in the great while that you have been down yonder getting so much knowledge from the bird who has the true wisdom.”

“Of whatever bird can you be talking?” said Kerin, puzzled. “Oh, yes, now I also remember! But, no, there is nothing in that old story, my darling, and there is no Zhar-Ptitza in the Well of Ogde. Instead, there is a particularly fine historical and scientific library: and from it I have acquired all knowledge, and have thus happily solved your problem. Nor is that the end of the tale: for you wanted not merely knowledge but truth also, and in consequence I have found out for you the one thing which—according to Abraham’s divine collaborator, in a moment of remarkable and, I suppose, praiseworthy candor,—is wholly true. And that truth I have neatly copied out for you upon this bit of paper—”

But there was really no understanding these women who despatched you upon hazardous and quite lengthy quests. For Saraïde had interrupted him without the least sign of such delight and satisfaction, or even of pride in her husband’s exploits, as would have seemed only natural. And Saraïde said:

“The truth does not matter to the aged. Of what good is the truth to you or to me either, now that all the years of our youth are gone, and nothing in our living can be changed?”

“Well, well!” observed Kerin, comfortably, and passing over her defects in appreciation, “so the most of our lifetime has slipped by since I slipped over that well-curbing! But how time flies, to be sure! Did you say anything, my dear?”

“I groaned,” replied Saraïde, “to have you back again with your frayed tags of speech and the desolation of your platitudes: but that does not matter either.”

“No, of course not: for all is well, as they say, that ends well. So out with your talisman, and let us quicken the golden shining which will attest the truth I have fetched back to you!”

She answered rather moodily: “I have not that talisman any longer. A man wanted it. And I gave it to him.”

“Since generosity is a virtue, I have no doubt that you did well. But to what man, Saraïde, did you give the jewel that in youth you thought was priceless?”

“Does that matter, now? and, indeed, how should I remember? There have been so many men, my Kerin, in the tumultuous and merry years that are gone by forever. And all of them—” Here Saraïde breathed deeply. “Oh, but I loved them, my Kerin!”

“It is our Christian duty to love our neighbors. So I do not doubt that, here again, you have done well. Still, one discriminates, one is guided, even in philanthropy, by instinctive preferences. And therefore I am wondering for what especial reason, Saraïde, did you love these particular persons?”

“They were so beautiful,” she said, “so young, so confident in what was to be, and so pitiable! And now some of them are gone away into the far-off parts of earth, and some of them are gone down under the earth in their black narrow coffins, and the husks of those that remain hereabouts are strange and staid and withered and do not matter any longer. Life is a pageant that passes very quickly, going hastily from one darkness to another darkness with only ignes fatui to guide; and there is no sense in it. I learned that, Kerin, without moiling over books. But life is a fine ardent spectacle; and I have loved the actors in it: and I have loved their youth and their high-heartedness, and their ungrounded faiths, and their queer dreams, my Kerin, about their own importance and about the greatness of the destiny that awaited them,—while you were piddling after, of all things, the truth!”

“Still, if you will remember, my darling, it was you yourself who said, as you no doubt recall, just as you shoved me—”

“Well! I say now that I have loved too utterly these irrational fine things to have the heart, even now, to disbelieve in them, entirely: and I am content.”

“Yes, yes, my dear, we two may both well be content. For we at last can settle down and live serenely in this place, without undue indulgence in philanthropy; and we two alone will know the one truth which is wholly true.”

“Good Lord!” said Saraïde; and added, incoherently, “But you were always like that!”