[Gobsmacked! That was how that last chapter hit me. I may have moved from kindergarten to first grade, for there is much going on in Chapter 18. Fortunately elements in my life broke down for a while, giving me even more time to roll it around in my head. I took notes for the chapter on my email documents, sent them to myself, and then made only general use of them. The major image I had considered worked. When that happened the rest fell into place, nudge, nudge, so to speak.
Of course I may now have a problem of a different character. You see, I have just begun Chapter 19. We are near the end, for several reasons. Godric is at the Princess’s castle. Getting to her is thus not that far away. (The imp [of the perverse] doesn’t want me to stop: take him to the moon, first, the imp says; he says he will help. Yes, but who froze our machine for five days? It certainly wasn’t the writer, i.e. me. Either A or B! Not A; therefore B. Well, logic is not my strong suit, but that thinking seems accurate if, I’m aware of if! If the “either/or” is true. Ah, truth. The human mind is built to receive truth, yet it so often settles for the lie! Why is there something rather than nothing? The first philosophical question again. Either the mind of God conceived it (the Cosmic dream/idea) and spoke it into being; or, matter suddenly popped into existence and Bob’s your uncle!
I have read Christopher Dawson’s very fine essay on the age of Augustine and The City of God twice now, and I was astonished at the way my sense of the past came to life. That is, my sense that like our own age these were real people living in real time just as we are. Then too I have memories of events that happened that begin in the forties; I remember the radio announcement that came saying world war two was officially over.
Our kitchen was a long narrow one, counters, cupboards and sink on one side with windows looking out onto our long driveway and toward our neighbor’s windows which were looking toward us. Across from that counter and sink arrangement was the kitchen table and three or four chairs. The refrigerator was at the top of the kitchen between the two sides; the stove was on the chair and table side. My mother—Alice Jane—was washing dishes at the sink. I was sitting on a kitchen chair between the stove and the table and other chairs. I was five that summer, and in my hand I held a sealed plastic bag of margarine that also contained a yellow coloring cube. The idea was to kneed the coloring into the margarine to change the lard-like whiteness of the interior substance into something that at least looked like butter. It was war time. I was kneeding away—great fun for me—when the announcement came, and I remember so well because my mother was so excited, and I grew up learning exactly what that announcement really meant: evil on a monstrous scale had been defeated, done in for a time, though there was Berlin and then Korea to come. Of course, there was also the question of whether or not a great evil had been unleashed to defeat it.
I said something to the effect that there were other considerations too. I can’t in good conscience end a story on a “Chapter 19.” Hmm! 19 is a prime number, so depending on what I wanted to reveal there, i could end with a prime number. At this point though I would rather get to twenty (20). I suppose I could do as the hotels do with thirteen and just jump from 18 to twenty. That’s an intriguing idea, come to think about it. Numbers are important. What I do with them matters (to me, anyway). I suppose, however, a Squarespace weblog is really like a message in the sand on an ocean shore. Tide’s in; message covered. Tide’s out; message gone; the shore’s smooth again. Truth. Actually, truth, beauty, goodness—what I call the fundamentals.
Then, if I was five in forty-five, I was too young for Korea, and also, later, a tad too old for Vietnam, though I did have to take a physical exam at an army base in Columbus, Ohio in 1966, a memorable experience! In the draft lottery in 66 (I think) I was # 366, the very last number. However, another element under consideration is that I am almost ancient in human terms and might die before I get to find out what’s what in the end. You see, at any rate, I have a general idea, but I really won’t know until I write it. What if God made the universe so that he could see dinosaurs at work and play? Or what if he made a number of inhabited worlds to know for certain that a “human” race [i.e., human equals rational; capable of thinking out moral choices, regardless of physical appearance] could ever remain faithful. The point here is that I might die before I get to find out how the story ends. Alas. What is a true pastoral work? A lass in the grass? Alas! Time to leave off tonight as the silly season draws near.]
The problem at this point in the story is how he moved on, though that is not too difficult to understand once you consider what has gone before. Here, however, there was no well to tumble into, no stream to jump over, no door to crawl through, no mirror to touch. Instead, at the end of the hall of weapons and food, Godric saw, not a door or mirror, but a painting on the wall, a mural. Finally ignoring his desire for the food, especially for the scrumptious-looking cherry pie, he walked away from the food to examine the painting which turned out to be a large mural painted in vibrant hues of red, blue, green, yellow and white. The painting was a pastoral: sheep nibbling grass on a gentle hillside, an enticing lake of shimmering blue water in the distance, a lovely green-leaved tree near the top of the hill, a red-leafed bush behind the tree. On a colorful blanket under the tree sat a young shepherdess wearing a blue and white dress, and reading a book of poetry with a black and white border collie standing beside her, watching the sheep. It looked like a warm breezy day. As Godric stared at the young woman, she looked up from her book and returned his gaze with a feminine come-hither look.
Startled by such a move, Godric took a step back, looked down to find that the food and weapons room had vanished, leaving him on the cool grassy hillside. The young maiden held out her hand to him and beckoned him to approach. Godric couldn’t think what to do, so he stood his ground. She was certainly beautiful with long golden hair framing her face, blue eyes or perhaps green, smooth tan cheeks with a perfectly formed nose and chin, and inviting red lips.
“Come sit with me,” she said. “I have food and wine we can share.” She pointed to a wicker basket woven of willow twigs sitting beside her. She opened the basket and removed two clear wine glasses; then she lifted out a bottle of wine, uncorked it and poured some in each glass. Next she removed a loaf of freshly baked white bread, broke off a generous piece and placed it on the blanket beside one of the glasses of wine.
“Won’t you join me?” she asked in such a way, believing that his answer could be nothing other than “yes.”
Godric blushed and mumbled something that might have been “yes” as he walked to the blanket and sat down. He looked at the bread and wine, then at the young shepherdess.
“It’s not fairy food,” she said, sensing his reluctance. “There is no enchantment there. It’s just bread and wine!”
Having resisted the last food enchantment, the Prince decided to trust the young lady. She smiled sweetly as he picked up the fresh bread and bit into it. The bread was delicious and seemed to melt in his mouth. He picked up the wine glass and drank. The wine was cool and semi sweet. He found that both hunger and thirst were satisfied for the moment.
“What’s your name?” Godric managed to ask after a short pause.
“Elesandra, daughter of the King of Ardor. And you are Godric, Prince of Nodd, son of King Bolt. Isn’t that correct?”
“You seem to know already.” If the bread and wine were not the enchantment here, then it could only be the girl, Godric thought to himself. He struggled to become more objective in his consideration and behavior. Nonetheless he took another bite of bread and another drink of wine. “I was looking for a way to leave this place when I stumbled into your mural, I think. Is there a way out here?”
“Of course,” she replied. Then taking his hand, she looked into his eyes and asked, “but why would you want to leave just now? Weren’t you coming to find me? I was the one you moved through the mirror to meet.”
“I” Godric stuttered, “I—you don’t look quite the same, and I seem to have been lost in a purgatory of some sort for the past time and a half.” He shook his head. “Besides, the wine has made me a bit dizzy, for the world seems to be turning.”
“Of course the world is turning! That’s what worlds do; they spin causing time to flow like a river where you can’t step into the same place twice. That’s also why you have memory.” She picked up her wine glass and drank. Putting the glass down she picked up the bread and broke off a small piece.
“Why do I have memory?” Godric wondered whether he was losing his mind.
“Why, so you will remember who you are from fleeting moment to fleeting moment, and so that you can separate illusion from reality and act accordingly, so that you can seize the moment, so to speak.”
“Act accordingly? Seize the moment?”
“Exactly! For example, what would you do if I asked you to kiss me now? Would you lie down with me, put your arms around me, and kiss me boldly and passionately, the way a Prince should kiss a gentle maiden? I would certainly enjoy that. Wouldn’t you?”
Yes, thought Godric, I certainly would though, as in the other instances in this underground world, something appeared to be wrong. The shepherdess seemed to be waiting; she patted the blanket, took a red seedy fruit out of her basket and offered it to him. “Come and taste the pomegranate with its luscious enticing flavor! We can have such fun here, on my father’s lawn!”
Godric felt a strong urge to go to her, take her in his arms. He glanced up the hill as he started to move towards her and saw that the red-leafed bush behind the tree had burst into flame, had become a burning bush. The orange flames shot up either side of the bush, then shot across the top of the bush from each side, joining together so that they formed an arch for a kind of doorway. The center of the bush burned first orange, then blue, then white hot.
Elesandra looked up at the fire. “We’ll, Sir Prince, it looks as though you have your doorway, as well as a choice.” She smiled invitingly. “You can stay here with, and have all the pleasures we will prove, as the poet said, or you can try your luck with the door of fire! Which will you choose?”
Godric got to his feet, looked at the burning bush, looked down at the young woman. She rearranged her dress so that more of her tan shapely legs were revealed. Godric could feel the heat from the fire where he stood. He moved closer to the door and thought he could see a winding stair beyond the flames, an asymmetrical structure. He looked back at the girl. Her beauty seemed to have grown. He had seen people who were burned, but who had escaped death. They were scared for life and lived in great pain. Nevertheless, he knew that he could not stay in this underworld of enticements; that this was not living. While Elesandra might appear beautiful, he knew deep down that she was not real, a mirror image perhaps.
He drew his own sword which he had been wearing throughout, which he had purchased with the naiad’s gemstone. He patted his right side pocket from his leather pants. The gemstone was still there, he discovered; at the same time his sword burst into its characteristic blue flames that rippled up and down the finely sharpened edges. He looked one last time at the woman who called herself Elesandra, turned his back on her and slowly moved toward the bush. The flames were intense; sweat broke out on his face and head, under his arms, until his whole body was bathed in it. I should have spent last night in a chapel undergoing a knightly vigil to carry me through this torment, he thought.
He thrust his sword into the center of the flaming doorway; his hand seemed to burn but it didn’t blacken. He heard the sound of laughter behind him, but he did not look back. Keeping the sword pointed before him, he stepped into the center of the fierce fiery bush and walked into the midst of a flaming tunnel of fire which burned off impurities, but left him unscarred, standing at the foot of the winding, asymmetrical staircase. Oh my God, he thought!
Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Proserpine!
