“Then, too,” said he, “then, too, that rather wide-spread expectation of an oncoming triumph—somewhere, in some hazed roseate arena, beyond the discomforts of death and the incredible impudence of the mortician’s titivating,—that triumph which is to be a perpetual triumphing of justice and of rationality and of kindliness and of all the other canonical virtues, this rumored triumph yet cows many persons, not infrequently, into one or another thrifty-minded practice of these generally beneficent virtues.” Gerald said then: “It thus makes for, at any rate, terrestrial ease and stability and repose: it gives people, as the phrase runs, something to go by, in that it supports the most of every nation’s social and legal rules of thumb. And it tends appreciably to limit men’s common greed and viciousness, and all the harsher lusts of human beings, to exercises through which there seems some quite tangible gain within tolerably safe reach.” And Gerald said also: “Yes: it is much better for men to believe in some third truth which will be revealed to them after the death of their bodies; and a general faith in the immortality even of mere Musgraves appears to me, thus, very plainly, because of its happy blending of the functions of a narcotic and of a policeman, a generally desirable assumption. It remains in all ways a desirable faith, no matter whether or not there be any grounds for it. And if this careful painting presents the entire truth, that fact is but another excellent reason for paying no attention to it.” Gerald now felt quite comfortable through having listened so respectfully to his own relentless logic. “For these reasons, O foolish painting of the Two Truths, I deny your fleshly significance. Whether I happen to be a sun god or a Savior or a culture hero or just another bull-headed Musgrave, I deny that you present to me any truth whatever. I snap my fingers at your materialism; I turn up my nose at your indecorous anatomical studies; and I send the divine foot of the Lord of the Third Truth smashing through your ancient canvas. These things I do to proclaim the majesty of the Third Truth. And I depart from this Peter and this Peter’s Tomb, to seek my appointed kingdom.” It was in this way that Gerald yet again put an affront upon Koleos Koleros and upon the Holy Nose of Lytreia. PART SIX THE BOOK OF TUROINE “Weathercocks Turn more Easily when Placed very High.” 20. Thaumaturgists in Labor GERALD passed on, still riding upon the silver stallion, which Evaine the Fox-Spirit had not, after all, demanded of him that morning as her promised honorarium. And the next place he came to, and where he got his breakfast, was Turoine. This was a small free city given to sorceries of two colors.