No More Learning

I felt as though even if I should see
the Holy Grail itself and touched it it would crumble into dust. From
there I passed down into a deep valley, as low down as the city was
high up, where I found a chapel with a hermit in a hermitage near by. I
told him about all these phantoms.

"'You haven't true humility,' he said, 'which is the mother of all
virtue. You haven't lost yourself to find yourself as Galahad did. '

"Just as he ended suddenly Sir Galahad shone before us in silver armor.
He laid his lance beside the chapel door and we all went in and knelt in
prayer. Then my thirst was quenched. But when the mass was burned I saw
only the holy elements while Galahad saw the Holy Grail come down upon
the shrine.

"'The Holy Grail,' he said, 'has always been at my side ever since we
came away, fainter in the daytime, but blood-red at night. In its
strength I have overcome evil customs wherever I have gone, and have
passed through Pagan lands and clashed with Pagan hordes and broken them
down everywhere. But the time is very near now when I shall go into the
spiritual city far away where some one will crown me king. Come with me
for you will see the Holy Grail in a vision when I go. '

"At the close of the day I started away with him. We came to a hill
which only a man could climb, scarred all over with a hundred frozen
streams, and when we reached the top there was a wild storm.
Galahad's
armor flashed and darkened again every instant with quick, thick
lightnings which struck the dead old tree trunks on every side until at
last they blazed into a fire. At the base was a great black swamp partly
whitened with bones of dead men. A chain of bridges lead across it to
the great sea, and Galahad crossed them, one after the other, but each
one burned away as soon as he had passed over so that I had to stay
behind. When he reached the great sea the Holy Grail hung over his head
in a brilliant cloud. Then a boat came swiftly by and when the sky
brightened again with the lightning I could see him floating away,
either in a boat with full sails or a winged creature which was flying,
I couldn't tell which. Above him hung the Holy Grail rosy red without
the cloud. I had seen the holy thing at last. When I saw Sir Galahad
again he looked like a silver star in the sky, and beyond the star was
the spiritual city with all her spires and gateways in a glory like one
pearl, no larger than a pearl. From the star a rosy red sparkle from the
Grail shot across to the city. But while I looked a flood of rain came
down in torrents, and how I ever came away I don't know, but anyway at
the dawn of the next day I had reached the little chapel again. There I
got my horse from the hermit and rode back to the gates of Camelot.

"Just once I met one of the other knights. That was one night when the
full moon was rising and the pelican of Sir Bors' casque made a shadow
on it. I spurred on my horse, hailed him and we were both very glad to
see each other.

"'Where is Sir Lancelot,' he asked. 'Have you seen him?