XVI
_Art thou pale for weariness._
--PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
The constellations of summer wheeled above me; and thus between waterand starry sky I tossed solitary in my boat. The faint lustre of thesultry night hung like a mist from heaven to earth. Far away above thecountries I had left perhaps for ever, the quiet lightnings playedinnocently in the heights.
I rowed steadily on, guiding myself by some much ruddier star on thehorizon. The pale phosphorescence on the wave, the simple sounds as offish stirring in the water--the beauty and wonder of Night'sdwelling-place seemed beyond content of mortality.
I leaned on my oars in the midst of the deep sea, and seemed to hear,as it were, the mighty shout of Space. Faint and enormous beams oflight trembled through the sky. And once I surprised a shadow as ofwings sweeping darkly across, star on to glittering star, shaking theair, stilling the sea with the cold dews of night.
So rowing, so resting, I passed the mark of midnight. Weariness beganto steal over me. Between sleep and wake I heard strange cries acrossthe deep. The thin silver of the old moon ebbed into the east. A chillmist welled out of the water and shrouded me in faintest gloom.Wherefore, battling no more against such influences, I shipped myoars, made my prayer in the midst of this dark womb of Life, andscreening myself as best I could from the airs that soon would bemoving before dawn, I lay down in the bottom of the boat and fellasleep.
I slept apparently without dream, and woke as it seemed to the soundof voices singing some old music of the sea. A scent of a fragranceunknown to me was eddying in the wind. I raised my head, and saw witheyes half-dazed with light an island of cypress and poplar, green andstill above the pure glass of its encircling waters. Straight beforeme, beyond green-bearded rocks dripping with foam, a little stonehouse, or temple, with columns and balconies of marble, stood hushedupon the cliff by the waterside.
All now was soundless. They that sang, whether Nereids or Sirens, haddescended to dimmer courts. The seamews floated on the water; thewhite dove strutted on the ledge; only the nightingales sang on in thethick arbours.
I pushed my boat between the rocks towards the island. Bright andburning though the beams of the sun were, here seemed everlastingshadow. And though at my gradual intrusion, at splash or grating ofkeel, the startled cormorant cried in the air, and with one cry wokemany, yet here too seemed perpetual stillness.
How could I know what eyes might not be regarding me from bowers asthick and secluded as these? Yet this seemed an isle in some vaguefashion familiar to me. To these same watery steps of stone, to thissame mooring-ring surely I had voyaged before in dream or other life?I glanced into the water and saw my own fantastic image beneath thereflected gloom of cypresses, and knew at least, though I a shadowmight be, this also was an island in a sea of shadows. Far from allland its marbles might be reared, yet they were warm to my touch, andthese were nightingales, and those strutting doves beneath the littlearches.
So very gradually, and glancing to and fro into these unstirringgroves, I came presently to the entrance court of the solitary villaon the cliff-side. Here a thread-like fountain plashed in its basin,the one thing astir in this cool retreat. Here, too, grew orangetrees, with their unripe fruit upon them.
But I continued, and venturing out upon the terrace overlooking thesea, saw again with a kind of astonishment the doctor's green,unwieldy boat beneath me and the emerald of the nearer waters tossingabove the yellow sands.
Here I had sat awhile lost in ease when I heard a footstep approachingand the rhythmical rustling of drapery, and knew eyes were nowregarding me that I feared, yet much desired to meet.
"Oh me!" said a clear yet almost languid voice. "How comes any man sosoftly?"
Turning, I looked in the face of one how long a shade!
I strove in vain to hide my confusion. This lady only smiled thedeeper out of her baffling eyes.
"If you could guess," she said presently, "how my heart leapt in me,as if, poor creature, any oars of earth could bring it ease, you wouldthink me indeed as desolate as I am. To hear the bird scream,Traveller! I hastened from the gardens as if the black ships of theGreeks were come to take me. But such is long ago. Tell me, now, isthe world yet harsh with men and sad with women? Burns yet thatmadness mirth calls Life? or truly does the puny, busy-tongued racesleep at last, nodding no more at me?"
I told as best I could how chance had fetched me; told, too, thatearth was yet pestered with men, and heavenly with women. "And themadness mirth calls Life flickers yet," I said; "and the little racetosses on in nightmare."
"Ah!" she replied, "so ever run travellers' tales. I too once trustedto seem indifferent. But you, if shadow deceives me not, may yetreturn: I, only to the shades whence earth draws me. Meanwhile," shesaid, looking softly at the fountain playing in the clear gloombeyond, "rest and grow weary again, for there flock more questions tomy tongue than spines on the blackthorn. The gardens are green withflowers, Traveller; let us talk where rosemary blows."
Following her, I thought of the mysterious beauty of her eyes, herpallor, her slimness, and that faint smile which hovered betweenecstasy and indifference, and away went my mind to one whom theshrewdest and tenderest of my own countrymen called once Criseyde.
She led me into a garden all of faint-hued flowers. There bloomed noscarlet here, nor blue, nor yellow; but white and lavender and purestpurple. Here, also, like torches of the sun, stood poplars each byeach in the windless air, and the impenetrable darkness of cypressesbeneath them.
Here too was a fountain whose waters leapt no more, mossy andtime-worn. I could not but think of those other gardens of myjourney--Jane's, Ennui's, Dianeme's; and yet none like this for theshingley murmur of the sea, and the calmness of morning.
"But, surely," I said, "this must be very far from Troy."
"Far indeed," she said.
"Far also from the hollow ships."
"Far also from the hollow ships," she replied.
"Yet," said I, "in the country whence I come is a saying: Where thetreasure is--"
"Alack! _there_ gloats the miser!" said Criseyde; "but I, Traveller,have no treasure, only a patchwork memory, and that's a great grief."
"Well, then, forget! Why try in vain?" I said.
She smiled and seated herself, leaning a little forward, looking uponthe ground.
"Soothfastness _must_,"' she said very gravely, raising her long blackeyebrows; "yet truly it must be a forlorn thing to be remembered byone who so lightly forgets. So then I say, to teach myself to betrue--'Look now, Criseyde, yonder fine, many-hearted poplar--that isParis; and all that bank of marriage-ivy--that is marriageable Helen,green and cold; and the waterless fountain--that truly is Diomed; andthe faded flower that nods in shadow, why, that must be me, even me,Criseyde!'"
"And this thick rosemary-bush that smells of exile, who, then, isthat?" I said.
She looked deep into the shadow of the cypresses. "That," she said, "Ithink I have forgot again."
"But," I said, "Diomed, now, was he quite so silent--not one trickleof persuasion?"
"Why," she said, "I think 'twas the fountain was Diomed: I know not.And as for persuasion; he was a man forked, vain, and absolute as all.Let the waterless stone be sudden Diomed--you will confuse my wits,Mariner; where, then, were I?" She smiled, stooping lower. "You havevoyaged far?" she said.
"From childhood to this side regret," I answered rather sadly.
"'Tis a sad end to a sweet tale," she said, "were it but truly told.But yet, and yet, and yet--you may return, and life heals every, everywound. _I_ must look on the ground and make amends. 'Tis this samemaking amends men now call 'Purgatory,' they tell me."
"'Amends,'" I said; "to whom? for what?"
"Welaway," said she, with a narrow fork between her brows; "to mostmen and to all women, for being that Criseyde." She gazed halfsolemnly at some picture of reverie.
"But which Criseyde?" I said. "She who was every wind's, or but oneperfect summer's?"
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She glanced strangely at me. "Ask of the night that burns so manystars," she said. "All's done; all passes. Yet my poor busy UnclePandar had no such changes, nor Hector, nor ... Men change not: theylove and love again--one same tune of a myriad verses."
"All?" I said.
She tossed lightly a little dust from her hand.
"Nay--all," she replied; "but what is that to me? Mine only to seeCharon on the wave pass light over and return. Man of the green world,prithee die not yet awhile! 'Tis dull being a shade. See these coldpalms! Yet my heart beats on."
"For what?" I said.
Criseyde folded her hands and leaned her cheek sidelong upon thestone.
"For what?" I repeated.
"For what but idle questions?" she said; "for a traveller's vanitythat deems looking love-boys into a woman's eyes her sweeterentertainment than all the heroes of Troy. Oh, for a house of noughtto be at peace in! Oh, gooseish swan! Oh, brittle vows! Tell me,Voyager, is it not so?--that men are merely angry boys with beards;and women--repeat not, ye who know! Never yet set I these steadfasteyes on a man that would not steal the moon for taper--would she butcome down." She turned an arch face to me: "And what is to befaithful?"
"I?" said I--"'to be faithful?'"
"It is," she said, "to rise and never set, O sun of utter weariness!It is to kindle and never be quenched, O fretting fire of midsummer!It is to be snared and always sing, O shrilling bird of dulness! It isto come, not go; smile, not sigh; wake, never sleep. Couldst _thou_love so many nots to a silk string?"
"What, then, is to change,... to be fickle?" I said.
"Ah! to be fickle," she said, "is showers after drought, seas aftersand; to cry, unechoed; to be thirsty, the pitcher broken. And--asknow this pitiless darkness of the eyes!--to be remembered thoughLethe flows between. Nay, you shall watch even hope away ere anothercomes like me to mope and sigh, and play at swords with Memory."
She rose to her feet and drew her hands across her face, and smiling,sighed deeply. And I saw how inscrutable and lovely she must ever seemto eyes scornful of mean men's idolatries.
"And you will embark again," she said softly; "and in how small a shipon seas so mighty! And whither next will fate entice you, to what newsorrows?"
"Who knows?" I said. "And to what further peace?"
She laughed lightly. "Speak not of mockeries," she said, and fellsilent.
She seemed to be thinking quickly and deeply; for even though I didnot turn to her, I could see in imagination the restless sparkling ofher eyes, the stillness of her ringless hands. Then suddenly sheturned.
"Stranger," she said, drawing her finger softly along the cold stoneof the bench, "there yet remain a few bright hours to morning. Whoknows, seeing that felicity is with the bold, did I cast off into thesea--who knows whereto I'd come! 'Tis but a little way to beinghappy--a touch of the hand, a lifting of the brows, a shudderingsilence. Had I but man's courage! Yet this is a solitary place, andthe gods are revengeful."
I cannot say how artlessly ran that voice in this still garden, bysome strange power persuading me on, turning all doubt aside, calmingall suspicion.
"There is honeycomb here, and the fruit is plenteous. Yes," she said,"and all travellers are violent men--catch and kill meat--that I know,however doleful. 'Tis but a little sigh from day to day in these coolgardens; and rest is welcome when the heart pines not. Listen, now; Iwill go down and you shall show me--did one have the wit to learn, andcourage to remember--show me how sails your wonderful little ship;tell me, too, where on the sea's horizon to one in exile earth lies,with all its pleasant things--yet thinks so bitterly of a woman!"
"Tell me," I said; "tell me but one thing of a thousand. Whom would_you_ seek, did a traveller direct you, and a boat were at your need?"
She looked at me, pondering, weaving her webs about me, lulling doubt,and banishing fear.
"One could not miss--a hero!" she said, flaming.
"That, then, shall be our bargain," I replied with wrath at my ownfolly. "Tell me this precious hero's name, and though all the dogs ofthe underworld come to course me, you shall take my boat, and leave mehere--only this hero's name, a pedlar's bargain!"
She lowered her lids. "It must be Diomed," she said with the leastsigh.
"It must be," I said.
"Nay, then, Antenor, or truly Thersites," she said happily, "thesilver-tongued!"
"Good-bye, then," I said.
"Good-bye," she replied very gently. "Why, how could there be a vowbetween us? I go, and return. You await me--me, Criseyde, Traveller,the lonely-hearted. That is the little all, O much-surrenderingStranger! Would that long-ago were now--before all chaffering!"
Again a thousand questions rose to my tongue. She looked sidelong atthe dry fountain, and one and all fell silent.
"It is harsh, endless labour beneath the burning sun; storms andwhirlwinds go about the sea, and the deep heaves with monsters."
"Oh, sweet danger!" she said, mocking me.
I turned from her without a word, like an angry child, and made my wayto the steps into the sea, pulled round my boat into a little havenbeside them, and shewed her oars and tackle and tiller; all the toil,and peril, the wild chances."
"Why," she cried, while I was yet full of the theme, "I will go thenat once, and to-morrow Troy will come."
I looked long at her in silence; her slim beauty, the answerlessriddle of her eyes, the age-long subtilty of her mouth, and gave nomore thought to all life else.
Day was already waning. I filled the water-keg with fresh water, putfruit and honeycomb and a pillow of leaves into the boat, proffered atrembling hand, and led her down.
The sun's beams slanted on the foamless sea, glowed in a flame ofcrimson on marble and rock and cypress. The birds sang endlessly on ofevening, endlessly, too, it seemed to me, of dangers my heart had nosurmise of.
Criseyde turned from the dark green waves. "Truly, it is a solitarycountry; pathless," she said, "to one unpiloted;" and stood listeningto the hollow voices of the water. And suddenly, as if at theconsummation of her thoughts, she lifted her eyes on me, darkly, withunimaginable entreaty.
"What do you seek else?" I cried in a voice I scarcely recognised."Oh, you speak in riddles!"
I sprang into the boat and seized the heavy oars. Something likelaughter, or, as it were, the clapper of a scarer of birds, echoedamong the rocks at the rattling of the rowlocks. As if invisible handswithdrew it from me, the island floated back.
I turned my prow towards the last splendour of the sun. A chill breezeplayed over the sea: a shadow crossed my eyes.
Buoyant was my boat; how light her cargo!--an oozing honeycomb, ashyfruits, a few branches of drooping leaves, closing flowers; andsolitary on the thwart the wraith of life's unquiet dream.
So fell night once more, and made all dim. And only the cold light ofthe firmament lit thoughts in me restless as the sea on which Itossed, whose moon was dark, yet walked in heaven beneath the distantstars.
Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London andAylesbury
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