CHAPTER VII. HOW NYCTERIS GREW.
The little education she intended Nycteris to have, Watho gave her byword of mouth. Not meaning she should have light enough to read by, toleave other reasons unmentioned, she never put a book in her hands.Nycteris, however, saw so much better than Watho imagined, that thelight she gave her was quite sufficient, and she managed to coax Falcainto teaching her the letters, after which she taught herself to read,and Falca now and then brought her a child's book. But her chiefpleasure was in her instrument. Her very fingers loved it, and wouldwander about over its keys like feeding sheep. She was not unhappy.She knew nothing of the world except the tomb in which she dwelt, andhad some pleasure in everything she did. But she desired,nevertheless, something more or different. She did not know what itwas, and the nearest she could come to expressing it to herselfwas--that she wanted more room. Watho and Falca would go from herbeyond the shine of the lamp, and come again; therefore surely theremust be more room somewhere. As often as she was left alone, she wouldfall to poring over the coloured bas-reliefs on the walls. These wereintended to represent various of the powers of Nature underallegorical similitudes, and as nothing can be made that does notbelong to the general scheme, she could not fail at least to imagine aflicker of relationship between some of them, and thus a shadow of thereality of things found its way to her.
There was one thing, however, which moved and taught her more than allthe rest--the lamp, namely, that hung from the ceiling, which shealways saw alight, though she never saw the flame, only the slightcondensation towards the centre of the alabaster globe. And besidesthe operation of the light itself after its kind, the indefinitenessof the globe, and the softness of the light, giving her the feeling asif her eyes could go in and into its whiteness, were somehow alsoassociated with the idea of space and room. She would sit for an hourtogether gazing up at the lamp, and her heart would swell as shegazed. She would wonder what had hurt her, when she found her face wetwith tears, and then would wonder how she could have been hurt withoutknowing it. She never looked thus at the lamp except when she wasalone.