“In just such a home, Messire Tannhäuser, as is the cornerstone of every nation, the cradle of all the virtues, and the guiding-star of I forget precisely what. It is also the brightest jewel in the crown of something or other, and it assists other desirable abstractions in the capacity of a bulwark, a spur, and an anchor. It is, you may depend upon it, the proper place in which to end one’s fling.” “And I! I might, if only I had married that dear fine sweet girl Elizabeth, I, too, might have had such a home! For, after all, there is nothing like marriage and the love of a good woman. An endless round of perpetual pleasure-seeking rings hollow by and by, and one hungers for the simple sacred joys of home-life. I must, oh, very decidedly, I must settle down. I, too, must have just such a home as this.” But the thought of all which he had been missing so affected Tannhäuser that he took off the spectacles and unaffectedly wiped his eyes. After that the aging, comely knight sat for a while silent and rather frightened looking. He stared again at the cottage and at the moor, and then he stared at Gerald. “And you live in this hole, with a muddy brat and a dull-witted, middle-aged, not at all good-looking woman for your only company! I marvel at the enchantment which controls you. At least Dame Venus held me with an intelligible sort of sorcery.” “That,” Gerald replied, as he contentedly put on his rose-colored spectacles again, “is nonsense.” “It is a very dreadful nonsense. It is a soul-destroying and besotting nonsense, from which I flee to look for the less terrible enchantments of the Hörselberg.” Then Gerald put his question. “You, who have traveled through the Marches of Antan, wherein only two truths endure, and the one teaching is that we copulate and die,—do you not look to find in the goal of all the gods some third truth?” But the comely knight seemed not to have heard this question, in his frank terror of domesticity. Tannhäuser had mounted his horse, and he now rode galloping like a madman toward Antan. 37. Contentment of the Mislaid God NOW life contented Gerald as he lived it through this recognized parenthesis in his divine career. Very soon this little episode of his stay upon Mispec Moor would be ended: it would even be forgotten, perhaps, in the press of regal and superhuman affairs. Meanwhile he lived in quite tolerable ease. He had nothing to trouble him. Hardly a morning passed without his finding some more or less interesting celestial outcast to talk to under his chestnut-tree. Maya continued to be an excellent cook, in her plain, unpretentious way: and she saw to it that the cottage was kept comfortable and efficient in all appointments.