Folle-Farine

For even yet she was so young; and even yet she knew the world so little.

She went out into the streets.

Her brain was on fire, and her heart seemed frozen; her lips moved without sound, and unconsciously shaped the words which night and day pursued her, "A little gold,—a little gold!"

So slight a thing, they said, and yet high above reach as Aldebaran, when it glistened through the storm-wrack of the rain.

Why could he have not been content—she had been—with the rush of the winds over the plains, the strife of the flood and the hurricane, the smell of the fruit-hung ways at night, the cool, green shadows of the summer woods, the courses of the clouds, the rapture of the keen air blowing from the sea, the flight of a bird over the tossing poppies, the day-song of the lark? All these were life enough for her; were freedom, loveliness, companionship, and solace. Ah, God! she thought, if only these had made the world of his desires likewise. And even in her ghastlier grief her heart sickened for them in vain anguish as she went,—these the pure joys of earth and air which were her only heritage.

She went out into the streets.

It was a night of wind and rain.

The lamps flickered through the watery darkness. Beggars, and thieves, and harlots jostled her in the narrow ways.

"It must be hell,—the hell of the Christians," she muttered, as she stood alone on the flints of the roads, in the rancid smell, in the hideous riot, in the ghastly mirth, in the choking stench, in the thick steam of the darkness, whose few dull gleams of yellow light served to show the false red on a harlot's cheek, or the bleeding wound on a crippled horse, or the reeling dance of a drunkard.

It was the hell of the Christians: in it there was no hope for her.

She moved on with slow unconscious movement of her limbs; her hair blew back, her eyes had a pitiless wonder in their vacant stare; her bloodless face had the horror in it that Greek sculptors gave to the face of those whom a relentless destiny pursued and hunted down; ever and again she looked back as she went, as though some nameless, shapeless, unutterable horror were behind her in her steps.

The people called her mad, and laughed and hooted her; when they had any space to think of her at all.

"A little food, a little wine, for pity's sake," she murmured; for her own needs she had never asked a crust in charity, but for his,—she would have kissed the mud from the feet of any creature who would have had thus much of mercy.

In answer they only mocked her, some struck her in the palm of her outstretched hand. Some called her by foul names; some seized her with a drunken laugh, and cursed her as she writhed from their lewd hold; some, and these often women, whispered to her of the bagnio and the brothel; some muttered against her as a thief; one, a youth, who gave her the gentlest answer that she had, murmured in her ear, "A beggar? with that face? come tarry with me to-night."

She went on through the sulphurous yellow glare, and the poisonous steam of these human styes, shuddering from the hands that grasped, the voices that wooed her, the looks that ravished her, the laughs that mocked her.

It was the hell of the Christians: it was a city at midnight; and its very stones seem to arise and give tongue in her derision and cry, "Oh, fool, you dreamt of a sacrifice which should be honor; of a death, which should be release; of a means whereby through you the world should hear the old songs of the gods? Oh, fool! We are Christians here: and we only gather the reeds of the river to bruise them and break them, and thrust them, songless and dead, in the name of our Lord."

She stumbled on through the narrow ways.

After a little space they widened, and the lights multiplied, and through the rushing rains she saw the gay casements of the houses of pleasure.

On the gust of wind there came a breath of fragrance from a root of autumn blossom in a balcony. The old fresh woodland smell smote her as with a blow; the people in the street looked after her.

"She is mad," they said to one another, and went onward.

She came to a broad place, which even in that night of storm was still a blaze of fire, and seemed to her to laugh through all its marble mask, and all its million eyes of golden light. A cruel laugh which mocked and said,—

"The seven chords of the lyre; who listens, who cares, who has ears to hear? But the rod of wealth all women kiss, and to its rule all men crawl; forever. You dreamt to give him immortality?—fool! Give him gold—give him gold! We are Christians here: and we have but one God."

Under one of the burning cressets of flame there was a slab of stone on which were piled, bedded in leaves, all red and gold, with pomp of autumn, the fruits of the vine in great clear pyramids of white and purple; tossed there so idly in such profusion from the past vintage-time, that a copper coin or two could buy a feast for half a score of mouths. Some of the clusters rotted already from their over-ripeness.

She looked at them with the passionate woeful eyes of a dog mad with thirst, which can see water and yet cannot reach it. She leaned towards them, she caught their delicious coldness in her burning hands, she breathed in their old familiar fragrance with quick convulsive breath.

"He dies there!" she muttered, lifting her face to the eyes of the woman guarding them. "He dies there; would you give me a little cluster, ever such a little one, to cool his mouth, for pity's sake?"

The woman thrust her away, and raised, shrill and sharp through all the clamor of the crowd, the cry of thief.

A score of hands were stretched to seize her, only the fleetness of her feet saved her. She escaped from them, and as a hare flies to her form, so she fled to the place whence she came.

She had done all she could; she had made one effort, for his sake; and all living creatures had repulsed her. None would believe; none would pity; none would hear. Her last strength was broken, her last faint hope had failed.

In her utter wretchedness she ceased to wonder, she ceased to revolt, she accepted the fate which all men told her was her heritage and portion.

"It was I who was mad," she thought; "so mad, so vain, to dream that I might ever be chosen as the reed was chosen. If I can save him, anyhow, what matter, what matter for me?"

She went back to the place where he lay—dying, unless help came to him. She climbed the stairway, and stole through the foulness and the darkness of the winding ways, and retraced her steps, and stood upon his threshold.

She had been absent but one hour; yet already the last, most abject, most wretched penalty of death had come to him. They robbed him in his senselessness.

The night was wet. The rain dropped through the roof. The rats fought on the floor and climbed the walls. The broken lattice blew to and fro with every gust of wind.

A palsied crone, with ravenous hands, sheared the locks of his fair hair, muttering, "They will fetch a stoup of brandy; and they would take them to-morrow in the dead-house."

The old man who owned the garret crammed into a wallet such few things of metal, or of wood, or of paper as were left in the utter poverty of the place, muttering, as he gathered the poor shreds of art, "They will do to burn; they will do to burn. At sunrise I will get help and carry the great canvas down."

The rats hurried to their holes at the light; the hag let fall her shears, and fled through an opening in the wall.

The old man looked up and smiled with a ghastly leer upon her in the shadows.

"To-morrow I will have the great canvas," he said, as he passed out, bearing his wallet with him. "And the students will give me a silver bit, for certain, for that fine corpse of his. It will make good work for their knives and their moulding-clay. And he will be dead to-morrow;—dead, dead."

And he grinned in her eyes as he passed her. A shiver shook her; she said nothing; it seemed to her as though she would never speak again.

She set down her lamp, and crossed the chamber, and kneeled beside the straw that made his bed.

She was quite calm.

She knew that the world gave her one chance—one only. She knew that men alone reigned, and that the gods were dead.

She flung herself beside him on the straw and wound her arms about him, and laid his head to rest upon her heart; one moment—he would never know.

Between them there would be forever silence. He would never know.

Greatness would come to him, and the dominion of gold; and the work of his hands would pass amidst the treasures of the nations; and he would live and arise and say, "The desire of my heart is mine;"—and yet he would never know that one creature had so loved him that she had perished more horribly than by death to save him.

If he lived to the uttermost years of man, he would never know how, body and soul, she had passed away to destruction for his sake.

To die with him!

She laughed to think how sweet and calm such sacrifice as that had been.

Amidst the folded lilies, on the white waters, as the moon rose,—she laughed to think how she had sometimes dreamed to slay herself in such tender summer peace for him. That was how women perished whom men loved, and loved enough to die with them, their lips upon each other's to the last. But she–

Death in peace; sacrifice in honor; a little memory in a human heart; a little place in a great hereafter; these were things too noble for her—so they said.

A martyrdom in shame; a life in ignominy—these were all to which she might aspire—so they said.

Upon his breast women would sink to sleep; among his hair their hands would wander, and on his mouth their sighs would spend themselves. Shut in the folded leaves of the unblossomed years some dreams of passion and some flower of love must lie for him—that she knew.

She loved him with that fierce and envious force which grudged the wind its privilege to breathe upon his lips, the earth its right to bear his footsteps, which was forever jealous of the mere echo of his voice, avaricious of the mere touch of his hand. And when she gave him to the future, she gave him to other eyes, that would grow blind with passion, meeting his; to other forms, that would burn with sweetest shame beneath his gaze; to other lives, whose memories would pass with his to the great Hereafter, made immortal by his touch: all these she gave, she knew.

Almost it was stronger than her strength. Almost she yielded to the desire which burned in her to let him die,—and die there with him,—and so hold him forever hers, and not the world's; his and none other's in the eternal union of the grave, so that with hers his beauty should be consumed, and so that with hers his body should be shut from human sight, and the same corruption feed together on their hearts.

Almost she yielded; but the greatness of her love was stronger than its vileness, and its humility was more perfect than its cruelty.

It seemed to her—mad, and bruised, and stunned with her misery—that for a thing so worthless and loveless and despised as she to suffer deadliest shame to save a life so great as his was, after all, a fate more noble than she could have hoped. For her—what could it matter?—a thing baser than the dust,—whether the feet of men trampled her in scorn a little more, a little less, before she sank away into the eternal night wherein all things are equal and all things forgotten.

CHAPTER XV

That night the moon found the Red Mouse, and said,—

"Did I not declare aright? Over every female thing you are victorious—soon or late?"

But the Red Mouse answered,—

"Nay, not so. For the soul still is closed against me; and the soul still is pure. But this men do not see, and women cannot know;—they are so blind."

CHAPTER XVI

Ere another year had been fully born, the world spoke in homage and in wonder of two things.

The one, a genius which had suddenly arisen in its midst, and taken vengeance for the long neglect of bitter years, and scourged the world with pitiless scorn until, before this mighty struggle which it had dared once to deride and to deny, it crouched trembling; and wondered and did homage; and said in fear, "Truly this man is great, and truth is terrible."

The other,—the bodily beauty of a woman; a beauty rarely seen in open day, but only in the innermost recesses of a sensualist's palace; a creature barefooted, with chains of gold about her ankles, and loose white robes which showed each undulation of the perfect limbs, and on her breast the fires of a knot of opal; a creature in whose eyes there was one changeless look, as of some desert beast taken from the freedom of the air and cast to the darkness of some unutterable horror; a creature whose lips were forever mute, mute as the tortured lips of Læna.

One day the man whom the nations at last had crowned, saw the creature whom it was a tyrant's pleasure to place beside him now and then, in the public ways, as a tribune of Rome placed in his chariot of triumph the vanquished splendor of some imperial thing of Asia made his slave.

Across the clear hot light of noon the eyes of Arslàn fell on hers for the first time since they had looked on her amidst the pale poppies, in the noonrise, in the fields.

They smiled on her with a cold, serene, ironic scorn.

"So soon?" he murmured, and passed onward, whilst the people made way for him in homage.

He had his heart's desire. He was great. He only smiled to think—all women were alike.

Her body shrank, her head dropped, as though a knife were thrust into her breast.

But her lips kept their silence to the last. They were so strong, they were so mute; they did not even once cry out against him, "For thy sake!"

CHAPTER XVII

In the springtime of the year three gods watched by the river.

The golden willows blew in the low winds; the waters came and went; the moon rose full and cold over a silvery stream; the reeds sighed in the silence. Two winters had drifted by, and one hot, drowsy summer; and all the white still shapes upon the walls of the granary already had been slain by the cold breath of Time. The green weeds waved in the empty casements; the chance-sown seeds of thistles and of bell-flowers were taking leaf between the square stones of the paven floors; on the deserted threshold lichens and brambles climbed together; the filmy ooze of a rank vegetation stole over the loveliness of Persephone and devoured one by one the immortal offspring of Zeus; about the feet of the bound sun-king in Phæros and over the calm serene mockery of Hermes' smile the gray nets of the spiders' webs had been woven to and fro, around and across, with the lacing of a million threads, as Fate weaves round the limbs and covers the eyes of mortals as they stumble blindly from their birthplace to their grave. All things, the damp and the dust, the frost and the scorch, the newts and the rats, the fret of the flooded water, and the stealing sure inroad of the mosses that everywhere grew from the dews and the fogs had taken and eaten, in hunger or sport, or had touched and thieved from, then left gangrened and ruined.

The three gods alone remained, who, being the sons of eternal night, are unharmed and unaltered by any passage of the years of earth,—the only gods who never bend beneath the yoke of Time, but unblenchingly behold the nations wither as uncounted leaves, and the lands and the seas change places, and the cities and the empires pass away as a tale that is told, and the deities that are worshiped in the temples change name and attributes and cultus at the wanton will of the age that begat them.

In the still, cold moonlit air they stand together hand in band, looking outward through the white night-mists. Other gods perished with the faith of each age as it changed; other gods, lived by the breath of men's lips, the tears of prayer, the smoke of sacrifice; but they—their empire is the universe. In every young soul that leaps into the light of life, rejoicing blindly, Oneiros has dominion, and he alone. In every creature that breathes, from the conqueror resting on a field of blood to the nest-bird cradled in its bed of leaves, Hypnos holds a sovereignty which nothing mortal can long resist and live. And Thanatos—to him belongs every created thing, past, present, and to come; beneath his foot all generations lie, and in the hollow of his hand he holds the worlds. Though the earth be tenantless, and the heavens sunless, and the planets shrivel in their courses, and the universe be desolate in an endless night, yet through the eternal darkness Thanatos still will reign, and through its eternal solitudes he alone will wander and he still behold his work.

Deathless as themselves, their shadows stood; and the worm and the lizard and the newt left them alone and dared not wind about their calm clear brows, and dared not steal to touch the roses at their lips,—knowing that ere the birth of the worlds these were, and when the worlds shall have perished they still will reign on,—the slow, sure, soundless, changeless ministers of an eternal rest, of an eternal oblivion.

A little light strayed in from the gray skies, pale as the primrose-flowers that grow among the reeds upon the shore, and found its way to them trembling, and shone in the far-seeing depths of their unfathomable eyes.

To eyes which spake and said: "Sleep, Dreams, and Death;—we are the only gods that answer prayer."

With the faint gleam of the tender evening light there came across the threshold a human form, barefooted, bareheaded, with broken links of golden chains gleaming here and there upon her limbs, with white robes hanging heavily, soaked with dews and rains; with sweet familiar smells of night-born blossoms, of wet leaves, of budding palm-boughs, of rich dark seed-sown fields, and the white flower-foam of orchards shedding their fragrance from about her as she moved.

Her face was bloodless as the faces of the gods; her eyes had a look of blindness, her lips were close-locked together; her feet stumbled often, yet her path was straight.

She had hidden by day, she had fled by night; all human creatures had scattered from her path, in terror of her as of some unearthly thing: she had made her way blindly yet surely through the sweet cool air, through the shadows and the grasses, through the sighing sounds of bells, through the leafy ways, through the pastures where the herds were sleeping, through the daffodils blowing in the shallow brooks;—through all the things for which her life had been athirst so long and which she reached too late,—too late for any coolness of sweet grass beneath her limbs to give her rest; too late for any twilight song of missel-thrush or merle to touch her dumb dead heart to music; too late for any kiss of clustering leaves to heal the blistering shame that burned upon her lips and withered all their youth. And yet she loved them,—loved them never yet more utterly than now when she came back to them, as Persephone to the pomegranate-flowers of hell.

She crossed the threshold, whilst the reeds that grew in the water by the steps bathed her feet and blew together softly against her limbs, sorrowing for this life so like their own, which had dreamed of the songs of the gods and had only heard the hiss of the snakes.

She fell at the feet of Thanatos. The bonds of her silence were loosened; the lips dumb so long for love's sake found voice and cried out:

"How long?—how long? Wilt thou never take pity, and stoop, and say, 'Enough'? I have kept faith, I have kept silence, to the end. The gods know. My life for his; my soul for his: so I said. So I have given. I would not have it otherwise. Nay,—I am glad, I am content, I am strong. See,—I have never spoken. The gods have let me perish in his stead. Nay, I suffer nothing. What can it matter—for me? Nay, I thank thee that thou hast given my vileness to be the means of his glory. He is immortal, and I am less than the dust:—what matter? He must not know; he must never know; and one day I might be weak, or mad, and speak. Take me whilst still I am strong. A little while agone, in the space in the crowds he saw me. 'So soon?' he said,—and smiled. And yet I live! Keep faith with me; keep faith—at last. Slay me now,—quickly,—for pity's sake! Just once,—I speak."

Thanatos, in answer, laid his hand upon her lips, and sealed them, and their secret with them, mute, for evermore.

She had been faithful to the end.

To such a faith there is no recompense, of men or of the gods, save only death. On the shores of the river the winds swept through the reeds, and, sighing amidst them, mourned, saying, "A thing as free as we are, and as fair as the light, has perished; a thing whose joys were made, like ours, from song of the birds, from sight of the sun, from sound of the waters, from smell of the fields, from the tossing spray of the white fruit-boughs, from the play of the grasses at sunrise, from all the sweet and innocent liberties of earth and air. She has perished as a trampled leaf, as a broken shell, as a rose that falls in the public ways, as a star that is cast down on an autumn night. She has died as the dust dies, and none sorrow. What matter?—what matter? Men are wise, and gods are just,—they say."

The moon shone cold and clear. The breath of the wild thyme was sweet upon the air. The leaves blew together murmuring. The shadows of the clouds were dark upon the stream. She lay dead at the feet of the Sons of Night.

The Red Mouse sat without, and watched, and said, "To the end she hath escaped me." The noisome creatures of the place stole away trembling; the nameless things begotten by loneliness and gloom glided to their holes as though afraid; the blind newts crept into the utter darkness afar off; the pure cool winds alone hovered near her, and moved her hair, and touched her limbs with all the fragrance of forest and plain, of the pure young year and the blossoming woodlands, of the green garden-ways and the silvery sea. The lives of the earth and the air and the waters alone mourned for this life which was gone from amidst them, free even in basest bondage, pure though every hand had cast defilement on it, incorrupt through all corruption—for love's sake.

CHAPTER XVIII

In the springtime of the year three reapers cut to the roots the reeds that grew by the river.

They worked at dawn of day: the skies were gray and dark; the still and misty current flowed in with a full tide; the air was filled with the scent of white fruit-blossoms; in the hush of the daybreak the song of a lark thrilled the silence; under the sweep of the steel the reeds fell.

Resting from their labors, with the rushes slain around them, they, looking vacantly through the hollow casements, saw her body lying there at the feet of the gods of oblivion.

At first they were shaken and afraid. Then the gleam of the gold upon her limbs awakened avarice; and avarice was more powerful than fear. They waded through the rushes and crossed the threshold, and, venturing within, stood looking on her in awe and wonder, then timorously touched her, and turned her face to the faint light. Then they said that she was dead.

"It is that evil thing come back upon us!" they muttered to one another, and stood looking at one another, and at her, afraid.

They spoke in whispers; they were very fearful; it was still twilight.

"It were a righteous act to thrust her in a grave," they murmured to one another at the last,—and paused.

"Ay, truly," they agreed. "Otherwise she may break the bonds of the tomb, and rise again, and haunt us always: who can say? But the gold–"

And then they paused again.

"It were a sin," one murmured,—"it were a sin to bury the pure good gold in darkness. Even if it came from hell–"

"The priests will bless it for us," answered the other twain.

Against the reddening skies the lark was singing.

The three reapers waited a little, still afraid, then hastily, as men slaughter a thing they dread may rise against them, they stripped the white robes from her and drew off the anklets of gold from her feet, and the chains of gold that were riven about her breast and limbs. When they had stripped her body bare, they were stricken with a terror of the dead whom they thus violated with their theft; and, being consumed with apprehension lest any, as the day grew lighter, should pass by there and see what they had done, they went out in trembling haste, and together dug deep down into the wet sands, where the reeds grew, and dragged her still warm body unshrouded to the air, and thrust it down there into its nameless grave, and covered it, and left it to the rising of the tide.