Chapter 16

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_ CHAPTER XVI

Art thou pale for weariness.

--PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

The constellations of summer wheeled above me; and thus between water and starry sky I tossed solitary in my boat. The faint lustre of the sultry night hung like a mist from heaven to earth. Far away above the countries I had left perhaps for ever, the quiet lightnings played innocently in the heights.

I rowed steadily on, guiding myself by some much ruddier star on the horizon. The pale phosphorescence on the wave, the simple sounds as of fish stirring in the water--the beauty and wonder of Night's dwelling-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 of light trembled through the sky. And once I surprised a shadow as of wings sweeping darkly across, star on to glittering star, shaking the air, stilling the sea with the cold dews of night.

So rowing, so resting, I passed the mark of midnight. Weariness began to steal over me. Between sleep and wake I heard strange cries across the deep. The thin silver of the old moon ebbed into the east. A chill mist welled out of the water and shrouded me in faintest gloom. Wherefore, battling no more against such influences, I shipped my oars, made my prayer in the midst of this dark womb of Life, and screening myself as best I could from the airs that soon would be moving before dawn, I lay down in the bottom of the boat and fell asleep.

I slept apparently without dream, and woke as it seemed to the sound of voices singing some old music of the sea. A scent of a fragrance unknown to me was eddying in the wind. I raised my head, and saw with eyes half-dazed with light an island of cypress and poplar, green and still above the pure glass of its encircling waters. Straight before me, beyond green-bearded rocks dripping with foam, a little stone house, or temple, with columns and balconies of marble, stood hushed upon the cliff by the waterside.

All now was soundless. They that sang, whether Nereids or Sirens, had descended to dimmer courts. The seamews floated on the water; the white dove strutted on the ledge; only the nightingales sang on in the thick arbours.

I pushed my boat between the rocks towards the island. Bright and burning though the beams of the sun were, here seemed everlasting shadow. And though at my gradual intrusion, at splash or grating of keel, the startled cormorant cried in the air, and with one cry woke many, yet here too seemed perpetual stillness.

How could I know what eyes might not be regarding me from bowers as thick and secluded as these? Yet this seemed an isle in some vague fashion familiar to me. To these same watery steps of stone, to this same mooring-ring surely I had voyaged before in dream or other life? I glanced into the water and saw my own fantastic image beneath the reflected gloom of cypresses, and knew at least, though I a shadow might be, this also was an island in a sea of shadows. Far from all land its marbles might be reared, yet they were warm to my touch, and these were nightingales, and those strutting doves beneath the little arches.

So very gradually, and glancing to and fro into these unstirring groves, I came presently to the entrance court of the solitary villa on the cliff-side. Here a thread-like fountain plashed in its basin, the one thing astir in this cool retreat. Here, too, grew orange trees, with their unripe fruit upon them.

But I continued, and venturing out upon the terrace overlooking the sea, saw again with a kind of astonishment the doctor's green, unwieldy boat beneath me and the emerald of the nearer waters tossing above the yellow sands.

Here I had sat awhile lost in ease when I heard a footstep approaching and the rhythmical rustling of drapery, and knew eyes were now regarding me that I feared, yet much desired to meet.

"Oh me!" said a clear yet almost languid voice. "How comes any man so softly?"

Turning, I looked in the face of one how long a shade!

I strove in vain to hide my confusion. This lady only smiled the deeper 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 would think me indeed as desolate as I am. To hear the bird scream, Traveller! I hastened from the gardens as if the black ships of the Greeks were come to take me. But such is long ago. Tell me, now, is the world yet harsh with men and sad with women? Burns yet that madness mirth calls Life? or truly does the puny, busy-tongued race sleep at last, nodding no more at me?"

I told as best I could how chance had fetched me; told, too, that earth was yet pestered with men, and heavenly with women. "And the madness mirth calls Life flickers yet," I said; "and the little race tosses on in nightmare."

"Ah!" she replied, "so ever run travellers' tales. I too once trusted to seem indifferent. But you, if shadow deceives me not, may yet return: I, only to the shades whence earth draws me. Meanwhile," she said, looking softly at the fountain playing in the clear gloom beyond, "rest and grow weary again, for there flock more questions to my tongue than spines on the blackthorn. The gardens are green with flowers, Traveller; let us talk where rosemary blows."

Following her, I thought of the mysterious beauty of her eyes, her pallor, her slimness, and that faint smile which hovered between ecstasy and indifference, and away went my mind to one whom the shrewdest and tenderest of my own countrymen called once Criseyde.

She led me into a garden all of faint-hued flowers. There bloomed no scarlet here, nor blue, nor yellow; but white and lavender and purest purple. Here, also, like torches of the sun, stood poplars each by each in the windless air, and the impenetrable darkness of cypresses beneath them.

Here too was a fountain whose waters leapt no more, mossy and time-worn. I could not but think of those other gardens of my journey--Jane's, Ennui's, Dianeme's; and yet none like this for the shingley 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 the treasure 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 upon the ground.

"Soothfastness _must_,"' she said very gravely, raising her long black eyebrows; "yet truly it must be a forlorn thing to be remembered by one who so lightly forgets. So then I say, to teach myself to be true--'Look now, Criseyde, yonder fine, many-hearted poplar--that is Paris; and all that bank of marriage-ivy--that is marriageable Helen, green and cold; and the waterless fountain--that truly is Diomed; and the 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, is that?" I said.

She looked deep into the shadow of the cypresses. "That," she said, "I think I have forgot again."

"But," I said, "Diomed, now, was he quite so silent--not one trickle of 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 have voyaged 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, every wound. _I_ must look on the ground and make amends. 'Tis this same making 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 most men and to all women, for being that Criseyde." She gazed half solemnly at some picture of reverie.

"But which Criseyde?" I said. "She who was every wind's, or but one perfect summer's?"

She glanced strangely at me. "Ask of the night that burns so many stars," she said. "All's done; all passes. Yet my poor busy Uncle Pandar had no such changes, nor Hector, nor ... Men change not: they love 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 see Charon 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 cold palms! Yet my heart beats on."

"For what?" I said.

Criseyde folded her hands and leaned her cheek sidelong upon the stone.

"For what?" I repeated.

"For what but idle questions?" she said; "for a traveller's vanity that deems looking love-boys into a woman's eyes her sweeter entertainment than all the heroes of Troy. Oh, for a house of nought to 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 steadfast eyes on a man that would not steal the moon for taper--would she but come down." She turned an arch face to me: "And what is to be faithful?"

"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 is to 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 after sand; to cry, unechoed; to be thirsty, the pitcher broken. And--ask now this pitiless darkness of the eyes!--to be remembered though Lethe flows between. Nay, you shall watch even hope away ere another comes 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 seem to eyes scornful of mean men's idolatries.

"And you will embark again," she said softly; "and in how small a ship on seas so mighty! And whither next will fate entice you, to what new sorrows?"

"Who knows?" I said. "And to what further peace?"

She laughed lightly. "Speak not of mockeries," she said, and fell silent.

She seemed to be thinking quickly and deeply; for even though I did not turn to her, I could see in imagination the restless sparkling of her eyes, the stillness of her ringless hands. Then suddenly she turned.

"Stranger," she said, drawing her finger softly along the cold stone of the bench, "there yet remain a few bright hours to morning. Who knows, seeing that felicity is with the bold, did I cast off into the sea--who knows whereto I'd come! 'Tis but a little way to being happy--a touch of the hand, a lifting of the brows, a shuddering silence. Had I but man's courage! Yet this is a solitary place, and the gods are revengeful."

I cannot say how artlessly ran that voice in this still garden, by some strange power persuading me on, turning all doubt aside, calming all 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 cool gardens; and rest is welcome when the heart pines not. Listen, now; I will go down and you shall show me--did one have the wit to learn, and courage 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 own folly. "Tell me this precious hero's name, and though all the dogs of the underworld come to course me, you shall take my boat, and leave me here--only this hero's name, a pedlar's bargain!"

She lowered her lids. "It must be Diomed," she said with the least sigh.

"It must be," I said.

"Nay, then, Antenor, or truly Thersites," she said happily, "the silver-tongued!"

"Good-bye, then," I said.

"Good-bye," she replied very gently. "Why, how could there be a vow between us? I go, and return. You await me--me, Criseyde, Traveller, the lonely-hearted. That is the little all, O much-surrendering Stranger! Would that long-ago were now--before all chaffering!"

Again a thousand questions rose to my tongue. She looked sidelong at the dry fountain, and one and all fell silent.

"It is harsh, endless labour beneath the burning sun; storms and whirlwinds 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 way to the steps into the sea, pulled round my boat into a little haven beside 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 then at once, and to-morrow Troy will come."

I looked long at her in silence; her slim beauty, the answerless riddle of her eyes, the age-long subtilty of her mouth, and gave no more thought to all life else.

Day was already waning. I filled the water-keg with fresh water, put fruit and honeycomb and a pillow of leaves into the boat, proffered a trembling hand, and led her down.

The sun's beams slanted on the foamless sea, glowed in a flame of crimson on marble and rock and cypress. The birds sang endlessly on of evening, endlessly, too, it seemed to me, of dangers my heart had no surmise of.

Criseyde turned from the dark green waves. "Truly, it is a solitary country; pathless," she said, "to one unpiloted;" and stood listening to the hollow voices of the water. And suddenly, as if at the consummation of her thoughts, she lifted her eyes on me, darkly, with unimaginable 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 like laughter, or, as it were, the clapper of a scarer of birds, echoed among the rocks at the rattling of the rowlocks. As if invisible hands withdrew it from me, the island floated back.

I turned my prow towards the last splendour of the sun. A chill breeze played over the sea: a shadow crossed my eyes.

Buoyant was my boat; how light her cargo!--an oozing honeycomb, ashy fruits, a few branches of drooping leaves, closing flowers; and solitary on the thwart the wraith of life's unquiet dream.

So fell night once more, and made all dim. And only the cold light of the firmament lit thoughts in me restless as the sea on which I tossed, whose moon was dark, yet walked in heaven beneath the distant stars.

[THE END]
Walter De la Mare's Novel: Henry Brocken

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