Clair de Lune Part 6

Then I am a web binding men and women while they sleep to unexpected things.

URSUS

Ah, you are a trouble maker?

PHEDRO

No--but I discover what is unusual in the senses of one person and in the circ.u.mstances of another person--Indeed, I have had a splendid training.

URSUS

Where?

PHEDRO

I have been--but I was almost showing you the colour of the water I rose from.

URSUS

Well, I have no curiosity.

PHEDRO

That is exactly why one wishes to talk to you. Curiosity in other people always makes me terribly suspicious. I remember suddenly the reasons that can make _me_ curious. Now I can talk to you, for one feels you might not even listen, so you couldn't possibly care enough to repeat. I was a lackey once.

URSUS

A sordid position.

PHEDRO

[_Becomes slightly frenzied during his speech._]

Yes. A servant is something to absorb the spittle of their irritability. A hand to arrange the pages of their private diary when they get stuck together with filth; and above all a presence between them and the mirror during those grey dawn hours when pa.s.sing it, they are likely to see themselves as they are. Ah, then one must be armed with the eloquence of Cato to rea.s.sure these sow's ears that they are still silk purses. Otherwise the devil has to be bought off in the morning and with three times the effort. One thing they never count on, however.

URSUS

And that?

PHEDRO

The effect on another human being of their absurdity and the pa.s.sion of malice they rouse from a too long concealed contempt.

URSUS [_looking at him curiously_]

Contempt is the armour of snakes.

PHEDRO [_his face undergoing a change_]

Is it truly, my fine gentleman? Well, my mind has been wandering and stumbled on a _cul-de-sac_ as usual. Ah, the hope of being understood--it is almost extinct. However, if I cannot be understood, I shall, nevertheless, be felt.

URSUS

Well, what do you want of me? I am a philosopher and as such am not occupied with any sort of facts.

PHEDRO

I suppose not. You philosophers are blind men in dark rooms looking for the footprints of shadows, are you not?

URSUS [_smiling_]

Not at all. We philosophers have merely learned to practice humour in the presence of what is commonplace. But what is it you do want of me?

PHEDRO

What everybody wants--to talk about Gwymplane.

URSUS

Well?

PHEDRO

Have you had this gold mine with you long?

URSUS

Years and years.

PHEDRO

You bought him, I suppose, from some travelling show?

URSUS

No, he came to me of his own accord, and yet by accident.

PHEDRO

Was he riding the wind? And did it drop him by chance upon your knees?

URSUS

He came by accident. He remains of his own accord.

PHEDRO

Curious.