Phantastes
A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
by George MacDonald
A new Edition, with thirty-three new Illustrations by Arthur Hughes;
edited by Greville MacDonald (Illustrations not available)
“In good sooth, my masters, this is no door.
Yet is it a little window, that looketh upon a great world.”
PREFACE
For offering this new edition of my father’s Phantastes, my reasons are
three. The first is to rescue the work from an edition illustrated without the
author’s sanction, and so unsuitably that all lovers of the book must
have experienced some real grief in turning its pages. With the copyright I
secured also the whole of that edition and turned it into pulp.
My second reason is to pay a small tribute to my father by way of personal
gratitude for this, his first prose work, which was published nearly fifty
years ago. Though unknown to many lovers of his greater writings, none of these
has exceeded it in imaginative insight and power of expression. To me it rings
with the dominant chord of his life’s purpose and work.
My third reason is that wider knowledge and love of the book should be made
possible. To this end I have been most happy in the help of my father’s
old friend, who has illustrated the book. I know of no other living artist who
is capable of portraying the spirit of Phantastes; and every reader of this
edition will, I believe, feel that the illustrations are a part of the romance,
and will gain through them some perception of the brotherhood between George
MacDonald and Arthur Hughes.
GREVILLE MACDONALD.
September 1905.
PHANTASTES
A FAERIE ROMANCE
“Phantastes from ‘their fount’ all shapes deriving,
In new habiliments can quickly dight.”
FLETCHER’S Purple Island
Es lassen sich Erzählungen ohne Zusammenhang, jedoch mit Association, wie
Träume, denken; Gedichte, die bloss wohlklingend und voll schöner Worte sind,
aber auch ohne allen Sinn und Zusammenhang, höchstens einzelne Strophen
verständlich, wie Bruchstücke aus den verschiedenartigsten Dingen. Diese wahre
Poesie kann höchstens einen allegorischen Sinn in Grossen, und eine indirecte
Wirkung, wie Musik, haben. Darum ist die Natur so rein poetisch, wie die Stube
eines Zauberers, eines Physikers, eine Kinderstube, eine Polter- und
Vorrathskammer.
Ein Märchen ist wie ein Traumbild ohne Zusammenhang. Ein Ensemble wunderbarer
Dinge und Begebenheiten, z. B. eine musikalische Phantasie, die harmonischen
Folgen einer Aeolsharfe, die Natur selbst...
In einem echten Märchen muss alles wunderbar, geheimnissvoll und
zusammenhängend sein; alles belebt, jeder auf eine andere Art. Die ganze Natur
muss wunderlich mit der ganzen Geisterwelt gemischt sein; hier tritt die Zeit
der Anarchie, der Gesetzlosigkeit, Freiheit, der Naturstand der Natur, die Zeit
von der Welt ein . . . Die Welt des Märchens ist die, der Welt der Wahrheit
durchaus entgegengesetzte, und eben darum ihr so durchaus ähnlich, wie das
Chaos der vollendeten Schöpfung ähnlich ist.--NOVALIS.
CHAPTER I
“A spirit . . .
. . . . . .
The undulating and silent well,
And rippling rivulet, and evening gloom,
Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,
Held commune with him; as if he and it
Were all that was.”
SHELLEY’S Alastor.
I awoke one morning with the usual perplexity of mind which accompanies the
return of consciousness. As I lay and looked through the eastern window of my
room, a faint streak of peach-colour, dividing a cloud that just rose above the
low swell of the horizon, announced the approach of the sun. As my thoughts,
which a deep and apparently dreamless sleep had dissolved, began again to
assume crystalline forms, the strange events of the foregoing night presented
themselves anew to my wondering consciousness. The day before had been my
one-and-twentieth birthday. Among other ceremonies investing me with my legal
rights, the keys of an old secretary, in which my father had kept his private
papers, had been delivered up to me. As soon as I was left alone, I ordered
lights in the chamber where the secretary stood, the first lights that had been
there for many a year; for, since my father’s death, the room had been
left undisturbed. But, as if the darkness had been too long an inmate to be
easily expelled, and had dyed with blackness the walls to which, bat-like, it
had clung, these tapers served but ill to light up the gloomy hangings, and
seemed to throw yet darker shadows into the hollows of the deep-wrought
cornice. All the further portions of the room lay shrouded in a mystery whose
deepest folds were gathered around the dark oak cabinet which I now approached
with a strange mingling of reverence and curiosity. Perhaps, like a geologist,
I was about to turn up to the light some of the buried strata of the human
world, with its fossil remains charred by passion and petrified by tears.
Perhaps I was to learn how my father, whose personal history was unknown to me,
had woven his web of story; how he had found the world, and how the world had
left him. Perhaps I was to find only the records of lands and moneys, how
gotten and how secured; coming down from strange men, and through troublous
times, to me, who knew little or nothing of them all. To solve my speculations,
and to dispel the awe which was fast gathering around me as if the dead were
drawing near, I approached the secretary; and having found the key that fitted
the upper portion, I opened it with some difficulty, drew near it a heavy
high-backed chair, and sat down before a multitude of little drawers and slides
and pigeon-holes. But the door of a little cupboard in the centre especially
attracted my interest, as if there lay the secret of this long-hidden world.
Its key I found.
One of the rusty hinges cracked and broke as I opened the door: it revealed a
number of small pigeon-holes. These, however, being but shallow compared with
the depth of those around the little cupboard, the outer ones reaching to the
back of the desk, I concluded that there must be some accessible space behind;
and found, indeed, that they were formed in a separate framework, which
admitted of the whole being pulled out in one piece. Behind, I found a sort of
flexible portcullis of small bars of wood laid close together horizontally.
After long search, and trying many ways to move it, I discovered at last a
scarcely projecting point of steel on one side. I pressed this repeatedly and
hard with the point of an old tool that was lying near, till at length it
yielded inwards; and the little slide, flying up suddenly, disclosed a
chamber—empty, except that in one corner lay a little heap of withered
rose-leaves, whose long-lived scent had long since departed; and, in another, a
small packet of papers, tied with a bit of ribbon, whose colour had gone with
the rose-scent. Almost fearing to touch them, they witnessed so mutely to the
law of oblivion, I leaned back in my chair, and regarded them for a moment;
when suddenly there stood on the threshold of the little chamber, as though she
had just emerged from its depth, a tiny woman-form, as perfect in shape as if
she had been a small Greek statuette roused to life and motion. Her dress was
of a kind that could never grow old-fashioned, because it was simply natural: a
robe plaited in a band around the neck, and confined by a belt about the waist,
descended to her feet. It was only afterwards, however, that I took notice of
her dress, although my surprise was by no means of so overpowering a degree as
such an apparition might naturally be expected to excite. Seeing, however, as I
suppose, some astonishment in my countenance, she came forward within a yard of
me, and said, in a voice that strangely recalled a sensation of twilight, and
reedy river banks, and a low wind, even in this deathly room:—
“Anodos, you never saw such a little creature before, did you?”
“No,” said I; “and indeed I hardly believe I do now.”
“Ah! that is always the way with you men; you believe nothing the first
time; and it is foolish enough to let mere repetition convince you of what you
consider in itself unbelievable. I am not going to argue with you, however, but
to grant you a wish.”
Here I could not help interrupting her with the foolish speech, of which,
however, I had no cause to repent—
“How can such a very little creature as you grant or refuse
anything?”
“Is that all the philosophy you have gained in one-and-twenty
years?” said she. “Form is much, but size is nothing. It is a mere
matter of relation. I suppose your six-foot lordship does not feel altogether
insignificant, though to others you do look small beside your old Uncle Ralph,
who rises above you a great half-foot at least. But size is of so little
consequence with old me, that I may as well accommodate myself to your foolish
prejudices.”
So saying, she leapt from the desk upon the floor, where she stood a tall,
gracious lady, with pale face and large blue eyes. Her dark hair flowed behind,
wavy but uncurled, down to her waist, and against it her form stood clear in
its robe of white.
“Now,” said she, “you will believe me.”
Overcome with the presence of a beauty which I could now perceive, and drawn
towards her by an attraction irresistible as incomprehensible, I suppose I
stretched out my arms towards her, for she drew back a step or two, and
said—
“Foolish boy, if you could touch me, I should hurt you. Besides, I was
two hundred and thirty-seven years old, last Midsummer eve; and a man must not
fall in love with his grandmother, you know.”
“But you are not my grandmother,” said I.
“How do you know that?” she retorted. “I dare say you know
something of your great-grandfathers a good deal further back than that; but
you know very little about your great-grandmothers on either side. Now, to the
point. Your little sister was reading a fairy-tale to you last night.”
“She was.”
“When she had finished, she said, as she closed the book, ‘Is there
a fairy-country, brother?’ You replied with a sigh, ‘I suppose
there is, if one could find the way into it.’”
“I did; but I meant something quite different from what you seem to
think.”
“Never mind what I seem to think. You shall find the way into Fairy Land
to-morrow. Now look in my eyes.”
Eagerly I did so. They filled me with an unknown longing. I remembered somehow
that my mother died when I was a baby. I looked deeper and deeper, till they
spread around me like seas, and I sank in their waters. I forgot all the rest,
till I found myself at the window, whose gloomy curtains were withdrawn, and
where I stood gazing on a whole heaven of stars, small and sparkling in the
moonlight. Below lay a sea, still as death and hoary in the moon, sweeping into
bays and around capes and islands, away, away, I knew not whither. Alas! it was
no sea, but a low bog burnished by the moon. “Surely there is such a sea
somewhere!” said I to myself. A low sweet voice beside me replied—
“In Fairy Land, Anodos.”
I turned, but saw no one. I closed the secretary, and went to my own room, and
to bed.
All this I recalled as I lay with half-closed eyes. I was soon to find the
truth of the lady’s promise, that this day I should discover the road
into Fairy Land.
CHAPTER II
“‘Where is the stream?’ cried he, with tears. ‘Seest
thou not its blue waves above us?’ He looked up, and lo! the blue stream
was flowing gently over their heads.” —NOVALIS, Heinrich von
Ofterdingen.
While these strange events were passing through my mind, I suddenly, as one
awakes to the consciousness that the sea has been moaning by him for hours, or
that the storm has been howling about his window all night, became aware of the
sound of running water near me; and, looking out of bed, I saw that a large
green marble basin, in which I was wont to wash, and which stood on a low
pedestal of the same material in a corner of my room, was overflowing like a
spring; and that a stream of clear water was running over the carpet, all the
length of the room, finding its outlet I knew not where. And, stranger still,
where this carpet, which I had myself designed to imitate a field of grass and
daisies, bordered the course of the little stream, the grass-blades and daisies
seemed to wave in a tiny breeze that followed the water’s flow; while
under the rivulet they bent and swayed with every motion of the changeful
current, as if they were about to dissolve with it, and, forsaking their fixed
form, become fluent as the waters.
My dressing-table was an old-fashioned piece of furniture of black oak, with
drawers all down the front. These were elaborately carved in foliage, of which
ivy formed the chief part. The nearer end of this table remained just as it had
been, but on the further end a singular change had commenced. I happened to fix
my eye on a little cluster of ivy-leaves. The first of these was evidently the
work of the carver; the next looked curious; the third was unmistakable ivy;
and just beyond it a tendril of clematis had twined itself about the gilt
handle of one of the drawers. Hearing next a slight motion above me, I looked
up, and saw that the branches and leaves designed upon the curtains of my bed
were slightly in motion. Not knowing what change might follow next, I thought
it high time to get up; and, springing from the bed, my bare feet alighted upon
a cool green sward; and although I dressed in all haste, I found myself
completing my toilet under the boughs of a great tree, whose top waved in the
golden stream of the sunrise with many interchanging lights, and with shadows
of leaf and branch gliding over leaf and branch, as the cool morning wind swung
it to and fro, like a sinking sea-wave.
After washing as well as I could in the clear stream, I rose and looked around
me. The tree under which I seemed to have lain all night was one of the
advanced guard of a dense forest, towards which the rivulet ran. Faint traces
of a footpath, much overgrown with grass and moss, and with here and there a
pimpernel even, were discernible along the right bank. “This,”
thought I, “must surely be the path into Fairy Land, which the lady of
last night promised I should so soon find.” I crossed the rivulet, and
accompanied it, keeping the footpath on its right bank, until it led me, as I
expected, into the wood. Here I left it, without any good reason: and with a
vague feeling that I ought to have followed its course, I took a more southerly
direction.
CHAPTER III
“Man doth usurp all space,
Stares thee, in rock, bush, river, in the face.
Never thine eyes behold a tree;
‘Tis no sea thou seest in the sea,
‘Tis but a disguised humanity.
To avoid thy fellow, vain thy plan;
All that interests a man, is man.”
HENRY SUTTON.
The trees, which were far apart where I entered, giving free passage to the
level rays of the sun, closed rapidly as I advanced, so that ere long their
crowded stems barred the sunlight out, forming as it were a thick grating
between me and the East. I seemed to be advancing towards a second midnight. In
the midst of the intervening twilight, however, before I entered what appeared
to be the darkest portion of the forest, I saw a country maiden coming towards
me from its very depths. She did not seem to observe me, for she was apparently
intent upon a bunch of wild flowers which she carried in her hand. I could
hardly see her face; for, though she came direct towards me, she never looked
up. But when we met, instead of passing, she turned and walked alongside of me
for a few yards, still keeping her face downwards, and busied with her flowers.
She spoke rapidly, however, all the time, in a low tone, as if talking to
herself, but evidently addressing the purport of her words to me.
She seemed afraid of being observed by some lurking foe. “Trust the
Oak,” said she; “trust the Oak, and the Elm, and the great Beech.
Take care of the Birch, for though she is honest, she is too young not to be
changeable. But shun the Ash and the Alder; for the Ash is an ogre,—you
will know him by his thick fingers; and the Alder will smother you with her web
of hair, if you let her near you at night.” All this was uttered without
pause or alteration of tone. Then she turned suddenly and left me, walking
still with the same unchanging gait. I could not conjecture what she meant, but
satisfied myself with thinking that it would be time enough to find out her
meaning when there was need to make use of her warning, and that the occasion
would reveal the admonition. I concluded from the flowers that she carried,
that the forest could not be everywhere so dense as it appeared from where I
was now walking; and I was right in this conclusion. For soon I came to a more
open part, and by-and-by crossed a wide grassy glade, on which were several
circles of brighter green. But even here I was struck with the utter stillness.
No bird sang. No insect hummed. Not a living creature crossed my way. Yet
somehow the whole environment seemed only asleep, and to wear even in sleep an
air of expectation. The trees seemed all to have an expression of conscious
mystery, as if they said to themselves, “we could, an’ if we
would.” They had all a meaning look about them. Then I remembered that
night is the fairies’ day, and the moon their sun; and I
thought—Everything sleeps and dreams now: when the night comes, it will
be different. At the same time I, being a man and a child of the day, felt some
anxiety as to how I should fare among the elves and other children of the night
who wake when mortals dream, and find their common life in those wondrous hours
that flow noiselessly over the moveless death-like forms of men and women and
children, lying strewn and parted beneath the weight of the heavy waves of
night, which flow on and beat them down, and hold them drowned and senseless,
until the ebbtide comes, and the waves sink away, back into the ocean of the
dark. But I took courage and went on. Soon, however, I became again anxious,
though from another cause. I had eaten nothing that day, and for an hour past
had been feeling the want of food. So I grew afraid lest I should find nothing
to meet my human necessities in this strange place; but once more I comforted
myself with hope and went on.
Before noon, I fancied I saw a thin blue smoke rising amongst the stems of
larger trees in front of me; and soon I came to an open spot of ground in which
stood a little cottage, so built that the stems of four great trees formed its
corners, while their branches met and intertwined over its roof, heaping a
great cloud of leaves over it, up towards the heavens. I wondered at finding a
human dwelling in this neighbourhood; and yet it did not look altogether human,
though sufficiently so to encourage me to expect to find some sort of food.
Seeing no door, I went round to the other side, and there I found one, wide
open. A woman sat beside it, preparing some vegetables for dinner. This was
homely and comforting. As I came near, she looked up, and seeing me, showed no
surprise, but bent her head again over her work, and said in a low tone:
“Did you see my daughter?”
“I believe I did,” said I. “Can you give me something to eat,
for I am very hungry?” “With pleasure,” she replied, in the
same tone; “but do not say anything more, till you come into the house,
for the Ash is watching us.”
Having said this, she rose and led the way into the cottage; which, I now saw,
was built of the stems of small trees set closely together, and was furnished
with rough chairs and tables, from which even the bark had not been removed. As
soon as she had shut the door and set a chair—
“You have fairy blood in you,” said she, looking hard at me.
“How do you know that?”
“You could not have got so far into this wood if it were not so; and I am
trying to find out some trace of it in your countenance. I think I see
it.”
“What do you see?”
“Oh, never mind: I may be mistaken in that.”
“But how then do you come to live here?”
“Because I too have fairy blood in me.”
Here I, in my turn, looked hard at her, and thought I could perceive,
notwithstanding the coarseness of her features, and especially the heaviness of
her eyebrows, a something unusual—I could hardly call it grace, and yet
it was an expression that strangely contrasted with the form of her features. I
noticed too that her hands were delicately formed, though brown with work and
exposure.
“I should be ill,” she continued, “if I did not live on the
borders of the fairies’ country, and now and then eat of their food. And
I see by your eyes that you are not quite free of the same need; though, from
your education and the activity of your mind, you have felt it less than I. You
may be further removed too from the fairy race.”
I remembered what the lady had said about my grandmothers.
Here she placed some bread and some milk before me, with a kindly apology for
the homeliness of the fare, with which, however, I was in no humour to quarrel.
I now thought it time to try to get some explanation of the strange words both
of her daughter and herself.
“What did you mean by speaking so about the Ash?”
She rose and looked out of the little window. My eyes followed her; but as the
window was too small to allow anything to be seen from where I was sitting, I
rose and looked over her shoulder. I had just time to see, across the open
space, on the edge of the denser forest, a single large ash-tree, whose foliage
showed bluish, amidst the truer green of the other trees around it; when she
pushed me back with an expression of impatience and terror, and then almost
shut out the light from the window by setting up a large old book in it.
“In general,” said she, recovering her composure, “there is
no danger in the daytime, for then he is sound asleep; but there is something
unusual going on in the woods; there must be some solemnity among the fairies
to-night, for all the trees are restless, and although they cannot come awake,
they see and hear in their sleep.”
“But what danger is to be dreaded from him?”
Instead of answering the question, she went again to the window and looked out,
saying she feared the fairies would be interrupted by foul weather, for a storm
was brewing in the west.
“And the sooner it grows dark, the sooner the Ash will be awake,”
added she.
I asked her how she knew that there was any unusual excitement in the woods.
She replied—
“Besides the look of the trees, the dog there is unhappy; and the eyes
and ears of the white rabbit are redder than usual, and he frisks about as if
he expected some fun. If the cat were at home, she would have her back up; for
the young fairies pull the sparks out of her tail with bramble thorns, and she
knows when they are coming. So do I, in another way.”
At this instant, a grey cat rushed in like a demon, and disappeared in a hole
in the wall.
“There, I told you!” said the woman.
“But what of the ash-tree?” said I, returning once more to the
subject. Here, however, the young woman, whom I had met in the morning,
entered. A smile passed between the mother and daughter; and then the latter
began to help her mother in little household duties.
“I should like to stay here till the evening,” I said; “and
then go on my journey, if you will allow me.”
“You are welcome to do as you please; only it might be better to stay all
night, than risk the dangers of the wood then. Where are you going?”
“Nay, that I do not know,” I replied, “but I wish to see all
that is to be seen, and therefore I should like to start just at
sundown.”
“You are a bold youth, if you have any idea of what you are daring; but a
rash one, if you know nothing about it; and, excuse me, you do not seem very
well informed about the country and its manners. However, no one comes here but
for some reason, either known to himself or to those who have charge of him; so
you shall do just as you wish.”
Accordingly I sat down, and feeling rather tired, and disinclined for further
talk, I asked leave to look at the old book which still screened the window.
The woman brought it to me directly, but not before taking another look towards
the forest, and then drawing a white blind over the window. I sat down opposite
to it by the table, on which I laid the great old volume, and read. It
contained many wondrous tales of Fairy Land, and olden times, and the Knights
of King Arthur’s table. I read on and on, till the shades of the
afternoon began to deepen; for in the midst of the forest it gloomed earlier
than in the open country. At length I came to this passage—
“Here it chanced, that upon their quest, Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale
rencountered in the depths of a great forest. Now, Sir Galahad was dight all in
harness of silver, clear and shining; the which is a delight to look upon, but
full hasty to tarnish, and withouten the labour of a ready squire, uneath to be
kept fair and clean. And yet withouten squire or page, Sir Galahad’s
armour shone like the moon. And he rode a great white mare, whose bases and
other housings were black, but all besprent with fair lilys of silver sheen.
Whereas Sir Percivale bestrode a red horse, with a tawny mane and tail; whose
trappings were all to-smirched with mud and mire; and his armour was wondrous
rosty to behold, ne could he by any art furbish it again; so that as the sun in
his going down shone twixt the bare trunks of the trees, full upon the knights
twain, the one did seem all shining with light, and the other all to glow with
ruddy fire. Now it came about in this wise. For Sir Percivale, after his escape
from the demon lady, whenas the cross on the handle of his sword smote him to
the heart, and he rove himself through the thigh, and escaped away, he came to
a great wood; and, in nowise cured of his fault, yet bemoaning the same, the
damosel of the alder tree encountered him, right fair to see; and with her fair
words and false countenance she comforted him and beguiled him, until he
followed her where she led him to a—-”
Here a low hurried cry from my hostess caused me to look up from the book, and
I read no more.
“Look there!” she said; “look at his fingers!”
Just as I had been reading in the book, the setting sun was shining through a
cleft in the clouds piled up in the west; and a shadow as of a large distorted
hand, with thick knobs and humps on the fingers, so that it was much wider
across the fingers than across the undivided part of the hand, passed slowly
over the little blind, and then as slowly returned in the opposite direction.
“He is almost awake, mother; and greedier than usual to-night.”
“Hush, child; you need not make him more angry with us than he is; for
you do not know how soon something may happen to oblige us to be in the forest
after nightfall.”
“But you are in the forest,” said I; “how is it that you are
safe here?”
“He dares not come nearer than he is now,” she replied; “for
any of those four oaks, at the corners of our cottage, would tear him to
pieces; they are our friends. But he stands there and makes awful faces at us
sometimes, and stretches out his long arms and fingers, and tries to kill us
with fright; for, indeed, that is his favourite way of doing. Pray, keep out of
his way to-night.”
“Shall I be able to see these things?” said I.
“That I cannot tell yet, not knowing how much of the fairy nature there
is in you. But we shall soon see whether you can discern the fairies in my
little garden, and that will be some guide to us.”
“Are the trees fairies too, as well as the flowers?” I asked.
“They are of the same race,” she replied; “though those you
call fairies in your country are chiefly the young children of the flower
fairies. They are very fond of having fun with the thick people, as they call
you; for, like most children, they like fun better than anything else.”
“Why do you have flowers so near you then? Do they not annoy you?”
“Oh, no, they are very amusing, with their mimicries of grown people, and
mock solemnities. Sometimes they will act a whole play through before my eyes,
with perfect composure and assurance, for they are not afraid of me. Only, as
soon as they have done, they burst into peals of tiny laughter, as if it was
such a joke to have been serious over anything. These I speak of, however, are
the fairies of the garden. They are more staid and educated than those of the
fields and woods. Of course they have near relations amongst the wild flowers,
but they patronise them, and treat them as country cousins, who know nothing of
life, and very little of manners. Now and then, however, they are compelled to
envy the grace and simplicity of the natural flowers.”
“Do they live in the flowers?” I said.
“I cannot tell,” she replied. “There is something in it I do
not understand. Sometimes they disappear altogether, even from me, though I
know they are near. They seem to die always with the flowers they resemble, and
by whose names they are called; but whether they return to life with the fresh
flowers, or, whether it be new flowers, new fairies, I cannot tell. They have
as many sorts of dispositions as men and women, while their moods are yet more
variable; twenty different expressions will cross their little faces in half a
minute. I often amuse myself with watching them, but I have never been able to
make personal acquaintance with any of them. If I speak to one, he or she looks
up in my face, as if I were not worth heeding, gives a little laugh, and runs
away.” Here the woman started, as if suddenly recollecting herself, and
said in a low voice to her daughter, “Make haste—go and watch him,
and see in what direction he goes.”
I may as well mention here, that the conclusion I arrived at from the
observations I was afterwards able to make, was, that the flowers die because
the fairies go away; not that the fairies disappear because the flowers die.
The flowers seem a sort of houses for them, or outer bodies, which they can put
on or off when they please. Just as you could form some idea of the nature of a
man from the kind of house he built, if he followed his own taste, so you
could, without seeing the fairies, tell what any one of them is like, by
looking at the flower till you feel that you understand it. For just what the
flower says to you, would the face and form of the fairy say; only so much more
plainly as a face and human figure can express more than a flower. For the
house or the clothes, though like the inhabitant or the wearer, cannot be
wrought into an equal power of utterance. Yet you would see a strange
resemblance, almost oneness, between the flower and the fairy, which you could
not describe, but which described itself to you. Whether all the flowers have
fairies, I cannot determine, any more than I can be sure whether all men and
women have souls.
The woman and I continued the conversation for a few minutes longer. I was much
interested by the information she gave me, and astonished at the language in
which she was able to convey it. It seemed that intercourse with the fairies
was no bad education in itself. But now the daughter returned with the news,
that the Ash had just gone away in a south-westerly direction; and, as my
course seemed to lie eastward, she hoped I should be in no danger of meeting
him if I departed at once. I looked out of the little window, and there stood
the ash-tree, to my eyes the same as before; but I believed that they knew
better than I did, and prepared to go. I pulled out my purse, but to my dismay
there was nothing in it. The woman with a smile begged me not to trouble
myself, for money was not of the slightest use there; and as I might meet with
people in my journeys whom I could not recognise to be fairies, it was well I
had no money to offer, for nothing offended them so much.
“They would think,” she added, “that you were making game of
them; and that is their peculiar privilege with regard to us.” So we went
together into the little garden which sloped down towards a lower part of the
wood.
Here, to my great pleasure, all was life and bustle. There was still light
enough from the day to see a little; and the pale half-moon, halfway to the
zenith, was reviving every moment. The whole garden was like a carnival, with
tiny, gaily decorated forms, in groups, assemblies, processions, pairs or
trios, moving stately on, running about wildly, or sauntering hither or
thither. From the cups or bells of tall flowers, as from balconies, some looked
down on the masses below, now bursting with laughter, now grave as owls; but
even in their deepest solemnity, seeming only to be waiting for the arrival of
the next laugh. Some were launched on a little marshy stream at the bottom, in
boats chosen from the heaps of last year’s leaves that lay about, curled
and withered. These soon sank with them; whereupon they swam ashore and got
others. Those who took fresh rose-leaves for their boats floated the longest;
but for these they had to fight; for the fairy of the rose-tree complained
bitterly that they were stealing her clothes, and defended her property
bravely.
“You can’t wear half you’ve got,” said some.
“Never you mind; I don’t choose you to have them: they are my
property.”
“All for the good of the community!” said one, and ran off with a
great hollow leaf. But the rose-fairy sprang after him (what a beauty she was!
only too like a drawing-room young lady), knocked him heels-over-head as he
ran, and recovered her great red leaf. But in the meantime twenty had hurried
off in different directions with others just as good; and the little creature
sat down and cried, and then, in a pet, sent a perfect pink snowstorm of petals
from her tree, leaping from branch to branch, and stamping and shaking and
pulling. At last, after another good cry, she chose the biggest she could find,
and ran away laughing, to launch her boat amongst the rest.
But my attention was first and chiefly attracted by a group of fairies near the
cottage, who were talking together around what seemed a last dying primrose.
They talked singing, and their talk made a song, something like this:
“Sister Snowdrop died
Before we were born.”
“She came like a bride
In a snowy morn.”
“What’s a bride?”
“What is snow?
“Never tried.”
“Do not know.”
“Who told you about her?”
“Little Primrose there
Cannot do without her.”
“Oh, so sweetly fair!”
“Never fear,
She will come,
Primrose dear.”
“Is she dumb?”
“She’ll come by-and-by.”
“You will never see her.”
“She went home to die,
“Till the new year.”
“Snowdrop!” “‘Tis no good
To invite her.”
“Primrose is very rude,
“I will bite her.”
“Oh, you naughty Pocket!
“Look, she drops her head.”
“She deserved it, Rocket,
“And she was nearly dead.”
“To your hammock—off with you!”
“And swing alone.”
“No one will laugh with you.”
“No, not one.”
“Now let us moan.”
“And cover her o’er.”
“Primrose is gone.”
“All but the flower.”
“Here is a leaf.”
“Lay her upon it.”
“Follow in grief.”
“Pocket has done it.”
“Deeper, poor creature!
Winter may come.”
“He cannot reach her—
That is a hum.”
“She is buried, the beauty!”
“Now she is done.”
“That was the duty.”
“Now for the fun.”
And with a wild laugh they sprang away, most of them towards the cottage.
During the latter part of the song-talk, they had formed themselves into a
funeral procession, two of them bearing poor Primrose, whose death Pocket had
hastened by biting her stalk, upon one of her own great leaves. They bore her
solemnly along some distance, and then buried her under a tree. Although I say
her I saw nothing but the withered primrose-flower on its long stalk.
Pocket, who had been expelled from the company by common consent, went sulkily
away towards her hammock, for she was the fairy of the calceolaria, and looked
rather wicked. When she reached its stem, she stopped and looked round. I could
not help speaking to her, for I stood near her. I said, “Pocket, how
could you be so naughty?”
“I am never naughty,” she said, half-crossly, half-defiantly;
“only if you come near my hammock, I will bite you, and then you will go
away.”
“Why did you bite poor Primrose?”
“Because she said we should never see Snowdrop; as if we were not good
enough to look at her, and she was, the proud thing!—served her
right!”
“Oh, Pocket, Pocket,” said I; but by this time the party which had
gone towards the house, rushed out again, shouting and screaming with laughter.
Half of them were on the cat’s back, and half held on by her fur and
tail, or ran beside her; till, more coming to their help, the furious cat was
held fast; and they proceeded to pick the sparks out of her with thorns and
pins, which they handled like harpoons. Indeed, there were more instruments at
work about her than there could have been sparks in her. One little fellow who
held on hard by the tip of the tail, with his feet planted on the ground at an
angle of forty-five degrees, helping to keep her fast, administered a
continuous flow of admonitions to Pussy.
“Now, Pussy, be patient. You know quite well it is all for your good. You
cannot be comfortable with all those sparks in you; and, indeed, I am
charitably disposed to believe” (here he became very pompous) “that
they are the cause of all your bad temper; so we must have them all out, every
one; else we shall be reduced to the painful necessity of cutting your claws,
and pulling out your eye-teeth. Quiet! Pussy, quiet!”
But with a perfect hurricane of feline curses, the poor animal broke loose, and
dashed across the garden and through the hedge, faster than even the fairies
could follow. “Never mind, never mind, we shall find her again; and by
that time she will have laid in a fresh stock of sparks. Hooray!” And off
they set, after some new mischief.
But I will not linger to enlarge on the amusing display of these frolicsome
creatures. Their manners and habits are now so well known to the world, having
been so often described by eyewitnesses, that it would be only indulging
self-conceit, to add my account in full to the rest. I cannot help wishing,
however, that my readers could see them for themselves. Especially do I desire
that they should see the fairy of the daisy; a little, chubby, round-eyed
child, with such innocent trust in his look! Even the most mischievous of the
fairies would not tease him, although he did not belong to their set at all,
but was quite a little country bumpkin. He wandered about alone, and looked at
everything, with his hands in his little pockets, and a white night-cap on, the
darling! He was not so beautiful as many other wild flowers I saw afterwards,
but so dear and loving in his looks and little confident ways.
CHAPTER IV
“When bale is att hyest, boote is nyest.”
Ballad of Sir Aldingar.
By this time, my hostess was quite anxious that I should be gone. So, with warm
thanks for their hospitality, I took my leave, and went my way through the
little garden towards the forest. Some of the garden flowers had wandered into
the wood, and were growing here and there along the path, but the trees soon
became too thick and shadowy for them. I particularly noticed some tall lilies,
which grew on both sides of the way, with large dazzlingly white flowers, set
off by the universal green. It was now dark enough for me to see that every
flower was shining with a light of its own. Indeed it was by this light that I
saw them, an internal, peculiar light, proceeding from each, and not reflected
from a common source of light as in the daytime. This light sufficed only for
the plant itself, and was not strong enough to cast any but the faintest
shadows around it, or to illuminate any of the neighbouring objects with other
than the faintest tinge of its own individual hue. From the lilies above
mentioned, from the campanulas, from the foxgloves, and every bell-shaped
flower, curious little figures shot up their heads, peeped at me, and drew
back. They seemed to inhabit them, as snails their shells; but I was sure some
of them were intruders, and belonged to the gnomes or goblin-fairies, who
inhabit the ground and earthy creeping plants. From the cups of Arum lilies,
creatures with great heads and grotesque faces shot up like Jack-in-the-box,
and made grimaces at me; or rose slowly and slily over the edge of the cup, and
spouted water at me, slipping suddenly back, like those little soldier-crabs
that inhabit the shells of sea-snails. Passing a row of tall thistles, I saw
them crowded with little faces, which peeped every one from behind its flower,
and drew back as quickly; and I heard them saying to each other, evidently
intending me to hear, but the speaker always hiding behind his tuft, when I
looked in his direction, “Look at him! Look at him! He has begun a story
without a beginning, and it will never have any end. He! he! he! Look at
him!”
But as I went further into the wood, these sights and sounds became fewer,
giving way to others of a different character. A little forest of wild
hyacinths was alive with exquisite creatures, who stood nearly motionless, with
drooping necks, holding each by the stem of her flower, and swaying gently with
it, whenever a low breath of wind swung the crowded floral belfry. In like
manner, though differing of course in form and meaning, stood a group of
harebells, like little angels waiting, ready, till they were wanted to go on
some yet unknown message. In darker nooks, by the mossy roots of the trees, or
in little tufts of grass, each dwelling in a globe of its own green light,
weaving a network of grass and its shadows, glowed the glowworms.
They were just like the glowworms of our own land, for they are fairies
everywhere; worms in the day, and glowworms at night, when their own can
appear, and they can be themselves to others as well as themselves. But they
had their enemies here. For I saw great strong-armed beetles, hurrying about
with most unwieldy haste, awkward as elephant-calves, looking apparently for
glowworms; for the moment a beetle espied one, through what to it was a forest
of grass, or an underwood of moss, it pounced upon it, and bore it away, in
spite of its feeble resistance. Wondering what their object could be, I watched
one of the beetles, and then I discovered a thing I could not account for. But
it is no use trying to account for things in Fairy Land; and one who travels
there soon learns to forget the very idea of doing so, and takes everything as
it comes; like a child, who, being in a chronic condition of wonder, is
surprised at nothing. What I saw was this. Everywhere, here and there over the
ground, lay little, dark-looking lumps of something more like earth than
anything else, and about the size of a chestnut. The beetles hunted in couples
for these; and having found one, one of them stayed to watch it, while the
other hurried to find a glowworm. By signals, I presume, between them, the
latter soon found his companion again: they then took the glowworm and held its
luminous tail to the dark earthly pellet; when lo, it shot up into the air like
a sky-rocket, seldom, however, reaching the height of the highest tree. Just
like a rocket too, it burst in the air, and fell in a shower of the most
gorgeously coloured sparks of every variety of hue; golden and red, and purple
and green, and blue and rosy fires crossed and inter-crossed each other,
beneath the shadowy heads, and between the columnar stems of the forest trees.
They never used the same glowworm twice, I observed; but let him go, apparently
uninjured by the use they had made of him.
In other parts, the whole of the immediately surrounding foliage was
illuminated by the interwoven dances in the air of splendidly coloured
fire-flies, which sped hither and thither, turned, twisted, crossed, and
recrossed, entwining every complexity of intervolved motion. Here and there,
whole mighty trees glowed with an emitted phosphorescent light. You could trace
the very course of the great roots in the earth by the faint light that came
through; and every twig, and every vein on every leaf was a streak of pale
fire.
All this time, as I went through the wood, I was haunted with the feeling that
other shapes, more like my own size and mien, were moving about at a little
distance on all sides of me. But as yet I could discern none of them, although
the moon was high enough to send a great many of her rays down between the
trees, and these rays were unusually bright, and sight-giving, notwithstanding
she was only a half-moon. I constantly imagined, however, that forms were
visible in all directions except that to which my gaze was turned; and that
they only became invisible, or resolved themselves into other woodland shapes,
the moment my looks were directed towards them. However this may have been,
except for this feeling of presence, the woods seemed utterly bare of anything
like human companionship, although my glance often fell on some object which I
fancied to be a human form; for I soon found that I was quite deceived; as, the
moment I fixed my regard on it, it showed plainly that it was a bush, or a
tree, or a rock.
Soon a vague sense of discomfort possessed me. With variations of relief, this
gradually increased; as if some evil thing were wandering about in my
neighbourhood, sometimes nearer and sometimes further off, but still
approaching. The feeling continued and deepened, until all my pleasure in the
shows of various kinds that everywhere betokened the presence of the merry
fairies vanished by degrees, and left me full of anxiety and fear, which I was
unable to associate with any definite object whatever. At length the thought
crossed my mind with horror: “Can it be possible that the Ash is looking
for me? or that, in his nightly wanderings, his path is gradually verging
towards mine?” I comforted myself, however, by remembering that he had
started quite in another direction; one that would lead him, if he kept it, far
apart from me; especially as, for the last two or three hours, I had been
diligently journeying eastward. I kept on my way, therefore, striving by direct
effort of the will against the encroaching fear; and to this end occupying my
mind, as much as I could, with other thoughts. I was so far successful that,
although I was conscious, if I yielded for a moment, I should be almost
overwhelmed with horror, I was yet able to walk right on for an hour or more.
What I feared I could not tell. Indeed, I was left in a state of the vaguest
uncertainty as regarded the nature of my enemy, and knew not the mode or object
of his attacks; for, somehow or other, none of my questions had succeeded in
drawing a definite answer from the dame in the cottage. How then to defend
myself I knew not; nor even by what sign I might with certainty recognise the
presence of my foe; for as yet this vague though powerful fear was all the
indication of danger I had. To add to my distress, the clouds in the west had
risen nearly to the top of the skies, and they and the moon were travelling
slowly towards each other. Indeed, some of their advanced guard had already met
her, and she had begun to wade through a filmy vapour that gradually deepened.
At length she was for a moment almost entirely obscured. When she shone out
again, with a brilliancy increased by the contrast, I saw plainly on the path
before me—from around which at this spot the trees receded, leaving a
small space of green sward—the shadow of a large hand, with knotty joints
and protuberances here and there. Especially I remarked, even in the midst of
my fear, the bulbous points of the fingers. I looked hurriedly all around, but
could see nothing from which such a shadow should fall. Now, however, that I
had a direction, however undetermined, in which to project my apprehension, the
very sense of danger and need of action overcame that stifling which is the
worst property of fear. I reflected in a moment, that if this were indeed a
shadow, it was useless to look for the object that cast it in any other
direction than between the shadow and the moon. I looked, and peered, and
intensified my vision, all to no purpose. I could see nothing of that kind, not
even an ash-tree in the neighbourhood. Still the shadow remained; not steady,
but moving to and fro, and once I saw the fingers close, and grind themselves
close, like the claws of a wild animal, as if in uncontrollable longing for
some anticipated prey. There seemed but one mode left of discovering the
substance of this shadow. I went forward boldly, though with an inward shudder
which I would not heed, to the spot where the shadow lay, threw myself on the
ground, laid my head within the form of the hand, and turned my eyes towards
the moon. Good heavens! what did I see? I wonder that ever I arose, and that
the very shadow of the hand did not hold me where I lay until fear had frozen
my brain. I saw the strangest figure; vague, shadowy, almost transparent, in
the central parts, and gradually deepening in substance towards the outside,
until it ended in extremities capable of casting such a shadow as fell from the
hand, through the awful fingers of which I now saw the moon. The hand was
uplifted in the attitude of a paw about to strike its prey. But the face, which
throbbed with fluctuating and pulsatory visibility—not from changes in
the light it reflected, but from changes in its own conditions of reflecting
power, the alterations being from within, not from without—it was
horrible. I do not know how to describe it. It caused a new sensation. Just as
one cannot translate a horrible odour, or a ghastly pain, or a fearful sound,
into words, so I cannot describe this new form of awful hideousness. I can only
try to describe something that is not it, but seems somewhat parallel to it; or
at least is suggested by it. It reminded me of what I had heard of vampires;
for the face resembled that of a corpse more than anything else I can think of;
especially when I can conceive such a face in motion, but not suggesting any
life as the source of the motion. The features were rather handsome than
otherwise, except the mouth, which had scarcely a curve in it. The lips were of
equal thickness; but the thickness was not at all remarkable, even although
they looked slightly swollen. They seemed fixedly open, but were not wide
apart. Of course I did not remark these lineaments at the time: I was
too horrified for that. I noted them afterwards, when the form returned on my
inward sight with a vividness too intense to admit of my doubting the accuracy
of the reflex. But the most awful of the features were the eyes. These were
alive, yet not with life.
They seemed lighted up with an infinite greed. A gnawing voracity, which
devoured the devourer, seemed to be the indwelling and propelling power of the
whole ghostly apparition. I lay for a few moments simply imbruted with terror;
when another cloud, obscuring the moon, delivered me from the immediately
paralysing effects of the presence to the vision of the object of horror, while
it added the force of imagination to the power of fear within me; inasmuch as,
knowing far worse cause for apprehension than before, I remained equally
ignorant from what I had to defend myself, or how to take any precautions: he
might be upon me in the darkness any moment. I sprang to my feet, and sped I
knew not whither, only away from the spectre. I thought no longer of the path,
and often narrowly escaped dashing myself against a tree, in my headlong flight
of fear.
Great drops of rain began to patter on the leaves. Thunder began to mutter,
then growl in the distance. I ran on. The rain fell heavier. At length the
thick leaves could hold it up no longer; and, like a second firmament, they
poured their torrents on the earth. I was soon drenched, but that was nothing.
I came to a small swollen stream that rushed through the woods. I had a vague
hope that if I crossed this stream, I should be in safety from my pursuer; but
I soon found that my hope was as false as it was vague. I dashed across the
stream, ascended a rising ground, and reached a more open space, where stood
only great trees. Through them I directed my way, holding eastward as nearly as
I could guess, but not at all certain that I was not moving in an opposite
direction. My mind was just reviving a little from its extreme terror, when,
suddenly, a flash of lightning, or rather a cataract of successive flashes,
behind me, seemed to throw on the ground in front of me, but far more faintly
than before, from the extent of the source of the light, the shadow of the same
horrible hand. I sprang forward, stung to yet wilder speed; but had not run
many steps before my foot slipped, and, vainly attempting to recover myself, I
fell at the foot of one of the large trees. Half-stunned, I yet raised myself,
and almost involuntarily looked back. All I saw was the hand within three feet
of my face. But, at the same moment, I felt two large soft arms thrown round me
from behind; and a voice like a woman’s said: “Do not fear the
goblin; he dares not hurt you now.” With that, the hand was suddenly
withdrawn as from a fire, and disappeared in the darkness and the rain.
Overcome with the mingling of terror and joy, I lay for some time almost
insensible. The first thing I remember is the sound of a voice above me, full
and low, and strangely reminding me of the sound of a gentle wind amidst the
leaves of a great tree. It murmured over and over again: “I may love him,
I may love him; for he is a man, and I am only a beech-tree.” I found I
was seated on the ground, leaning against a human form, and supported still by
the arms around me, which I knew to be those of a woman who must be rather
above the human size, and largely proportioned. I turned my head, but without
moving otherwise, for I feared lest the arms should untwine themselves; and
clear, somewhat mournful eyes met mine. At least that is how they impressed me;
but I could see very little of colour or outline as we sat in the dark and
rainy shadow of the tree. The face seemed very lovely, and solemn from its
stillness; with the aspect of one who is quite content, but waiting for
something. I saw my conjecture from her arms was correct: she was above the
human scale throughout, but not greatly.
“Why do you call yourself a beech-tree?” I said.
“Because I am one,” she replied, in the same low, musical,
murmuring voice.
“You are a woman,” I returned.
“Do you think so? Am I very like a woman then?”
“You are a very beautiful woman. Is it possible you should not know
it?”
“I am very glad you think so. I fancy I feel like a woman sometimes. I do
so to-night—and always when the rain drips from my hair. For there is an
old prophecy in our woods that one day we shall all be men and women like you.
Do you know anything about it in your region? Shall I be very happy when I am a
woman? I fear not, for it is always in nights like these that I feel like one.
But I long to be a woman for all that.”
I had let her talk on, for her voice was like a solution of all musical sounds.
I now told her that I could hardly say whether women were happy or not. I knew
one who had not been happy; and for my part, I had often longed for Fairy Land,
as she now longed for the world of men. But then neither of us had lived long,
and perhaps people grew happier as they grew older. Only I doubted it.
I could not help sighing. She felt the sigh, for her arms were still round me.
She asked me how old I was.
“Twenty-one,” said I.
“Why, you baby!” said she, and kissed me with the sweetest kiss of
winds and odours. There was a cool faithfulness in the kiss that revived my
heart wonderfully. I felt that I feared the dreadful Ash no more.
“What did the horrible Ash want with me?” I said.
“I am not quite sure, but I think he wants to bury you at the foot of his
tree. But he shall not touch you, my child.”
“Are all the ash-trees as dreadful as he?”
“Oh, no. They are all disagreeable selfish creatures—(what horrid
men they will make, if it be true!)—but this one has a hole in his heart
that nobody knows of but one or two; and he is always trying to fill it up, but
he cannot. That must be what he wanted you for. I wonder if he will ever be a
man. If he is, I hope they will kill him.”
“How kind of you to save me from him!”
“I will take care that he shall not come near you again. But there are
some in the wood more like me, from whom, alas! I cannot protect you. Only if
you see any of them very beautiful, try to walk round them.”
“What then?”
“I cannot tell you more. But now I must tie some of my hair about you,
and then the Ash will not touch you. Here, cut some off. You men have strange
cutting things about you.”
She shook her long hair loose over me, never moving her arms.
“I cannot cut your beautiful hair. It would be a shame.”
“Not cut my hair! It will have grown long enough before any is wanted
again in this wild forest. Perhaps it may never be of any use again—not
till I am a woman.” And she sighed.
As gently as I could, I cut with a knife a long tress of flowing, dark hair,
she hanging her beautiful head over me. When I had finished, she shuddered and
breathed deep, as one does when an acute pain, steadfastly endured without sign
of suffering, is at length relaxed. She then took the hair and tied it round
me, singing a strange, sweet song, which I could not understand, but which left
in me a feeling like this—
“I saw thee ne’er before;
I see thee never more;
But love, and help, and pain, beautiful one,
Have made thee mine, till all my years are done.”
I cannot put more of it into words. She closed her arms about me again, and
went on singing. The rain in the leaves, and a light wind that had arisen, kept
her song company. I was wrapt in a trance of still delight. It told me the
secret of the woods, and the flowers, and the birds. At one time I felt as if I
was wandering in childhood through sunny spring forests, over carpets of
primroses, anemones, and little white starry things—I had almost said
creatures, and finding new wonderful flowers at every turn. At another, I lay
half dreaming in the hot summer noon, with a book of old tales beside me,
beneath a great beech; or, in autumn, grew sad because I trod on the leaves
that had sheltered me, and received their last blessing in the sweet odours of
decay; or, in a winter evening, frozen still, looked up, as I went home to a
warm fireside, through the netted boughs and twigs to the cold, snowy moon,
with her opal zone around her. At last I had fallen asleep; for I know nothing
more that passed till I found myself lying under a superb beech-tree, in the
clear light of the morning, just before sunrise. Around me was a girdle of
fresh beech-leaves. Alas! I brought nothing with me out of Fairy Land, but
memories—memories. The great boughs of the beech hung drooping around me.
At my head rose its smooth stem, with its great sweeps of curving surface that
swelled like undeveloped limbs. The leaves and branches above kept on the song
which had sung me asleep; only now, to my mind, it sounded like a farewell and
a speedwell. I sat a long time, unwilling to go; but my unfinished story urged
me on. I must act and wander. With the sun well risen, I rose, and put my arms
as far as they would reach around the beech-tree, and kissed it, and said
good-bye. A trembling went through the leaves; a few of the last drops of the
night’s rain fell from off them at my feet; and as I walked slowly away,
I seemed to hear in a whisper once more the words: “I may love him, I may
love him; for he is a man, and I am only a beech-tree.”
CHAPTER V
“And she was smooth and full, as if one gush
Of life had washed her, or as if a sleep
Lay on her eyelid, easier to sweep
Than bee from daisy.”
BEDDOES’ Pygmalion.
“Sche was as whyt as lylye yn May,
Or snow that sneweth yn wynterys day.”
Romance of Sir Launfal.
I walked on, in the fresh morning air, as if new-born. The only thing that
damped my pleasure was a cloud of something between sorrow and delight that
crossed my mind with the frequently returning thought of my last night’s
hostess. “But then,” thought I, “if she is sorry, I could not
help it; and she has all the pleasures she ever had. Such a day as this is
surely a joy to her, as much at least as to me. And her life will perhaps be
the richer, for holding now within it the memory of what came, but could not
stay. And if ever she is a woman, who knows but we may meet somewhere? there is
plenty of room for meeting in the universe.” Comforting myself thus, yet
with a vague compunction, as if I ought not to have left her, I went on. There
was little to distinguish the woods to-day from those of my own land; except
that all the wild things, rabbits, birds, squirrels, mice, and the numberless
other inhabitants, were very tame; that is, they did not run away from me, but
gazed at me as I passed, frequently coming nearer, as if to examine me more
closely. Whether this came from utter ignorance, or from familiarity with the
human appearance of beings who never hurt them, I could not tell. As I stood
once, looking up to the splendid flower of a parasite, which hung from the
branch of a tree over my head, a large white rabbit cantered slowly up, put one
of its little feet on one of mine, and looked up at me with its red eyes, just
as I had been looking up at the flower above me. I stooped and stroked it; but
when I attempted to lift it, it banged the ground with its hind feet and
scampered off at a great rate, turning, however, to look at me several times
before I lost sight of it. Now and then, too, a dim human figure would appear
and disappear, at some distance, amongst the trees, moving like a sleep-walker.
But no one ever came near me.
This day I found plenty of food in the forest—strange nuts and fruits I
had never seen before. I hesitated to eat them; but argued that, if I could
live on the air of Fairy Land, I could live on its food also. I found my
reasoning correct, and the result was better than I had hoped; for it not only
satisfied my hunger, but operated in such a way upon my senses that I was
brought into far more complete relationship with the things around me. The
human forms appeared much more dense and defined; more tangibly visible, if I
may say so. I seemed to know better which direction to choose when any doubt
arose. I began to feel in some degree what the birds meant in their songs,
though I could not express it in words, any more than you can some landscapes.
At times, to my surprise, I found myself listening attentively, and as if it
were no unusual thing with me, to a conversation between two squirrels or
monkeys. The subjects were not very interesting, except as associated with the
individual life and necessities of the little creatures: where the best nuts
were to be found in the neighbourhood, and who could crack them best, or who
had most laid up for the winter, and such like; only they never said where the
store was. There was no great difference in kind between their talk and our
ordinary human conversation. Some of the creatures I never heard speak at all,
and believe they never do so, except under the impulse of some great
excitement. The mice talked; but the hedgehogs seemed very phlegmatic; and
though I met a couple of moles above ground several times, they never said a
word to each other in my hearing. There were no wild beasts in the forest; at
least, I did not see one larger than a wild cat. There were plenty of snakes,
however, and I do not think they were all harmless; but none ever bit me.
Soon after mid-day I arrived at a bare rocky hill, of no great size, but very
steep; and having no trees—scarcely even a bush—upon it, entirely
exposed to the heat of the sun. Over this my way seemed to lie, and I
immediately began the ascent. On reaching the top, hot and weary, I looked
around me, and saw that the forest still stretched as far as the sight could
reach on every side of me. I observed that the trees, in the direction in which
I was about to descend, did not come so near the foot of the hill as on the
other side, and was especially regretting the unexpected postponement of
shelter, because this side of the hill seemed more difficult to descend than
the other had been to climb, when my eye caught the appearance of a natural
path, winding down through broken rocks and along the course of a tiny stream,
which I hoped would lead me more easily to the foot. I tried it, and found the
descent not at all laborious; nevertheless, when I reached the bottom, I was
very tired and exhausted with the heat. But just where the path seemed to end,
rose a great rock, quite overgrown with shrubs and creeping plants, some of
them in full and splendid blossom: these almost concealed an opening in the
rock, into which the path appeared to lead. I entered, thirsting for the shade
which it promised. What was my delight to find a rocky cell, all the angles
rounded away with rich moss, and every ledge and projection crowded with lovely
ferns, the variety of whose forms, and groupings, and shades wrought in me like
a poem; for such a harmony could not exist, except they all consented to some
one end! A little well of the clearest water filled a mossy hollow in one
corner. I drank, and felt as if I knew what the elixir of life must be; then
threw myself on a mossy mound that lay like a couch along the inner end. Here I
lay in a delicious reverie for some time; during which all lovely forms, and
colours, and sounds seemed to use my brain as a common hall, where they could
come and go, unbidden and unexcused. I had never imagined that such capacity
for simple happiness lay in me, as was now awakened by this assembly of forms
and spiritual sensations, which yet were far too vague to admit of being
translated into any shape common to my own and another mind. I had lain for an
hour, I should suppose, though it may have been far longer, when, the
harmonious tumult in my mind having somewhat relaxed, I became aware that my
eyes were fixed on a strange, time-worn bas-relief on the rock opposite to me.
This, after some pondering, I concluded to represent Pygmalion, as he awaited
the quickening of his statue. The sculptor sat more rigid than the figure to
which his eyes were turned. That seemed about to step from its pedestal and
embrace the man, who waited rather than expected.
“A lovely story,” I said to myself. “This cave, now, with the
bushes cut away from the entrance to let the light in, might be such a place as
he would choose, withdrawn from the notice of men, to set up his block of
marble, and mould into a visible body the thought already clothed with form in
the unseen hall of the sculptor’s brain. And, indeed, if I mistake
not,” I said, starting up, as a sudden ray of light arrived at that
moment through a crevice in the roof, and lighted up a small portion of the
rock, bare of vegetation, “this very rock is marble, white enough and
delicate enough for any statue, even if destined to become an ideal woman in
the arms of the sculptor.”
I took my knife and removed the moss from a part of the block on which I had
been lying; when, to my surprise, I found it more like alabaster than ordinary
marble, and soft to the edge of the knife. In fact, it was alabaster. By an
inexplicable, though by no means unusual kind of impulse, I went on removing
the moss from the surface of the stone; and soon saw that it was polished, or
at least smooth, throughout. I continued my labour; and after clearing a space
of about a couple of square feet, I observed what caused me to prosecute the
work with more interest and care than before. For the ray of sunlight had now
reached the spot I had cleared, and under its lustre the alabaster revealed its
usual slight transparency when polished, except where my knife had scratched
the surface; and I observed that the transparency seemed to have a definite
limit, and to end upon an opaque body like the more solid, white marble. I was
careful to scratch no more. And first, a vague anticipation gave way to a
startling sense of possibility; then, as I proceeded, one revelation after
another produced the entrancing conviction, that under the crust of alabaster
lay a dimly visible form in marble, but whether of man or woman I could not yet
tell. I worked on as rapidly as the necessary care would permit; and when I had
uncovered the whole mass, and rising from my knees, had retreated a little way,
so that the effect of the whole might fall on me, I saw before me with
sufficient plainness—though at the same time with considerable
indistinctness, arising from the limited amount of light the place admitted, as
well as from the nature of the object itself—a block of pure alabaster
enclosing the form, apparently in marble, of a reposing woman. She lay on one
side, with her hand under her cheek, and her face towards me; but her hair had
fallen partly over her face, so that I could not see the expression of the
whole. What I did see appeared to me perfectly lovely; more near the face that
had been born with me in my soul, than anything I had seen before in nature or
art. The actual outlines of the rest of the form were so indistinct, that the
more than semi-opacity of the alabaster seemed insufficient to account for the
fact; and I conjectured that a light robe added its obscurity. Numberless
histories passed through my mind of change of substance from enchantment and
other causes, and of imprisonments such as this before me. I thought of the
Prince of the Enchanted City, half marble and half a man; of Ariel; of Niobe;
of the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood; of the bleeding trees; and many other
histories. Even my adventure of the preceding evening with the lady of the
beech-tree contributed to arouse the wild hope, that by some means life might
be given to this form also, and that, breaking from her alabaster tomb, she
might glorify my eyes with her presence. “For,” I argued,
“who can tell but this cave may be the home of Marble, and this,
essential Marble—that spirit of marble which, present throughout, makes
it capable of being moulded into any form? Then if she should awake! But how to
awake her? A kiss awoke the Sleeping Beauty! a kiss cannot reach her through
the incrusting alabaster.” I kneeled, however, and kissed the pale
coffin; but she slept on. I bethought me of Orpheus, and the following
stones—that trees should follow his music seemed nothing surprising now.
Might not a song awake this form, that the glory of motion might for a time
displace the loveliness of rest? Sweet sounds can go where kisses may not
enter. I sat and thought. Now, although always delighting in music, I had never
been gifted with the power of song, until I entered the fairy forest. I had a
voice, and I had a true sense of sound; but when I tried to sing, the one would
not content the other, and so I remained silent. This morning, however, I had
found myself, ere I was aware, rejoicing in a song; but whether it was before
or after I had eaten of the fruits of the forest, I could not satisfy myself. I
concluded it was after, however; and that the increased impulse to sing I now
felt, was in part owing to having drunk of the little well, which shone like a
brilliant eye in a corner of the cave. I sat down on the ground by the
“antenatal tomb,” leaned upon it with my face towards the head of
the figure within, and sang—the words and tones coming together, and
inseparably connected, as if word and tone formed one thing; or, as if each
word could be uttered only in that tone, and was incapable of distinction from
it, except in idea, by an acute analysis. I sang something like this: but the
words are only a dull representation of a state whose very elevation precluded
the possibility of remembrance; and in which I presume the words really
employed were as far above these, as that state transcended this wherein I
recall it:
“Marble woman, vainly sleeping
In the very death of dreams!
Wilt thou—slumber from thee sweeping,
All but what with vision teems—
Hear my voice come through the golden
Mist of memory and hope;
And with shadowy smile embolden
Me with primal Death to cope?
“Thee the sculptors all pursuing,
Have embodied but their own;
Round their visions, form enduring,
Marble vestments thou hast thrown;
But thyself, in silence winding,
Thou hast kept eternally;
Thee they found not, many finding—
I have found thee: wake for me.”
As I sang, I looked earnestly at the face so vaguely revealed before me. I
fancied, yet believed it to be but fancy, that through the dim veil of the
alabaster, I saw a motion of the head as if caused by a sinking sigh. I gazed
more earnestly, and concluded that it was but fancy. Neverthless I could not
help singing again—
“Rest is now filled full of beauty,
And can give thee up, I ween;
Come thou forth, for other duty
Motion pineth for her queen.
“Or, if needing years to wake thee
From thy slumbrous solitudes,
Come, sleep-walking, and betake thee
To the friendly, sleeping woods.
Sweeter dreams are in the forest,
Round thee storms would never rave;
And when need of rest is sorest,
Glide thou then into thy cave.
“Or, if still thou choosest rather
Marble, be its spell on me;
Let thy slumber round me gather,
Let another dream with thee!”
Again I paused, and gazed through the stony shroud, as if, by very force of
penetrative sight, I would clear every lineament of the lovely face. And now I
thought the hand that had lain under the cheek, had slipped a little downward.
But then I could not be sure that I had at first observed its position
accurately. So I sang again; for the longing had grown into a passionate need
of seeing her alive—
“Or art thou Death, O woman? for since I
Have set me singing by thy side,
Life hath forsook the upper sky,
And all the outer world hath died.
“Yea, I am dead; for thou hast drawn
My life all downward unto thee.
Dead moon of love! let twilight dawn:
Awake! and let the darkness flee.
“Cold lady of the lovely stone!
Awake! or I shall perish here;
And thou be never more alone,
My form and I for ages near.
“But words are vain; reject them all—
They utter but a feeble part:
Hear thou the depths from which they call,
The voiceless longing of my heart.”
There arose a slightly crashing sound. Like a sudden apparition that comes and
is gone, a white form, veiled in a light robe of whiteness, burst upwards from
the stone, stood, glided forth, and gleamed away towards the woods. For I
followed to the mouth of the cave, as soon as the amazement and concentration
of delight permitted the nerves of motion again to act; and saw the white form
amidst the trees, as it crossed a little glade on the edge of the forest where
the sunlight fell full, seeming to gather with intenser radiance on the one
object that floated rather than flitted through its lake of beams. I gazed
after her in a kind of despair; found, freed, lost! It seemed useless to
follow, yet follow I must. I marked the direction she took; and without once
looking round to the forsaken cave, I hastened towards the forest.
CHAPTER VI
“Ah, let a man beware, when his wishes, fulfilled, rain down
upon him, and his happiness is unbounded.”
—FOUQUÉ, Der Zauberring.
“Thy red lips, like worms,
Travel over my cheek.”
—MOTHERWELL.
But as I crossed the space between the foot of the hill and the forest, a
vision of another kind delayed my steps. Through an opening to the westward
flowed, like a stream, the rays of the setting sun, and overflowed with a ruddy
splendour the open space where I was. And riding as it were down this stream
towards me, came a horseman in what appeared red armour. From frontlet to tail,
the horse likewise shone red in the sunset. I felt as if I must have seen the
knight before; but as he drew near, I could recall no feature of his
countenance. Ere he came up to me, however, I remembered the legend of Sir
Percival in the rusty armour, which I had left unfinished in the old book in
the cottage: it was of Sir Percival that he reminded me. And no wonder; for
when he came close up to me, I saw that, from crest to heel, the whole surface
of his armour was covered with a light rust. The golden spurs shone, but the
iron greaves glowed in the sunlight. The morning star, which hung from
his wrist, glittered and glowed with its silver and bronze. His whole
appearance was terrible; but his face did not answer to this appearance. It was
sad, even to gloominess; and something of shame seemed to cover it. Yet it was
noble and high, though thus beclouded; and the form looked lofty, although the
head drooped, and the whole frame was bowed as with an inward grief. The horse
seemed to share in his master’s dejection, and walked spiritless and
slow. I noticed, too, that the white plume on his helmet was discoloured and
drooping. “He has fallen in a joust with spears,” I said to myself;
“yet it becomes not a noble knight to be conquered in spirit because his
body hath fallen.” He appeared not to observe me, for he was riding past
without looking up, and started into a warlike attitude the moment the first
sound of my voice reached him. Then a flush, as of shame, covered all of his
face that the lifted beaver disclosed. He returned my greeting with distant
courtesy, and passed on. But suddenly, he reined up, sat a moment still, and
then turning his horse, rode back to where I stood looking after him.
“I am ashamed,” he said, “to appear a knight, and in such a
guise; but it behoves me to tell you to take warning from me, lest the same
evil, in his kind, overtake the singer that has befallen the knight. Hast thou
ever read the story of Sir Percival and the”—(here he shuddered,
that his armour rang)—“Maiden of the Alder-tree?”
“In part, I have,” said I; “for yesterday, at the entrance of
this forest, I found in a cottage the volume wherein it is recorded.”
“Then take heed,” he rejoined; “for, see my armour—I
put it off; and as it befell to him, so has it befallen to me. I that was proud
am humble now. Yet is she terribly beautiful—beware. Never,” he
added, raising his head, “shall this armour be furbished, but by the
blows of knightly encounter, until the last speck has disappeared from every
spot where the battle-axe and sword of evil-doers, or noble foes, might fall;
when I shall again lift my head, and say to my squire, ‘Do thy duty once
more, and make this armour shine.’”
Before I could inquire further, he had struck spurs into his horse and galloped
away, shrouded from my voice in the noise of his armour. For I called after
him, anxious to know more about this fearful enchantress; but in vain—he
heard me not. “Yet,” I said to myself, “I have now been often
warned; surely I shall be well on my guard; and I am fully resolved I shall not
be ensnared by any beauty, however beautiful. Doubtless, some one man may
escape, and I shall be he.” So I went on into the wood, still hoping to
find, in some one of its mysterious recesses, my lost lady of the marble. The
sunny afternoon died into the loveliest twilight. Great bats began to flit
about with their own noiseless flight, seemingly purposeless, because its
objects are unseen. The monotonous music of the owl issued from all unexpected
quarters in the half-darkness around me. The glow-worm was alight here and
there, burning out into the great universe. The night-hawk heightened all the
harmony and stillness with his oft-recurring, discordant jar. Numberless
unknown sounds came out of the unknown dusk; but all were of twilight-kind,
oppressing the heart as with a condensed atmosphere of dreamy undefined love
and longing. The odours of night arose, and bathed me in that luxurious
mournfulness peculiar to them, as if the plants whence they floated had been
watered with bygone tears. Earth drew me towards her bosom; I felt as if I
could fall down and kiss her. I forgot I was in Fairy Land, and seemed to be
walking in a perfect night of our own old nursing earth. Great stems rose about
me, uplifting a thick multitudinous roof above me of branches, and twigs, and
leaves—the bird and insect world uplifted over mine, with its own
landscapes, its own thickets, and paths, and glades, and dwellings; its own
bird-ways and insect-delights. Great boughs crossed my path; great roots based
the tree-columns, and mightily clasped the earth, strong to lift and strong to
uphold. It seemed an old, old forest, perfect in forest ways and pleasures. And
when, in the midst of this ecstacy, I remembered that under some close canopy
of leaves, by some giant stem, or in some mossy cave, or beside some leafy
well, sat the lady of the marble, whom my songs had called forth into the outer
world, waiting (might it not be?) to meet and thank her deliverer in a twilight
which would veil her confusion, the whole night became one dream-realm of joy,
the central form of which was everywhere present, although unbeheld. Then,
remembering how my songs seemed to have called her from the marble, piercing
through the pearly shroud of alabaster—“Why,” thought I,
“should not my voice reach her now, through the ebon night that inwraps
her.” My voice burst into song so spontaneously that it seemed
involuntarily.
“Not a sound
But, echoing in me,
Vibrates all around
With a blind delight,
Till it breaks on Thee,
Queen of Night!
Every tree,
O’ershadowing with gloom,
Seems to cover thee
Secret, dark, love-still’d,
In a holy room
Silence-filled.
“Let no moon
Creep up the heaven to-night;
I in darksome noon
Walking hopefully,
Seek my shrouded light—
Grope for thee!
“Darker grow
The borders of the dark!
Through the branches glow,
From the roof above,
Star and diamond-sparks
Light for love.”
Scarcely had the last sounds floated away from the hearing of my own ears, when
I heard instead a low delicious laugh near me. It was not the laugh of one who
would not be heard, but the laugh of one who has just received something long
and patiently desired—a laugh that ends in a low musical moan. I started,
and, turning sideways, saw a dim white figure seated beside an intertwining
thicket of smaller trees and underwood.
“It is my white lady!” I said, and flung myself on the ground
beside her; striving, through the gathering darkness, to get a glimpse of the
form which had broken its marble prison at my call.
“It is your white lady!” said the sweetest voice, in reply, sending
a thrill of speechless delight through a heart which all the love-charms of the
preceding day and evening had been tempering for this culminating hour. Yet, if
I would have confessed it, there was something either in the sound of the
voice, although it seemed sweetness itself, or else in this yielding which
awaited no gradation of gentle approaches, that did not vibrate harmoniously
with the beat of my inward music. And likewise, when, taking her hand in mine,
I drew closer to her, looking for the beauty of her face, which, indeed, I
found too plenteously, a cold shiver ran through me; but “it is the
marble,” I said to myself, and heeded it not.
She withdrew her hand from mine, and after that would scarce allow me to touch
her. It seemed strange, after the fulness of her first greeting, that she could
not trust me to come close to her. Though her words were those of a lover, she
kept herself withdrawn as if a mile of space interposed between us.
“Why did you run away from me when you woke in the cave?” I said.
“Did I?” she returned. “That was very unkind of me; but I did
not know better.”
“I wish I could see you. The night is very dark.”
“So it is. Come to my grotto. There is light there.”
“Have you another cave, then?”
“Come and see.”
But she did not move until I rose first, and then she was on her feet before I
could offer my hand to help her. She came close to my side, and conducted me
through the wood. But once or twice, when, involuntarily almost, I was about to
put my arm around her as we walked on through the warm gloom, she sprang away
several paces, always keeping her face full towards me, and then stood looking
at me, slightly stooping, in the attitude of one who fears some half-seen
enemy. It was too dark to discern the expression of her face. Then she would
return and walk close beside me again, as if nothing had happened. I thought
this strange; but, besides that I had almost, as I said before, given up the
attempt to account for appearances in Fairy Land, I judged that it would be
very unfair to expect from one who had slept so long and had been so suddenly
awakened, a behaviour correspondent to what I might unreflectingly look for. I
knew not what she might have been dreaming about. Besides, it was possible
that, while her words were free, her sense of touch might be exquisitely
delicate.
At length, after walking a long way in the woods, we arrived at another
thicket, through the intertexture of which was glimmering a pale rosy light.
“Push aside the branches,” she said, “and make room for us to
enter.”
I did as she told me.
“Go in,” she said; “I will follow you.”
I did as she desired, and found myself in a little cave, not very unlike the
marble cave. It was festooned and draperied with all kinds of green that cling
to shady rocks. In the furthest corner, half-hidden in leaves, through which it
glowed, mingling lovely shadows between them, burned a bright rosy flame on a
little earthen lamp. The lady glided round by the wall from behind me, still
keeping her face towards me, and seated herself in the furthest corner, with
her back to the lamp, which she hid completely from my view. I then saw indeed
a form of perfect loveliness before me. Almost it seemed as if the light of the
rose-lamp shone through her (for it could not be reflected from her); such a
delicate shade of pink seemed to shadow what in itself must be a marbly
whiteness of hue. I discovered afterwards, however, that there was one thing in
it I did not like; which was, that the white part of the eye was tinged with
the same slight roseate hue as the rest of the form. It is strange that I
cannot recall her features; but they, as well as her somewhat girlish figure,
left on me simply and only the impression of intense loveliness. I lay down at
her feet, and gazed up into her face as I lay. She began, and told me a strange
tale, which, likewise, I cannot recollect; but which, at every turn and every
pause, somehow or other fixed my eyes and thoughts upon her extreme beauty;
seeming always to culminate in something that had a relation, revealed or
hidden, but always operative, with her own loveliness. I lay entranced. It was
a tale which brings back a feeling as of snows and tempests; torrents and
water-sprites; lovers parted for long, and meeting at last; with a gorgeous
summer night to close up the whole. I listened till she and I were blended with
the tale; till she and I were the whole history. And we had met at last in this
same cave of greenery, while the summer night hung round us heavy with love,
and the odours that crept through the silence from the sleeping woods were the
only signs of an outer world that invaded our solitude. What followed I cannot
clearly remember. The succeeding horror almost obliterated it. I woke as a grey
dawn stole into the cave. The damsel had disappeared; but in the shrubbery, at
the mouth of the cave, stood a strange horrible object. It looked like an open
coffin set up on one end; only that the part for the head and neck was defined
from the shoulder-part. In fact, it was a rough representation of the human
frame, only hollow, as if made of decaying bark torn from a tree.
It had arms, which were only slightly seamed, down from the shoulder-blade by
the elbow, as if the bark had healed again from the cut of a knife. But the
arms moved, and the hand and the fingers were tearing asunder a long silky
tress of hair. The thing turned round—it had for a face and front those
of my enchantress, but now of a pale greenish hue in the light of the morning,
and with dead lustreless eyes. In the horror of the moment, another fear
invaded me. I put my hand to my waist, and found indeed that my girdle of
beech-leaves was gone. Hair again in her hands, she was tearing it fiercely.
Once more, as she turned, she laughed a low laugh, but now full of scorn and
derision; and then she said, as if to a companion with whom she had been
talking while I slept, “There he is; you can take him now.” I lay
still, petrified with dismay and fear; for I now saw another figure beside her,
which, although vague and indistinct, I yet recognised but too well. It was the
Ash-tree. My beauty was the Maid of the Alder! and she was giving me, spoiled
of my only availing defence, into the hands of my awful foe. The Ash bent his
Gorgon-head, and entered the cave. I could not stir. He drew near me. His
ghoul-eyes and his ghastly face fascinated me. He came stooping, with the
hideous hand outstretched, like a beast of prey. I had given myself up to a
death of unfathomable horror, when, suddenly, and just as he was on the point
of seizing me, the dull, heavy blow of an axe echoed through the wood, followed
by others in quick repetition. The Ash shuddered and groaned, withdrew the
outstretched hand, retreated backwards to the mouth of the cave, then turned
and disappeared amongst the trees. The other walking Death looked at me once,
with a careless dislike on her beautifully moulded features; then, heedless any
more to conceal her hollow deformity, turned her frightful back and likewise
vanished amid the green obscurity without. I lay and wept. The Maid of the
Alder-tree had befooled me—nearly slain me—in spite of all the
warnings I had received from those who knew my danger.
CHAPTER VII
“Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew sayes,
A little I am hurt, but yett not slaine;
I’le but lye downe and bleede awhile,
And then I’le rise and fight againe.”
BALLAD of Sir Andrew Barton.
But I could not remain where I was any longer, though the daylight was hateful
to me, and the thought of the great, innocent, bold sunrise unendurable. Here
there was no well to cool my face, smarting with the bitterness of my own
tears. Nor would I have washed in the well of that grotto, had it flowed clear
as the rivers of Paradise. I rose, and feebly left the sepulchral cave. I took
my way I knew not whither, but still towards the sunrise. The birds were
singing; but not for me. All the creatures spoke a language of their own, with
which I had nothing to do, and to which I cared not to find the key any more.
I walked listlessly along. What distressed me most—more even than my own
folly—was the perplexing question, How can beauty and ugliness dwell so
near? Even with her altered complexion and her face of dislike; disenchanted of
the belief that clung around her; known for a living, walking sepulchre,
faithless, deluding, traitorous; I felt notwithstanding all this, that she was
beautiful. Upon this I pondered with undiminished perplexity, though not
without some gain. Then I began to make surmises as to the mode of my
deliverance; and concluded that some hero, wandering in search of adventure,
had heard how the forest was infested; and, knowing it was useless to attack
the evil thing in person, had assailed with his battle-axe the body in which he
dwelt, and on which he was dependent for his power of mischief in the wood.
“Very likely,” I thought, “the repentant-knight, who warned
me of the evil which has befallen me, was busy retrieving his lost honour,
while I was sinking into the same sorrow with himself; and, hearing of the
dangerous and mysterious being, arrived at his tree in time to save me from
being dragged to its roots, and buried like carrion, to nourish him for yet
deeper insatiableness.” I found afterwards that my conjecture was
correct. I wondered how he had fared when his blows recalled the Ash himself,
and that too I learned afterwards.
I walked on the whole day, with intervals of rest, but without food; for I
could not have eaten, had any been offered me; till, in the afternoon, I seemed
to approach the outskirts of the forest, and at length arrived at a farm-house.
An unspeakable joy arose in my heart at beholding an abode of human beings once
more, and I hastened up to the door, and knocked. A kind-looking, matronly
woman, still handsome, made her appearance; who, as soon as she saw me, said
kindly, “Ah, my poor boy, you have come from the wood! Were you in it
last night?”
I should have ill endured, the day before, to be called boy; but now the
motherly kindness of the word went to my heart; and, like a boy indeed, I burst
into tears. She soothed me right gently; and, leading me into a room, made me
lie down on a settle, while she went to find me some refreshment. She soon
returned with food, but I could not eat. She almost compelled me to swallow
some wine, when I revived sufficiently to be able to answer some of her
questions. I told her the whole story.
“It is just as I feared,” she said; “but you are now for the
night beyond the reach of any of these dreadful creatures. It is no wonder they
could delude a child like you. But I must beg you, when my husband comes in,
not to say a word about these things; for he thinks me even half crazy for
believing anything of the sort. But I must believe my senses, as he cannot
believe beyond his, which give him no intimations of this kind. I think he
could spend the whole of Midsummer-eve in the wood and come back with the
report that he saw nothing worse than himself. Indeed, good man, he would
hardly find anything better than himself, if he had seven more senses given
him.”
“But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without any heart
at all—without any place even for a heart to live in.”
“I cannot quite tell,” she said; “but I am sure she would not
look so beautiful if she did not take means to make herself look more beautiful
than she is. And then, you know, you began by being in love with her before you
saw her beauty, mistaking her for the lady of the marble—another kind
altogether, I should think. But the chief thing that makes her beautiful is
this: that, although she loves no man, she loves the love of any man; and when
she finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him and gain his love (not
for the sake of his love either, but that she may be conscious anew of her own
beauty, through the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely—with
a self-destructive beauty, though; for it is that which is constantly wearing
her away within, till, at last, the decay will reach her face, and her whole
front, when all the lovely mask of nothing will fall to pieces, and she be
vanished for ever. So a wise man, whom she met in the wood some years ago, and
who, I think, for all his wisdom, fared no better than you, told me, when, like
you, he spent the next night here, and recounted to me his adventures.”
I thanked her very warmly for her solution, though it was but partial;
wondering much that in her, as in woman I met on my first entering the forest,
there should be such superiority to her apparent condition. Here she left me to
take some rest; though, indeed, I was too much agitated to rest in any other
way than by simply ceasing to move.
In half an hour, I heard a heavy step approach and enter the house. A jolly
voice, whose slight huskiness appeared to proceed from overmuch laughter,
called out “Betsy, the pigs’ trough is quite empty, and that is a
pity. Let them swill, lass! They’re of no use but to get fat. Ha! ha! ha!
Gluttony is not forbidden in their commandments. Ha! ha! ha!” The very
voice, kind and jovial, seemed to disrobe the room of the strange look which
all new places wear—to disenchant it out of the realm of the ideal into
that of the actual. It began to look as if I had known every corner of it for
twenty years; and when, soon after, the dame came and fetched me to partake of
their early supper, the grasp of his great hand, and the harvest-moon of his
benevolent face, which was needed to light up the rotundity of the globe
beneath it, produced such a reaction in me, that, for a moment, I could hardly
believe that there was a Fairy Land; and that all I had passed through since I
left home, had not been the wandering dream of a diseased imagination,
operating on a too mobile frame, not merely causing me indeed to travel, but
peopling for me with vague phantoms the regions through which my actual steps
had led me. But the next moment my eye fell upon a little girl who was sitting
in the chimney-corner, with a little book open on her knee, from which she had
apparently just looked up to fix great inquiring eyes upon me. I believed in
Fairy Land again. She went on with her reading, as soon as she saw that I
observed her looking at me. I went near, and peeping over her shoulder, saw
that she was reading The History of Graciosa and Percinet.
“Very improving book, sir,” remarked the old farmer, with a
good-humoured laugh. “We are in the very hottest corner of Fairy Land
here. Ha! ha! Stormy night, last night, sir.”
“Was it, indeed?” I rejoined. “It was not so with me. A
lovelier night I never saw.”
“Indeed! Where were you last night?”
“I spent it in the forest. I had lost my way.”
“Ah! then, perhaps, you will be able to convince my good woman, that
there is nothing very remarkable about the forest; for, to tell the truth, it
bears but a bad name in these parts. I dare say you saw nothing worse than
yourself there?”
“I hope I did,” was my inward reply; but, for an audible one, I
contented myself with saying, “Why, I certainly did see some appearances
I could hardly account for; but that is nothing to be wondered at in an unknown
wild forest, and with the uncertain light of the moon alone to go by.”
“Very true! you speak like a sensible man, sir. We have but few sensible
folks round about us. Now, you would hardly credit it, but my wife believes
every fairy-tale that ever was written. I cannot account for it. She is a most
sensible woman in everything else.”
“But should not that make you treat her belief with something of respect,
though you cannot share in it yourself?”
“Yes, that is all very well in theory; but when you come to live every
day in the midst of absurdity, it is far less easy to behave respectfully to
it. Why, my wife actually believes the story of the ‘White Cat.’
You know it, I dare say.”
“I read all these tales when a child, and know that one especially
well.”
“But, father,” interposed the little girl in the chimney-corner,
“you know quite well that mother is descended from that very princess who
was changed by the wicked fairy into a white cat. Mother has told me so a many
times, and you ought to believe everything she says.”
“I can easily believe that,” rejoined the farmer, with another fit
of laughter; “for, the other night, a mouse came gnawing and scratching
beneath the floor, and would not let us go to sleep. Your mother sprang out of
bed, and going as near it as she could, mewed so infernally like a great cat,
that the noise ceased instantly. I believe the poor mouse died of the fright,
for we have never heard it again. Ha! ha! ha!”
The son, an ill-looking youth, who had entered during the conversation, joined
in his father’s laugh; but his laugh was very different from the old
man’s: it was polluted with a sneer. I watched him, and saw that, as soon
as it was over, he looked scared, as if he dreaded some evil consequences to
follow his presumption. The woman stood near, waiting till we should seat
ourselves at the table, and listening to it all with an amused air, which had
something in it of the look with which one listens to the sententious remarks
of a pompous child. We sat down to supper, and I ate heartily. My bygone
distresses began already to look far off.
“In what direction are you going?” asked the old man.
“Eastward,” I replied; nor could I have given a more definite
answer. “Does the forest extend much further in that direction?”
“Oh! for miles and miles; I do not know how far. For although I have
lived on the borders of it all my life, I have been too busy to make journeys
of discovery into it. Nor do I see what I could discover. It is only trees and
trees, till one is sick of them. By the way, if you follow the eastward track
from here, you will pass close to what the children say is the very house of
the ogre that Hop-o’-my-Thumb visited, and ate his little daughters with
the crowns of gold.”
“Oh, father! ate his little daughters! No; he only changed their gold
crowns for nightcaps; and the great long-toothed ogre killed them in mistake;
but I do not think even he ate them, for you know they were his own little
ogresses.”
“Well, well, child; you know all about it a great deal better than I do.
However, the house has, of course, in such a foolish neighbourhood as this, a
bad enough name; and I must confess there is a woman living in it, with teeth
long enough, and white enough too, for the lineal descendant of the greatest
ogre that ever was made. I think you had better not go near her.”
In such talk as this the night wore on. When supper was finished, which lasted
some time, my hostess conducted me to my chamber.
“If you had not had enough of it already,” she said, “I would
have put you in another room, which looks towards the forest; and where you
would most likely have seen something more of its inhabitants. For they
frequently pass the window, and even enter the room sometimes. Strange
creatures spend whole nights in it, at certain seasons of the year. I am used
to it, and do not mind it. No more does my little girl, who sleeps in it
always. But this room looks southward towards the open country, and they never
show themselves here; at least I never saw any.”
I was somewhat sorry not to gather any experience that I might have, of the
inhabitants of Fairy Land; but the effect of the farmer’s company, and of
my own later adventures, was such, that I chose rather an undisturbed night in
my more human quarters; which, with their clean white curtains and white linen,
were very inviting to my weariness.
In the morning I awoke refreshed, after a profound and dreamless sleep. The sun
was high, when I looked out of the window, shining over a wide, undulating,
cultivated country. Various garden-vegetables were growing beneath my window.
Everything was radiant with clear sunlight. The dew-drops were sparkling their
busiest; the cows in a near-by field were eating as if they had not been at it
all day yesterday; the maids were singing at their work as they passed to and
fro between the out-houses: I did not believe in Fairy Land. I went down, and
found the family already at breakfast. But before I entered the room where they
sat, the little girl came to me, and looked up in my face, as though she wanted
to say something to me. I stooped towards her; she put her arms round my neck,
and her mouth to my ear, and whispered—
“A white lady has been flitting about the house all night.”
“No whispering behind doors!” cried the farmer; and we entered
together. “Well, how have you slept? No bogies, eh?”
“Not one, thank you; I slept uncommonly well.”
“I am glad to hear it. Come and breakfast.”
After breakfast, the farmer and his son went out; and I was left alone with the
mother and daughter.
“When I looked out of the window this morning,” I said, “I
felt almost certain that Fairy Land was all a delusion of my brain; but
whenever I come near you or your little daughter, I feel differently. Yet I
could persuade myself, after my last adventures, to go back, and have nothing
more to do with such strange beings.”
“How will you go back?” said the woman.
“Nay, that I do not know.”
“Because I have heard, that, for those who enter Fairy Land, there is no
way of going back. They must go on, and go through it. How, I do not in the
least know.”
“That is quite the impression on my own mind. Something compels me to go
on, as if my only path was onward, but I feel less inclined this morning to
continue my adventures.”
“Will you come and see my little child’s room? She sleeps in the
one I told you of, looking towards the forest.”
“Willingly,” I said.
So we went together, the little girl running before to open the door for us. It
was a large room, full of old-fashioned furniture, that seemed to have once
belonged to some great house.
The window was built with a low arch, and filled with lozenge-shaped panes. The
wall was very thick, and built of solid stone. I could see that part of the
house had been erected against the remains of some old castle or abbey, or
other great building; the fallen stones of which had probably served to
complete it. But as soon as I looked out of the window, a gush of wonderment
and longing flowed over my soul like the tide of a great sea. Fairy Land lay
before me, and drew me towards it with an irresistible attraction. The trees
bathed their great heads in the waves of the morning, while their roots were
planted deep in gloom; save where on the borders the sunshine broke against
their stems, or swept in long streams through their avenues, washing with
brighter hue all the leaves over which it flowed; revealing the rich brown of
the decayed leaves and fallen pine-cones, and the delicate greens of the long
grasses and tiny forests of moss that covered the channel over which it passed
in motionless rivers of light. I turned hurriedly to bid my hostess farewell
without further delay. She smiled at my haste, but with an anxious look.
“You had better not go near the house of the ogre, I think. My son will
show you into another path, which will join the first beyond it.”
Not wishing to be headstrong or too confident any more, I agreed; and having
taken leave of my kind entertainers, went into the wood, accompanied by the
youth. He scarcely spoke as we went along; but he led me through the trees till
we struck upon a path. He told me to follow it, and, with a muttered
“good morning” left me.
CHAPTER VIII
“I am a part of the part, which at first was the whole.”
GOETHE.—Mephistopheles in Faust.
My spirits rose as I went deeper; into the forest; but I could not regain my
former elasticity of mind. I found cheerfulness to be like life
itself—not to be created by any argument. Afterwards I learned, that the
best way to manage some kinds of pain filled thoughts, is to dare them to do
their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and
you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill. So, better and
worse, I went on, till I came to a little clearing in the forest. In the middle
of this clearing stood a long, low hut, built with one end against a single
tall cypress, which rose like a spire to the building. A vague misgiving
crossed my mind when I saw it; but I must needs go closer, and look through a
little half-open door, near the opposite end from the cypress. Window I saw
none. On peeping in, and looking towards the further end, I saw a lamp burning,
with a dim, reddish flame, and the head of a woman, bent downwards, as if
reading by its light. I could see nothing more for a few moments. At length, as
my eyes got used to the dimness of the place, I saw that the part of the rude
building near me was used for household purposes; for several rough utensils
lay here and there, and a bed stood in the corner.
An irresistible attraction caused me to enter. The woman never raised her face,
the upper part of which alone I could see distinctly; but, as soon as I stepped
within the threshold, she began to read aloud, in a low and not altogether
unpleasing voice, from an ancient little volume which she held open with one
hand on the table upon which stood the lamp. What she read was something like
this:
“So, then, as darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever have an
end. So, then, is it eternal. The negation of aught else, is its affirmation.
Where the light cannot come, there abideth the darkness. The light doth but
hollow a mine out of the infinite extension of the darkness. And ever upon the
steps of the light treadeth the darkness; yea, springeth in fountains and wells
amidst it, from the secret channels of its mighty sea. Truly, man is but a
passing flame, moving unquietly amid the surrounding rest of night; without
which he yet could not be, and whereof he is in part compounded.”
As I drew nearer, and she read on, she moved a little to turn a leaf of the
dark old volume, and I saw that her face was sallow and slightly forbidding.
Her forehead was high, and her black eyes repressedly quiet. But she took no
notice of me. This end of the cottage, if cottage it could be called, was
destitute of furniture, except the table with the lamp, and the chair on which
the woman sat. In one corner was a door, apparently of a cupboard in the wall,
but which might lead to a room beyond. Still the irresistible desire which had
made me enter the building urged me: I must open that door, and see what was
beyond it. I approached, and laid my hand on the rude latch. Then the woman
spoke, but without lifting her head or looking at me: “You had better not
open that door.” This was uttered quite quietly; and she went on with her
reading, partly in silence, partly aloud; but both modes seemed equally
intended for herself alone. The prohibition, however, only increased my desire
to see; and as she took no further notice, I gently opened the door to its full
width, and looked in. At first, I saw nothing worthy of attention. It seemed a
common closet, with shelves on each hand, on which stood various little
necessaries for the humble uses of a cottage. In one corner stood one or two
brooms, in another a hatchet and other common tools; showing that it was in use
every hour of the day for household purposes. But, as I looked, I saw that
there were no shelves at the back, and that an empty space went in further; its
termination appearing to be a faintly glimmering wall or curtain, somewhat
less, however, than the width and height of the doorway where I stood. But, as
I continued looking, for a few seconds, towards this faintly luminous limit, my
eyes came into true relation with their object. All at once, with such a shiver
as when one is suddenly conscious of the presence of another in a room where he
has, for hours, considered himself alone, I saw that the seemingly luminous
extremity was a sky, as of night, beheld through the long perspective of a
narrow, dark passage, through what, or built of what, I could not tell. As I
gazed, I clearly discerned two or three stars glimmering faintly in the distant
blue. But, suddenly, and as if it had been running fast from a far distance for
this very point, and had turned the corner without abating its swiftness, a
dark figure sped into and along the passage from the blue opening at the remote
end. I started back and shuddered, but kept looking, for I could not help it.
On and on it came, with a speedy approach but delayed arrival; till, at last,
through the many gradations of approach, it seemed to come within the sphere of
myself, rushed up to me, and passed me into the cottage. All I could tell of
its appearance was, that it seemed to be a dark human figure. Its motion was
entirely noiseless, and might be called a gliding, were it not that it appeared
that of a runner, but with ghostly feet. I had moved back yet a little to let
him pass me, and looked round after him instantly. I could not see him.
“Where is he?” I said, in some alarm, to the woman, who still sat
reading.
“There, on the floor, behind you,” she said, pointing with her arm
half-outstretched, but not lifting her eyes. I turned and looked, but saw
nothing. Then with a feeling that there was yet something behind me, I looked
round over my shoulder; and there, on the ground, lay a black shadow, the size
of a man. It was so dark, that I could see it in the dim light of the lamp,
which shone full upon it, apparently without thinning at all the intensity of
its hue.
“I told you,” said the woman, “you had better not look into
that closet.”
“What is it?” I said, with a growing sense of horror.
“It is only your shadow that has found you,” she replied.
“Everybody’s shadow is ranging up and down looking for him. I
believe you call it by a different name in your world: yours has found you, as
every person’s is almost certain to do who looks into that closet,
especially after meeting one in the forest, whom I dare say you have
met.”
Here, for the first time, she lifted her head, and looked full at me: her mouth
was full of long, white, shining teeth; and I knew that I was in the house of
the ogre. I could not speak, but turned and left the house, with the shadow at
my heels. “A nice sort of valet to have,” I said to myself
bitterly, as I stepped into the sunshine, and, looking over my shoulder, saw
that it lay yet blacker in the full blaze of the sunlight. Indeed, only when I
stood between it and the sun, was the blackness at all diminished. I was so
bewildered—stunned—both by the event itself and its suddenness,
that I could not at all realise to myself what it would be to have such a
constant and strange attendance; but with a dim conviction that my present
dislike would soon grow to loathing, I took my dreary way through the wood.
CHAPTER IX
“O lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live:
Ours is her wedding garments ours her shroud!
. . . . .
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth,
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud,
Enveloping the Earth—
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!”
COLERIDGE.
From this time, until I arrived at the palace of Fairy Land, I can attempt no
consecutive account of my wanderings and adventures. Everything, henceforward,
existed for me in its relation to my attendant. What influence he exercised
upon everything into contact with which I was brought, may be understood from a
few detached instances. To begin with this very day on which he first joined
me: after I had walked heartlessly along for two or three hours, I was very
weary, and lay down to rest in a most delightful part of the forest, carpeted
with wild flowers. I lay for half an hour in a dull repose, and then got up to
pursue my way. The flowers on the spot where I had lain were crushed to the
earth: but I saw that they would soon lift their heads and rejoice again in the
sun and air. Not so those on which my shadow had lain. The very outline of it
could be traced in the withered lifeless grass, and the scorched and shrivelled
flowers which stood there, dead, and hopeless of any resurrection. I shuddered,
and hastened away with sad forebodings.
In a few days, I had reason to dread an extension of its baleful influences
from the fact, that it was no longer confined to one position in regard to
myself. Hitherto, when seized with an irresistible desire to look on my evil
demon (which longing would unaccountably seize me at any moment, returning at
longer or shorter intervals, sometimes every minute), I had to turn my head
backwards, and look over my shoulder; in which position, as long as I could
retain it, I was fascinated. But one day, having come out on a clear grassy
hill, which commanded a glorious prospect, though of what I cannot now tell, my
shadow moved round, and came in front of me. And, presently, a new
manifestation increased my distress. For it began to coruscate, and shoot out
on all sides a radiation of dim shadow. These rays of gloom issued from the
central shadow as from a black sun, lengthening and shortening with continual
change. But wherever a ray struck, that part of earth, or sea, or sky, became
void, and desert, and sad to my heart. On this, the first development of its
new power, one ray shot out beyond the rest, seeming to lengthen infinitely,
until it smote the great sun on the face, which withered and darkened beneath
the blow. I turned away and went on. The shadow retreated to its former
position; and when I looked again, it had drawn in all its spears of darkness,
and followed like a dog at my heels.
Once, as I passed by a cottage, there came out a lovely fairy child, with two
wondrous toys, one in each hand. The one was the tube through which the
fairy-gifted poet looks when he beholds the same thing everywhere; the other
that through which he looks when he combines into new forms of loveliness those
images of beauty which his own choice has gathered from all regions wherein he
has travelled. Round the child’s head was an aureole of emanating rays.
As I looked at him in wonder and delight, round crept from behind me the
something dark, and the child stood in my shadow. Straightway he was a
commonplace boy, with a rough broad-brimmed straw hat, through which brim the
sun shone from behind. The toys he carried were a multiplying-glass and a
kaleidoscope. I sighed and departed.
One evening, as a great silent flood of western gold flowed through an avenue
in the woods, down the stream, just as when I saw him first, came the sad
knight, riding on his chestnut steed.
But his armour did not shine half so red as when I saw him first.
Many a blow of mighty sword and axe, turned aside by the strength of his mail,
and glancing adown the surface, had swept from its path the fretted rust, and
the glorious steel had answered the kindly blow with the thanks of returning
light. These streaks and spots made his armour look like the floor of a forest
in the sunlight. His forehead was higher than before, for the contracting
wrinkles were nearly gone; and the sadness that remained on his face was the
sadness of a dewy summer twilight, not that of a frosty autumn morn. He, too,
had met the Alder-maiden as I, but he had plunged into the torrent of mighty
deeds, and the stain was nearly washed away. No shadow followed him. He had not
entered the dark house; he had not had time to open the closet door.
“Will he ever look in?” I said to myself. “Must his
shadow find him some day?” But I could not answer my own questions.
We travelled together for two days, and I began to love him. It was plain that
he suspected my story in some degree; and I saw him once or twice looking
curiously and anxiously at my attendant gloom, which all this time had remained
very obsequiously behind me; but I offered no explanation, and he asked none.
Shame at my neglect of his warning, and a horror which shrunk from even
alluding to its cause, kept me silent; till, on the evening of the second day,
some noble words from my companion roused all my heart; and I was at the point
of falling on his neck, and telling him the whole story; seeking, if not for
helpful advice, for of that I was hopeless, yet for the comfort of
sympathy—when round slid the shadow and inwrapt my friend; and I could
not trust him.
The glory of his brow vanished; the light of his eye grew cold; and I held my
peace. The next morning we parted.
But the most dreadful thing of all was, that I now began to feel something like
satisfaction in the presence of the shadow. I began to be rather vain of my
attendant, saying to myself, “In a land like this, with so many illusions
everywhere, I need his aid to disenchant the things around me. He does away
with all appearances, and shows me things in their true colour and form. And I
am not one to be fooled with the vanities of the common crowd. I will not see
beauty where there is none. I will dare to behold things as they are. And if I
live in a waste instead of a paradise, I will live knowing where I live.”
But of this a certain exercise of his power which soon followed quite cured me,
turning my feelings towards him once more into loathing and distrust. It was
thus:
One bright noon, a little maiden joined me, coming through the wood in a
direction at right angles to my path. She came along singing and dancing, happy
as a child, though she seemed almost a woman. In her hands—now in one,
now in another—she carried a small globe, bright and clear as the purest
crystal. This seemed at once her plaything and her greatest treasure. At one
moment, you would have thought her utterly careless of it, and at another,
overwhelmed with anxiety for its safety. But I believe she was taking care of
it all the time, perhaps not least when least occupied about it. She stopped by
me with a smile, and bade me good day with the sweetest voice. I felt a
wonderful liking to the child—for she produced on me more the impression
of a child, though my understanding told me differently. We talked a little,
and then walked on together in the direction I had been pursuing. I asked her
about the globe she carried, but getting no definite answer, I held out my hand
to take it. She drew back, and said, but smiling almost invitingly the while,
“You must not touch it;”—then, after a moment’s
pause—“Or if you do, it must be very gently.” I touched it
with a finger. A slight vibratory motion arose in it, accompanied, or perhaps
manifested, by a faint sweet sound. I touched it again, and the sound
increased. I touched it the third time: a tiny torrent of harmony rolled out of
the little globe. She would not let me touch it any more.
We travelled on together all that day. She left me when twilight came on; but
next day, at noon, she met me as before, and again we travelled till evening.
The third day she came once more at noon, and we walked on together. Now,
though we had talked about a great many things connected with Fairy Land, and
the life she had led hitherto, I had never been able to learn anything about
the globe. This day, however, as we went on, the shadow glided round and
inwrapt the maiden. It could not change her. But my desire to know about the
globe, which in his gloom began to waver as with an inward light, and to shoot
out flashes of many-coloured flame, grew irresistible. I put out both my hands
and laid hold of it. It began to sound as before. The sound rapidly increased,
till it grew a low tempest of harmony, and the globe trembled, and quivered,
and throbbed between my hands. I had not the heart to pull it away from the
maiden, though I held it in spite of her attempts to take it from me; yes, I
shame to say, in spite of her prayers, and, at last, her tears. The music went
on growing in, intensity and complication of tones, and the globe vibrated and
heaved; till at last it burst in our hands, and a black vapour broke upwards
from out of it; then turned, as if blown sideways, and enveloped the maiden,
hiding even the shadow in its blackness. She held fast the fragments, which I
abandoned, and fled from me into the forest in the direction whence she had
come, wailing like a child, and crying, “You have broken my globe; my
globe is broken—my globe is broken!” I followed her, in the hope of
comforting her; but had not pursued her far, before a sudden cold gust of wind
bowed the tree-tops above us, and swept through their stems around us; a great
cloud overspread the day, and a fierce tempest came on, in which I lost sight
of her. It lies heavy on my heart to this hour. At night, ere I fall asleep,
often, whatever I may be thinking about, I suddenly hear her voice, crying out,
“You have broken my globe; my globe is broken; ah, my globe!”
Here I will mention one more strange thing; but whether this peculiarity was
owing to my shadow at all, I am not able to assure myself. I came to a village,
the inhabitants of which could not at first sight be distinguished from the
dwellers in our land. They rather avoided than sought my company, though they
were very pleasant when I addressed them. But at last I observed, that whenever
I came within a certain distance of any one of them, which distance, however,
varied with different individuals, the whole appearance of the person began to
change; and this change increased in degree as I approached. When I receded to
the former distance, the former appearance was restored. The nature of the
change was grotesque, following no fixed rule. The nearest resemblance to it
that I know, is the distortion produced in your countenance when you look at it
as reflected in a concave or convex surface—say, either side of a bright
spoon. Of this phenomenon I first became aware in rather a ludicrous way. My
host’s daughter was a very pleasant pretty girl, who made herself more
agreeable to me than most of those about me. For some days my companion-shadow
had been less obtrusive than usual; and such was the reaction of spirits
occasioned by the simple mitigation of torment, that, although I had cause
enough besides to be gloomy, I felt light and comparatively happy. My
impression is, that she was quite aware of the law of appearances that existed
between the people of the place and myself, and had resolved to amuse herself
at my expense; for one evening, after some jesting and raillery, she, somehow
or other, provoked me to attempt to kiss her. But she was well defended from
any assault of the kind. Her countenance became, of a sudden, absurdly hideous;
the pretty mouth was elongated and otherwise amplified sufficiently to have
allowed of six simultaneous kisses. I started back in bewildered dismay; she
burst into the merriest fit of laughter, and ran from the room. I soon found
that the same undefinable law of change operated between me and all the other
villagers; and that, to feel I was in pleasant company, it was absolutely
necessary for me to discover and observe the right focal distance between
myself and each one with whom I had to do. This done, all went pleasantly
enough. Whether, when I happened to neglect this precaution, I presented to
them an equally ridiculous appearance, I did not ascertain; but I presume that
the alteration was common to the approximating parties. I was likewise unable
to determine whether I was a necessary party to the production of this strange
transformation, or whether it took place as well, under the given
circumstances, between the inhabitants themselves.
CHAPTER X
“From Eden’s bowers the full-fed rivers flow,
To guide the outcasts to the land of woe:
Our Earth one little toiling streamlet yields.
To guide the wanderers to the happy fields.”
After leaving this village, where I had rested for nearly a week, I travelled
through a desert region of dry sand and glittering rocks, peopled principally
by goblin-fairies. When I first entered their domains, and, indeed, whenever I
fell in with another tribe of them, they began mocking me with offered handfuls
of gold and jewels, making hideous grimaces at me, and performing the most
antic homage, as if they thought I expected reverence, and meant to humour me
like a maniac. But ever, as soon as one cast his eyes on the shadow behind me,
he made a wry face, partly of pity, partly of contempt, and looked ashamed, as
if he had been caught doing something inhuman; then, throwing down his handful
of gold, and ceasing all his grimaces, he stood aside to let me pass in peace,
and made signs to his companions to do the like. I had no inclination to
observe them much, for the shadow was in my heart as well as at my heels. I
walked listlessly and almost hopelessly along, till I arrived one day at a
small spring; which, bursting cool from the heart of a sun-heated rock, flowed
somewhat southwards from the direction I had been taking. I drank of this
spring, and found myself wonderfully refreshed. A kind of love to the cheerful
little stream arose in my heart. It was born in a desert; but it seemed to say
to itself, “I will flow, and sing, and lave my banks, till I make my
desert a paradise.” I thought I could not do better than follow it, and
see what it made of it. So down with the stream I went, over rocky lands,
burning with sunbeams. But the rivulet flowed not far, before a few blades of
grass appeared on its banks, and then, here and there, a stunted bush.
Sometimes it disappeared altogether under ground; and after I had wandered some
distance, as near as I could guess, in the direction it seemed to take, I would
suddenly hear it again, singing, sometimes far away to my right or left,
amongst new rocks, over which it made new cataracts of watery melodies. The
verdure on its banks increased as it flowed; other streams joined it; and at
last, after many days’ travel, I found myself, one gorgeous summer
evening, resting by the side of a broad river, with a glorious horse-chestnut
tree towering above me, and dropping its blossoms, milk-white and rosy-red, all
about me. As I sat, a gush of joy sprang forth in my heart, and over flowed at
my eyes.
Through my tears, the whole landscape glimmered in such bewildering loveliness,
that I felt as if I were entering Fairy Land for the first time, and some
loving hand were waiting to cool my head, and a loving word to warm my heart.
Roses, wild roses, everywhere! So plentiful were they, they not only perfumed
the air, they seemed to dye it a faint rose-hue. The colour floated abroad with
the scent, and clomb, and spread, until the whole west blushed and glowed with
the gathered incense of roses. And my heart fainted with longing in my bosom.
Could I but see the Spirit of the Earth, as I saw once the indwelling woman of
the beech-tree, and my beauty of the pale marble, I should be content.
Content!—Oh, how gladly would I die of the light of her eyes! Yea, I
would cease to be, if that would bring me one word of love from the one mouth.
The twilight sank around, and infolded me with sleep. I slept as I had not
slept for months. I did not awake till late in the morning; when, refreshed in
body and mind, I rose as from the death that wipes out the sadness of life, and
then dies itself in the new morrow. Again I followed the stream; now climbing a
steep rocky bank that hemmed it in; now wading through long grasses and wild
flowers in its path; now through meadows; and anon through woods that crowded
down to the very lip of the water.
At length, in a nook of the river, gloomy with the weight of overhanging
foliage, and still and deep as a soul in which the torrent eddies of pain have
hollowed a great gulf, and then, subsiding in violence, have left it full of a
motionless, fathomless sorrow—I saw a little boat lying. So still was the
water here, that the boat needed no fastening. It lay as if some one had just
stepped ashore, and would in a moment return. But as there were no signs of
presence, and no track through the thick bushes; and, moreover, as I was in
Fairy Land where one does very much as he pleases, I forced my way to the
brink, stepped into the boat, pushed it, with the help of the tree-branches,
out into the stream, lay down in the bottom, and let my boat and me float
whither the stream would carry us. I seemed to lose myself in the great flow of
sky above me unbroken in its infinitude, except when now and then, coming
nearer the shore at a bend in the river, a tree would sweep its mighty head
silently above mine, and glide away back into the past, never more to fling its
shadow over me. I fell asleep in this cradle, in which mother Nature was
rocking her weary child; and while I slept, the sun slept not, but went round
his arched way. When I awoke, he slept in the waters, and I went on my silent
path beneath a round silvery moon. And a pale moon looked up from the floor of
the great blue cave that lay in the abysmal silence beneath.
Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality?—not so
grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? Fair as is the gliding
sloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting sail below is
fairer still. Yea, the reflecting ocean itself, reflected in the mirror, has a
wondrousness about its waters that somewhat vanishes when I turn towards
itself. All mirrors are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem
when I turn to the glass. (And this reminds me, while I write, of a strange
story which I read in the fairy palace, and of which I will try to make a
feeble memorial in its place.) In whatever way it may be accounted for, of one
thing we may be sure, that this feeling is no cheat; for there is no cheating
in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth
involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning. Even the
memories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights, though beheld only
through clefts in the grey clouds of sorrow, are lovely as Fairy Land. But how
have I wandered into the deeper fairyland of the soul, while as yet I only
float towards the fairy palace of Fairy Land! The moon, which is the lovelier
memory or reflex of the down-gone sun, the joyous day seen in the faint mirror
of the brooding night, had rapt me away.
I sat up in the boat. Gigantic forest trees were about me; through which, like
a silver snake, twisted and twined the great river. The little waves, when I
moved in the boat, heaved and fell with a plash as of molten silver, breaking
the image of the moon into a thousand morsels, fusing again into one, as the
ripples of laughter die into the still face of joy. The sleeping woods, in
undefined massiveness; the water that flowed in its sleep; and, above all, the
enchantress moon, which had cast them all, with her pale eye, into the charmed
slumber, sank into my soul, and I felt as if I had died in a dream, and should
never more awake.
From this I was partly aroused by a glimmering of white, that, through the
trees on the left, vaguely crossed my vision, as I gazed upwards. But the trees
again hid the object; and at the moment, some strange melodious bird took up
its song, and sang, not an ordinary bird-song, with constant repetitions of the
same melody, but what sounded like a continuous strain, in which one thought
was expressed, deepening in intensity as evolved in progress. It sounded like a
welcome already overshadowed with the coming farewell. As in all sweetest
music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the
pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold
the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy. Cometh
white-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the doors she may not
enter. Almost we linger with Sorrow for very love.
As the song concluded the stream bore my little boat with a gentle sweep round
a bend of the river; and lo! on a broad lawn, which rose from the water’s
edge with a long green slope to a clear elevation from which the trees receded
on all sides, stood a stately palace glimmering ghostly in the moonshine: it
seemed to be built throughout of the whitest marble. There was no reflection of
moonlight from windows—there seemed to be none; so there was no cold
glitter; only, as I said, a ghostly shimmer. Numberless shadows tempered the
shine, from column and balcony and tower. For everywhere galleries ran along
the face of the buildings; wings were extended in many directions; and
numberless openings, through which the moonbeams vanished into the interior,
and which served both for doors and windows, had their separate balconies in
front, communicating with a common gallery that rose on its own pillars. Of
course, I did not discover all this from the river, and in the moonlight. But,
though I was there for many days, I did not succeed in mastering the inner
topography of the building, so extensive and complicated was it.
Here I wished to land, but the boat had no oars on board. However, I found that
a plank, serving for a seat, was unfastened, and with that I brought the boat
to the bank and scrambled on shore. Deep soft turf sank beneath my feet, as I
went up the ascent towards the palace.
When I reached it, I saw that it stood on a great platform of marble, with an
ascent, by broad stairs of the same, all round it. Arrived on the platform, I
found there was an extensive outlook over the forest, which, however, was
rather veiled than revealed by the moonlight.
Entering by a wide gateway, but without gates, into an inner court, surrounded
on all sides by great marble pillars supporting galleries above, I saw a large
fountain of porphyry in the middle, throwing up a lofty column of water, which
fell, with a noise as of the fusion of all sweet sounds, into a basin beneath;
overflowing which, it ran into a single channel towards the interior of the
building. Although the moon was by this time so low in the west, that not a ray
of her light fell into the court, over the height of the surrounding buildings;
yet was the court lighted by a second reflex from the sun of other lands. For
the top of the column of water, just as it spread to fall, caught the
moonbeams, and like a great pale lamp, hung high in the night air, threw a dim
memory of light (as it were) over the court below. This court was paved in
diamonds of white and red marble. According to my custom since I entered Fairy
Land, of taking for a guide whatever I first found moving in any direction, I
followed the stream from the basin of the fountain. It led me to a great open
door, beneath the ascending steps of which it ran through a low arch and
disappeared. Entering here, I found myself in a great hall, surrounded with
white pillars, and paved with black and white. This I could see by the
moonlight, which, from the other side, streamed through open windows into the
hall.
Its height I could not distinctly see. As soon as I entered, I had the feeling
so common to me in the woods, that there were others there besides myself,
though I could see no one, and heard no sound to indicate a presence. Since my
visit to the Church of Darkness, my power of seeing the fairies of the higher
orders had gradually diminished, until it had almost ceased. But I could
frequently believe in their presence while unable to see them. Still, although
I had company, and doubtless of a safe kind, it seemed rather dreary to spend
the night in an empty marble hall, however beautiful, especially as the moon
was near the going down, and it would soon be dark. So I began at the place
where I entered, and walked round the hall, looking for some door or passage
that might lead me to a more hospitable chamber. As I walked, I was deliciously
haunted with the feeling that behind some one of the seemingly innumerable
pillars, one who loved me was waiting for me. Then I thought she was following
me from pillar to pillar as I went along; but no arms came out of the faint
moonlight, and no sigh assured me of her presence.
At length I came to an open corridor, into which I turned; notwithstanding
that, in doing so, I left the light behind. Along this I walked with
outstretched hands, groping my way, till, arriving at another corridor, which
seemed to strike off at right angles to that in which I was, I saw at the end a
faintly glimmering light, too pale even for moonshine, resembling rather a
stray phosphorescence. However, where everything was white, a little light went
a great way. So I walked on to the end, and a long corridor it was. When I came
up to the light, I found that it proceeded from what looked like silver letters
upon a door of ebony; and, to my surprise even in the home of wonder itself,
the letters formed the words, The Chamber of Sir Anodos. Although I had
as yet no right to the honours of a knight, I ventured to conclude that the
chamber was indeed intended for me; and, opening the door without hesitation, I
entered. Any doubt as to whether I was right in so doing, was soon dispelled.
What to my dark eyes seemed a blaze of light, burst upon me. A fire of large
pieces of some sweet-scented wood, supported by dogs of silver, was burning on
the hearth, and a bright lamp stood on a table, in the midst of a plentiful
meal, apparently awaiting my arrival. But what surprised me more than all, was,
that the room was in every respect a copy of my own room, the room whence the
little stream from my basin had led me into Fairy Land. There was the very
carpet of grass and moss and daisies, which I had myself designed; the curtains
of pale blue silk, that fell like a cataract over the windows; the
old-fashioned bed, with the chintz furniture, on which I had slept from
boyhood. “Now I shall sleep,” I said to myself. “My shadow
dares not come here.”
I sat down to the table, and began to help myself to the good things before me
with confidence. And now I found, as in many instances before, how true the
fairy tales are; for I was waited on, all the time of my meal, by invisible
hands. I had scarcely to do more than look towards anything I wanted, when it
was brought me, just as if it had come to me of itself. My glass was kept
filled with the wine I had chosen, until I looked towards another bottle or
decanter; when a fresh glass was substituted, and the other wine supplied. When
I had eaten and drank more heartily and joyfully than ever since I entered
Fairy Land, the whole was removed by several attendants, of whom some were male
and some female, as I thought I could distinguish from the way the dishes were
lifted from the table, and the motion with which they were carried out of the
room. As soon as they were all taken away, I heard a sound as of the shutting
of a door, and knew that I was left alone. I sat long by the fire, meditating,
and wondering how it would all end; and when at length, wearied with thinking,
I betook myself to my own bed, it was half with a hope that, when I awoke in
the morning, I should awake not only in my own room, but in my own castle also;
and that I should walk, out upon my own native soil, and find that Fairy Land
was, after all, only a vision of the night. The sound of the falling waters of
the fountain floated me into oblivion.
CHAPTER XI
“A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth,
Far sinking into splendour—without end:
Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold,
With alabaster domes, and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high
Uplifted.”
WORDSWORTH.
But when, after a sleep, which, although dreamless, yet left behind it a sense
of past blessedness, I awoke in the full morning, I found, indeed, that the
room was still my own; but that it looked abroad upon an unknown landscape of
forest and hill and dale on the one side—and on the other, upon the
marble court, with the great fountain, the crest of which now flashed glorious
in the sun, and cast on the pavement beneath a shower of faint shadows from the
waters that fell from it into the marble basin below.
Agreeably to all authentic accounts of the treatment of travellers in Fairy
Land, I found by my bedside a complete suit of fresh clothing, just such as I
was in the habit of wearing; for, though varied sufficiently from the one
removed, it was yet in complete accordance with my tastes. I dressed myself in
this, and went out. The whole palace shone like silver in the sun. The marble
was partly dull and partly polished; and every pinnacle, dome, and turret ended
in a ball, or cone, or cusp of silver. It was like frost-work, and too
dazzling, in the sun, for earthly eyes like mine.
I will not attempt to describe the environs, save by saying, that all the
pleasures to be found in the most varied and artistic arrangement of wood and
river, lawn and wild forest, garden and shrubbery, rocky hill and luxurious
vale; in living creatures wild and tame, in gorgeous birds, scattered
fountains, little streams, and reedy lakes—all were here. Some parts of
the palace itself I shall have occasion to describe more minutely.
For this whole morning I never thought of my demon shadow; and not till the
weariness which supervened on delight brought it again to my memory, did I look
round to see if it was behind me: it was scarcely discernible. But its
presence, however faintly revealed, sent a pang to my heart, for the pain of
which, not all the beauties around me could compensate. It was followed,
however, by the comforting reflection that, peradventure, I might here find the
magic word of power to banish the demon and set me free, so that I should no
longer be a man beside myself. The Queen of Fairy Land, thought I, must dwell
here: surely she will put forth her power to deliver me, and send me singing
through the further gates of her country back to my own land. “Shadow of
me!” I said; “which art not me, but which representest thyself to
me as me; here I may find a shadow of light which will devour thee, the shadow
of darkness! Here I may find a blessing which will fall on thee as a curse, and
damn thee to the blackness whence thou hast emerged unbidden.” I said
this, stretched at length on the slope of the lawn above the river; and as the
hope arose within me, the sun came forth from a light fleecy cloud that swept
across his face; and hill and dale, and the great river winding on through the
still mysterious forest, flashed back his rays as with a silent shout of joy;
all nature lived and glowed; the very earth grew warm beneath me; a magnificent
dragon-fly went past me like an arrow from a bow, and a whole concert of birds
burst into choral song.
The heat of the sun soon became too intense even for passive support. I
therefore rose, and sought the shelter of one of the arcades. Wandering along
from one to another of these, wherever my heedless steps led me, and wondering
everywhere at the simple magnificence of the building, I arrived at another
hall, the roof of which was of a pale blue, spangled with constellations of
silver stars, and supported by porphyry pillars of a paler red than
ordinary.—In this house (I may remark in passing), silver seemed
everywhere preferred to gold; and such was the purity of the air, that it
showed nowhere signs of tarnishing.—The whole of the floor of this hall,
except a narrow path behind the pillars, paved with black, was hollowed into a
huge basin, many feet deep, and filled with the purest, most liquid and radiant
water. The sides of the basin were white marble, and the bottom was paved with
all kinds of refulgent stones, of every shape and hue.
In their arrangement, you would have supposed, at first sight, that there was
no design, for they seemed to lie as if cast there from careless and playful
hands; but it was a most harmonious confusion; and as I looked at the play of
their colours, especially when the waters were in motion, I came at last to
feel as if not one little pebble could be displaced, without injuring the
effect of the whole. Beneath this floor of the water, lay the reflection of the
blue inverted roof, fretted with its silver stars, like a second deeper sea,
clasping and upholding the first. The fairy bath was probably fed from the
fountain in the court. Led by an irresistible desire, I undressed, and plunged
into the water. It clothed me as with a new sense and its object both in one.
The waters lay so close to me, they seemed to enter and revive my heart. I rose
to the surface, shook the water from my hair, and swam as in a rainbow, amid
the coruscations of the gems below seen through the agitation caused by my
motion. Then, with open eyes, I dived, and swam beneath the surface. And here
was a new wonder. For the basin, thus beheld, appeared to extend on all sides
like a sea, with here and there groups as of ocean rocks, hollowed by ceaseless
billows into wondrous caves and grotesque pinnacles. Around the caves grew
sea-weeds of all hues, and the corals glowed between; while far off, I saw the
glimmer of what seemed to be creatures of human form at home in the waters. I
thought I had been enchanted; and that when I rose to the surface, I should
find myself miles from land, swimming alone upon a heaving sea; but when my
eyes emerged from the waters, I saw above me the blue spangled vault, and the
red pillars around. I dived again, and found myself once more in the heart of a
great sea. I then arose, and swam to the edge, where I got out easily, for the
water reached the very brim, and, as I drew near washed in tiny waves over the
black marble border. I dressed, and went out, deeply refreshed.
And now I began to discern faint, gracious forms, here and there throughout the
building. Some walked together in earnest conversation. Others strayed alone.
Some stood in groups, as if looking at and talking about a picture or a statue.
None of them heeded me. Nor were they plainly visible to my eyes. Sometimes a
group, or single individual, would fade entirely out of the realm of my vision
as I gazed. When evening came, and the moon arose, clear as a round of a
horizon-sea when the sun hangs over it in the west, I began to see them all
more plainly; especially when they came between me and the moon; and yet more
especially, when I myself was in the shade. But, even then, I sometimes saw
only the passing wave of a white robe; or a lovely arm or neck gleamed by in
the moonshine; or white feet went walking alone over the moony sward. Nor, I
grieve to say, did I ever come much nearer to these glorious beings, or ever
look upon the Queen of the Fairies herself. My destiny ordered otherwise.
In this palace of marble and silver, and fountains and moonshine, I spent many
days; waited upon constantly in my room with everything desirable, and bathing
daily in the fairy bath. All this time I was little troubled with my demon
shadow I had a vague feeling that he was somewhere about the palace; but it
seemed as if the hope that I should in this place be finally freed from his
hated presence, had sufficed to banish him for a time. How and where I found
him, I shall soon have to relate.
The third day after my arrival, I found the library of the palace; and here,
all the time I remained, I spent most of the middle of the day. For it was, not
to mention far greater attractions, a luxurious retreat from the noontide sun.
During the mornings and afternoons, I wandered about the lovely neighbourhood,
or lay, lost in delicious day-dreams, beneath some mighty tree on the open
lawn. My evenings were by-and-by spent in a part of the palace, the account of
which, and of my adventures in connection with it, I must yet postpone for a
little.
The library was a mighty hall, lighted from the roof, which was formed of
something like glass, vaulted over in a single piece, and stained throughout
with a great mysterious picture in gorgeous colouring.
The walls were lined from floor to roof with books and books: most of them in
ancient bindings, but some in strange new fashions which I had never seen, and
which, were I to make the attempt, I could ill describe. All around the walls,
in front of the books, ran galleries in rows, communicating by stairs. These
galleries were built of all kinds of coloured stones; all sorts of marble and
granite, with porphyry, jasper, lapis lazuli, agate, and various others, were
ranged in wonderful melody of successive colours. Although the material, then,
of which these galleries and stairs were built, rendered necessary a certain
degree of massiveness in the construction, yet such was the size of the place,
that they seemed to run along the walls like cords.
Over some parts of the library, descended curtains of silk of various dyes,
none of which I ever saw lifted while I was there; and I felt somehow that it
would be presumptuous in me to venture to look within them. But the use of the
other books seemed free; and day after day I came to the library, threw myself
on one of the many sumptuous eastern carpets, which lay here and there on the
floor, and read, and read, until weary; if that can be designated as weariness,
which was rather the faintness of rapturous delight; or until, sometimes, the
failing of the light invited me to go abroad, in the hope that a cool gentle
breeze might have arisen to bathe, with an airy invigorating bath, the limbs
which the glow of the burning spirit within had withered no less than the glow
of the blazing sun without.
One peculiarity of these books, or at least most of those I looked into, I must
make a somewhat vain attempt to describe.
If, for instance, it was a book of metaphysics I opened, I had scarcely read
two pages before I seemed to myself to be pondering over discovered truth, and
constructing the intellectual machine whereby to communicate the discovery to
my fellow men. With some books, however, of this nature, it seemed rather as if
the process was removed yet a great way further back; and I was trying to find
the root of a manifestation, the spiritual truth whence a material vision
sprang; or to combine two propositions, both apparently true, either at once or
in different remembered moods, and to find the point in which their invisibly
converging lines would unite in one, revealing a truth higher than either and
differing from both; though so far from being opposed to either, that it was
that whence each derived its life and power. Or if the book was one of travels,
I found myself the traveller. New lands, fresh experiences, novel customs, rose
around me. I walked, I discovered, I fought, I suffered, I rejoiced in my
success. Was it a history? I was the chief actor therein. I suffered my own
blame; I was glad in my own praise. With a fiction it was the same. Mine was
the whole story. For I took the place of the character who was most like
myself, and his story was mine; until, grown weary with the life of years
condensed in an hour, or arrived at my deathbed, or the end of the volume, I
would awake, with a sudden bewilderment, to the consciousness of my present
life, recognising the walls and roof around me, and finding I joyed or sorrowed
only in a book. If the book was a poem, the words disappeared, or took the
subordinate position of an accompaniment to the succession of forms and images
that rose and vanished with a soundless rhythm, and a hidden rime.
In one, with a mystical title, which I cannot recall, I read of a world that is
not like ours. The wondrous account, in such a feeble, fragmentary way as is
possible to me, I would willingly impart. Whether or not it was all a poem, I
cannot tell; but, from the impulse I felt, when I first contemplated writing
it, to break into rime, to which impulse I shall give way if it comes upon me
again, I think it must have been, partly at least, in verse.
CHAPTER XII
“Chained is the Spring. The night-wind bold
Blows over the hard earth;
Time is not more confused and cold,
Nor keeps more wintry mirth.
“Yet blow, and roll the world about;
Blow, Time—blow, winter’s Wind!
Through chinks of Time, heaven peepeth out,
And Spring the frost behind.”
G. E. M.
They who believe in the influences of the stars over the fates of men, are, in
feeling at least, nearer the truth than they who regard the heavenly bodies as
related to them merely by a common obedience to an external law. All that man
sees has to do with man. Worlds cannot be without an intermundane relationship.
The community of the centre of all creation suggests an interradiating
connection and dependence of the parts. Else a grander idea is conceivable than
that which is already imbodied. The blank, which is only a forgotten life,
lying behind the consciousness, and the misty splendour, which is an
undeveloped life, lying before it, may be full of mysterious revelations of
other connexions with the worlds around us, than those of science and poetry.
No shining belt or gleaming moon, no red and green glory in a self-encircling
twin-star, but has a relation with the hidden things of a man’s soul,
and, it may be, with the secret history of his body as well. They are portions
of the living house wherein he abides.
Through the realms of the monarch Sun
Creeps a world, whose course had begun,
On a weary path with a weary pace,
Before the Earth sprang forth on her race:
But many a time the Earth had sped
Around the path she still must tread,
Ere the elder planet, on leaden wing,
Once circled the court of the planet’s king.
There, in that lonely and distant star,
The seasons are not as our seasons are;
But many a year hath Autumn to dress
The trees in their matron loveliness;
As long hath old Winter in triumph to go
O’er beauties dead in his vaults below;
And many a year the Spring doth wear
Combing the icicles from her hair;
And Summer, dear Summer, hath years of June,
With large white clouds, and cool showers at noon:
And a beauty that grows to a weight like grief,
Till a burst of tears is the heart’s relief.
Children, born when Winter is king,
May never rejoice in the hoping Spring;
Though their own heart-buds are bursting with joy,
And the child hath grown to the girl or boy;
But may die with cold and icy hours
Watching them ever in place of flowers.
And some who awake from their primal sleep,
When the sighs of Summer through forests creep,
Live, and love, and are loved again;
Seek for pleasure, and find its pain;
Sink to their last, their forsaken sleeping,
With the same sweet odours around them creeping.
Now the children, there, are not born as the children are born in worlds nearer
to the sun. For they arrive no one knows how. A maiden, walking alone, hears a
cry: for even there a cry is the first utterance; and searching about, she
findeth, under an overhanging rock, or within a clump of bushes, or, it may be,
betwixt gray stones on the side of a hill, or in any other sheltered and
unexpected spot, a little child. This she taketh tenderly, and beareth home
with joy, calling out, “Mother, mother”—if so be that her
mother lives—“I have got a baby—I have found a child!”
All the household gathers round to see;—“Where is it? What is it
like? Where did you find it?” and such-like questions, abounding. And
thereupon she relates the whole story of the discovery; for by the
circumstances, such as season of the year, time of the day, condition of the
air, and such like, and, especially, the peculiar and never-repeated aspect of
the heavens and earth at the time, and the nature of the place of shelter
wherein it is found, is determined, or at least indicated, the nature of the
child thus discovered. Therefore, at certain seasons, and in certain states of
the weather, according, in part, to their own fancy, the young women go out to
look for children. They generally avoid seeking them, though they cannot help
sometimes finding them, in places and with circumstances uncongenial to their
peculiar likings. But no sooner is a child found, than its claim for protection
and nurture obliterates all feeling of choice in the matter. Chiefly, however,
in the season of summer, which lasts so long, coming as it does after such long
intervals; and mostly in the warm evenings, about the middle of twilight; and
principally in the woods and along the river banks, do the maidens go looking
for children just as children look for flowers. And ever as the child grows,
yea, more and more as he advances in years, will his face indicate to those who
understand the spirit of Nature, and her utterances in the face of the world,
the nature of the place of his birth, and the other circumstances thereof;
whether a clear morning sun guided his mother to the nook whence issued the
boy’s low cry; or at eve the lonely maiden (for the same woman never
finds a second, at least while the first lives) discovers the girl by the
glimmer of her white skin, lying in a nest like that of the lark, amid long
encircling grasses, and the upward-gazing eyes of the lowly daisies; whether
the storm bowed the forest trees around, or the still frost fixed in silence
the else flowing and babbling stream.
After they grow up, the men and women are but little together. There is this
peculiar difference between them, which likewise distinguishes the women from
those of the earth. The men alone have arms; the women have only wings.
Resplendent wings are they, wherein they can shroud themselves from head to
foot in a panoply of glistering glory. By these wings alone, it may frequently
be judged in what seasons, and under what aspects, they were born. From those
that came in winter, go great white wings, white as snow; the edge of every
feather shining like the sheen of silver, so that they flash and glitter like
frost in the sun. But underneath, they are tinged with a faint pink or
rose-colour. Those born in spring have wings of a brilliant green, green as
grass; and towards the edges the feathers are enamelled like the surface of the
grass-blades. These again are white within. Those that are born in summer have
wings of a deep rose-colour, lined with pale gold. And those born in autumn
have purple wings, with a rich brown on the inside. But these colours are
modified and altered in all varieties, corresponding to the mood of the day and
hour, as well as the season of the year; and sometimes I found the various
colours so intermingled, that I could not determine even the season, though
doubtless the hieroglyphic could be deciphered by more experienced eyes. One
splendour, in particular, I remember—wings of deep carmine, with an inner
down of warm gray, around a form of brilliant whiteness.
She had been found as the sun went down through a low sea-fog, casting crimson
along a broad sea-path into a little cave on the shore, where a bathing maiden
saw her lying.
But though I speak of sun and fog, and sea and shore, the world there is in
some respects very different from the earth whereon men live. For instance, the
waters reflect no forms. To the unaccustomed eye they appear, if undisturbed,
like the surface of a dark metal, only that the latter would reflect
indistinctly, whereas they reflect not at all, except light which falls
immediately upon them. This has a great effect in causing the landscapes to
differ from those on the earth. On the stillest evening, no tall ship on the
sea sends a long wavering reflection almost to the feet of him on shore; the
face of no maiden brightens at its own beauty in a still forest-well. The sun
and moon alone make a glitter on the surface. The sea is like a sea of death,
ready to ingulf and never to reveal: a visible shadow of oblivion. Yet the
women sport in its waters like gorgeous sea-birds. The men more rarely enter
them. But, on the contrary, the sky reflects everything beneath it, as if it
were built of water like ours. Of course, from its concavity there is some
distortion of the reflected objects; yet wondrous combinations of form are
often to be seen in the overhanging depth. And then it is not shaped so much
like a round dome as the sky of the earth, but, more of an egg-shape, rises to
a great towering height in the middle, appearing far more lofty than the other.
When the stars come out at night, it shows a mighty cupola, “fretted with
golden fires,” wherein there is room for all tempests to rush and rave.
One evening in early summer, I stood with a group of men and women on a steep
rock that overhung the sea. They were all questioning me about my world and the
ways thereof. In making reply to one of their questions, I was compelled to say
that children are not born in the Earth as with them. Upon this I was assailed
with a whole battery of inquiries, which at first I tried to avoid; but, at
last, I was compelled, in the vaguest manner I could invent, to make some
approach to the subject in question. Immediately a dim notion of what I meant,
seemed to dawn in the minds of most of the women. Some of them folded their
great wings all around them, as they generally do when in the least offended,
and stood erect and motionless. One spread out her rosy pinions, and flashed
from the promontory into the gulf at its foot. A great light shone in the eyes
of one maiden, who turned and walked slowly away, with her purple and white
wings half dispread behind her. She was found, the next morning, dead beneath a
withered tree on a bare hill-side, some miles inland. They buried her where she
lay, as is their custom; for, before they die, they instinctively search for a
spot like the place of their birth, and having found one that satisfies them,
they lie down, fold their wings around them, if they be women, or cross their
arms over their breasts, if they are men, just as if they were going to sleep;
and so sleep indeed. The sign or cause of coming death is an indescribable
longing for something, they know not what, which seizes them, and drives them
into solitude, consuming them within, till the body fails. When a youth and a
maiden look too deep into each other’s eyes, this longing seizes and
possesses them; but instead of drawing nearer to each other, they wander away,
each alone, into solitary places, and die of their desire. But it seems to me,
that thereafter they are born babes upon our earth: where, if, when grown, they
find each other, it goes well with them; if not, it will seem to go ill. But of
this I know nothing. When I told them that the women on the Earth had not wings
like them, but arms, they stared, and said how bold and masculine they must
look; not knowing that their wings, glorious as they are, are but undeveloped
arms.
But see the power of this book, that, while recounting what I can recall of its
contents, I write as if myself had visited the far-off planet, learned its ways
and appearances, and conversed with its men and women. And so, while writing,
it seemed to me that I had.
The book goes on with the story of a maiden, who, born at the close of autumn,
and living in a long, to her endless winter, set out at last to find the
regions of spring; for, as in our earth, the seasons are divided over the
globe. It begins something like this:
She watched them dying for many a day,
Dropping from off the old trees away,
One by one; or else in a shower
Crowding over the withered flower
For as if they had done some grievous wrong,
The sun, that had nursed them and loved them so long,
Grew weary of loving, and, turning back,
Hastened away on his southern track;
And helplessly hung each shrivelled leaf,
Faded away with an idle grief.
And the gusts of wind, sad Autumn’s sighs,
Mournfully swept through their families;
Casting away with a helpless moan
All that he yet might call his own,
As the child, when his bird is gone for ever,
Flingeth the cage on the wandering river.
And the giant trees, as bare as Death,
Slowly bowed to the great Wind’s breath;
And groaned with trying to keep from groaning
Amidst the young trees bending and moaning.
And the ancient planet’s mighty sea
Was heaving and falling most restlessly,
And the tops of the waves were broken and white,
Tossing about to ease their might;
And the river was striving to reach the main,
And the ripple was hurrying back again.
Nature lived in sadness now;
Sadness lived on the maiden’s brow,
As she watched, with a fixed, half-conscious eye,
One lonely leaf that trembled on high,
Till it dropped at last from the desolate bough—
Sorrow, oh, sorrow! ‘tis winter now.
And her tears gushed forth, though it was but a leaf,
For little will loose the swollen fountain of grief:
When up to the lip the water goes,
It needs but a drop, and it overflows.
Oh! many and many a dreary year
Must pass away ere the buds appear:
Many a night of darksome sorrow
Yield to the light of a joyless morrow,
Ere birds again, on the clothed trees,
Shall fill the branches with melodies.
She will dream of meadows with wakeful streams;
Of wavy grass in the sunny beams;
Of hidden wells that soundless spring,
Hoarding their joy as a holy thing;
Of founts that tell it all day long
To the listening woods, with exultant song;
She will dream of evenings that die into nights,
Where each sense is filled with its own delights,
And the soul is still as the vaulted sky,
Lulled with an inner harmony;
And the flowers give out to the dewy night,
Changed into perfume, the gathered light;
And the darkness sinks upon all their host,
Till the sun sail up on the eastern coast—
She will wake and see the branches bare,
Weaving a net in the frozen air.
The story goes on to tell how, at last, weary with wintriness, she travelled
towards the southern regions of her globe, to meet the spring on its slow way
northwards; and how, after many sad adventures, many disappointed hopes, and
many tears, bitter and fruitless, she found at last, one stormy afternoon, in a
leafless forest, a single snowdrop growing betwixt the borders of the winter
and spring. She lay down beside it and died. I almost believe that a child,
pale and peaceful as a snowdrop, was born in the Earth within a fixed season
from that stormy afternoon.
CHAPTER XIII
“I saw a ship sailing upon the sea
Deeply laden as ship could be;
But not so deep as in love I am
For I care not whether I sink or swim.”
OLD BALLAD.
“But Love is such a Mystery
I cannot find it out:
For when I think I’m best resolv’d,
I then am in most doubt.”
SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
One story I will try to reproduce. But, alas! it is like trying to reconstruct
a forest out of broken branches and withered leaves. In the fairy book,
everything was just as it should be, though whether in words or something else,
I cannot tell. It glowed and flashed the thoughts upon the soul, with such a
power that the medium disappeared from the consciousness, and it was occupied
only with the things themselves. My representation of it must resemble a
translation from a rich and powerful language, capable of embodying the
thoughts of a splendidly developed people, into the meagre and half-articulate
speech of a savage tribe. Of course, while I read it, I was Cosmo, and his
history was mine. Yet, all the time, I seemed to have a kind of double
consciousness, and the story a double meaning. Sometimes it seemed only to
represent a simple story of ordinary life, perhaps almost of universal life;
wherein two souls, loving each other and longing to come nearer, do, after all,
but behold each other as in a glass darkly.
As through the hard rock go the branching silver veins; as into the solid land
run the creeks and gulfs from the unresting sea; as the lights and influences
of the upper worlds sink silently through the earth’s atmosphere; so doth
Faerie invade the world of men, and sometimes startle the common eye with an
association as of cause and effect, when between the two no connecting links
can be traced.
Cosmo von Wehrstahl was a student at the University of Prague. Though of a
noble family, he was poor, and prided himself upon the independence that
poverty gives; for what will not a man pride himself upon, when he cannot get
rid of it? A favourite with his fellow students, he yet had no companions; and
none of them had ever crossed the threshold of his lodging in the top of one of
the highest houses in the old town. Indeed, the secret of much of that
complaisance which recommended him to his fellows, was the thought of his
unknown retreat, whither in the evening he could betake himself and indulge
undisturbed in his own studies and reveries. These studies, besides those
subjects necessary to his course at the University, embraced some less commonly
known and approved; for in a secret drawer lay the works of Albertus Magnus and
Cornelius Agrippa, along with others less read and more abstruse. As yet,
however, he had followed these researches only from curiosity, and had turned
them to no practical purpose.
His lodging consisted of one large low-ceiled room, singularly bare of
furniture; for besides a couple of wooden chairs, a couch which served for
dreaming on both by day and night, and a great press of black oak, there was
very little in the room that could be called furniture.
But curious instruments were heaped in the corners; and in one stood a
skeleton, half-leaning against the wall, half-supported by a string about its
neck. One of its hands, all of fingers, rested on the heavy pommel of a great
sword that stood beside it.
Various weapons were scattered about over the floor. The walls were utterly
bare of adornment; for the few strange things, such as a large dried bat with
wings dispread, the skin of a porcupine, and a stuffed sea-mouse, could hardly
be reckoned as such. But although his fancy delighted in vagaries like these,
he indulged his imagination with far different fare. His mind had never yet
been filled with an absorbing passion; but it lay like a still twilight open to
any wind, whether the low breath that wafts but odours, or the storm that bows
the great trees till they strain and creak. He saw everything as through a
rose-coloured glass. When he looked from his window on the street below, not a
maiden passed but she moved as in a story, and drew his thoughts after her till
she disappeared in the vista. When he walked in the streets, he always felt as
if reading a tale, into which he sought to weave every face of interest that
went by; and every sweet voice swept his soul as with the wing of a passing
angel. He was in fact a poet without words; the more absorbed and endangered,
that the springing-waters were dammed back into his soul, where, finding no
utterance, they grew, and swelled, and undermined. He used to lie on his hard
couch, and read a tale or a poem, till the book dropped from his hand; but he
dreamed on, he knew not whether awake or asleep, until the opposite roof grew
upon his sense, and turned golden in the sunrise. Then he arose too; and the
impulses of vigorous youth kept him ever active, either in study or in sport,
until again the close of the day left him free; and the world of night, which
had lain drowned in the cataract of the day, rose up in his soul, with all its
stars, and dim-seen phantom shapes. But this could hardly last long. Some one
form must sooner or later step within the charmed circle, enter the house of
life, and compel the bewildered magician to kneel and worship.
One afternoon, towards dusk, he was wandering dreamily in one of the principal
streets, when a fellow student roused him by a slap on the shoulder, and asked
him to accompany him into a little back alley to look at some old armour which
he had taken a fancy to possess. Cosmo was considered an authority in every
matter pertaining to arms, ancient or modern. In the use of weapons, none of
the students could come near him; and his practical acquaintance with some had
principally contributed to establish his authority in reference to all. He
accompanied him willingly.
They entered a narrow alley, and thence a dirty little court, where a low
arched door admitted them into a heterogeneous assemblage of everything musty,
and dusty, and old, that could well be imagined. His verdict on the armour was
satisfactory, and his companion at once concluded the purchase. As they were
leaving the place, Cosmo’s eye was attracted by an old mirror of an
elliptical shape, which leaned against the wall, covered with dust. Around it
was some curious carving, which he could see but very indistinctly by the
glimmering light which the owner of the shop carried in his hand. It was this
carving that attracted his attention; at least so it appeared to him. He left
the place, however, with his friend, taking no further notice of it. They
walked together to the main street, where they parted and took opposite
directions.
No sooner was Cosmo left alone, than the thought of the curious old mirror
returned to him. A strong desire to see it more plainly arose within him, and
he directed his steps once more towards the shop. The owner opened the door
when he knocked, as if he had expected him. He was a little, old, withered man,
with a hooked nose, and burning eyes constantly in a slow restless motion, and
looking here and there as if after something that eluded them. Pretending to
examine several other articles, Cosmo at last approached the mirror, and
requested to have it taken down.
“Take it down yourself, master; I cannot reach it,” said the old
man.
Cosmo took it down carefully, when he saw that the carving was indeed delicate
and costly, being both of admirable design and execution; containing withal
many devices which seemed to embody some meaning to which he had no clue. This,
naturally, in one of his tastes and temperament, increased the interest he felt
in the old mirror; so much, indeed, that he now longed to possess it, in order
to study its frame at his leisure. He pretended, however, to want it only for
use; and saying he feared the plate could be of little service, as it was
rather old, he brushed away a little of the dust from its face, expecting to
see a dull reflection within. His surprise was great when he found the
reflection brilliant, revealing a glass not only uninjured by age, but
wondrously clear and perfect (should the whole correspond to this part) even
for one newly from the hands of the maker. He asked carelessly what the owner
wanted for the thing. The old man replied by mentioning a sum of money far
beyond the reach of poor Cosmo, who proceeded to replace the mirror where it
had stood before.
“You think the price too high?” said the old man.
“I do not know that it is too much for you to ask,” replied Cosmo;
“but it is far too much for me to give.”
The old man held up his light towards Cosmo’s face. “I like your
look,” said he.
Cosmo could not return the compliment. In fact, now he looked closely at him
for the first time, he felt a kind of repugnance to him, mingled with a strange
feeling of doubt whether a man or a woman stood before him.
“What is your name?” he continued.
“Cosmo von Wehrstahl.”
“Ah, ah! I thought as much. I see your father in you. I knew your father
very well, young sir. I dare say in some odd corners of my house, you might
find some old things with his crest and cipher upon them still. Well, I like
you: you shall have the mirror at the fourth part of what I asked for it; but
upon one condition.”
“What is that?” said Cosmo; for, although the price was still a
great deal for him to give, he could just manage it; and the desire to possess
the mirror had increased to an altogether unaccountable degree, since it had
seemed beyond his reach.
“That if you should ever want to get rid of it again, you will let me
have the first offer.”
“Certainly,” replied Cosmo, with a smile; adding, “a moderate
condition indeed.”
“On your honour?” insisted the seller.
“On my honour,” said the buyer; and the bargain was concluded.
“I will carry it home for you,” said the old man, as Cosmo took it
in his hands.
“No, no; I will carry it myself,” said he; for he had a peculiar
dislike to revealing his residence to any one, and more especially to this
person, to whom he felt every moment a greater antipathy. “Just as you
please,” said the old creature, and muttered to himself as he held his
light at the door to show him out of the court: “Sold for the sixth time!
I wonder what will be the upshot of it this time. I should think my lady had
enough of it by now!”
Cosmo carried his prize carefully home. But all the way he had an uncomfortable
feeling that he was watched and dogged. Repeatedly he looked about, but saw
nothing to justify his suspicions. Indeed, the streets were too crowded and too
ill lighted to expose very readily a careful spy, if such there should be at
his heels. He reached his lodging in safety, and leaned his purchase against
the wall, rather relieved, strong as he was, to be rid of its weight; then,
lighting his pipe, threw himself on the couch, and was soon lapt in the folds
of one of his haunting dreams.
He returned home earlier than usual the next day, and fixed the mirror to the
wall, over the hearth, at one end of his long room.
He then carefully wiped away the dust from its face, and, clear as the water of
a sunny spring, the mirror shone out from beneath the envious covering. But his
interest was chiefly occupied with the curious carving of the frame. This he
cleaned as well as he could with a brush; and then he proceeded to a minute
examination of its various parts, in the hope of discovering some index to the
intention of the carver. In this, however, he was unsuccessful; and, at length,
pausing with some weariness and disappointment, he gazed vacantly for a few
moments into the depth of the reflected room. But ere long he said, half aloud:
“What a strange thing a mirror is! and what a wondrous affinity exists
between it and a man’s imagination! For this room of mine, as I behold it
in the glass, is the same, and yet not the same. It is not the mere
representation of the room I live in, but it looks just as if I were reading
about it in a story I like. All its commonness has disappeared. The mirror has
lifted it out of the region of fact into the realm of art; and the very
representing of it to me has clothed with interest that which was otherwise
hard and bare; just as one sees with delight upon the stage the representation
of a character from which one would escape in life as from something
unendurably wearisome. But is it not rather that art rescues nature from the
weary and sated regards of our senses, and the degrading injustice of our
anxious everyday life, and, appealing to the imagination, which dwells apart,
reveals Nature in some degree as she really is, and as she represents herself
to the eye of the child, whose every-day life, fearless and unambitious, meets
the true import of the wonder-teeming world around him, and rejoices therein
without questioning? That skeleton, now—I almost fear it, standing there
so still, with eyes only for the unseen, like a watch-tower looking across all
the waste of this busy world into the quiet regions of rest beyond. And yet I
know every bone and every joint in it as well as my own fist. And that old
battle-axe looks as if any moment it might be caught up by a mailed hand, and,
borne forth by the mighty arm, go crashing through casque, and skull, and
brain, invading the Unknown with yet another bewildered ghost. I should like to
live in that room if I could only get into it.”
Scarcely had the half-moulded words floated from him, as he stood gazing into
the mirror, when, striking him as with a flash of amazement that fixed him in
his posture, noiseless and unannounced, glided suddenly through the door into
the reflected room, with stately motion, yet reluctant and faltering step, the
graceful form of a woman, clothed all in white. Her back only was visible as
she walked slowly up to the couch in the further end of the room, on which she
laid herself wearily, turning towards him a face of unutterable loveliness, in
which suffering, and dislike, and a sense of compulsion, strangely mingled with
the beauty. He stood without the power of motion for some moments, with his
eyes irrecoverably fixed upon her; and even after he was conscious of the
ability to move, he could not summon up courage to turn and look on her, face
to face, in the veritable chamber in which he stood. At length, with a sudden
effort, in which the exercise of the will was so pure, that it seemed
involuntary, he turned his face to the couch. It was vacant. In bewilderment,
mingled with terror, he turned again to the mirror: there, on the reflected
couch, lay the exquisite lady-form. She lay with closed eyes, whence two large
tears were just welling from beneath the veiling lids; still as death, save for
the convulsive motion of her bosom.
Cosmo himself could not have described what he felt. His emotions were of a
kind that destroyed consciousness, and could never be clearly recalled. He
could not help standing yet by the mirror, and keeping his eyes fixed on the
lady, though he was painfully aware of his rudeness, and feared every moment
that she would open hers, and meet his fixed regard. But he was, ere long, a
little relieved; for, after a while, her eyelids slowly rose, and her eyes
remained uncovered, but unemployed for a time; and when, at length, they began
to wander about the room, as if languidly seeking to make some acquaintance
with her environment, they were never directed towards him: it seemed nothing
but what was in the mirror could affect her vision; and, therefore, if she saw
him at all, it could only be his back, which, of necessity, was turned towards
her in the glass. The two figures in the mirror could not meet face to face,
except he turned and looked at her, present in his room; and, as she was not
there, he concluded that if he were to turn towards the part in his room
corresponding to that in which she lay, his reflection would either be
invisible to her altogether, or at least it must appear to her to gaze vacantly
towards her, and no meeting of the eyes would produce the impression of
spiritual proximity. By-and-by her eyes fell upon the skeleton, and he saw her
shudder and close them. She did not open them again, but signs of repugnance
continued evident on her countenance. Cosmo would have removed the obnoxious
thing at once, but he feared to discompose her yet more by the assertion of his
presence which the act would involve. So he stood and watched her. The eyelids
yet shrouded the eyes, as a costly case the jewels within; the troubled
expression gradually faded from the countenance, leaving only a faint sorrow
behind; the features settled into an unchanging expression of rest; and by
these signs, and the slow regular motion of her breathing, Cosmo knew that she
slept. He could now gaze on her without embarrassment. He saw that her figure,
dressed in the simplest robe of white, was worthy of her face; and so
harmonious, that either the delicately moulded foot, or any finger of the
equally delicate hand, was an index to the whole. As she lay, her whole form
manifested the relaxation of perfect repose. He gazed till he was weary, and at
last seated himself near the new-found shrine, and mechanically took up a book,
like one who watches by a sick-bed. But his eyes gathered no thoughts from the
page before him. His intellect had been stunned by the bold contradiction, to
its face, of all its experience, and now lay passive, without assertion, or
speculation, or even conscious astonishment; while his imagination sent one
wild dream of blessedness after another coursing through his soul. How long he
sat he knew not; but at length he roused himself, rose, and, trembling in every
portion of his frame, looked again into the mirror. She was gone. The mirror
reflected faithfully what his room presented, and nothing more. It stood there
like a golden setting whence the central jewel has been stolen away—like
a night-sky without the glory of its stars. She had carried with her all the
strangeness of the reflected room. It had sunk to the level of the one without.
But when the first pangs of his disappointment had passed, Cosmo began to
comfort himself with the hope that she might return, perhaps the next evening,
at the same hour. Resolving that if she did, she should not at least be scared
by the hateful skeleton, he removed that and several other articles of
questionable appearance into a recess by the side of the hearth, whence they
could not possibly cast any reflection into the mirror; and having made his
poor room as tidy as he could, sought the solace of the open sky and of a night
wind that had begun to blow, for he could not rest where he was. When he
returned, somewhat composed, he could hardly prevail with himself to lie down
on his bed; for he could not help feeling as if she had lain upon it; and for
him to lie there now would be something like sacrilege. However, weariness
prevailed; and laying himself on the couch, dressed as he was, he slept till
day.
With a beating heart, beating till he could hardly breathe, he stood in dumb
hope before the mirror, on the following evening. Again the reflected room
shone as through a purple vapour in the gathering twilight. Everything seemed
waiting like himself for a coming splendour to glorify its poor earthliness
with the presence of a heavenly joy. And just as the room vibrated with the
strokes of the neighbouring church bell, announcing the hour of six, in glided
the pale beauty, and again laid herself on the couch. Poor Cosmo nearly lost
his senses with delight. She was there once more! Her eyes sought the corner
where the skeleton had stood, and a faint gleam of satisfaction crossed her
face, apparently at seeing it empty. She looked suffering still, but there was
less of discomfort expressed in her countenance than there had been the night
before. She took more notice of the things about her, and seemed to gaze with
some curiosity on the strange apparatus standing here and there in her room. At
length, however, drowsiness seemed to overtake her, and again she fell asleep.
Resolved not to lose sight of her this time, Cosmo watched the sleeping form.
Her slumber was so deep and absorbing that a fascinating repose seemed to pass
contagiously from her to him as he gazed upon her; and he started as if from a
dream, when the lady moved, and, without opening her eyes, rose, and passed
from the room with the gait of a somnambulist.
Cosmo was now in a state of extravagant delight. Most men have a secret
treasure somewhere. The miser has his golden hoard; the virtuoso his pet ring;
the student his rare book; the poet his favourite haunt; the lover his secret
drawer; but Cosmo had a mirror with a lovely lady in it. And now that he knew
by the skeleton, that she was affected by the things around her, he had a new
object in life: he would turn the bare chamber in the mirror into a room such
as no lady need disdain to call her own. This he could effect only by
furnishing and adorning his. And Cosmo was poor. Yet he possessed
accomplishments that could be turned to account; although, hitherto, he had
preferred living on his slender allowance, to increasing his means by what his
pride considered unworthy of his rank. He was the best swordsman in the
University; and now he offered to give lessons in fencing and similar
exercises, to such as chose to pay him well for the trouble. His proposal was
heard with surprise by the students; but it was eagerly accepted by many; and
soon his instructions were not confined to the richer students, but were
anxiously sought by many of the young nobility of Prague and its neighbourhood.
So that very soon he had a good deal of money at his command. The first thing
he did was to remove his apparatus and oddities into a closet in the room. Then
he placed his bed and a few other necessaries on each side of the hearth, and
parted them from the rest of the room by two screens of Indian fabric. Then he
put an elegant couch for the lady to lie upon, in the corner where his bed had
formerly stood; and, by degrees, every day adding some article of luxury,
converted it, at length, into a rich boudoir.
Every night, about the same time, the lady entered. The first time she saw the
new couch, she started with a half-smile; then her face grew very sad, the
tears came to her eyes, and she laid herself upon the couch, and pressed her
face into the silken cushions, as if to hide from everything. She took notice
of each addition and each change as the work proceeded; and a look of
acknowledgment, as if she knew that some one was ministering to her, and was
grateful for it, mingled with the constant look of suffering. At length, after
she had lain down as usual one evening, her eyes fell upon some paintings with
which Cosmo had just finished adorning the walls. She rose, and to his great
delight, walked across the room, and proceeded to examine them carefully,
testifying much pleasure in her looks as she did so. But again the sorrowful,
tearful expression returned, and again she buried her face in the pillows of
her couch. Gradually, however, her countenance had grown more composed; much of
the suffering manifest on her first appearance had vanished, and a kind of
quiet, hopeful expression had taken its place; which, however, frequently gave
way to an anxious, troubled look, mingled with something of sympathetic pity.
Meantime, how fared Cosmo? As might be expected in one of his temperament, his
interest had blossomed into love, and his love—shall I call it
ripened, or—withered into passion. But, alas! he loved a
shadow. He could not come near her, could not speak to her, could not hear a
sound from those sweet lips, to which his longing eyes would cling like bees to
their honey-founts. Ever and anon he sang to himself:
“I shall die for love of the maiden;”
and ever he looked again, and died not, though his heart seemed ready to break
with intensity of life and longing. And the more he did for her, the more he
loved her; and he hoped that, although she never appeared to see him, yet she
was pleased to think that one unknown would give his life to her. He tried to
comfort himself over his separation from her, by thinking that perhaps some day
she would see him and make signs to him, and that would satisfy him;
“for,” thought he, “is not this all that a loving soul can do
to enter into communion with another? Nay, how many who love never come nearer
than to behold each other as in a mirror; seem to know and yet never know the
inward life; never enter the other soul; and part at last, with but the vaguest
notion of the universe on the borders of which they have been hovering for
years? If I could but speak to her, and knew that she heard me, I should be
satisfied.” Once he contemplated painting a picture on the wall, which
should, of necessity, convey to the lady a thought of himself; but, though he
had some skill with the pencil, he found his hand tremble so much when he began
the attempt, that he was forced to give it up. . . . . .
“Who lives, he dies; who dies, he is alive.”
One evening, as he stood gazing on his treasure, he thought he saw a faint
expression of self-consciousness on her countenance, as if she surmised that
passionate eyes were fixed upon her. This grew; till at last the red blood rose
over her neck, and cheek, and brow. Cosmo’s longing to approach her
became almost delirious. This night she was dressed in an evening costume,
resplendent with diamonds. This could add nothing to her beauty, but it
presented it in a new aspect; enabled her loveliness to make a new
manifestation of itself in a new embodiment. For essential beauty is infinite;
and, as the soul of Nature needs an endless succession of varied forms to
embody her loveliness, countless faces of beauty springing forth, not any two
the same, at any one of her heart-throbs; so the individual form needs an
infinite change of its environments, to enable it to uncover all the phases of
its loveliness. Diamonds glittered from amidst her hair, half hidden in its
luxuriance, like stars through dark rain-clouds; and the bracelets on her white
arms flashed all the colours of a rainbow of lightnings, as she lifted her
snowy hands to cover her burning face. But her beauty shone down all its
adornment. “If I might have but one of her feet to kiss,” thought
Cosmo, “I should be content.” Alas! he deceived himself, for
passion is never content. Nor did he know that there are two ways out of
her enchanted house. But, suddenly, as if the pang had been driven into his
heart from without, revealing itself first in pain, and afterwards in definite
form, the thought darted into his mind, “She has a lover somewhere.
Remembered words of his bring the colour on her face now. I am nowhere to her.
She lives in another world all day, and all night, after she leaves me. Why
does she come and make me love her, till I, a strong man, am too faint to look
upon her more?” He looked again, and her face was pale as a lily. A
sorrowful compassion seemed to rebuke the glitter of the restless jewels, and
the slow tears rose in her eyes. She left her room sooner this evening than was
her wont. Cosmo remained alone, with a feeling as if his bosom had been
suddenly left empty and hollow, and the weight of the whole world was crushing
in its walls. The next evening, for the first time since she began to come, she
came not.
And now Cosmo was in wretched plight. Since the thought of a rival had occurred
to him, he could not rest for a moment. More than ever he longed to see the
lady face to face. He persuaded himself that if he but knew the worst he would
be satisfied; for then he could abandon Prague, and find that relief in
constant motion, which is the hope of all active minds when invaded by
distress. Meantime he waited with unspeakable anxiety for the next night,
hoping she would return: but she did not appear. And now he fell really ill.
Rallied by his fellow students on his wretched looks, he ceased to attend the
lectures. His engagements were neglected. He cared for nothing. The sky, with
the great sun in it, was to him a heartless, burning desert. The men and women
in the streets were mere puppets, without motives in themselves, or interest to
him. He saw them all as on the ever-changing field of a camera obscura.
She—she alone and altogether—was his universe, his well of life,
his incarnate good. For six evenings she came not. Let his absorbing passion,
and the slow fever that was consuming his brain, be his excuse for the
resolution which he had taken and begun to execute, before that time had
expired.
Reasoning with himself, that it must be by some enchantment connected with the
mirror, that the form of the lady was to be seen in it, he determined to
attempt to turn to account what he had hitherto studied principally from
curiosity. “For,” said he to himself, “if a spell can force
her presence in that glass (and she came unwillingly at first), may not a
stronger spell, such as I know, especially with the aid of her half-presence in
the mirror, if ever she appears again, compel her living form to come to me
here? If I do her wrong, let love be my excuse. I want only to know my doom
from her own lips.” He never doubted, all the time, that she was a real
earthly woman; or, rather, that there was a woman, who, somehow or other, threw
this reflection of her form into the magic mirror.
He opened his secret drawer, took out his books of magic, lighted his lamp, and
read and made notes from midnight till three in the morning, for three
successive nights. Then he replaced his books; and the next night went out in
quest of the materials necessary for the conjuration. These were not easy to
find; for, in love-charms and all incantations of this nature, ingredients are
employed scarcely fit to be mentioned, and for the thought even of which, in
connexion with her, he could only excuse himself on the score of his bitter
need. At length he succeeded in procuring all he required; and on the seventh
evening from that on which she had last appeared, he found himself prepared for
the exercise of unlawful and tyrannical power.
He cleared the centre of the room; stooped and drew a circle of red on the
floor, around the spot where he stood; wrote in the four quarters mystical
signs, and numbers which were all powers of seven or nine; examined the whole
ring carefully, to see that no smallest break had occurred in the
circumference; and then rose from his bending posture. As he rose, the church
clock struck seven; and, just as she had appeared the first time, reluctant,
slow, and stately, glided in the lady. Cosmo trembled; and when, turning, she
revealed a countenance worn and wan, as with sickness or inward trouble, he
grew faint, and felt as if he dared not proceed. But as he gazed on the face
and form, which now possessed his whole soul, to the exclusion of all other
joys and griefs, the longing to speak to her, to know that she heard him, to
hear from her one word in return, became so unendurable, that he suddenly and
hastily resumed his preparations. Stepping carefully from the circle, he put a
small brazier into its centre. He then set fire to its contents of charcoal,
and while it burned up, opened his window and seated himself, waiting, beside
it.
It was a sultry evening. The air was full of thunder. A sense of luxurious
depression filled the brain. The sky seemed to have grown heavy, and to
compress the air beneath it. A kind of purplish tinge pervaded the atmosphere,
and through the open window came the scents of the distant fields, which all
the vapours of the city could not quench. Soon the charcoal glowed. Cosmo
sprinkled upon it the incense and other substances which he had compounded,
and, stepping within the circle, turned his face from the brazier and towards
the mirror. Then, fixing his eyes upon the face of the lady, he began with a
trembling voice to repeat a powerful incantation. He had not gone far, before
the lady grew pale; and then, like a returning wave, the blood washed all its
banks with its crimson tide, and she hid her face in her hands. Then he passed
to a conjuration stronger yet.
The lady rose and walked uneasily to and fro in her room. Another spell; and
she seemed seeking with her eyes for some object on which they wished to rest.
At length it seemed as if she suddenly espied him; for her eyes fixed
themselves full and wide upon his, and she drew gradually, and somewhat
unwillingly, close to her side of the mirror, just as if his eyes had
fascinated her. Cosmo had never seen her so near before. Now at least, eyes met
eyes; but he could not quite understand the expression of hers. They were full
of tender entreaty, but there was something more that he could not interpret.
Though his heart seemed to labour in his throat, he would allow no delight or
agitation to turn him from his task. Looking still in her face, he passed on to
the mightiest charm he knew. Suddenly the lady turned and walked out of the
door of her reflected chamber. A moment after she entered his room with
veritable presence; and, forgetting all his precautions, he sprang from the
charmed circle, and knelt before her. There she stood, the living lady of his
passionate visions, alone beside him, in a thundery twilight, and the glow of a
magic fire.
“Why,” said the lady, with a trembling voice, “didst thou
bring a poor maiden through the rainy streets alone?”
“Because I am dying for love of thee; but I only brought thee from the
mirror there.”
“Ah, the mirror!” and she looked up at it, and shuddered.
“Alas! I am but a slave, while that mirror exists. But do not think it
was the power of thy spells that drew me; it was thy longing desire to see me,
that beat at the door of my heart, till I was forced to yield.”
“Canst thou love me then?” said Cosmo, in a voice calm as death,
but almost inarticulate with emotion.
“I do not know,” she replied sadly; “that I cannot tell, so
long as I am bewildered with enchantments. It were indeed a joy too great, to
lay my head on thy bosom and weep to death; for I think thou lovest me, though
I do not know;—but——”
Cosmo rose from his knees.
“I love thee as—nay, I know not what—for since I have loved
thee, there is nothing else.”
He seized her hand: she withdrew it.
“No, better not; I am in thy power, and therefore I may not.”
She burst into tears, and kneeling before him in her turn, said—
“Cosmo, if thou lovest me, set me free, even from thyself; break the
mirror.”
“And shall I see thyself instead?”
“That I cannot tell, I will not deceive thee; we may never meet
again.”
A fierce struggle arose in Cosmo’s bosom. Now she was in his power. She
did not dislike him at least; and he could see her when he would. To break the
mirror would be to destroy his very life, to banish out of his universe the
only glory it possessed. The whole world would be but a prison, if he
annihilated the one window that looked into the paradise of love. Not yet pure
in love, he hesitated.
With a wail of sorrow the lady rose to her feet. “Ah! he loves me not; he
loves me not even as I love him; and alas! I care more for his love than even
for the freedom I ask.”
“I will not wait to be willing,” cried Cosmo; and sprang to the
corner where the great sword stood.
Meantime it had grown very dark; only the embers cast a red glow through the
room. He seized the sword by the steel scabbard, and stood before the mirror;
but as he heaved a great blow at it with the heavy pommel, the blade slipped
half-way out of the scabbard, and the pommel struck the wall above the mirror.
At that moment, a terrible clap of thunder seemed to burst in the very room
beside them; and ere Cosmo could repeat the blow, he fell senseless on the
hearth. When he came to himself, he found that the lady and the mirror had both
disappeared. He was seized with a brain fever, which kept him to his couch for
weeks.
When he recovered his reason, he began to think what could have become of the
mirror. For the lady, he hoped she had found her way back as she came; but as
the mirror involved her fate with its own, he was more immediately anxious
about that. He could not think she had carried it away. It was much too heavy,
even if it had not been too firmly fixed in the wall, for her to remove it.
Then again, he remembered the thunder; which made him believe that it was not
the lightning, but some other blow that had struck him down. He concluded that,
either by supernatural agency, he having exposed himself to the vengeance of
the demons in leaving the circle of safety, or in some other mode, the mirror
had probably found its way back to its former owner; and, horrible to think of,
might have been by this time once more disposed of, delivering up the lady into
the power of another man; who, if he used his power no worse than he himself
had done, might yet give Cosmo abundant cause to curse the selfish indecision
which prevented him from shattering the mirror at once. Indeed, to think that
she whom he loved, and who had prayed to him for freedom, should be still at
the mercy, in some degree, of the possessor of the mirror, and was at least
exposed to his constant observation, was in itself enough to madden a chary
lover.
Anxiety to be well retarded his recovery; but at length he was able to creep
abroad. He first made his way to the old broker’s, pretending to be in
search of something else. A laughing sneer on the creature’s face
convinced him that he knew all about it; but he could not see it amongst his
furniture, or get any information out of him as to what had become of it. He
expressed the utmost surprise at hearing it had been stolen, a surprise which
Cosmo saw at once to be counterfeited; while, at the same time, he fancied that
the old wretch was not at all anxious to have it mistaken for genuine. Full of
distress, which he concealed as well as he could, he made many searches, but
with no avail. Of course he could ask no questions; but he kept his ears awake
for any remotest hint that might set him in a direction of search. He never
went out without a short heavy hammer of steel about him, that he might shatter
the mirror the moment he was made happy by the sight of his lost treasure, if
ever that blessed moment should arrive. Whether he should see the lady again,
was now a thought altogether secondary, and postponed to the achievement of her
freedom. He wandered here and there, like an anxious ghost, pale and haggard;
gnawed ever at the heart, by the thought of what she might be
suffering—all from his fault.
One night, he mingled with a crowd that filled the rooms of one of the most
distinguished mansions in the city; for he accepted every invitation, that he
might lose no chance, however poor, of obtaining some information that might
expedite his discovery. Here he wandered about, listening to every stray word
that he could catch, in the hope of a revelation. As he approached some ladies
who were talking quietly in a corner, one said to another:
“Have you heard of the strange illness of the Princess von
Hohenweiss?”
“Yes; she has been ill for more than a year now. It is very sad for so
fine a creature to have such a terrible malady. She was better for some weeks
lately, but within the last few days the same attacks have returned, apparently
accompanied with more suffering than ever. It is altogether an inexplicable
story.”
“Is there a story connected with her illness?”
“I have only heard imperfect reports of it; but it is said that she gave
offence some eighteen months ago to an old woman who had held an office of
trust in the family, and who, after some incoherent threats, disappeared. This
peculiar affection followed soon after. But the strangest part of the story is
its association with the loss of an antique mirror, which stood in her
dressing-room, and of which she constantly made use.”
Here the speaker’s voice sank to a whisper; and Cosmo, although his very
soul sat listening in his ears, could hear no more. He trembled too much to
dare to address the ladies, even if it had been advisable to expose himself to
their curiosity. The name of the Princess was well known to him, but he had
never seen her; except indeed it was she, which now he hardly doubted, who had
knelt before him on that dreadful night. Fearful of attracting attention, for,
from the weak state of his health, he could not recover an appearance of
calmness, he made his way to the open air, and reached his lodgings; glad in
this, that he at least knew where she lived, although he never dreamed of
approaching her openly, even if he should be happy enough to free her from her
hateful bondage. He hoped, too, that as he had unexpectedly learned so much,
the other and far more important part might be revealed to him ere long.
“Have you seen Steinwald lately?”
“No, I have not seen him for some time. He is almost a match for me at
the rapier, and I suppose he thinks he needs no more lessons.”
“I wonder what has become of him. I want to see him very much. Let me
see; the last time I saw him he was coming out of that old broker’s den,
to which, if you remember, you accompanied me once, to look at some armour.
That is fully three weeks ago.”
This hint was enough for Cosmo. Von Steinwald was a man of influence in the
court, well known for his reckless habits and fierce passions. The very
possibility that the mirror should be in his possession was hell itself to
Cosmo. But violent or hasty measures of any sort were most unlikely to succeed.
All that he wanted was an opportunity of breaking the fatal glass; and to
obtain this he must bide his time. He revolved many plans in his mind, but
without being able to fix upon any.
At length, one evening, as he was passing the house of Von Steinwald, he saw
the windows more than usually brilliant. He watched for a while, and seeing
that company began to arrive, hastened home, and dressed as richly as he could,
in the hope of mingling with the guests unquestioned: in effecting which, there
could be no difficulty for a man of his carriage.
In a lofty, silent chamber, in another part of the city, lay a form more like
marble than a living woman. The loveliness of death seemed frozen upon her
face, for her lips were rigid, and her eyelids closed. Her long white hands
were crossed over her breast, and no breathing disturbed their repose. Beside
the dead, men speak in whispers, as if the deepest rest of all could be broken
by the sound of a living voice. Just so, though the soul was evidently beyond
the reach of all intimations from the senses, the two ladies, who sat beside
her, spoke in the gentlest tones of subdued sorrow. “She has lain so for
an hour.”
“This cannot last long, I fear.”
“How much thinner she has grown within the last few weeks! If she would
only speak, and explain what she suffers, it would be better for her. I think
she has visions in her trances, but nothing can induce her to refer to them
when she is awake.”
“Does she ever speak in these trances?”
“I have never heard her; but they say she walks sometimes, and once put
the whole household in a terrible fright by disappearing for a whole hour, and
returning drenched with rain, and almost dead with exhaustion and fright. But
even then she would give no account of what had happened.”
A scarce audible murmur from the yet motionless lips of the lady here startled
her attendants. After several ineffectual attempts at articulation, the word
“Cosmo!” burst from her. Then she lay still as before; but
only for a moment. With a wild cry, she sprang from the couch erect on the
floor, flung her arms above her head, with clasped and straining hands, and,
her wide eyes flashing with light, called aloud, with a voice exultant as that
of a spirit bursting from a sepulchre, “I am free! I am free! I thank
thee!” Then she flung herself on the couch, and sobbed; then rose, and
paced wildly up and down the room, with gestures of mingled delight and
anxiety. Then turning to her motionless attendants—“Quick, Lisa, my
cloak and hood!” Then lower—“I must go to him. Make haste,
Lisa! You may come with me, if you will.”
In another moment they were in the street, hurrying along towards one of the
bridges over the Moldau. The moon was near the zenith, and the streets were
almost empty. The Princess soon outstripped her attendant, and was half-way
over the bridge, before the other reached it.
“Are you free, lady? The mirror is broken: are you free?”
The words were spoken close beside her, as she hurried on. She turned; and
there, leaning on the parapet in a recess of the bridge, stood Cosmo, in a
splendid dress, but with a white and quivering face.
“Cosmo!—I am free—and thy servant for ever. I was coming to
you now.”
“And I to you, for Death made me bold; but I could get no further. Have I
atoned at all? Do I love you a little—truly?”
“Ah, I know now that you love me, my Cosmo; but what do you say about
death?”
He did not reply. His hand was pressed against his side. She looked more
closely: the blood was welling from between the fingers. She flung her arms
around him with a faint bitter wail.
When Lisa came up, she found her mistress kneeling above a wan dead face, which
smiled on in the spectral moonbeams.
And now I will say no more about these wondrous volumes; though I could tell
many a tale out of them, and could, perhaps, vaguely represent some entrancing
thoughts of a deeper kind which I found within them. From many a sultry noon
till twilight, did I sit in that grand hall, buried and risen again in these
old books. And I trust I have carried away in my soul some of the exhalations
of their undying leaves. In after hours of deserved or needful sorrow, portions
of what I read there have often come to me again, with an unexpected
comforting; which was not fruitless, even though the comfort might seem in
itself groundless and vain.
CHAPTER XIV
“Your gallery
Have we pass’d through, not without much content
In many singularities; but we saw not
That which my daughter came to look upon,
The state of her mother.”
Winter’s Tale.
It seemed to me strange, that all this time I had heard no music in the fairy
palace. I was convinced there must be music in it, but that my sense was as yet
too gross to receive the influence of those mysterious motions that beget
sound. Sometimes I felt sure, from the way the few figures of which I got such
transitory glimpses passed me, or glided into vacancy before me, that they were
moving to the law of music; and, in fact, several times I fancied for a moment
that I heard a few wondrous tones coming I knew not whence. But they did not
last long enough to convince me that I had heard them with the bodily sense.
Such as they were, however, they took strange liberties with me, causing me to
burst suddenly into tears, of which there was no presence to make me ashamed,
or casting me into a kind of trance of speechless delight, which, passing as
suddenly, left me faint and longing for more.
Now, on an evening, before I had been a week in the palace, I was wandering
through one lighted arcade and corridor after another. At length I arrived,
through a door that closed behind me, in another vast hall of the palace. It
was filled with a subdued crimson light; by which I saw that slender pillars of
black, built close to walls of white marble, rose to a great height, and then,
dividing into innumerable divergent arches, supported a roof, like the walls,
of white marble, upon which the arches intersected intricately, forming a
fretting of black upon the white, like the network of a skeleton-leaf. The
floor was black.
Between several pairs of the pillars upon every side, the place of the wall
behind was occupied by a crimson curtain of thick silk, hanging in heavy and
rich folds. Behind each of these curtains burned a powerful light, and these
were the sources of the glow that filled the hall. A peculiar delicious odour
pervaded the place. As soon as I entered, the old inspiration seemed to return
to me, for I felt a strong impulse to sing; or rather, it seemed as if some one
else was singing a song in my soul, which wanted to come forth at my lips,
imbodied in my breath. But I kept silence; and feeling somewhat overcome by the
red light and the perfume, as well as by the emotion within me, and seeing at
one end of the hall a great crimson chair, more like a throne than a chair,
beside a table of white marble, I went to it, and, throwing myself in it, gave
myself up to a succession of images of bewildering beauty, which passed before
my inward eye, in a long and occasionally crowded train. Here I sat for hours,
I suppose; till, returning somewhat to myself, I saw that the red light had
paled away, and felt a cool gentle breath gliding over my forehead. I rose and
left the hall with unsteady steps, finding my way with some difficulty to my
own chamber, and faintly remembering, as I went, that only in the marble cave,
before I found the sleeping statue, had I ever had a similar experience.
After this, I repaired every morning to the same hall; where I sometimes sat in
the chair and dreamed deliciously, and sometimes walked up and down over the
black floor. Sometimes I acted within myself a whole drama, during one of these
perambulations; sometimes walked deliberately through the whole epic of a tale;
sometimes ventured to sing a song, though with a shrinking fear of I knew not
what. I was astonished at the beauty of my own voice as it rang through the
place, or rather crept undulating, like a serpent of sound, along the walls and
roof of this superb music-hall. Entrancing verses arose within me as of their
own accord, chanting themselves to their own melodies, and requiring no
addition of music to satisfy the inward sense. But, ever in the pauses of
these, when the singing mood was upon me, I seemed to hear something like the
distant sound of multitudes of dancers, and felt as if it was the unheard
music, moving their rhythmic motion, that within me blossomed in verse and
song. I felt, too, that could I but see the dance, I should, from the harmony
of complicated movements, not of the dancers in relation to each other merely,
but of each dancer individually in the manifested plastic power that moved the
consenting harmonious form, understand the whole of the music on the billows of
which they floated and swung.
At length, one night, suddenly, when this feeling of dancing came upon me, I
bethought me of lifting one of the crimson curtains, and looking if, perchance,
behind it there might not be hid some other mystery, which might at least
remove a step further the bewilderment of the present one. Nor was I altogether
disappointed. I walked to one of the magnificent draperies, lifted a corner,
and peeped in. There, burned a great, crimson, globe-shaped light, high in the
cubical centre of another hall, which might be larger or less than that in
which I stood, for its dimensions were not easily perceived, seeing that floor
and roof and walls were entirely of black marble.
The roof was supported by the same arrangement of pillars radiating in arches,
as that of the first hall; only, here, the pillars and arches were of dark red.
But what absorbed my delighted gaze, was an innumerable assembly of white
marble statues, of every form, and in multitudinous posture, filling the hall
throughout. These stood, in the ruddy glow of the great lamp, upon pedestals of
jet black. Around the lamp shone in golden letters, plainly legible from where
I stood, the two words—
TOUCH NOT!
There was in all this, however, no solution to the sound of dancing; and now I
was aware that the influence on my mind had ceased. I did not go in that
evening, for I was weary and faint, but I hoarded up the expectation of
entering, as of a great coming joy.
Next night I walked, as on the preceding, through the hall. My mind was filled
with pictures and songs, and therewith so much absorbed, that I did not for
some time think of looking within the curtain I had last night lifted. When the
thought of doing so occurred to me first, I happened to be within a few yards
of it. I became conscious, at the same moment, that the sound of dancing had
been for some time in my ears. I approached the curtain quickly, and, lifting
it, entered the black hall. Everything was still as death. I should have
concluded that the sound must have proceeded from some other more distant
quarter, which conclusion its faintness would, in ordinary circumstances, have
necessitated from the first; but there was a something about the statues that
caused me still to remain in doubt. As I said, each stood perfectly still upon
its black pedestal: but there was about every one a certain air, not of motion,
but as if it had just ceased from movement; as if the rest were not altogether
of the marbly stillness of thousands of years. It was as if the peculiar
atmosphere of each had yet a kind of invisible tremulousness; as if its
agitated wavelets had not yet subsided into a perfect calm. I had the suspicion
that they had anticipated my appearance, and had sprung, each, from the living
joy of the dance, to the death-silence and blackness of its isolated pedestal,
just before I entered. I walked across the central hall to the curtain opposite
the one I had lifted, and, entering there, found all the appearances similar;
only that the statues were different, and differently grouped. Neither did they
produce on my mind that impression—of motion just expired, which I had
experienced from the others. I found that behind every one of the crimson
curtains was a similar hall, similarly lighted, and similarly occupied.
The next night, I did not allow my thoughts to be absorbed as before with
inward images, but crept stealthily along to the furthest curtain in the hall,
from behind which, likewise, I had formerly seemed to hear the sound of
dancing. I drew aside its edge as suddenly as I could, and, looking in, saw
that the utmost stillness pervaded the vast place. I walked in, and passed
through it to the other end.
There I found that it communicated with a circular corridor, divided from it
only by two rows of red columns. This corridor, which was black, with red
niches holding statues, ran entirely about the statue-halls, forming a
communication between the further ends of them all; further, that is, as
regards the central hall of white whence they all diverged like radii, finding
their circumference in the corridor.
Round this corridor I now went, entering all the halls, of which there were
twelve, and finding them all similarly constructed, but filled with quite
various statues, of what seemed both ancient and modern sculpture. After I had
simply walked through them, I found myself sufficiently tired to long for rest,
and went to my own room.
In the night I dreamed that, walking close by one of the curtains, I was
suddenly seized with the desire to enter, and darted in. This time I was too
quick for them. All the statues were in motion, statues no longer, but men and
women—all shapes of beauty that ever sprang from the brain of the
sculptor, mingled in the convolutions of a complicated dance. Passing through
them to the further end, I almost started from my sleep on beholding, not
taking part in the dance with the others, nor seemingly endued with life like
them, but standing in marble coldness and rigidity upon a black pedestal in the
extreme left corner—my lady of the cave; the marble beauty who sprang
from her tomb or her cradle at the call of my songs. While I gazed in
speechless astonishment and admiration, a dark shadow, descending from above
like the curtain of a stage, gradually hid her entirely from my view. I felt
with a shudder that this shadow was perchance my missing demon, whom I had not
seen for days. I awoke with a stifled cry.
Of course, the next evening I began my journey through the halls (for I knew
not to which my dream had carried me), in the hope of proving the dream to be a
true one, by discovering my marble beauty upon her black pedestal. At length,
on reaching the tenth hall, I thought I recognised some of the forms I had seen
dancing in my dream; and to my bewilderment, when I arrived at the extreme
corner on the left, there stood, the only one I had yet seen, a vacant
pedestal. It was exactly in the position occupied, in my dream, by the pedestal
on which the white lady stood. Hope beat violently in my heart.
“Now,” said I to myself, “if yet another part of the dream
would but come true, and I should succeed in surprising these forms in their
nightly dance; it might be the rest would follow, and I should see on the
pedestal my marble queen. Then surely if my songs sufficed to give her life
before, when she lay in the bonds of alabaster, much more would they be
sufficient then to give her volition and motion, when she alone of assembled
crowds of marble forms, would be standing rigid and cold.”
But the difficulty was, to surprise the dancers. I had found that a
premeditated attempt at surprise, though executed with the utmost care and
rapidity, was of no avail. And, in my dream, it was effected by a sudden
thought suddenly executed. I saw, therefore, that there was no plan of
operation offering any probability of success, but this: to allow my mind to be
occupied with other thoughts, as I wandered around the great centre-hall; and
so wait till the impulse to enter one of the others should happen to arise in
me just at the moment when I was close to one of the crimson curtains. For I
hoped that if I entered any one of the twelve halls at the right moment, that
would as it were give me the right of entrance to all the others, seeing they
all had communication behind. I would not diminish the hope of the right
chance, by supposing it necessary that a desire to enter should awake within
me, precisely when I was close to the curtains of the tenth hall.
At first the impulses to see recurred so continually, in spite of the crowded
imagery that kept passing through my mind, that they formed too nearly a
continuous chain, for the hope that any one of them would succeed as a
surprise. But as I persisted in banishing them, they recurred less and less
often; and after two or three, at considerable intervals, had come when the
spot where I happened to be was unsuitable, the hope strengthened, that soon
one might arise just at the right moment; namely, when, in walking round the
hall, I should be close to one of the curtains.
At length the right moment and the impulse coincided. I darted into the ninth
hall. It was full of the most exquisite moving forms. The whole space wavered
and swam with the involutions of an intricate dance. It seemed to break
suddenly as I entered, and all made one or two bounds towards their pedestals;
but, apparently on finding that they were thoroughly overtaken, they returned
to their employment (for it seemed with them earnest enough to be called such)
without further heeding me. Somewhat impeded by the floating crowd, I made what
haste I could towards the bottom of the hall; whence, entering the corridor, I
turned towards the tenth. I soon arrived at the corner I wanted to reach, for
the corridor was comparatively empty; but, although the dancers here, after a
little confusion, altogether disregarded my presence, I was dismayed at
beholding, even yet, a vacant pedestal. But I had a conviction that she was
near me. And as I looked at the pedestal, I thought I saw upon it, vaguely
revealed as if through overlapping folds of drapery, the indistinct outlines of
white feet. Yet there was no sign of drapery or concealing shadow whatever. But
I remembered the descending shadow in my dream. And I hoped still in the power
of my songs; thinking that what could dispel alabaster, might likewise be
capable of dispelling what concealed my beauty now, even if it were the demon
whose darkness had overshadowed all my life.
CHAPTER XV
“Alexander. ‘When will you finish Campaspe?’
Apelles. ‘Never finish: for always in absolute beauty there is
somewhat above art.’”
LYLY’S Campaspe.
And now, what song should I sing to unveil my Isis, if indeed she was present
unseen? I hurried away to the white hall of Phantasy, heedless of the
innumerable forms of beauty that crowded my way: these might cross my eyes, but
the unseen filled my brain. I wandered long, up and down the silent space: no
songs came. My soul was not still enough for songs. Only in the silence and
darkness of the soul’s night, do those stars of the inward firmament sink
to its lower surface from the singing realms beyond, and shine upon the
conscious spirit. Here all effort was unavailing. If they came not, they could
not be found.
Next night, it was just the same. I walked through the red glimmer of the
silent hall; but lonely as there I walked, as lonely trod my soul up and down
the halls of the brain. At last I entered one of the statue-halls. The dance
had just commenced, and I was delighted to find that I was free of their
assembly. I walked on till I came to the sacred corner. There I found the
pedestal just as I had left it, with the faint glimmer as of white feet still
resting on the dead black. As soon as I saw it, I seemed to feel a presence
which longed to become visible; and, as it were, called to me to gift it with
self-manifestation, that it might shine on me. The power of song came to me.
But the moment my voice, though I sang low and soft, stirred the air of the
hall, the dancers started; the quick interweaving crowd shook, lost its form,
divided; each figure sprang to its pedestal, and stood, a self-evolving life no
more, but a rigid, life-like, marble shape, with the whole form composed into
the expression of a single state or act. Silence rolled like a spiritual
thunder through the grand space. My song had ceased, scared at its own
influences. But I saw in the hand of one of the statues close by me, a harp
whose chords yet quivered. I remembered that as she bounded past me, her harp
had brushed against my arm; so the spell of the marble had not infolded it. I
sprang to her, and with a gesture of entreaty, laid my hand on the harp. The
marble hand, probably from its contact with the uncharmed harp, had strength
enough to relax its hold, and yield the harp to me. No other motion indicated
life. Instinctively I struck the chords and sang. And not to break upon the
record of my song, I mention here, that as I sang the first four lines, the
loveliest feet became clear upon the black pedestal; and ever as I sang, it was
as if a veil were being lifted up from before the form, but an invisible veil,
so that the statue appeared to grow before me, not so much by evolution, as by
infinitesimal degrees of added height. And, while I sang, I did not feel that I
stood by a statue, as indeed it appeared to be, but that a real woman-soul was
revealing itself by successive stages of imbodiment, and consequent
manifestatlon and expression.
Feet of beauty, firmly planting
Arches white on rosy heel!
Whence the life-spring, throbbing, panting,
Pulses upward to reveal!
Fairest things know least despising;
Foot and earth meet tenderly:
‘Tis the woman, resting, rising
Upward to sublimity,
Rise the limbs, sedately sloping,
Strong and gentle, full and free;
Soft and slow, like certain hoping,
Drawing nigh the broad firm knee.
Up to speech! As up to roses
Pants the life from leaf to flower,
So each blending change discloses,
Nearer still, expression’s power.
Lo! fair sweeps, white surges, twining
Up and outward fearlessly!
Temple columns, close combining,
Lift a holy mystery.
Heart of mine! what strange surprises
Mount aloft on such a stair!
Some great vision upward rises,
Curving, bending, floating fair.
Bands and sweeps, and hill and hollow
Lead my fascinated eye;
Some apocalypse will follow,
Some new world of deity.
Zoned unseen, and outward swelling,
With new thoughts and wonders rife,
Queenly majesty foretelling,
See the expanding house of life!
Sudden heaving, unforbidden
Sighs eternal, still the same—
Mounts of snow have summits hidden
In the mists of uttered flame.
But the spirit, dawning nearly
Finds no speech for earnest pain;
Finds a soundless sighing merely—
Builds its stairs, and mounts again.
Heart, the queen, with secret hoping,
Sendeth out her waiting pair;
Hands, blind hands, half blindly groping,
Half inclasping visions rare;
And the great arms, heartways bending;
Might of Beauty, drawing home
There returning, and re-blending,
Where from roots of love they roam.
Build thy slopes of radiance beamy
Spirit, fair with womanhood!
Tower thy precipice, white-gleamy,
Climb unto the hour of good.
Dumb space will be rent asunder,
Now the shining column stands
Ready to be crowned with wonder
By the builder’s joyous hands.
All the lines abroad are spreading,
Like a fountain’s falling race.
Lo, the chin, first feature, treading,
Airy foot to rest the face!
Speech is nigh; oh, see the blushing,
Sweet approach of lip and breath!
Round the mouth dim silence, hushing,
Waits to die ecstatic death.
Span across in treble curving,
Bow of promise, upper lip!
Set them free, with gracious swerving;
Let the wing-words float and dip.
Dumb art thou? O Love immortal,
More than words thy speech must be;
Childless yet the tender portal
Of the home of melody.
Now the nostrils open fearless,
Proud in calm unconsciousness,
Sure it must be something peerless
That the great Pan would express!
Deepens, crowds some meaning tender,
In the pure, dear lady-face.
Lo, a blinding burst of splendour!—
’Tis the free soul’s issuing grace.
Two calm lakes of molten glory
Circling round unfathomed deeps!
Lightning-flashes, transitory,
Cross the gulfs where darkness sleeps.
This the gate, at last, of gladness,
To the outward striving me:
In a rain of light and sadness,
Out its loves and longings flee!
With a presence I am smitten
Dumb, with a foreknown surprise;
Presence greater yet than written
Even in the glorious eyes.
Through the gulfs, with inward gazes,
I may look till I am lost;
Wandering deep in spirit-mazes,
In a sea without a coast.
Windows open to the glorious!
Time and space, oh, far beyond!
Woman, ah! thou art victorious,
And I perish, overfond.
Springs aloft the yet Unspoken
In the forehead’s endless grace,
Full of silences unbroken;
Infinite, unfeatured face.
Domes above, the mount of wonder;
Height and hollow wrapt in night;
Hiding in its caverns under
Woman-nations in their might.
Passing forms, the highest Human
Faints away to the Divine
Features none, of man or woman,
Can unveil the holiest shine.
Sideways, grooved porches only
Visible to passing eye,
Stand the silent, doorless, lonely
Entrance-gates of melody.
But all sounds fly in as boldly,
Groan and song, and kiss and cry
At their galleries, lifted coldly,
Darkly, ‘twixt the earth and sky.
Beauty, thou art spent, thou knowest
So, in faint, half-glad despair,
From the summit thou o’erflowest
In a fall of torrent hair;
Hiding what thou hast created
In a half-transparent shroud:
Thus, with glory soft-abated,
Shines the moon through vapoury cloud.
CHAPTER XVI
“Ev’n the Styx, which ninefold her infoldeth
Hems not Ceres’ daughter in its flow;
But she grasps the apple—ever holdeth
Her, sad Orcus, down below.”
SCHILLER, Das Ideal und das Leben.
Ever as I sang, the veil was uplifted; ever as I sang, the signs of life grew;
till, when the eyes dawned upon me, it was with that sunrise of splendour which
my feeble song attempted to re-imbody.
The wonder is, that I was not altogether overcome, but was able to complete my
song as the unseen veil continued to rise. This ability came solely from the
state of mental elevation in which I found myself. Only because uplifted in
song, was I able to endure the blaze of the dawn. But I cannot tell whether she
looked more of statue or more of woman; she seemed removed into that region of
phantasy where all is intensely vivid, but nothing clearly defined. At last, as
I sang of her descending hair, the glow of soul faded away, like a dying
sunset. A lamp within had been extinguished, and the house of life shone blank
in a winter morn. She was a statue once more—but visible, and that was
much gained. Yet the revulsion from hope and fruition was such, that, unable to
restrain myself, I sprang to her, and, in defiance of the law of the place,
flung my arms around her, as if I would tear her from the grasp of a visible
Death, and lifted her from the pedestal down to my heart. But no sooner had her
feet ceased to be in contact with the black pedestal, than she shuddered and
trembled all over; then, writhing from my arms, before I could tighten their
hold, she sprang into the corridor, with the reproachful cry, “You should
not have touched me!” darted behind one of the exterior pillars of the
circle, and disappeared. I followed almost as fast; but ere I could reach the
pillar, the sound of a closing door, the saddest of all sounds sometimes, fell
on my ear; and, arriving at the spot where she had vanished, I saw, lighted by
a pale yellow lamp which hung above it, a heavy, rough door, altogether unlike
any others I had seen in the palace; for they were all of ebony, or ivory, or
covered with silver-plates, or of some odorous wood, and very ornate; whereas
this seemed of old oak, with heavy nails and iron studs. Notwithstanding the
precipitation of my pursuit, I could not help reading, in silver letters
beneath the lamp: “No one enters here without the leave of the
Queen.” But what was the Queen to me, when I followed my white lady?
I dashed the door to the wall and sprang through. Lo! I stood on a waste windy
hill. Great stones like tombstones stood all about me. No door, no palace was
to be seen. A white figure gleamed past me, wringing her hands, and crying,
“Ah! you should have sung to me; you should have sung to me!” and
disappeared behind one of the stones. I followed. A cold gust of wind met me
from behind the stone; and when I looked, I saw nothing but a great hole in the
earth, into which I could find no way of entering. Had she fallen in? I could
not tell. I must wait for the daylight. I sat down and wept, for there was no
help.
CHAPTER XVII
“First, I thought, almost despairing,
This must crush my spirit now;
Yet I bore it, and am bearing—
Only do not ask me how.”
HEINE.
When the daylight came, it brought the possibility of action, but with it
little of consolation. With the first visible increase of light, I gazed into
the chasm, but could not, for more than an hour, see sufficiently well to
discover its nature. At last I saw it was almost a perpendicular opening, like
a roughly excavated well, only very large. I could perceive no bottom; and it
was not till the sun actually rose, that I discovered a sort of natural
staircase, in many parts little more than suggested, which led round and round
the gulf, descending spirally into its abyss. I saw at once that this was my
path; and without a moment’s hesitation, glad to quit the sunlight, which
stared at me most heartlessly, I commenced my tortuous descent. It was very
difficult. In some parts I had to cling to the rocks like a bat. In one place,
I dropped from the track down upon the next returning spire of the stair; which
being broad in this particular portion, and standing out from the wall at right
angles, received me upon my feet safe, though somewhat stupefied by the shock.
After descending a great way, I found the stair ended at a narrow opening which
entered the rock horizontally. Into this I crept, and, having entered, had just
room to turn round. I put my head out into the shaft by which I had come down,
and surveyed the course of my descent. Looking up, I saw the stars; although
the sun must by this time have been high in the heavens. Looking below, I saw
that the sides of the shaft went sheer down, smooth as glass; and far beneath
me, I saw the reflection of the same stars I had seen in the heavens when I
looked up. I turned again, and crept inwards some distance, when the passage
widened, and I was at length able to stand and walk upright. Wider and loftier
grew the way; new paths branched off on every side; great open halls appeared;
till at last I found myself wandering on through an underground country, in
which the sky was of rock, and instead of trees and flowers, there were only
fantastic rocks and stones. And ever as I went, darker grew my thoughts, till
at last I had no hope whatever of finding the white lady: I no longer called
her to myself my white lady. Whenever a choice was necessary, I always
chose the path which seemed to lead downwards.
At length I began to find that these regions were inhabited. From behind a rock
a peal of harsh grating laughter, full of evil humour, rang through my ears,
and, looking round, I saw a queer, goblin creature, with a great head and
ridiculous features, just such as those described, in German histories and
travels, as Kobolds. “What do you want with me?” I said. He pointed
at me with a long forefinger, very thick at the root, and sharpened to a point,
and answered, “He! he! he! what do you want here?” Then,
changing his tone, he continued, with mock humility—“Honoured sir,
vouchsafe to withdraw from thy slaves the lustre of thy august presence, for
thy slaves cannot support its brightness.” A second appeared, and struck
in: “You are so big, you keep the sun from us. We can’t see for
you, and we’re so cold.” Thereupon arose, on all sides, the most
terrific uproar of laughter, from voices like those of children in volume, but
scrannel and harsh as those of decrepit age, though, unfortunately, without its
weakness. The whole pandemonium of fairy devils, of all varieties of fantastic
ugliness, both in form and feature, and of all sizes from one to four feet,
seemed to have suddenly assembled about me. At length, after a great babble of
talk among themselves, in a language unknown to me, and after seemingly endless
gesticulation, consultation, elbow-nudging, and unmitigated peals of laughter,
they formed into a circle about one of their number, who scrambled upon a
stone, and, much to my surprise, and somewhat to my dismay, began to sing, in a
voice corresponding in its nature to his talking one, from beginning to end,
the song with which I had brought the light into the eyes of the white lady. He
sang the same air too; and, all the time, maintained a face of mock entreaty
and worship; accompanying the song with the travestied gestures of one playing
on the lute. The whole assembly kept silence, except at the close of every
verse, when they roared, and danced, and shouted with laughter, and flung
themselves on the ground, in real or pretended convulsions of delight. When he
had finished, the singer threw himself from the top of the stone, turning heels
over head several times in his descent; and when he did alight, it was on the
top of his head, on which he hopped about, making the most grotesque
gesticulations with his legs in the air. Inexpressible laughter followed, which
broke up in a shower of tiny stones from innumerable hands. They could not
materially injure me, although they cut me on the head and face. I attempted to
run away, but they all rushed upon me, and, laying hold of every part that
afforded a grasp, held me tight. Crowding about me like bees, they shouted an
insect-swarm of exasperating speeches up into my face, among which the most
frequently recurring were—“You shan’t have her; you
shan’t have her; he! he! he! She’s for a better man; how
he’ll kiss her! how he’ll kiss her!”
The galvanic torrent of this battery of malevolence stung to life within me a
spark of nobleness, and I said aloud, “Well, if he is a better man, let
him have her.”
They instantly let go their hold of me, and fell back a step or two, with a
whole broadside of grunts and humphs, as of unexpected and disappointed
approbation. I made a step or two forward, and a lane was instantly opened for
me through the midst of the grinning little antics, who bowed most politely to
me on every side as I passed. After I had gone a few yards, I looked back, and
saw them all standing quite still, looking after me, like a great school of
boys; till suddenly one turned round, and with a loud whoop, rushed into the
midst of the others. In an instant, the whole was one writhing and tumbling
heap of contortion, reminding me of the live pyramids of intertwined snakes of
which travellers make report. As soon as one was worked out of the mass, he
bounded off a few paces, and then, with a somersault and a run, threw himself
gyrating into the air, and descended with all his weight on the summit of the
heaving and struggling chaos of fantastic figures. I left them still busy at
this fierce and apparently aimless amusement. And as I went, I sang—
If a nobler waits for thee,
I will weep aside;
It is well that thou should’st be,
Of the nobler, bride.
For if love builds up the home,
Where the heart is free,
Homeless yet the heart must roam,
That has not found thee.
One must suffer: I, for her
Yield in her my part
Take her, thou art worthier—
Still I be still, my heart!
Gift ungotten! largess high
Of a frustrate will!
But to yield it lovingly
Is a something still.
Then a little song arose of itself in my soul; and I felt for the moment, while
it sank sadly within me, as if I was once more walking up and down the white
hall of Phantasy in the Fairy Palace. But this lasted no longer than the song;
as will be seen.
Do not vex thy violet
Perfume to afford:
Else no odour thou wilt get
From its little hoard.
In thy lady’s gracious eyes
Look not thou too long;
Else from them the glory flies,
And thou dost her wrong.
Come not thou too near the maid,
Clasp her not too wild;
Else the splendour is allayed,
And thy heart beguiled.
A crash of laughter, more discordant and deriding than any I had yet heard,
invaded my ears. Looking on in the direction of the sound, I saw a little
elderly woman, much taller, however, than the goblins I had just left, seated
upon a stone by the side of the path. She rose, as I drew near, and came
forward to meet me.
She was very plain and commonplace in appearance, without being hideously ugly.
Looking up in my face with a stupid sneer, she said: “Isn’t it a
pity you haven’t a pretty girl to walk all alone with you through this
sweet country? How different everything would look? wouldn’t it? Strange
that one can never have what one would like best! How the roses would bloom and
all that, even in this infernal hole! wouldn’t they, Anodos? Her eyes
would light up the old cave, wouldn’t they?”
“That depends on who the pretty girl should be,” replied I.
“Not so very much matter that,” she answered; “look
here.”
I had turned to go away as I gave my reply, but now I stopped and looked at
her. As a rough unsightly bud might suddenly blossom into the most lovely
flower; or rather, as a sunbeam bursts through a shapeless cloud, and
transfigures the earth; so burst a face of resplendent beauty, as it were
through the unsightly visage of the woman, destroying it with light as
it dawned through it. A summer sky rose above me, gray with heat; across a
shining slumberous landscape, looked from afar the peaks of snow-capped
mountains; and down from a great rock beside me fell a sheet of water mad with
its own delight.
“Stay with me,” she said, lifting up her exquisite face, and
looking full in mine.
I drew back. Again the infernal laugh grated upon my ears; again the rocks
closed in around me, and the ugly woman looked at me with wicked, mocking hazel
eyes.
“You shall have your reward,” said she. “You shall see your
white lady again.”
“That lies not with you,” I replied, and turned and left her.
She followed me with shriek upon shriek of laughter, as I went on my way.
I may mention here, that although there was always light enough to see my path
and a few yards on every side of me, I never could find out the source of this
sad sepulchral illumination.
CHAPTER XVIII
“In the wind’s uproar, the sea’s raging grim,
And the sighs that are born in him.”
HEINE.
“From dreams of bliss shall men awake
One day, but not to weep:
The dreams remain; they only break
The mirror of the sleep.”
JEAN PAUL, Hesperus.
How I got through this dreary part of my travels, I do not know. I do not think
I was upheld by the hope that any moment the light might break in upon me; for
I scarcely thought about that. I went on with a dull endurance, varied by
moments of uncontrollable sadness; for more and more the conviction grew upon
me that I should never see the white lady again. It may seem strange that one
with whom I had held so little communion should have so engrossed my thoughts;
but benefits conferred awaken love in some minds, as surely as benefits
received in others. Besides being delighted and proud that my songs had
called the beautiful creature to life, the same fact caused me to feel a
tenderness unspeakable for her, accompanied with a kind of feeling of property
in her; for so the goblin Selfishness would reward the angel Love. When to all
this is added, an overpowering sense of her beauty, and an unquestioning
conviction that this was a true index to inward loveliness, it may be
understood how it came to pass that my imagination filled my whole soul with
the play of its own multitudinous colours and harmonies around the form which
yet stood, a gracious marble radiance, in the midst of its white hall of
phantasy. The time passed by unheeded; for my thoughts were busy. Perhaps this
was also in part the cause of my needing no food, and never thinking how I
should find any, during this subterraneous part of my travels. How long they
endured I could not tell, for I had no means of measuring time; and when I
looked back, there was such a discrepancy between the decisions of my
imagination and my judgment, as to the length of time that had passed, that I
was bewildered, and gave up all attempts to arrive at any conclusion on the
point.
A gray mist continually gathered behind me. When I looked back towards the
past, this mist was the medium through which my eyes had to strain for a vision
of what had gone by; and the form of the white lady had receded into an unknown
region. At length the country of rock began to close again around me, gradually
and slowly narrowing, till I found myself walking in a gallery of rock once
more, both sides of which I could touch with my outstretched hands. It narrowed
yet, until I was forced to move carefully, in order to avoid striking against
the projecting pieces of rock. The roof sank lower and lower, until I was
compelled, first to stoop, and then to creep on my hands and knees. It recalled
terrible dreams of childhood; but I was not much afraid, because I felt sure
that this was my path, and my only hope of leaving Fairy Land, of which I was
now almost weary.
At length, on getting past an abrupt turn in the passage, through which I had
to force myself, I saw, a few yards ahead of me, the long-forgotten daylight
shining through a small opening, to which the path, if path it could now be
called, led me. With great difficulty I accomplished these last few yards, and
came forth to the day. I stood on the shore of a wintry sea, with a wintry sun
just a few feet above its horizon-edge. It was bare, and waste, and gray.
Hundreds of hopeless waves rushed constantly shorewards, falling exhausted upon
a beach of great loose stones, that seemed to stretch miles and miles in both
directions. There was nothing for the eye but mingling shades of gray; nothing
for the ear but the rush of the coming, the roar of the breaking, and the moan
of the retreating wave. No rock lifted up a sheltering severity above the
dreariness around; even that from which I had myself emerged rose scarcely a
foot above the opening by which I had reached the dismal day, more dismal even
than the tomb I had left. A cold, death-like wind swept across the shore,
seeming to issue from a pale mouth of cloud upon the horizon. Sign of life was
nowhere visible. I wandered over the stones, up and down the beach, a human
imbodiment of the nature around me. The wind increased; its keen waves flowed
through my soul; the foam rushed higher up the stones; a few dead stars began
to gleam in the east; the sound of the waves grew louder and yet more
despairing. A dark curtain of cloud was lifted up, and a pale blue rent shone
between its foot and the edge of the sea, out from which rushed an icy storm of
frozen wind, that tore the waters into spray as it passed, and flung the
billows in raving heaps upon the desolate shore. I could bear it no longer.
“I will not be tortured to death,” I cried; “I will meet it
half-way. The life within me is yet enough to bear me up to the face of Death,
and then I die unconquered.”
Before it had grown so dark, I had observed, though without any particular
interest, that on one part of the shore a low platform of rock seemed to run
out far into the midst of the breaking waters.
Towards this I now went, scrambling over smooth stones, to which scarce even a
particle of sea-weed clung; and having found it, I got on it, and followed its
direction, as near as I could guess, out into the tumbling chaos. I could
hardly keep my feet against the wind and sea. The waves repeatedly all but
swept me off my path; but I kept on my way, till I reached the end of the low
promontory, which, in the fall of the waves, rose a good many feet above the
surface, and, in their rise, was covered with their waters. I stood one moment
and gazed into the heaving abyss beneath me; then plunged headlong into the
mounting wave below. A blessing, like the kiss of a mother, seemed to alight on
my soul; a calm, deeper than that which accompanies a hope deferred, bathed my
spirit. I sank far into the waters, and sought not to return. I felt as if once
more the great arms of the beech-tree were around me, soothing me after the
miseries I had passed through, and telling me, like a little sick child, that I
should be better to-morrow. The waters of themselves lifted me, as with loving
arms, to the surface. I breathed again, but did not unclose my eyes. I would
not look on the wintry sea, and the pitiless gray sky. Thus I floated, till
something gently touched me. It was a little boat floating beside me. How it
came there I could not tell; but it rose and sank on the waters, and kept
touching me in its fall, as if with a human will to let me know that help was
by me. It was a little gay-coloured boat, seemingly covered with glistering
scales like those of a fish, all of brilliant rainbow hues. I scrambled into
it, and lay down in the bottom, with a sense of exquisite repose.
Then I drew over me a rich, heavy, purple cloth that was beside me; and, lying
still, knew, by the sound of the waters, that my little bark was fleeting
rapidly onwards. Finding, however, none of that stormy motion which the sea had
manifested when I beheld it from the shore, I opened my eyes; and, looking
first up, saw above me the deep violet sky of a warm southern night; and then,
lifting my head, saw that I was sailing fast upon a summer sea, in the last
border of a southern twilight. The aureole of the sun yet shot the extreme
faint tips of its longest rays above the horizon-waves, and withdrew them not.
It was a perpetual twilight. The stars, great and earnest, like
children’s eyes, bent down lovingly towards the waters; and the reflected
stars within seemed to float up, as if longing to meet their embraces. But when
I looked down, a new wonder met my view. For, vaguely revealed beneath the
wave, I floated above my whole Past. The fields of my childhood flitted by; the
halls of my youthful labours; the streets of great cities where I had dwelt;
and the assemblies of men and women wherein I had wearied myself seeking for
rest. But so indistinct were the visions, that sometimes I thought I was
sailing on a shallow sea, and that strange rocks and forests of sea-plants
beguiled my eye, sufficiently to be transformed, by the magic of the phantasy,
into well-known objects and regions. Yet, at times, a beloved form seemed to
lie close beneath me in sleep; and the eyelids would tremble as if about to
forsake the conscious eye; and the arms would heave upwards, as if in dreams
they sought for a satisfying presence. But these motions might come only from
the heaving of the waters between those forms and me. Soon I fell asleep,
overcome with fatigue and delight. In dreams of unspeakable joy—of
restored friendships; of revived embraces; of love which said it had never
died; of faces that had vanished long ago, yet said with smiling lips that they
knew nothing of the grave; of pardons implored, and granted with such bursting
floods of love, that I was almost glad I had sinned—thus I passed through
this wondrous twilight. I awoke with the feeling that I had been kissed and
loved to my heart’s content; and found that my boat was floating
motionless by the grassy shore of a little island.
CHAPTER XIX
“In still rest, in changeless simplicity, I bear,
uninterrupted, the consciousness of the whole of Humanity within me.”
SCHLEIERMACHER, Monologen.
“... such a sweetness, such a grace,
In all thy speech appear,
That what to th’eye a beauteous face,
That thy tongue is to the ear.”
COWLEY.
The water was deep to the very edge; and I sprang from the little boat upon a
soft grassy turf. The island seemed rich with a profusion of all grasses and
low flowers. All delicate lowly things were most plentiful; but no trees rose
skywards, not even a bush overtopped the tall grasses, except in one place near
the cottage I am about to describe, where a few plants of the gum-cistus, which
drops every night all the blossoms that the day brings forth, formed a kind of
natural arbour. The whole island lay open to the sky and sea. It rose nowhere
more than a few feet above the level of the waters, which flowed deep all
around its border. Here there seemed to be neither tide nor storm. A sense of
persistent calm and fulness arose in the mind at the sight of the slow,
pulse-like rise and fall of the deep, clear, unrippled waters against the bank
of the island, for shore it could hardly be called, being so much more like the
edge of a full, solemn river. As I walked over the grass towards the cottage,
which stood at a little distance from the bank, all the flowers of childhood
looked at me with perfect child-eyes out of the grass. My heart, softened by
the dreams through which it had passed, overflowed in a sad, tender love
towards them. They looked to me like children impregnably fortified in a
helpless confidence. The sun stood half-way down the western sky, shining very
soft and golden; and there grew a second world of shadows amidst the world of
grasses and wild flowers.
The cottage was square, with low walls, and a high pyramidal roof thatched with
long reeds, of which the withered blossoms hung over all the eaves. It is
noticeable that most of the buildings I saw in Fairy Land were cottages. There
was no path to a door, nor, indeed, was there any track worn by footsteps in
the island.
The cottage rose right out of the smooth turf. It had no windows that I could
see; but there was a door in the centre of the side facing me, up to which I
went. I knocked, and the sweetest voice I had ever heard said, “Come
in.” I entered. A bright fire was burning on a hearth in the centre of
the earthern floor, and the smoke found its way out at an opening in the centre
of the pyramidal roof. Over the fire hung a little pot, and over the pot bent a
woman-face, the most wonderful, I thought, that I had ever beheld. For it was
older than any countenance I had ever looked upon. There was not a spot in
which a wrinkle could lie, where a wrinkle lay not. And the skin was ancient
and brown, like old parchment. The woman’s form was tall and spare: and
when she stood up to welcome me, I saw that she was straight as an arrow. Could
that voice of sweetness have issued from those lips of age? Mild as they were,
could they be the portals whence flowed such melody? But the moment I saw her
eyes, I no longer wondered at her voice: they were absolutely young—those
of a woman of five-and-twenty, large, and of a clear gray. Wrinkles had beset
them all about; the eyelids themselves were old, and heavy, and worn; but the
eyes were very incarnations of soft light. She held out her hand to me, and the
voice of sweetness again greeted me, with the single word,
“Welcome.” She set an old wooden chair for me, near the fire, and
went on with her cooking. A wondrous sense of refuge and repose came upon me. I
felt like a boy who has got home from school, miles across the hills, through a
heavy storm of wind and snow. Almost, as I gazed on her, I sprang from my seat
to kiss those old lips. And when, having finished her cooking, she brought some
of the dish she had prepared, and set it on a little table by me, covered with
a snow-white cloth, I could not help laying my head on her bosom, and bursting
into happy tears. She put her arms round me, saying, “Poor child; poor
child!”
As I continued to weep, she gently disengaged herself, and, taking a spoon, put
some of the food (I did not know what it was) to my lips, entreating me most
endearingly to swallow it. To please her, I made an effort, and succeeded. She
went on feeding me like a baby, with one arm round me, till I looked up in her
face and smiled: then she gave me the spoon and told me to eat, for it would do
me good. I obeyed her, and found myself wonderfully refreshed. Then she drew
near the fire an old-fashioned couch that was in the cottage, and making me lie
down upon it, sat at my feet, and began to sing. Amazing store of old ballads
rippled from her lips, over the pebbles of ancient tunes; and the voice that
sang was sweet as the voice of a tuneful maiden that singeth ever from very
fulness of song. The songs were almost all sad, but with a sound of comfort.
One I can faintly recall. It was something like this:
Sir Aglovaile through the churchyard rode;
Sing, All alone I lie:
Little recked he where’er he yode,
All alone, up in the sky.
Swerved his courser, and plunged with fear
All alone I lie:
His cry might have wakened the dead men near,
All alone, up in the sky.
The very dead that lay at his feet,
Lapt in the mouldy winding-sheet.
But he curbed him and spurred him, until he stood
Still in his place, like a horse of wood,
With nostrils uplift, and eyes wide and wan;
But the sweat in streams from his fetlocks ran.
A ghost grew out of the shadowy air,
And sat in the midst of her moony hair.
In her gleamy hair she sat and wept;
In the dreamful moon they lay and slept;
The shadows above, and the bodies below,
Lay and slept in the moonbeams slow.
And she sang, like the moan of an autumn wind
Over the stubble left behind:
Alas, how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.
Alas, how hardly things go right!
‘Tis hard to watch on a summer night,
For the sigh will come and the kiss will stay,
And the summer night is a winter day.
“Oh, lovely ghosts my heart is woes
To see thee weeping and wailing so.
Oh, lovely ghost,” said the fearless knight,
“Can the sword of a warrior set it right?
Or prayer of bedesman, praying mild,
As a cup of water a feverish child,
Sooth thee at last, in dreamless mood
To sleep the sleep a dead lady should?
Thine eyes they fill me with longing sore,
As if I had known thee for evermore.
Oh, lovely ghost, I could leave the day
To sit with thee in the moon away
If thou wouldst trust me, and lay thy head
To rest on a bosom that is not dead.”
The lady sprang up with a strange ghost-cry,
And she flung her white ghost-arms on high:
And she laughed a laugh that was not gay,
And it lengthened out till it died away;
And the dead beneath turned and moaned,
And the yew-trees above they shuddered and groaned.
“Will he love me twice with a love that is vain?
Will he kill the poor ghost yet again?
I thought thou wert good; but I said, and wept:
‘Can I have dreamed who have not slept?’
And I knew, alas! or ever I would,
Whether I dreamed, or thou wert good.
When my baby died, my brain grew wild.
I awoke, and found I was with my child.”
“If thou art the ghost of my Adelaide,
How is it? Thou wert but a village maid,
And thou seemest an angel lady white,
Though thin, and wan, and past delight.”
The lady smiled a flickering smile,
And she pressed her temples hard the while.
“Thou seest that Death for a woman can
Do more than knighthood for a man.”
“But show me the child thou callest mine,
Is she out to-night in the ghost’s sunshine?”
“In St. Peter’s Church she is playing on,
At hide-and-seek, with Apostle John.
When the moonbeams right through the window go,
Where the twelve are standing in glorious show,
She says the rest of them do not stir,
But one comes down to play with her.
Then I can go where I list, and weep,
For good St. John my child will keep.”
“Thy beauty filleth the very air,
Never saw I a woman so fair.”
“Come, if thou darest, and sit by my side;
But do not touch me, or woe will betide.
Alas, I am weak: I might well know
This gladness betokens some further woe.
Yet come. It will come. I will bear it. I can.
For thou lovest me yet—though but as a man.”
The knight dismounted in earnest speed;
Away through the tombstones thundered the steed,
And fell by the outer wall, and died.
But the knight he kneeled by the lady’s side;
Kneeled beside her in wondrous bliss,
Rapt in an everlasting kiss:
Though never his lips come the lady nigh,
And his eyes alone on her beauty lie.
All the night long, till the cock crew loud,
He kneeled by the lady, lapt in her shroud.
And what they said, I may not say:
Dead night was sweeter than living day.
How she made him so blissful glad
Who made her and found her so ghostly sad,
I may not tell; but it needs no touch
To make them blessed who love so much.
“Come every night, my ghost, to me;
And one night I will come to thee.
‘Tis good to have a ghostly wife:
She will not tremble at clang of strife;
She will only hearken, amid the din,
Behind the door, if he cometh in.”
And this is how Sir Aglovaile
Often walked in the moonlight pale.
And oft when the crescent but thinned the gloom,
Full orbed moonlight filled his room;
And through beneath his chamber door,
Fell a ghostly gleam on the outer floor;
And they that passed, in fear averred
That murmured words they often heard.
‘Twas then that the eastern crescent shone
Through the chancel window, and good St. John
Played with the ghost-child all the night,
And the mother was free till the morning light,
And sped through the dawning night, to stay
With Aglovaile till the break of day.
And their love was a rapture, lone and high,
And dumb as the moon in the topmost sky.
One night Sir Aglovaile, weary, slept
And dreamed a dream wherein he wept.
A warrior he was, not often wept he,
But this night he wept full bitterly.
He woke—beside him the ghost-girl shone
Out of the dark: ‘twas the eve of St. John.
He had dreamed a dream of a still, dark wood,
Where the maiden of old beside him stood;
But a mist came down, and caught her away,
And he sought her in vain through the pathless day,
Till he wept with the grief that can do no more,
And thought he had dreamt the dream before.
From bursting heart the weeping flowed on;
And lo! beside him the ghost-girl shone;
Shone like the light on a harbour’s breast,
Over the sea of his dream’s unrest;
Shone like the wondrous, nameless boon,
That the heart seeks ever, night or noon:
Warnings forgotten, when needed most,
He clasped to his bosom the radiant ghost.
She wailed aloud, and faded, and sank.
With upturn’d white face, cold and blank,
In his arms lay the corpse of the maiden pale,
And she came no more to Sir Aglovaile.
Only a voice, when winds were wild,
Sobbed and wailed like a chidden child.
Alas, how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.
This was one of the simplest of her songs, which, perhaps, is the cause of my
being able to remember it better than most of the others. While she sung, I was
in Elysium, with the sense of a rich soul upholding, embracing, and overhanging
mine, full of all plenty and bounty. I felt as if she could give me everything
I wanted; as if I should never wish to leave her, but would be content to be
sung to and fed by her, day after day, as years rolled by. At last I fell
asleep while she sang.
When I awoke, I knew not whether it was night or day. The fire had sunk to a
few red embers, which just gave light enough to show me the woman standing a
few feet from me, with her back towards me, facing the door by which I had
entered. She was weeping, but very gently and plentifully. The tears seemed to
come freely from her heart. Thus she stood for a few minutes; then, slowly
turning at right angles to her former position, she faced another of the four
sides of the cottage. I now observed, for the first time, that here was a door
likewise; and that, indeed, there was one in the centre of every side of the
cottage.
When she looked towards the second door, her tears ceased to flow, but sighs
took their place. She often closed her eyes as she stood; and every time she
closed her eyes, a gentle sigh seemed to be born in her heart, and to escape at
her lips. But when her eyes were open, her sighs were deep and very sad, and
shook her whole frame. Then she turned towards the third door, and a cry as of
fear or suppressed pain broke from her; but she seemed to hearten herself
against the dismay, and to front it steadily; for, although I often heard a
slight cry, and sometimes a moan, yet she never moved or bent her head, and I
felt sure that her eyes never closed. Then she turned to the fourth door, and I
saw her shudder, and then stand still as a statue; till at last she turned
towards me and approached the fire. I saw that her face was white as death. But
she gave one look upwards, and smiled the sweetest, most child-innocent smile;
then heaped fresh wood on the fire, and, sitting down by the blaze, drew her
wheel near her, and began to spin. While she spun, she murmured a low strange
song, to which the hum of the wheel made a kind of infinite symphony. At length
she paused in her spinning and singing, and glanced towards me, like a mother
who looks whether or not her child gives signs of waking. She smiled when she
saw that my eyes were open. I asked her whether it was day yet. She answered,
“It is always day here, so long as I keep my fire burning.”
I felt wonderfully refreshed; and a great desire to see more of the island
awoke within me. I rose, and saying that I wished to look about me, went
towards the door by which I had entered.
“Stay a moment,” said my hostess, with some trepidation in her
voice. “Listen to me. You will not see what you expect when you go out of
that door. Only remember this: whenever you wish to come back to me, enter
wherever you see this mark.”
She held up her left hand between me and the fire. Upon the palm, which
appeared almost transparent, I saw, in dark red, a mark like this —>
which I took care to fix in my mind.
She then kissed me, and bade me good-bye with a solemnity that awed me; and
bewildered me too, seeing I was only going out for a little ramble in an
island, which I did not believe larger than could easily be compassed in a few
hours’ walk at most. As I went she resumed her spinning.
I opened the door, and stepped out. The moment my foot touched the smooth
sward, I seemed to issue from the door of an old barn on my father’s
estate, where, in the hot afternoons, I used to go and lie amongst the straw,
and read. It seemed to me now that I had been asleep there. At a little
distance in the field, I saw two of my brothers at play. The moment they caught
sight of me, they called out to me to come and join them, which I did; and we
played together as we had done years ago, till the red sun went down in the
west, and the gray fog began to rise from the river. Then we went home together
with a strange happiness. As we went, we heard the continually renewed larum of
a landrail in the long grass. One of my brothers and I separated to a little
distance, and each commenced running towards the part whence the sound appeared
to come, in the hope of approaching the spot where the bird was, and so getting
at least a sight of it, if we should not be able to capture the little
creature. My father’s voice recalled us from trampling down the rich long
grass, soon to be cut down and laid aside for the winter. I had quite forgotten
all about Fairy Land, and the wonderful old woman, and the curious red mark.
My favourite brother and I shared the same bed. Some childish dispute arose
between us; and our last words, ere we fell asleep, were not of kindness,
notwithstanding the pleasures of the day. When I woke in the morning, I missed
him. He had risen early, and had gone to bathe in the river. In another hour,
he was brought home drowned. Alas! alas! if we had only gone to sleep as usual,
the one with his arm about the other! Amidst the horror of the moment, a
strange conviction flashed across my mind, that I had gone through the very
same once before.
I rushed out of the house, I knew not why, sobbing and crying bitterly. I ran
through the fields in aimless distress, till, passing the old barn, I caught
sight of a red mark on the door. The merest trifles sometimes rivet the
attention in the deepest misery; the intellect has so little to do with grief.
I went up to look at this mark, which I did not remember ever to have seen
before. As I looked at it, I thought I would go in and lie down amongst the
straw, for I was very weary with running about and weeping. I opened the door;
and there in the cottage sat the old woman as I had left her, at her
spinning-wheel.
“I did not expect you quite so soon,” she said, as I shut the door
behind me. I went up to the couch, and threw myself on it with that fatigue
wherewith one awakes from a feverish dream of hopeless grief.
The old woman sang:
The great sun, benighted,
May faint from the sky;
But love, once uplighted,
Will never more die.
Form, with its brightness,
From eyes will depart:
It walketh, in whiteness,
The halls of the heart.
Ere she had ceased singing, my courage had returned. I started from the couch,
and, without taking leave of the old woman, opened the door of Sighs, and
sprang into what should appear.
I stood in a lordly hall, where, by a blazing fire on the hearth, sat a lady,
waiting, I knew, for some one long desired. A mirror was near me, but I saw
that my form had no place within its depths, so I feared not that I should be
seen. The lady wonderfully resembled my marble lady, but was altogether of the
daughters of men, and I could not tell whether or not it was she.
It was not for me she waited. The tramp of a great horse rang through the court
without. It ceased, and the clang of armour told that his rider alighted, and
the sound of his ringing heels approached the hall. The door opened; but the
lady waited, for she would meet her lord alone. He strode in: she flew like a
home-bound dove into his arms, and nestled on the hard steel. It was the knight
of the soiled armour. But now the armour shone like polished glass; and strange
to tell, though the mirror reflected not my form, I saw a dim shadow of myself
in the shining steel.
“O my beloved, thou art come, and I am blessed.”
Her soft fingers speedily overcame the hard clasp of his helmet; one by one she
undid the buckles of his armour; and she toiled under the weight of the mail,
as she would carry it aside. Then she unclasped his greaves, and
unbuckled his spurs; and once more she sprang into his arms, and laid her head
where she could now feel the beating of his heart. Then she disengaged herself
from his embrace, and, moving back a step or two, gazed at him. He stood there
a mighty form, crowned with a noble head, where all sadness had disappeared, or
had been absorbed in solemn purpose. Yet I suppose that he looked more
thoughtful than the lady had expected to see him, for she did not renew her
caresses, although his face glowed with love, and the few words he spoke were
as mighty deeds for strength; but she led him towards the hearth, and seated
him in an ancient chair, and set wine before him, and sat at his feet.
“I am sad,” he said, “when I think of the youth whom I met
twice in the forests of Fairy Land; and who, you say, twice, with his songs,
roused you from the death-sleep of an evil enchantment. There was something
noble in him, but it was a nobleness of thought, and not of deed. He may yet
perish of vile fear.”
“Ah!” returned the lady, “you saved him once, and for that I
thank you; for may I not say that I somewhat loved him? But tell me how you
fared, when you struck your battle-axe into the ash-tree, and he came and found
you; for so much of the story you had told me, when the beggar-child came and
took you away.”
“As soon as I saw him,” rejoined the knight, “I knew that
earthly arms availed not against such as he; and that my soul must meet him in
its naked strength. So I unclasped my helm, and flung it on the ground; and,
holding my good axe yet in my hand, gazed at him with steady eyes. On he came,
a horror indeed, but I did not flinch. Endurance must conquer, where force
could not reach. He came nearer and nearer, till the ghastly face was close to
mine. A shudder as of death ran through me; but I think I did not move, for he
seemed to quail, and retreated. As soon as he gave back, I struck one more
sturdy blow on the stem of his tree, that the forest rang; and then looked at
him again. He writhed and grinned with rage and apparent pain, and again
approached me, but retreated sooner than before. I heeded him no more, but
hewed with a will at the tree, till the trunk creaked, and the head bowed, and
with a crash it fell to the earth. Then I looked up from my labour, and lo! the
spectre had vanished, and I saw him no more; nor ever in my wanderings have I
heard of him again.”
“Well struck! well withstood! my hero,” said the lady.
“But,” said the knight, somewhat troubled, “dost thou love
the youth still?”
“Ah!” she replied, “how can I help it? He woke me from worse
than death; he loved me. I had never been for thee, if he had not sought me
first. But I love him not as I love thee. He was but the moon of my night; thou
art the sun of my day, O beloved.”
“Thou art right,” returned the noble man. “It were hard,
indeed, not to have some love in return for such a gift as he hath given thee.
I, too, owe him more than words can speak.”
Humbled before them, with an aching and desolate heart, I yet could not
restrain my words:
“Let me, then, be the moon of thy night still, O woman! And when thy day
is beclouded, as the fairest days will be, let some song of mine comfort thee,
as an old, withered, half-forgotten thing, that belongs to an ancient mournful
hour of uncompleted birth, which yet was beautiful in its time.”
They sat silent, and I almost thought they were listening. The colour of the
lady’s eyes grew deeper and deeper; the slow tears grew, and filled them,
and overflowed. They rose, and passed, hand in hand, close to where I stood;
and each looked towards me in passing. Then they disappeared through a door
which closed behind them; but, ere it closed, I saw that the room into which it
opened was a rich chamber, hung with gorgeous arras. I stood with an ocean of
sighs frozen in my bosom. I could remain no longer. She was near me, and I
could not see her; near me in the arms of one loved better than I, and I would
not see her, and I would not be by her. But how to escape from the nearness of
the best beloved? I had not this time forgotten the mark; for the fact that I
could not enter the sphere of these living beings kept me aware that, for me, I
moved in a vision, while they moved in life. I looked all about for the mark,
but could see it nowhere; for I avoided looking just where it was. There the
dull red cipher glowed, on the very door of their secret chamber. Struck with
agony, I dashed it open, and fell at the feet of the ancient woman, who still
spun on, the whole dissolved ocean of my sighs bursting from me in a storm of
tearless sobs. Whether I fainted or slept, I do not know; but, as I returned to
consciousness, before I seemed to have power to move, I heard the woman
singing, and could distinguish the words:
O light of dead and of dying days!
O Love! in thy glory go,
In a rosy mist and a moony maze,
O’er the pathless peaks of snow.
But what is left for the cold gray soul,
That moans like a wounded dove?
One wine is left in the broken bowl!—
‘Tis—To love, and love and love.
Now I could weep. When she saw me weeping, she sang:
Better to sit at the waters’ birth,
Than a sea of waves to win;
To live in the love that floweth forth,
Than the love that cometh in.
Be thy heart a well of love, my child,
Flowing, and free, and sure;
For a cistern of love, though undefiled,
Keeps not the spirit pure.
I rose from the earth, loving the white lady as I had never loved her before.
Then I walked up to the door of Dismay, and opened it, and went out. And lo! I
came forth upon a crowded street, where men and women went to and fro in
multitudes. I knew it well; and, turning to one hand, walked sadly along the
pavement. Suddenly I saw approaching me, a little way off, a form well known to
me (well-known!—alas, how weak the word!) in the years when I
thought my boyhood was left behind, and shortly before I entered the realm of
Fairy Land. Wrong and Sorrow had gone together, hand-in-hand as it is well they
do.
Unchangeably dear was that face. It lay in my heart as a child lies in its own
white bed; but I could not meet her.
“Anything but that,” I said, and, turning aside, sprang up the
steps to a door, on which I fancied I saw the mystic sign. I entered—not
the mysterious cottage, but her home. I rushed wildly on, and stood by the door
of her room.
“She is out,” I said, “I will see the old room once
more.”
I opened the door gently, and stood in a great solemn church. A deep-toned
bell, whose sounds throbbed and echoed and swam through the empty building,
struck the hour of midnight. The moon shone through the windows of the
clerestory, and enough of the ghostly radiance was diffused through the church
to let me see, walking with a stately, yet somewhat trailing and stumbling
step, down the opposite aisle, for I stood in one of the transepts, a figure
dressed in a white robe, whether for the night, or for that longer night which
lies too deep for the day, I could not tell. Was it she? and was this her
chamber? I crossed the church, and followed. The figure stopped, seemed to
ascend as it were a high bed, and lay down. I reached the place where it lay,
glimmering white. The bed was a tomb. The light was too ghostly to see clearly,
but I passed my hand over the face and the hands and the feet, which were all
bare. They were cold—they were marble, but I knew them. It grew dark. I
turned to retrace my steps, but found, ere long, that I had wandered into what
seemed a little chapel. I groped about, seeking the door. Everything I touched
belonged to the dead. My hands fell on the cold effigy of a knight who lay with
his legs crossed and his sword broken beside him. He lay in his noble rest, and
I lived on in ignoble strife. I felt for the left hand and a certain finger; I
found there the ring I knew: he was one of my own ancestors. I was in the
chapel over the burial-vault of my race. I called aloud: “If any of the
dead are moving here, let them take pity upon me, for I, alas! am still alive;
and let some dead woman comfort me, for I am a stranger in the land of the
dead, and see no light.” A warm kiss alighted on my lips through the
dark. And I said, “The dead kiss well; I will not be afraid.” And a
great hand was reached out of the dark, and grasped mine for a moment, mightily
and tenderly. I said to myself: “The veil between, though very dark, is
very thin.”
Groping my way further, I stumbled over the heavy stone that covered the
entrance of the vault: and, in stumbling, descried upon the stone the mark,
glowing in red fire. I caught the great ring. All my effort could not have
moved the huge slab; but it opened the door of the cottage, and I threw myself
once more, pale and speechless, on the couch beside the ancient dame. She sang
once more:
Thou dreamest: on a rock thou art,
High o’er the broken wave;
Thou fallest with a fearful start
But not into thy grave;
For, waking in the morning’s light,
Thou smilest at the vanished night
So wilt thou sink, all pale and dumb,
Into the fainting gloom;
But ere the coming terrors come,
Thou wak’st—where is the tomb?
Thou wak’st—the dead ones smile above,
With hovering arms of sleepless love.
She paused; then sang again:
We weep for gladness, weep for grief;
The tears they are the same;
We sigh for longing, and relief;
The sighs have but one name,
And mingled in the dying strife,
Are moans that are not sad
The pangs of death are throbs of life,
Its sighs are sometimes glad.
The face is very strange and white:
It is Earth’s only spot
That feebly flickers back the light
The living seeth not.
I fell asleep, and slept a dreamless sleep, for I know not how long. When I
awoke, I found that my hostess had moved from where she had been sitting, and
now sat between me and the fourth door.
I guessed that her design was to prevent my entering there. I sprang from the
couch, and darted past her to the door. I opened it at once and went out. All I
remember is a cry of distress from the woman: “Don’t go there, my
child! Don’t go there!” But I was gone.
I knew nothing more; or, if I did, I had forgot it all when I awoke to
consciousness, lying on the floor of the cottage, with my head in the lap of
the woman, who was weeping over me, and stroking my hair with both hands,
talking to me as a mother might talk to a sick and sleeping, or a dead child.
As soon as I looked up and saw her, she smiled through her tears; smiled with
withered face and young eyes, till her countenance was irradiated with the
light of the smile. Then she bathed my head and face and hands in an icy cold,
colourless liquid, which smelt a little of damp earth. Immediately I was able
to sit up. She rose and put some food before me. When I had eaten, she said:
“Listen to me, my child. You must leave me directly!”
“Leave you!” I said. “I am so happy with you. I never was so
happy in my life.”
“But you must go,” she rejoined sadly. “Listen! What do you
hear?”
“I hear the sound as of a great throbbing of water.”
“Ah! you do hear it? Well, I had to go through that door—the door
of the Timeless” (and she shuddered as she pointed to the fourth
door)—“to find you; for if I had not gone, you would never have
entered again; and because I went, the waters around my cottage will rise and
rise, and flow and come, till they build a great firmament of waters over my
dwelling. But as long as I keep my fire burning, they cannot enter. I have fuel
enough for years; and after one year they will sink away again, and be just as
they were before you came. I have not been buried for a hundred years
now.” And she smiled and wept.
“Alas! alas!” I cried. “I have brought this evil on the best
and kindest of friends, who has filled my heart with great gifts.”
“Do not think of that,” she rejoined. “I can bear it very
well. You will come back to me some day, I know. But I beg you, for my sake, my
dear child, to do one thing. In whatever sorrow you may be, however
inconsolable and irremediable it may appear, believe me that the old woman in
the cottage, with the young eyes” (and she smiled), “knows
something, though she must not always tell it, that would quite satisfy you
about it, even in the worst moments of your distress. Now you must go.”
“But how can I go, if the waters are all about, and if the doors all lead
into other regions and other worlds?”
“This is not an island,” she replied; “but is joined to the
land by a narrow neck; and for the door, I will lead you myself through the
right one.”
She took my hand, and led me through the third door; whereupon I found myself
standing in the deep grassy turf on which I had landed from the little boat,
but upon the opposite side of the cottage. She pointed out the direction I must
take, to find the isthmus and escape the rising waters.
Then putting her arms around me, she held me to her bosom; and as I kissed her,
I felt as if I were leaving my mother for the first time, and could not help
weeping bitterly. At length she gently pushed me away, and with the words,
“Go, my son, and do something worth doing,” turned back, and,
entering the cottage, closed the door behind her. I felt very desolate as I
went.
CHAPTER XX
“Thou hadst no fame; that which thou didst like good
Was but thy appetite that swayed thy blood
For that time to the best; for as a blast
That through a house comes, usually doth cast
Things out of order, yet by chance may come
And blow some one thing to his proper room,
So did thy appetite, and not thy zeal,
Sway thee by chance to do some one thing well.”
FLETCHER’S Faithful Shepherdess.
“The noble hart that harbours vertuous thought
And is with childe of glorious great intent,
Can never rest, until it forth have brought
Th’ eternall brood of glorie excellent.”
SPENSER, The Faerie Queene.
I had not gone very far before I felt that the turf beneath my feet was soaked
with the rising waters. But I reached the isthmus in safety. It was rocky, and
so much higher than the level of the peninsula, that I had plenty of time to
cross. I saw on each side of me the water rising rapidly, altogether without
wind, or violent motion, or broken waves, but as if a slow strong fire were
glowing beneath it. Ascending a steep acclivity, I found myself at last in an
open, rocky country. After travelling for some hours, as nearly in a straight
line as I could, I arrived at a lonely tower, built on the top of a little
hill, which overlooked the whole neighbouring country. As I approached, I heard
the clang of an anvil; and so rapid were the blows, that I despaired of making
myself heard till a pause in the work should ensue. It was some minutes before
a cessation took place; but when it did, I knocked loudly, and had not long to
wait; for, a moment after, the door was partly opened by a noble-looking youth,
half-undressed, glowing with heat, and begrimed with the blackness of the
forge. In one hand he held a sword, so lately from the furnace that it yet
shone with a dull fire. As soon as he saw me, he threw the door wide open, and
standing aside, invited me very cordially to enter. I did so; when he shut and
bolted the door most carefully, and then led the way inwards. He brought me
into a rude hall, which seemed to occupy almost the whole of the ground floor
of the little tower, and which I saw was now being used as a workshop. A huge
fire roared on the hearth, beside which was an anvil. By the anvil stood, in
similar undress, and in a waiting attitude, hammer in hand, a second youth,
tall as the former, but far more slightly built. Reversing the usual course of
perception in such meetings, I thought them, at first sight, very unlike; and
at the second glance, knew that they were brothers. The former, and apparently
the elder, was muscular and dark, with curling hair, and large hazel eyes,
which sometimes grew wondrously soft. The second was slender and fair, yet with
a countenance like an eagle, and an eye which, though pale blue, shone with an
almost fierce expression. He stood erect, as if looking from a lofty mountain
crag, over a vast plain outstretched below. As soon as we entered the hall, the
elder turned to me, and I saw that a glow of satisfaction shone on both their
faces. To my surprise and great pleasure, he addressed me thus:
“Brother, will you sit by the fire and rest, till we finish this part of
our work?”
I signified my assent; and, resolved to await any disclosure they might be
inclined to make, seated myself in silence near the hearth.
The elder brother then laid the sword in the fire, covered it well over, and
when it had attained a sufficient degree of heat, drew it out and laid it on
the anvil, moving it carefully about, while the younger, with a succession of
quick smart blows, appeared either to be welding it, or hammering one part of
it to a consenting shape with the rest. Having finished, they laid it carefully
in the fire; and, when it was very hot indeed, plunged it into a vessel full of
some liquid, whence a blue flame sprang upwards, as the glowing steel entered.
There they left it; and drawing two stools to the fire, sat down, one on each
side of me.
“We are very glad to see you, brother. We have been expecting you for
some days,” said the dark-haired youth.
“I am proud to be called your brother,” I rejoined; “and you
will not think I refuse the name, if I desire to know why you honour me with
it?”
“Ah! then he does not know about it,” said the younger. “We
thought you had known of the bond betwixt us, and the work we have to do
together. You must tell him, brother, from the first.”
So the elder began:
“Our father is king of this country. Before we were born, three giant
brothers had appeared in the land. No one knew exactly when, and no one had the
least idea whence they came. They took possession of a ruined castle that had
stood unchanged and unoccupied within the memory of any of the country people.
The vaults of this castle had remained uninjured by time, and these, I presume,
they made use of at first. They were rarely seen, and never offered the least
injury to any one; so that they were regarded in the neighbourhood as at least
perfectly harmless, if not rather benevolent beings. But it began to be
observed, that the old castle had assumed somehow or other, no one knew when or
how, a somewhat different look from what it used to have. Not only were several
breaches in the lower part of the walls built up, but actually some of the
battlements which yet stood, had been repaired, apparently to prevent them from
falling into worse decay, while the more important parts were being restored.
Of course, every one supposed the giants must have a hand in the work, but no
one ever saw them engaged in it. The peasants became yet more uneasy, after
one, who had concealed himself, and watched all night, in the neighbourhood of
the castle, reported that he had seen, in full moonlight, the three huge giants
working with might and main, all night long, restoring to their former position
some massive stones, formerly steps of a grand turnpike stair, a great portion
of which had long since fallen, along with part of the wall of the round tower
in which it had been built. This wall they were completing, foot by foot, along
with the stair. But the people said they had no just pretext for interfering:
although the real reason for letting the giants alone was, that everybody was
far too much afraid of them to interrupt them.
“At length, with the help of a neighbouring quarry, the whole of the
external wall of the castle was finished. And now the country folks were in
greater fear than before. But for several years the giants remained very
peaceful. The reason of this was afterwards supposed to be the fact, that they
were distantly related to several good people in the country; for, as long as
these lived, they remained quiet; but as soon as they were all dead the real
nature of the giants broke out. Having completed the outside of their castle,
they proceeded, by spoiling the country houses around them, to make a quiet
luxurious provision for their comfort within. Affairs reached such a pass, that
the news of their robberies came to my father’s ears; but he, alas! was
so crippled in his resources, by a war he was carrying on with a neighbouring
prince, that he could only spare a very few men, to attempt the capture of
their stronghold. Upon these the giants issued in the night, and slew every man
of them. And now, grown bolder by success and impunity, they no longer confined
their depredations to property, but began to seize the persons of their
distinguished neighbours, knights and ladies, and hold them in durance, the
misery of which was heightened by all manner of indignity, until they were
redeemed by their friends, at an exorbitant ransom. Many knights have
adventured their overthrow, but to their own instead; for they have all been
slain, or captured, or forced to make a hasty retreat. To crown their
enormities, if any man now attempts their destruction, they, immediately upon
his defeat, put one or more of their captives to a shameful death, on a turret
in sight of all passers-by; so that they have been much less molested of late;
and we, although we have burned, for years, to attack these demons and destroy
them, dared not, for the sake of their captives, risk the adventure, before we
should have reached at least our earliest manhood. Now, however, we are
preparing for the attempt; and the grounds of this preparation are these.
Having only the resolution, and not the experience necessary for the
undertaking, we went and consulted a lonely woman of wisdom, who lives not very
far from here, in the direction of the quarter from which you have come. She
received us most kindly, and gave us what seems to us the best of advice. She
first inquired what experience we had had in arms. We told her we had been well
exercised from our boyhood, and for some years had kept ourselves in constant
practice, with a view to this necessity.
“‘But you have not actually fought for life and death?’ said
she.
“We were forced to confess we had not.
“‘So much the better in some respects,’ she replied.
‘Now listen to me. Go first and work with an armourer, for as long time
as you find needful to obtain a knowledge of his craft; which will not be long,
seeing your hearts will be all in the work. Then go to some lonely tower, you
two alone. Receive no visits from man or woman. There forge for yourselves
every piece of armour that you wish to wear, or to use, in your coming
encounter. And keep up your exercises. As, however, two of you can be no match
for the three giants, I will find you, if I can, a third brother, who will take
on himself the third share of the fight, and the preparation. Indeed, I have
already seen one who will, I think, be the very man for your fellowship, but it
will be some time before he comes to me. He is wandering now without an aim. I
will show him to you in a glass, and, when he comes, you will know him at once.
If he will share your endeavours, you must teach him all you know, and he will
repay you well, in present song, and in future deeds.’
“She opened the door of a curious old cabinet that stood in the room. On
the inside of this door was an oval convex mirror. Looking in it for some time,
we at length saw reflected the place where we stood, and the old dame seated in
her chair. Our forms were not reflected. But at the feet of the dame lay a
young man, yourself, weeping.
“‘Surely this youth will not serve our ends,’ said I,
‘for he weeps.’
“The old woman smiled. ‘Past tears are present strength,’
said she.
“‘Oh!’ said my brother, ‘I saw you weep once over an
eagle you shot.’
“‘That was because it was so like you, brother,’ I replied;
‘but indeed, this youth may have better cause for tears than that—I
was wrong.’
“‘Wait a while,’ said the woman; ‘if I mistake not, he
will make you weep till your tears are dry for ever. Tears are the only cure
for weeping. And you may have need of the cure, before you go forth to fight
the giants. You must wait for him, in your tower, till he comes.’
“Now if you will join us, we will soon teach you to make your armour; and
we will fight together, and work together, and love each other as never three
loved before. And you will sing to us, will you not?”
“That I will, when I can,” I answered; “but it is only at
times that the power of song comes upon me. For that I must wait; but I have a
feeling that if I work well, song will not be far off to enliven the
labour.”
This was all the compact made: the brothers required nothing more, and I did
not think of giving anything more. I rose, and threw off my upper garments.
“I know the uses of the sword,” I said. “I am ashamed of my
white hands beside yours so nobly soiled and hard; but that shame will soon be
wiped away.”
“No, no; we will not work to-day. Rest is as needful as toil. Bring the
wine, brother; it is your turn to serve to-day.”
The younger brother soon covered a table with rough viands, but good wine; and
we ate and drank heartily, beside our work. Before the meal was over, I had
learned all their story. Each had something in his heart which made the
conviction, that he would victoriously perish in the coming conflict, a real
sorrow to him. Otherwise they thought they would have lived enough. The causes
of their trouble were respectively these:
While they wrought with an armourer, in a city famed for workmanship in steel
and silver, the elder had fallen in love with a lady as far beneath him in real
rank, as she was above the station he had as apprentice to an armourer. Nor did
he seek to further his suit by discovering himself; but there was simply so
much manhood about him, that no one ever thought of rank when in his company.
This is what his brother said about it. The lady could not help loving him in
return. He told her when he left her, that he had a perilous adventure before
him, and that when it was achieved, she would either see him return to claim
her, or hear that he had died with honour. The younger brother’s grief
arose from the fact, that, if they were both slain, his old father, the king,
would be childless. His love for his father was so exceeding, that to one
unable to sympathise with it, it would have appeared extravagant. Both loved
him equally at heart; but the love of the younger had been more developed,
because his thoughts and anxieties had not been otherwise occupied. When at
home, he had been his constant companion; and, of late, had ministered to the
infirmities of his growing age. The youth was never weary of listening to the
tales of his sire’s youthful adventures; and had not yet in the smallest
degree lost the conviction, that his father was the greatest man in the world.
The grandest triumph possible to his conception was, to return to his father,
laden with the spoils of one of the hated giants. But they both were in some
dread, lest the thought of the loneliness of these two might occur to them, in
the moment when decision was most necessary, and disturb, in some degree, the
self-possession requisite for the success of their attempt. For, as I have
said, they were yet untried in actual conflict. “Now,” thought I,
“I see to what the powers of my gift must minister.” For my own
part, I did not dread death, for I had nothing to care to live for; but I
dreaded the encounter because of the responsibility connected with it. I
resolved however to work hard, and thus grow cool, and quick, and forceful.
The time passed away in work and song, in talk and ramble, in friendly fight
and brotherly aid. I would not forge for myself armour of heavy mail like
theirs, for I was not so powerful as they, and depended more for any success I
might secure, upon nimbleness of motion, certainty of eye, and ready response
of hand. Therefore I began to make for myself a shirt of steel plates and
rings; which work, while more troublesome, was better suited to me than the
heavier labour. Much assistance did the brothers give me, even after, by their
instructions, I was able to make some progress alone. Their work was in a
moment abandoned, to render any required aid to mine. As the old woman had
promised, I tried to repay them with song; and many were the tears they both
shed over my ballads and dirges. The songs they liked best to hear were two
which I made for them. They were not half so good as many others I knew,
especially some I had learned from the wise woman in the cottage; but what
comes nearest to our needs we like the best.
I
The king sat on his throne
Glowing in gold and red;
The crown in his right hand shone,
And the gray hairs crowned his head.
His only son walks in,
And in walls of steel he stands:
Make me, O father, strong to win,
With the blessing of holy hands.”
He knelt before his sire,
Who blessed him with feeble smile
His eyes shone out with a kingly fire,
But his old lips quivered the while.
“Go to the fight, my son,
Bring back the giant’s head;
And the crown with which my brows have done,
Shall glitter on thine instead.”
“My father, I seek no crowns,
But unspoken praise from thee;
For thy people’s good, and thy renown,
I will die to set them free.”
The king sat down and waited there,
And rose not, night nor day;
Till a sound of shouting filled the air,
And cries of a sore dismay.
Then like a king he sat once more,
With the crown upon his head;
And up to the throne the people bore
A mighty giant dead.
And up to the throne the people bore
A pale and lifeless boy.
The king rose up like a prophet of yore,
In a lofty, deathlike joy.
He put the crown on the chilly brow:
“Thou should’st have reigned with me
But Death is the king of both, and now
I go to obey with thee.
“Surely some good in me there lay,
To beget the noble one.”
The old man smiled like a winter day,
And fell beside his son.
II
“O lady, thy lover is dead,” they cried;
“He is dead, but hath slain the foe;
He hath left his name to be magnified
In a song of wonder and woe.”
“Alas! I am well repaid,” said she,
“With a pain that stings like joy:
For I feared, from his tenderness to me,
That he was but a feeble boy.
“Now I shall hold my head on high,
The queen among my kind;
If ye hear a sound, ‘tis only a sigh
For a glory left behind.”
The first three times I sang these songs they both wept passionately. But after
the third time, they wept no more. Their eyes shone, and their faces grew pale,
but they never wept at any of my songs again.
CHAPTER XXI
“I put my life in my hands.”
The Book of Judges.
At length, with much toil and equal delight, our armour was finished. We armed
each other, and tested the strength of the defence, with many blows of loving
force. I was inferior in strength to both my brothers, but a little more agile
than either; and upon this agility, joined to precision in hitting with the
point of my weapon, I grounded my hopes of success in the ensuing combat. I
likewise laboured to develop yet more the keenness of sight with which I was
naturally gifted; and, from the remarks of my companions, I soon learned that
my endeavours were not in vain.
The morning arrived on which we had determined to make the attempt, and succeed
or perish—perhaps both. We had resolved to fight on foot; knowing that
the mishap of many of the knights who had made the attempt, had resulted from
the fright of their horses at the appearance of the giants; and believing with
Sir Gawain, that, though mare’s sons might be false to us, the earth
would never prove a traitor. But most of our preparations were, in their
immediate aim at least, frustrated.
We rose, that fatal morning, by daybreak. We had rested from all labour the day
before, and now were fresh as the lark. We bathed in cold spring water, and
dressed ourselves in clean garments, with a sense of preparation, as for a
solemn festivity. When we had broken our fast, I took an old lyre, which I had
found in the tower and had myself repaired, and sung for the last time the two
ballads of which I have said so much already. I followed them with this, for a
closing song:
Oh, well for him who breaks his dream
With the blow that ends the strife
And, waking, knows the peace that flows
Around the pain of life!
We are dead, my brothers! Our bodies clasp,
As an armour, our souls about;
This hand is the battle-axe I grasp,
And this my hammer stout.
Fear not, my brothers, for we are dead;
No noise can break our rest;
The calm of the grave is about the head,
And the heart heaves not the breast.
And our life we throw to our people back,
To live with, a further store;
We leave it them, that there be no lack
In the land where we live no more.
Oh, well for him who breaks his dream
With the blow that ends the strife
And, waking, knows the peace that flows
Around the noise of life!
As the last few tones of the instrument were following, like a dirge, the death
of the song, we all sprang to our feet. For, through one of the little windows
of the tower, towards which I had looked as I sang, I saw, suddenly rising over
the edge of the slope on which our tower stood, three enormous heads. The
brothers knew at once, by my looks, what caused my sudden movement. We were
utterly unarmed, and there was no time to arm.
But we seemed to adopt the same resolution simultaneously; for each caught up
his favourite weapon, and, leaving his defence behind, sprang to the door. I
snatched up a long rapier, abruptly, but very finely pointed, in my sword-hand,
and in the other a sabre; the elder brother seized his heavy battle-axe; and
the younger, a great, two-handed sword, which he wielded in one hand like a
feather. We had just time to get clear of the tower, embrace and say good-bye,
and part to some little distance, that we might not encumber each other’s
motions, ere the triple giant-brotherhood drew near to attack us. They were
about twice our height, and armed to the teeth. Through the visors of their
helmets their monstrous eyes shone with a horrible ferocity. I was in the
middle position, and the middle giant approached me. My eyes were busy with his
armour, and I was not a moment in settling my mode of attack. I saw that his
body-armour was somewhat clumsily made, and that the overlappings in the lower
part had more play than necessary; and I hoped that, in a fortunate moment,
some joint would open a little, in a visible and accessible part. I stood till
he came near enough to aim a blow at me with the mace, which has been, in all
ages, the favourite weapon of giants, when, of course, I leaped aside, and let
the blow fall upon the spot where I had been standing. I expected this would
strain the joints of his armour yet more. Full of fury, he made at me again;
but I kept him busy, constantly eluding his blows, and hoping thus to fatigue
him. He did not seem to fear any assault from me, and I attempted none as yet;
but while I watched his motions in order to avoid his blows, I, at the same
time, kept equal watch upon those joints of his armour, through some one of
which I hoped to reach his life. At length, as if somewhat fatigued, he paused
a moment, and drew himself slightly up; I bounded forward, foot and hand, ran
my rapier right through to the armour of his back, let go the hilt, and passing
under his right arm, turned as he fell, and flew at him with my sabre. At one
happy blow I divided the band of his helmet, which fell off, and allowed me,
with a second cut across the eyes, to blind him quite; after which I clove his
head, and turned, uninjured, to see how my brothers had fared. Both the giants
were down, but so were my brothers. I flew first to the one and then to the
other couple. Both pairs of combatants were dead, and yet locked together, as
in the death-struggle. The elder had buried his battle-axe in the body of his
foe, and had fallen beneath him as he fell. The giant had strangled him in his
own death-agonies. The younger had nearly hewn off the left leg of his enemy;
and, grappled with in the act, had, while they rolled together on the earth,
found for his dagger a passage betwixt the gorget and cuirass of the giant, and
stabbed him mortally in the throat. The blood from the giant’s throat was
yet pouring over the hand of his foe, which still grasped the hilt of the
dagger sheathed in the wound. They lay silent. I, the least worthy, remained
the sole survivor in the lists.
As I stood exhausted amidst the dead, after the first worthy deed of my life, I
suddenly looked behind me, and there lay the Shadow, black in the sunshine. I
went into the lonely tower, and there lay the useless armour of the noble
youths—supine as they.
Ah, how sad it looked! It was a glorious death, but it was death. My songs
could not comfort me now. I was almost ashamed that I was alive, when they, the
true-hearted, were no more. And yet I breathed freer to think that I had gone
through the trial, and had not failed. And perhaps I may be forgiven, if some
feelings of pride arose in my bosom, when I looked down on the mighty form that
lay dead by my hand.
“After all, however,” I said to myself, and my heart sank,
“it was only skill. Your giant was but a blunderer.”
I left the bodies of friends and foes, peaceful enough when the death-fight was
over, and, hastening to the country below, roused the peasants. They came with
shouting and gladness, bringing waggons to carry the bodies. I resolved to take
the princes home to their father, each as he lay, in the arms of his
country’s foe. But first I searched the giants, and found the keys of
their castle, to which I repaired, followed by a great company of the people.
It was a place of wonderful strength. I released the prisoners, knights and
ladies, all in a sad condition, from the cruelties and neglects of the giants.
It humbled me to see them crowding round me with thanks, when in truth the
glorious brothers, lying dead by their lonely tower, were those to whom the
thanks belonged. I had but aided in carrying out the thought born in their
brain, and uttered in visible form before ever I laid hold thereupon. Yet I did
count myself happy to have been chosen for their brother in this great deed.
After a few hours spent in refreshing and clothing the prisoners, we all
commenced our journey towards the capital. This was slow at first; but, as the
strength and spirits of the prisoners returned, it became more rapid; and in
three days we reached the palace of the king. As we entered the city gates,
with the huge bulks lying each on a waggon drawn by horses, and two of them
inextricably intertwined with the dead bodies of their princes, the people
raised a shout and then a cry, and followed in multitudes the solemn
procession.
I will not attempt to describe the behaviour of the grand old king. Joy and
pride in his sons overcame his sorrow at their loss. On me he heaped every
kindness that heart could devise or hand execute. He used to sit and question
me, night after night, about everything that was in any way connected with them
and their preparations. Our mode of life, and relation to each other, during
the time we spent together, was a constant theme. He entered into the minutest
details of the construction of the armour, even to a peculiar mode of riveting
some of the plates, with unwearying interest. This armour I had intended to beg
of the king, as my sole memorials of the contest; but, when I saw the delight
he took in contemplating it, and the consolation it appeared to afford him in
his sorrow, I could not ask for it; but, at his request, left my own, weapons
and all, to be joined with theirs in a trophy, erected in the grand square of
the palace. The king, with gorgeous ceremony, dubbed me knight with his own old
hand, in which trembled the sword of his youth.
During the short time I remained, my company was, naturally, much courted by
the young nobles. I was in a constant round of gaiety and diversion,
notwithstanding that the court was in mourning. For the country was so rejoiced
at the death of the giants, and so many of their lost friends had been restored
to the nobility and men of wealth, that the gladness surpassed the grief.
“Ye have indeed left your lives to your people, my great brothers!”
I said.
But I was ever and ever haunted by the old shadow, which I had not seen all the
time that I was at work in the tower. Even in the society of the ladies of the
court, who seemed to think it only their duty to make my stay there as pleasant
to me as possible, I could not help being conscious of its presence, although
it might not be annoying me at the time. At length, somewhat weary of
uninterrupted pleasure, and nowise strengthened thereby, either in body or
mind, I put on a splendid suit of armour of steel inlaid with silver, which the
old king had given me, and, mounting the horse on which it had been brought to
me, took my leave of the palace, to visit the distant city in which the lady
dwelt, whom the elder prince had loved. I anticipated a sore task, in conveying
to her the news of his glorious fate: but this trial was spared me, in a manner
as strange as anything that had happened to me in Fairy Land.
CHAPTER XXII
“No one has my form but the I.”
Schoppe, in JEAN PAUL’S Titan.
“Joy’s a subtil elf.
I think man’s happiest when he forgets himself.”
CYRIL TOURNEUR, The Revenger’s Tragedy.
On the third day of my journey, I was riding gently along a road, apparently
little frequented, to judge from the grass that grew upon it. I was approaching
a forest. Everywhere in Fairy Land forests are the places where one may most
certainly expect adventures. As I drew near, a youth, unarmed, gentle, and
beautiful, who had just cut a branch from a yew growing on the skirts of the
wood, evidently to make himself a bow, met me, and thus accosted me:
“Sir knight, be careful as thou ridest through this forest; for it is
said to be strangely enchanted, in a sort which even those who have been
witnesses of its enchantment can hardly describe.”
I thanked him for his advice, which I promised to follow, and rode on. But the
moment I entered the wood, it seemed to me that, if enchantment there was, it
must be of a good kind; for the Shadow, which had been more than usually dark
and distressing, since I had set out on this journey, suddenly disappeared. I
felt a wonderful elevation of spirits, and began to reflect on my past life,
and especially on my combat with the giants, with such satisfaction, that I had
actually to remind myself, that I had only killed one of them; and that, but
for the brothers, I should never have had the idea of attacking them, not to
mention the smallest power of standing to it. Still I rejoiced, and counted
myself amongst the glorious knights of old; having even the unspeakable
presumption—my shame and self-condemnation at the memory of it are such,
that I write it as the only and sorest penance I can perform—to think of
myself (will the world believe it?) as side by side with Sir Galahad! Scarcely
had the thought been born in my mind, when, approaching me from the left,
through the trees, I espied a resplendent knight, of mighty size, whose armour
seemed to shine of itself, without the sun. When he drew near, I was astonished
to see that this armour was like my own; nay, I could trace, line for line, the
correspondence of the inlaid silver to the device on my own. His horse, too,
was like mine in colour, form, and motion; save that, like his rider, he was
greater and fiercer than his counterpart. The knight rode with beaver up. As he
halted right opposite to me in the narrow path, barring my way, I saw the
reflection of my countenance in the centre plate of shining steel on his
breastplate. Above it rose the same face—his face—only, as I have
said, larger and fiercer. I was bewildered. I could not help feeling some
admiration of him, but it was mingled with a dim conviction that he was evil,
and that I ought to fight with him.
“Let me pass,” I said.
“When I will,” he replied.
Something within me said: “Spear in rest, and ride at him! else thou art
for ever a slave.”
I tried, but my arm trembled so much, that I could not couch my lance. To tell
the truth, I, who had overcome the giant, shook like a coward before this
knight. He gave a scornful laugh, that echoed through the wood, turned his
horse, and said, without looking round, “Follow me.”
I obeyed, abashed and stupefied. How long he led, and how long I followed, I
cannot tell. “I never knew misery before,” I said to myself.
“Would that I had at least struck him, and had had my death-blow in
return! Why, then, do I not call to him to wheel and defend himself? Alas! I
know not why, but I cannot. One look from him would cow me like a beaten
hound.” I followed, and was silent.
At length we came to a dreary square tower, in the middle of a dense forest. It
looked as if scarce a tree had been cut down to make room for it. Across the
very door, diagonally, grew the stem of a tree, so large that there was just
room to squeeze past it in order to enter. One miserable square hole in the
roof was the only visible suggestion of a window. Turret or battlement, or
projecting masonry of any kind, it had none. Clear and smooth and massy, it
rose from its base, and ended with a line straight and unbroken. The roof,
carried to a centre from each of the four walls, rose slightly to the point
where the rafters met. Round the base lay several little heaps of either bits
of broken branches, withered and peeled, or half-whitened bones; I could not
distinguish which. As I approached, the ground sounded hollow beneath my
horse’s hoofs. The knight took a great key from his pocket, and reaching
past the stem of the tree, with some difficulty opened the door.
“Dismount,” he commanded. I obeyed. He turned my horse’s head
away from the tower, gave him a terrible blow with the flat side of his sword,
and sent him madly tearing through the forest.
“Now,” said he, “enter, and take your companion with
you.”
I looked round: knight and horse had vanished, and behind me lay the horrible
shadow. I entered, for I could not help myself; and the shadow followed me. I
had a terrible conviction that the knight and he were one. The door closed
behind me.
Now I was indeed in pitiful plight. There was literally nothing in the tower
but my shadow and me. The walls rose right up to the roof; in which, as I had
seen from without, there was one little square opening. This I now knew to be
the only window the tower possessed. I sat down on the floor, in listless
wretchedness. I think I must have fallen asleep, and have slept for hours; for
I suddenly became aware of existence, in observing that the moon was shining
through the hole in the roof. As she rose higher and higher, her light crept
down the wall over me, till at last it shone right upon my head.
Instantaneously the walls of the tower seemed to vanish away like a mist. I sat
beneath a beech, on the edge of a forest, and the open country lay, in the
moonlight, for miles and miles around me, spotted with glimmering houses and
spires and towers. I thought with myself, “Oh, joy! it was only a dream;
the horrible narrow waste is gone, and I wake beneath a beech-tree, perhaps one
that loves me, and I can go where I will.” I rose, as I thought, and
walked about, and did what I would, but ever kept near the tree; for always,
and, of course, since my meeting with the woman of the beech-tree far more than
ever, I loved that tree. So the night wore on. I waited for the sun to rise,
before I could venture to renew my journey. But as soon as the first faint
light of the dawn appeared, instead of shining upon me from the eye of the
morning, it stole like a fainting ghost through the little square hole above my
head; and the walls came out as the light grew, and the glorious night was
swallowed up of the hateful day. The long dreary day passed. My shadow lay
black on the floor. I felt no hunger, no need of food. The night came. The moon
shone. I watched her light slowly descending the wall, as I might have watched,
adown the sky, the long, swift approach of a helping angel. Her rays touched
me, and I was free. Thus night after night passed away. I should have died but
for this. Every night the conviction returned, that I was free. Every morning I
sat wretchedly disconsolate. At length, when the course of the moon no longer
permitted her beams to touch me, the night was dreary as the day.
When I slept, I was somewhat consoled by my dreams; but all the time I dreamed,
I knew that I was only dreaming. But one night, at length, the moon, a mere
shred of pallor, scattered a few thin ghostly rays upon me; and I think I fell
asleep and dreamed. I sat in an autumn night before the vintage, on a hill
overlooking my own castle. My heart sprang with joy. Oh, to be a child again,
innocent, fearless, without shame or desire! I walked down to the castle. All
were in consternation at my absence. My sisters were weeping for my loss. They
sprang up and clung to me, with incoherent cries, as I entered. My old friends
came flocking round me. A gray light shone on the roof of the hall. It was the
light of the dawn shining through the square window of my tower. More earnestly
than ever, I longed for freedom after this dream; more drearily than ever,
crept on the next wretched day. I measured by the sunbeams, caught through the
little window in the trap of my tower, how it went by, waiting only for the
dreams of the night.
About noon, I started as if something foreign to all my senses and all my
experience, had suddenly invaded me; yet it was only the voice of a woman
singing. My whole frame quivered with joy, surprise, and the sensation of the
unforeseen. Like a living soul, like an incarnation of Nature, the song entered
my prison-house. Each tone folded its wings, and laid itself, like a caressing
bird, upon my heart. It bathed me like a sea; inwrapt me like an odorous
vapour; entered my soul like a long draught of clear spring-water; shone upon
me like essential sunlight; soothed me like a mother’s voice and hand.
Yet, as the clearest forest-well tastes sometimes of the bitterness of decayed
leaves, so to my weary, prisoned heart, its cheerfulness had a sting of cold,
and its tenderness unmanned me with the faintness of long-departed joys. I wept
half-bitterly, half-luxuriously; but not long. I dashed away the tears, ashamed
of a weakness which I thought I had abandoned. Ere I knew, I had walked to the
door, and seated myself with my ears against it, in order to catch every
syllable of the revelation from the unseen outer world. And now I heard each
word distinctly. The singer seemed to be standing or sitting near the tower,
for the sounds indicated no change of place. The song was something like this:
The sun, like a golden knot on high,
Gathers the glories of the sky,
And binds them into a shining tent,
Roofing the world with the firmament.
And through the pavilion the rich winds blow,
And through the pavilion the waters go.
And the birds for joy, and the trees for prayer,
Bowing their heads in the sunny air,
And for thoughts, the gently talking springs,
That come from the centre with secret things—
All make a music, gentle and strong,
Bound by the heart into one sweet song.
And amidst them all, the mother Earth
Sits with the children of her birth;
She tendeth them all, as a mother hen
Her little ones round her, twelve or ten:
Oft she sitteth, with hands on knee,
Idle with love for her family.
Go forth to her from the dark and the dust,
And weep beside her, if weep thou must;
If she may not hold thee to her breast,
Like a weary infant, that cries for rest
At least she will press thee to her knee,
And tell a low, sweet tale to thee,
Till the hue to thy cheeky and the light to thine eye,
Strength to thy limbs, and courage high
To thy fainting heart, return amain,
And away to work thou goest again.
From the narrow desert, O man of pride,
Come into the house, so high and wide.
Hardly knowing what I did, I opened the door. Why had I not done so before? I
do not know.
At first I could see no one; but when I had forced myself past the tree which
grew across the entrance, I saw, seated on the ground, and leaning against the
tree, with her back to my prison, a beautiful woman. Her countenance seemed
known to me, and yet unknown. She looked at me and smiled, when I made my
appearance.
“Ah! were you the prisoner there? I am very glad I have wiled you
out.”
“Do you know me then?”
“Do you not know me? But you hurt me, and that, I suppose, makes it easy
for a man to forget. You broke my globe. Yet I thank you. Perhaps I owe you
many thanks for breaking it. I took the pieces, all black, and wet with crying
over them, to the Fairy Queen. There was no music and no light in them now. But
she took them from me, and laid them aside; and made me go to sleep in a great
hall of white, with black pillars, and many red curtains. When I woke in the
morning, I went to her, hoping to have my globe again, whole and sound; but she
sent me away without it, and I have not seen it since. Nor do I care for it
now. I have something so much better. I do not need the globe to play to me;
for I can sing. I could not sing at all before. Now I go about everywhere
through Fairy Land, singing till my heart is like to break, just like my globe,
for very joy at my own songs. And wherever I go, my songs do good, and deliver
people. And now I have delivered you, and I am so happy.”
She ceased, and the tears came into her eyes.
All this time, I had been gazing at her; and now fully recognised the face of
the child, glorified in the countenance of the woman.
I was ashamed and humbled before her; but a great weight was lifted from my
thoughts. I knelt before her, and thanked her, and begged her to forgive me.
“Rise, rise,” she said; “I have nothing to forgive; I thank
you. But now I must be gone, for I do not know how many may be waiting for me,
here and there, through the dark forests; and they cannot come out till I
come.”
She rose, and with a smile and a farewell, turned and left me. I dared not ask
her to stay; in fact, I could hardly speak to her. Between her and me, there
was a great gulf. She was uplifted, by sorrow and well-doing, into a region I
could hardly hope ever to enter. I watched her departure, as one watches a
sunset. She went like a radiance through the dark wood, which was henceforth
bright to me, from simply knowing that such a creature was in it.
She was bearing the sun to the unsunned spots. The light and the music of her
broken globe were now in her heart and her brain. As she went, she sang; and I
caught these few words of her song; and the tones seemed to linger and wind
about the trees after she had disappeared:
Thou goest thine, and I go mine—
Many ways we wend;
Many days, and many ways,
Ending in one end.
Many a wrong, and its curing song;
Many a road, and many an inn;
Room to roam, but only one home
For all the world to win.
And so she vanished. With a sad heart, soothed by humility, and the knowledge
of her peace and gladness, I bethought me what now I should do. First, I must
leave the tower far behind me, lest, in some evil moment, I might be once more
caged within its horrible walls. But it was ill walking in my heavy armour; and
besides I had now no right to the golden spurs and the resplendent mail, fitly
dulled with long neglect. I might do for a squire; but I honoured knighthood
too highly, to call myself any longer one of the noble brotherhood. I stripped
off all my armour, piled it under the tree, just where the lady had been
seated, and took my unknown way, eastward through the woods. Of all my weapons,
I carried only a short axe in my hand.
Then first I knew the delight of being lowly; of saying to myself, “I am
what I am, nothing more.” “I have failed,” I said, “I
have lost myself—would it had been my shadow.” I looked round: the
shadow was nowhere to be seen. Ere long, I learned that it was not myself, but
only my shadow, that I had lost. I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold,
for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride
and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a
man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his
manhood. In nothing was my ideal lowered, or dimmed, or grown less precious; I
only saw it too plainly, to set myself for a moment beside it. Indeed, my ideal
soon became my life; whereas, formerly, my life had consisted in a vain attempt
to behold, if not my ideal in myself, at least myself in my ideal. Now,
however, I took, at first, what perhaps was a mistaken pleasure, in despising
and degrading myself. Another self seemed to arise, like a white spirit from a
dead man, from the dumb and trampled self of the past. Doubtless, this self
must again die and be buried, and again, from its tomb, spring a winged child;
but of this my history as yet bears not the record.
Self will come to life even in the slaying of self; but there is ever something
deeper and stronger than it, which will emerge at last from the unknown abysses
of the soul: will it be as a solemn gloom, burning with eyes? or a clear
morning after the rain? or a smiling child, that finds itself nowhere, and
everywhere?
CHAPTER XXIII
“High erected thought, seated in a heart of courtesy.”
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
“A sweet attractive kinde of grace,
A full assurance given by lookes,
Continuall comfort in a face,
The lineaments of Gospel bookes.”
MATTHEW ROYDON, on Sir Philip Sidney.
I had not gone far, for I had but just lost sight of the hated tower, when a
voice of another sort, sounding near or far, as the trees permitted or
intercepted its passage, reached me. It was a full, deep, manly voice, but
withal clear and melodious. Now it burst on the ear with a sudden swell, and
anon, dying away as suddenly, seemed to come to me across a great space.
Nevertheless, it drew nearer; till, at last, I could distinguish the words of
the song, and get transient glimpses of the singer, between the columns of the
trees. He came nearer, dawning upon me like a growing thought. He was a knight,
armed from head to heel, mounted upon a strange-looking beast, whose form I
could not understand. The words which I heard him sing were like these:
Heart be stout,
And eye be true;
Good blade out!
And ill shall rue.
Courage, horse!
Thou lackst no skill;
Well thy force
Hath matched my will.
For the foe
With fiery breath,
At a blow,
Is still in death.
Gently, horse!
Tread fearlessly;
‘Tis his corse
That burdens thee.
The sun’s eye
Is fierce at noon;
Thou and I
Will rest full soon.
And new strength
New work will meet;
Till, at length,
Long rest is sweet.
And now horse and rider had arrived near enough for me to see, fastened by the
long neck to the hinder part of the saddle, and trailing its hideous length on
the ground behind, the body of a great dragon. It was no wonder that, with such
a drag at his heels, the horse could make but slow progress, notwithstanding
his evident dismay. The horrid, serpent-like head, with its black tongue,
forked with red, hanging out of its jaws, dangled against the horse’s
side. Its neck was covered with long blue hair, its sides with scales of green
and gold. Its back was of corrugated skin, of a purple hue. Its belly was
similar in nature, but its colour was leaden, dashed with blotches of livid
blue. Its skinny, bat-like wings and its tail were of a dull gray. It was
strange to see how so many gorgeous colours, so many curving lines, and such
beautiful things as wings and hair and scales, combined to form the horrible
creature, intense in ugliness.
The knight was passing me with a salutation; but, as I walked towards him, he
reined up, and I stood by his stirrup. When I came near him, I saw to my
surprise and pleasure likewise, although a sudden pain, like a birth of fire,
sprang up in my heart, that it was the knight of the soiled armour, whom I knew
before, and whom I had seen in the vision, with the lady of the marble. But I
could have thrown my arms around him, because she loved him. This discovery
only strengthened the resolution I had formed, before I recognised him, of
offering myself to the knight, to wait upon him as a squire, for he seemed to
be unattended. I made my request in as few words as possible. He hesitated for
a moment, and looked at me thoughtfully. I saw that he suspected who I was, but
that he continued uncertain of his suspicion. No doubt he was soon convinced of
its truth; but all the time I was with him, not a word crossed his lips with
reference to what he evidently concluded I wished to leave unnoticed, if not to
keep concealed.
“Squire and knight should be friends,” said he: “can you take
me by the hand?” And he held out the great gauntleted right hand. I
grasped it willingly and strongly. Not a word more was said. The knight gave
the sign to his horse, which again began his slow march, and I walked beside
and a little behind.
We had not gone very far before we arrived at a little cottage; from which, as
we drew near, a woman rushed out with the cry:
“My child! my child! have you found my child?”
“I have found her,” replied the knight, “but she is sorely
hurt. I was forced to leave her with the hermit, as I returned. You will find
her there, and I think she will get better. You see I have brought you a
present. This wretch will not hurt you again.” And he undid the
creature’s neck, and flung the frightful burden down by the cottage door.
The woman was now almost out of sight in the wood; but the husband stood at the
door, with speechless thanks in his face.
“You must bury the monster,” said the knight. “If I had
arrived a moment later, I should have been too late. But now you need not fear,
for such a creature as this very rarely appears, in the same part, twice during
a lifetime.”
“Will you not dismount and rest you, Sir Knight?” said the peasant,
who had, by this time, recovered himself a little.
“That I will, thankfully,” said he; and, dismounting, he gave the
reins to me, and told me to unbridle the horse, and lead him into the shade.
“You need not tie him up,” he added; “he will not run
away.”
When I returned, after obeying his orders, and entered the cottage, I saw the
knight seated, without his helmet, and talking most familiarly with the simple
host. I stood at the open door for a moment, and, gazing at him, inwardly
justified the white lady in preferring him to me. A nobler countenance I never
saw. Loving-kindness beamed from every line of his face. It seemed as if he
would repay himself for the late arduous combat, by indulging in all the
gentleness of a womanly heart. But when the talk ceased for a moment, he seemed
to fall into a reverie. Then the exquisite curves of the upper lip vanished.
The lip was lengthened and compressed at the same moment. You could have told
that, within the lips, the teeth were firmly closed. The whole face grew stern
and determined, all but fierce; only the eyes burned on like a holy sacrifice,
uplift on a granite rock.
The woman entered, with her mangled child in her arms. She was pale as her
little burden. She gazed, with a wild love and despairing tenderness, on the
still, all but dead face, white and clear from loss of blood and terror.
The knight rose. The light that had been confined to his eyes, now shone from
his whole countenance. He took the little thing in his arms, and, with the
mother’s help, undressed her, and looked to her wounds. The tears flowed
down his face as he did so. With tender hands he bound them up, kissed the pale
cheek, and gave her back to her mother. When he went home, all his tale would
be of the grief and joy of the parents; while to me, who had looked on, the
gracious countenance of the armed man, beaming from the panoply of steel, over
the seemingly dead child, while the powerful hands turned it and shifted it,
and bound it, if possible even more gently than the mother’s, formed the
centre of the story.
After we had partaken of the best they could give us, the knight took his
leave, with a few parting instructions to the mother as to how she should treat
the child.
I brought the knight his steed, held the stirrup while he mounted, and then
followed him through the wood. The horse, delighted to be free of his hideous
load, bounded beneath the weight of man and armour, and could hardly be
restrained from galloping on. But the knight made him time his powers to mine,
and so we went on for an hour or two. Then the knight dismounted, and compelled
me to get into the saddle, saying: “Knight and squire must share the
labour.”
Holding by the stirrup, he walked along by my side, heavily clad as he was,
with apparent ease. As we went, he led a conversation, in which I took what
humble part my sense of my condition would permit me.
“Somehow or other,” said he, “notwithstanding the beauty of
this country of Faerie, in which we are, there is much that is wrong in it. If
there are great splendours, there are corresponding horrors; heights and
depths; beautiful women and awful fiends; noble men and weaklings. All a man
has to do, is to better what he can. And if he will settle it with himself,
that even renown and success are in themselves of no great value, and be
content to be defeated, if so be that the fault is not his; and so go to his
work with a cool brain and a strong will, he will get it done; and fare none
the worse in the end, that he was not burdened with provision and
precaution.”
“But he will not always come off well,” I ventured to say.
“Perhaps not,” rejoined the knight, “in the individual act;
but the result of his lifetime will content him.”
“So it will fare with you, doubtless,” thought I; “but for
me—-”
Venturing to resume the conversation after a pause, I said, hesitatingly:
“May I ask for what the little beggar-girl wanted your aid, when she came
to your castle to find you?”
He looked at me for a moment in silence, and then said—
“I cannot help wondering how you know of that; but there is something
about you quite strange enough to entitle you to the privilege of the country;
namely, to go unquestioned. I, however, being only a man, such as you see me,
am ready to tell you anything you like to ask me, as far as I can. The little
beggar-girl came into the hall where I was sitting, and told me a very curious
story, which I can only recollect very vaguely, it was so peculiar. What I can
recall is, that she was sent to gather wings. As soon as she had gathered a
pair of wings for herself, she was to fly away, she said, to the country she
came from; but where that was, she could give no information.
“She said she had to beg her wings from the butterflies and moths; and
wherever she begged, no one refused her. But she needed a great many of the
wings of butterflies and moths to make a pair for her; and so she had to wander
about day after day, looking for butterflies, and night after night, looking
for moths; and then she begged for their wings. But the day before, she had
come into a part of the forest, she said, where there were multitudes of
splendid butterflies flitting about, with wings which were just fit to make the
eyes in the shoulders of hers; and she knew she could have as many of them as
she liked for the asking; but as soon as she began to beg, there came a great
creature right up to her, and threw her down, and walked over her. When she got
up, she saw the wood was full of these beings stalking about, and seeming to
have nothing to do with each other. As soon as ever she began to beg, one of
them walked over her; till at last in dismay, and in growing horror of the
senseless creatures, she had run away to look for somebody to help her. I asked
her what they were like. She said, like great men, made of wood, without
knee-or elbow-joints, and without any noses or mouths or eyes in their faces. I
laughed at the little maiden, thinking she was making child’s game of me;
but, although she burst out laughing too, she persisted in asserting the truth
of her story.”
“‘Only come, knight, come and see; I will lead you.’
“So I armed myself, to be ready for anything that might happen, and
followed the child; for, though I could make nothing of her story, I could see
she was a little human being in need of some help or other. As she walked
before me, I looked attentively at her. Whether or not it was from being so
often knocked down and walked over, I could not tell, but her clothes were very
much torn, and in several places her white skin was peeping through. I thought
she was hump-backed; but on looking more closely, I saw, through the tatters of
her frock—do not laugh at me—a bunch on each shoulder, of the most
gorgeous colours. Looking yet more closely, I saw that they were of the shape
of folded wings, and were made of all kinds of butterfly-wings and moth-wings,
crowded together like the feathers on the individual butterfly pinion; but,
like them, most beautifully arranged, and producing a perfect harmony of colour
and shade. I could now more easily believe the rest of her story; especially as
I saw, every now and then, a certain heaving motion in the wings, as if they
longed to be uplifted and outspread. But beneath her scanty garments complete
wings could not be concealed, and indeed, from her own story, they were yet
unfinished.
“After walking for two or three hours (how the little girl found her way,
I could not imagine), we came to a part of the forest, the very air of which
was quivering with the motions of multitudes of resplendent butterflies; as
gorgeous in colour, as if the eyes of peacocks’ feathers had taken to
flight, but of infinite variety of hue and form, only that the appearance of
some kind of eye on each wing predominated. ‘There they are, there they
are!’ cried the child, in a tone of victory mingled with terror. Except
for this tone, I should have thought she referred to the butterflies, for I
could see nothing else. But at that moment an enormous butterfly, whose wings
had great eyes of blue surrounded by confused cloudy heaps of more dingy
colouring, just like a break in the clouds on a stormy day towards evening,
settled near us. The child instantly began murmuring: ‘Butterfly,
butterfly, give me your wings’; when, the moment after, she fell to the
ground, and began crying as if hurt. I drew my sword and heaved a great blow in
the direction in which the child had fallen. It struck something, and instantly
the most grotesque imitation of a man became visible. You see this Fairy Land
is full of oddities and all sorts of incredibly ridiculous things, which a man
is compelled to meet and treat as real existences, although all the time he
feels foolish for doing so. This being, if being it could be called, was like a
block of wood roughly hewn into the mere outlines of a man; and hardly so, for
it had but head, body, legs, and arms—the head without a face, and the
limbs utterly formless. I had hewn off one of its legs, but the two portions
moved on as best they could, quite independent of each other; so that I had
done no good. I ran after it, and clove it in twain from the head downwards;
but it could not be convinced that its vocation was not to walk over people;
for, as soon as the little girl began her begging again, all three parts came
bustling up; and if I had not interposed my weight between her and them, she
would have been trampled again under them. I saw that something else must be
done. If the wood was full of the creatures, it would be an endless work to
chop them so small that they could do no injury; and then, besides, the parts
would be so numerous, that the butterflies would be in danger from the drift of
flying chips. I served this one so, however; and then told the girl to beg
again, and point out the direction in which one was coming. I was glad to find,
however, that I could now see him myself, and wondered how they could have been
invisible before. I would not allow him to walk over the child; but while I
kept him off, and she began begging again, another appeared; and it was all I
could do, from the weight of my armour, to protect her from the stupid,
persevering efforts of the two. But suddenly the right plan occurred to me. I
tripped one of them up, and, taking him by the legs, set him up on his head,
with his heels against a tree. I was delighted to find he could not move.
Meantime the poor child was walked over by the other, but it was for the last
time. Whenever one appeared, I followed the same plan—tripped him up and
set him on his head; and so the little beggar was able to gather her wings
without any trouble, which occupation she continued for several hours in my
company.”
“What became of her?” I asked.
“I took her home with me to my castle, and she told me all her story; but
it seemed to me, all the time, as if I were hearing a child talk in its sleep.
I could not arrange her story in my mind at all, although it seemed to leave
hers in some certain order of its own. My wife—-”
Here the knight checked himself, and said no more. Neither did I urge the
conversation farther.
Thus we journeyed for several days, resting at night in such shelter as we
could get; and when no better was to be had, lying in the forest under some
tree, on a couch of old leaves.
I loved the knight more and more. I believe never squire served his master with
more care and joyfulness than I. I tended his horse; I cleaned his armour; my
skill in the craft enabled me to repair it when necessary; I watched his needs;
and was well repaid for all by the love itself which I bore him.
“This,” I said to myself, “is a true man. I will serve him,
and give him all worship, seeing in him the imbodiment of what I would fain
become. If I cannot be noble myself, I will yet be servant to his
nobleness.” He, in return, soon showed me such signs of friendship and
respect, as made my heart glad; and I felt that, after all, mine would be no
lost life, if I might wait on him to the world’s end, although no smile
but his should greet me, and no one but him should say, “Well done! he
was a good servant!” at last. But I burned to do something more for him
than the ordinary routine of a squire’s duty permitted.
One afternoon, we began to observe an appearance of roads in the wood. Branches
had been cut down, and openings made, where footsteps had worn no path below.
These indications increased as we passed on, till, at length, we came into a
long, narrow avenue, formed by felling the trees in its line, as the remaining
roots evidenced. At some little distance, on both hands, we observed signs of
similar avenues, which appeared to converge with ours, towards one spot. Along
these we indistinctly saw several forms moving, which seemed, with ourselves,
to approach the common centre. Our path brought us, at last, up to a wall of
yew-trees, growing close together, and intertwining their branches so, that
nothing could be seen beyond it. An opening was cut in it like a door, and all
the wall was trimmed smooth and perpendicular. The knight dismounted, and
waited till I had provided for his horse’s comfort; upon which we entered
the place together.
It was a great space, bare of trees, and enclosed by four walls of yew, similar
to that through which we had entered. These trees grew to a very great height,
and did not divide from each other till close to the top, where their summits
formed a row of conical battlements all around the walls. The space contained
was a parallelogram of great length. Along each of the two longer sides of the
interior, were ranged three ranks of men, in white robes, standing silent and
solemn, each with a sword by his side, although the rest of his costume and
bearing was more priestly than soldierly. For some distance inwards, the space
between these opposite rows was filled with a company of men and women and
children, in holiday attire. The looks of all were directed inwards, towards
the further end. Far beyond the crowd, in a long avenue, seeming to narrow in
the distance, went the long rows of the white-robed men. On what the attention
of the multitude was fixed, we could not tell, for the sun had set before we
arrived, and it was growing dark within. It grew darker and darker. The
multitude waited in silence. The stars began to shine down into the enclosure,
and they grew brighter and larger every moment. A wind arose, and swayed the
pinnacles of the tree-tops; and made a strange sound, half like music, half
like moaning, through the close branches and leaves of the tree-walls. A young
girl who stood beside me, clothed in the same dress as the priests, bowed her
head, and grew pale with awe.
The knight whispered to me, “How solemn it is! Surely they wait to hear
the voice of a prophet. There is something good near!”
But I, though somewhat shaken by the feeling expressed by my master, yet had an
unaccountable conviction that here was something bad. So I resolved to be
keenly on the watch for what should follow.
Suddenly a great star, like a sun, appeared high in the air over the temple,
illuminating it throughout; and a great song arose from the men in white, which
went rolling round and round the building, now receding to the end, and now
approaching, down the other side, the place where we stood. For some of the
singers were regularly ceasing, and the next to them as regularly taking up the
song, so that it crept onwards with gradations produced by changes which could
not themselves be detected, for only a few of those who were singing ceased at
the same moment. The song paused; and I saw a company of six of the white-robed
men walk up the centre of the human avenue, surrounding a youth gorgeously
attired beneath his robe of white, and wearing a chaplet of flowers on his
head. I followed them closely, with my keenest observation; and, by
accompanying their slow progress with my eyes, I was able to perceive more
clearly what took place when they arrived at the other end. I knew that my
sight was so much more keen than that of most people, that I had good reason to
suppose I should see more than the rest could, at such a distance. At the
farther end a throne stood upon a platform, high above the heads of the
surrounding priests. To this platform I saw the company begin to ascend,
apparently by an inclined plane or gentle slope. The throne itself was elevated
again, on a kind of square pedestal, to the top of which led a flight of steps.
On the throne sat a majestic-looking figure, whose posture seemed to indicate a
mixture of pride and benignity, as he looked down on the multitude below. The
company ascended to the foot of the throne, where they all kneeled for some
minutes; then they rose and passed round to the side of the pedestal upon which
the throne stood. Here they crowded close behind the youth, putting him in the
foremost place, and one of them opened a door in the pedestal, for the youth to
enter. I was sure I saw him shrink back, and those crowding behind pushed him
in. Then, again, arose a burst of song from the multitude in white, which
lasted some time. When it ceased, a new company of seven commenced its march up
the centre. As they advanced, I looked up at my master: his noble countenance
was full of reverence and awe. Incapable of evil himself, he could scarcely
suspect it in another, much less in a multitude such as this, and surrounded
with such appearances of solemnity. I was certain it was the really grand
accompaniments that overcame him; that the stars overhead, the dark towering
tops of the yew-trees, and the wind that, like an unseen spirit, sighed through
their branches, bowed his spirit to the belief, that in all these ceremonies
lay some great mystical meaning which, his humility told him, his ignorance
prevented him from understanding.
More convinced than before, that there was evil here, I could not endure that
my master should be deceived; that one like him, so pure and noble, should
respect what, if my suspicions were true, was worse than the ordinary
deceptions of priestcraft. I could not tell how far he might be led to
countenance, and otherwise support their doings, before he should find cause to
repent bitterly of his error. I watched the new procession yet more keenly, if
possible, than the former. This time, the central figure was a girl; and, at
the close, I observed, yet more indubitably, the shrinking back, and the
crowding push. What happened to the victims, I never learned; but I had learned
enough, and I could bear it no longer. I stooped, and whispered to the young
girl who stood by me, to lend me her white garment. I wanted it, that I might
not be entirely out of keeping with the solemnity, but might have at least this
help to passing unquestioned. She looked up, half-amused and half-bewildered,
as if doubting whether I was in earnest or not. But in her perplexity, she
permitted me to unfasten it, and slip it down from her shoulders.
I easily got possession of it; and, sinking down on my knees in the crowd, I
rose apparently in the habit of one of the worshippers.
Giving my battle-axe to the girl, to hold in pledge for the return of her
stole, for I wished to test the matter unarmed, and, if it was a man that sat
upon the throne, to attack him with hands bare, as I supposed his must be, I
made my way through the crowd to the front, while the singing yet continued,
desirous of reaching the platform while it was unoccupied by any of the
priests. I was permitted to walk up the long avenue of white robes unmolested,
though I saw questioning looks in many of the faces as I passed. I presume my
coolness aided my passage; for I felt quite indifferent as to my own fate; not
feeling, after the late events of my history, that I was at all worth taking
care of; and enjoying, perhaps, something of an evil satisfaction, in the
revenge I was thus taking upon the self which had fooled me so long. When I
arrived on the platform, the song had just ceased, and I felt as if all were
looking towards me. But instead of kneeling at its foot, I walked right up the
stairs to the throne, laid hold of a great wooden image that seemed to sit upon
it, and tried to hurl it from its seat. In this I failed at first, for I found
it firmly fixed. But in dread lest, the first shock of amazement passing away,
the guards would rush upon me before I had effected my purpose, I strained with
all my might; and, with a noise as of the cracking, and breaking, and tearing
of rotten wood, something gave way, and I hurled the image down the steps. Its
displacement revealed a great hole in the throne, like the hollow of a decayed
tree, going down apparently a great way. But I had no time to examine it, for,
as I looked into it, up out of it rushed a great brute, like a wolf, but twice
the size, and tumbled me headlong with itself, down the steps of the throne. As
we fell, however, I caught it by the throat, and the moment we reached the
platform, a struggle commenced, in which I soon got uppermost, with my hand
upon its throat, and knee upon its heart. But now arose a wild cry of wrath and
revenge and rescue. A universal hiss of steel, as every sword was swept from
its scabbard, seemed to tear the very air in shreds. I heard the rush of
hundreds towards the platform on which I knelt. I only tightened my grasp of
the brute’s throat. His eyes were already starting from his head, and his
tongue was hanging out. My anxious hope was, that, even after they had killed
me, they would be unable to undo my gripe of his throat, before the monster was
past breathing. I therefore threw all my will, and force, and purpose, into the
grasping hand. I remember no blow. A faintness came over me, and my
consciousness departed.
CHAPTER XXIV
“We are ne’er like angels till our passions die.”
DECKAR.
“This wretched Inn, where we scarce stay to bait,
We call our Dwelling-Place:
We call one Step a Race:
But angels in their full enlightened state,
Angels, who Live, and know what ‘tis to Be,
Who all the nonsense of our language see,
Who speak things, and our words, their ill-drawn pictures, scorn,
When we, by a foolish figure, say,
Behold an old man dead! then they
Speak properly, and cry, Behold a man-child born!”
COWLEY.
I was dead, and right content. I lay in my coffin, with my hands folded in
peace. The knight, and the lady I loved, wept over me.
Her tears fell on my face.
“Ah!” said the knight, “I rushed amongst them like a madman.
I hewed them down like brushwood. Their swords battered on me like hail, but
hurt me not. I cut a lane through to my friend. He was dead. But he had
throttled the monster, and I had to cut the handful out of its throat, before I
could disengage and carry off his body. They dared not molest me as I brought
him back.”
“He has died well,” said the lady.
My spirit rejoiced. They left me to my repose. I felt as if a cool hand had
been laid upon my heart, and had stilled it. My soul was like a summer evening,
after a heavy fall of rain, when the drops are yet glistening on the trees in
the last rays of the down-going sun, and the wind of the twilight has begun to
blow. The hot fever of life had gone by, and I breathed the clear mountain-air
of the land of Death. I had never dreamed of such blessedness. It was not that
I had in any way ceased to be what I had been. The very fact that anything can
die, implies the existence of something that cannot die; which must either take
to itself another form, as when the seed that is sown dies, and arises again;
or, in conscious existence, may, perhaps, continue to lead a purely spiritual
life. If my passions were dead, the souls of the passions, those essential
mysteries of the spirit which had imbodied themselves in the passions, and had
given to them all their glory and wonderment, yet lived, yet glowed, with a
pure, undying fire. They rose above their vanishing earthly garments, and
disclosed themselves angels of light. But oh, how beautiful beyond the old
form! I lay thus for a time, and lived as it were an unradiating existence; my
soul a motionless lake, that received all things and gave nothing back;
satisfied in still contemplation, and spiritual consciousness.
Ere long, they bore me to my grave. Never tired child lay down in his white
bed, and heard the sound of his playthings being laid aside for the night, with
a more luxurious satisfaction of repose than I knew, when I felt the coffin
settle on the firm earth, and heard the sound of the falling mould upon its
lid. It has not the same hollow rattle within the coffin, that it sends up to
the edge of the grave. They buried me in no graveyard. They loved me too much
for that, I thank them; but they laid me in the grounds of their own castle,
amid many trees; where, as it was spring-time, were growing primroses, and
blue-bells, and all the families of the woods
Now that I lay in her bosom, the whole earth, and each of her many births, was
as a body to me, at my will. I seemed to feel the great heart of the mother
beating into mine, and feeding me with her own life, her own essential being
and nature. I heard the footsteps of my friends above, and they sent a thrill
through my heart. I knew that the helpers had gone, and that the knight and the
lady remained, and spoke low, gentle, tearful words of him who lay beneath the
yet wounded sod. I rose into a single large primrose that grew by the edge of
the grave, and from the window of its humble, trusting face, looked full in the
countenance of the lady. I felt that I could manifest myself in the primrose;
that it said a part of what I wanted to say; just as in the old time, I had
used to betake myself to a song for the same end. The flower caught her eye.
She stooped and plucked it, saying, “Oh, you beautiful creature!”
and, lightly kissing it, put it in her bosom. It was the first kiss she had
ever given me. But the flower soon began to wither, and I forsook it.
It was evening. The sun was below the horizon; but his rosy beams yet
illuminated a feathery cloud, that floated high above the world. I arose, I
reached the cloud; and, throwing myself upon it, floated with it in sight of
the sinking sun. He sank, and the cloud grew gray; but the grayness touched not
my heart. It carried its rose-hue within; for now I could love without needing
to be loved again. The moon came gliding up with all the past in her wan face.
She changed my couch into a ghostly pallor, and threw all the earth below as to
the bottom of a pale sea of dreams. But she could not make me sad. I knew now,
that it is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the
soul of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other, and
not the being loved by each other, that originates and perfects and assures
their blessedness. I knew that love gives to him that loveth, power over any
soul beloved, even if that soul know him not, bringing him inwardly close to
that spirit; a power that cannot be but for good; for in proportion as
selfishness intrudes, the love ceases, and the power which springs therefrom
dies. Yet all love will, one day, meet with its return. All true love will, one
day, behold its own image in the eyes of the beloved, and be humbly glad. This
is possible in the realms of lofty Death. “Ah! my friends,” thought
I, “how I will tend you, and wait upon you, and haunt you with my
love.”
My floating chariot bore me over a great city. Its faint dull sound steamed up
into the air—a sound—how composed? “How many hopeless
cries,” thought I, “and how many mad shouts go to make up the
tumult, here so faint where I float in eternal peace, knowing that they will
one day be stilled in the surrounding calm, and that despair dies into infinite
hope, and the seeming impossible there, is the law here!
“But, O pale-faced women, and gloomy-browed men, and forgotten children,
how I will wait on you, and minister to you, and, putting my arms about you in
the dark, think hope into your hearts, when you fancy no one is near! Soon as
my senses have all come back, and have grown accustomed to this new blessed
life, I will be among you with the love that healeth.”
With this, a pang and a terrible shudder went through me; a writhing as of
death convulsed me; and I became once again conscious of a more limited, even a
bodily and earthly life.
CHAPTER XXV
“Our life is no dream; but it ought to become one, and perhaps
will.”
NOVALIS.
“And on the ground, which is my modres gate,
I knocke with my staf; erlich and late,
And say to hire, Leve mother, let me in.”
CHAUCER, The Pardoneres Tale.
Sinking from such a state of ideal bliss, into the world of shadows which again
closed around and infolded me, my first dread was, not unnaturally, that my own
shadow had found me again, and that my torture had commenced anew. It was a sad
revulsion of feeling. This, indeed, seemed to correspond to what we think death
is, before we die. Yet I felt within me a power of calm endurance to which I
had hitherto been a stranger. For, in truth, that I should be able if only to
think such things as I had been thinking, was an unspeakable delight. An hour
of such peace made the turmoil of a lifetime worth striving through.
I found myself lying in the open air, in the early morning, before sunrise.
Over me rose the summer heaven, expectant of the sun. The clouds already saw
him, coming from afar; and soon every dewdrop would rejoice in his individual
presence within it.
I lay motionless for a few minutes; and then slowly rose and looked about me. I
was on the summit of a little hill; a valley lay beneath, and a range of
mountains closed up the view upon that side. But, to my horror, across the
valley, and up the height of the opposing mountains, stretched, from my very
feet, a hugely expanding shade. There it lay, long and large, dark and mighty.
I turned away with a sick despair; when lo! I beheld the sun just lifting his
head above the eastern hill, and the shadow that fell from me, lay only where
his beams fell not. I danced for joy. It was only the natural shadow, that goes
with every man who walks in the sun. As he arose, higher and higher, the
shadow-head sank down the side of the opposite hill, and crept in across the
valley towards my feet.
Now that I was so joyously delivered from this fear, I saw and recognised the
country around me. In the valley below, lay my own castle, and the haunts of my
childhood were all about me hastened home. My sisters received me with
unspeakable joy; but I suppose they observed some change in me, for a kind of
respect, with a slight touch of awe in it, mingled with their joy, and made me
ashamed. They had been in great distress about me. On the morning of my
disappearance, they had found the floor of my room flooded; and, all that day,
a wondrous and nearly impervious mist had hung about the castle and grounds. I
had been gone, they told me, twenty-one days. To me it seemed twenty-one years.
Nor could I yet feel quite secure in my new experiences. When, at night, I lay
down once more in my own bed, I did not feel at all sure that when I awoke, I
should not find myself in some mysterious region of Fairy Land. My dreams were
incessant and perturbed; but when I did awake, I saw clearly that I was in my
own home.
My mind soon grew calm; and I began the duties of my new position, somewhat
instructed, I hoped, by the adventures that had befallen me in Fairy Land.
Could I translate the experience of my travels there, into common life? This
was the question. Or must I live it all over again, and learn it all over
again, in the other forms that belong to the world of men, whose experience yet
runs parallel to that of Fairy Land? These questions I cannot answer yet. But I
fear.
Even yet, I find myself looking round sometimes with anxiety, to see whether my
shadow falls right away from the sun or no. I have never yet discovered any
inclination to either side. And if I am not unfrequently sad, I yet cast no
more of a shade on the earth, than most men who have lived in it as long as I.
I have a strange feeling sometimes, that I am a ghost, sent into the world to
minister to my fellow men, or, rather, to repair the wrongs I have already
done.
May the world be brighter for me, at least in those portions of it, where my
darkness falls not.
Thus I, who set out to find my Ideal, came back rejoicing that I had lost my
Shadow.
When the thought of the blessedness I experienced, after my death in Fairy
Land, is too high for me to lay hold upon it and hope in it, I often think of
the wise woman in the cottage, and of her solemn assurance that she knew
something too good to be told. When I am oppressed by any sorrow or real
perplexity, I often feel as if I had only left her cottage for a time, and
would soon return out of the vision, into it again. Sometimes, on such
occasions, I find myself, unconsciously almost, looking about for the mystic
mark of red, with the vague hope of entering her door, and being comforted by
her wise tenderness. I then console myself by saying: “I have come
through the door of Dismay; and the way back from the world into which that has
led me, is through my tomb. Upon that the red sign lies, and I shall find it
one day, and be glad.”
I will end my story with the relation of an incident which befell me a few days
ago. I had been with my reapers, and, when they ceased their work at noon, I
had lain down under the shadow of a great, ancient beech-tree, that stood on
the edge of the field. As I lay, with my eyes closed, I began to listen to the
sound of the leaves overhead. At first, they made sweet inarticulate music
alone; but, by-and-by, the sound seemed to begin to take shape, and to be
gradually moulding itself into words; till, at last, I seemed able to
distinguish these, half-dissolved in a little ocean of circumfluent tones:
“A great good is coming—is coming—is coming to thee,
Anodos;” and so over and over again. I fancied that the sound reminded me
of the voice of the ancient woman, in the cottage that was four-square. I
opened my eyes, and, for a moment, almost believed that I saw her face, with
its many wrinkles and its young eyes, looking at me from between two hoary
branches of the beech overhead. But when I looked more keenly, I saw only twigs
and leaves, and the infinite sky, in tiny spots, gazing through between. Yet I
know that good is coming to me—that good is always coming; though few
have at all times the simplicity and the courage to believe it. What we call
evil, is the only and best shape, which, for the person and his condition at
the time, could be assumed by the best good. And so, Farewell.
