 | The amber gods, and other stories |  |
STORY LAST.
Astra Castra, Numen Lumen.
The click of her needles and the soft singing of the
night-lamp are the only sounds breaking the stillness, the
awful stillness, of this room. How the wind blows without!
it must be whirling white gusty drifts through the
split hills. If I were as free! Whistling round the gray
gable, tearing the bleak boughs, crying faint hoarse moans
down the chimneys! A wild, sad gale! There is a lull, a
long breathless lull, before it soughs up again. Oh, it is
like a pain! Pain! Why do I think the word? Must
I suffer any more? Am I crazed with opiates? or am I
dying? They are in that drawer, — laudanum, morphine,
hyoscyamus, and all the drowsy sirups, — little drops, but
soaring like a fog and wrapping the whole world in a dull
ache with no salient sting to catch a groan on. They are
so small, they might be lost in this long, dark room; why
not the pain too, the point of pain, I? A long, dark
room; I at one end, she at the other; the curtains drawn
away from me that I may breathe. Ah, I have been
stifled so long! They look down on me, all those old
dead and gone faces, those portraits on the wall, — look
all from their frames at me, the last term of the race, the
vanishing summit of their design. A fierce weapon thrust
into the world for evil has that race been, — from the great
gray Willoughby, threatening with his iron eyes there, to
me, the sharp apex of its suffering. A fierce, glittering
blade! Why I alone singled for this curse? Rank blossom,
rank decay, they answer, but falsely. I lie here,
through no fault of mine, blasted by disease, the dread
and see in me the centre of their lives, of all their little
splendor, of their sins and follies; what slept in them
wakes in me. Oh, let me sleep too!
How long could I live and lose nothing? I saw my
face in the hand-glass this morning, — more lovely than
health fashioned it; — transparent skin, bounding blood
with its fire burning behind the eye, on cheek, on lip, —
a beauty that every pang has aggravated, heightened,
sharpened, to a superb intensity, flushing, rapid, unearthly,
— a brilliancy to be dreamed of. Like a great autumn
leaf I fall, for I am dying, — dying! Yes, death finds me
more beautiful than life made me; but have I lost nothing?
Great Heaven, I have lost all!
A fancy comes to me, that to-day was my birthday.
I have forgotten to mark time; but if it was, I am thirty-two
years old. I remember birthdays of a child, — loving,
cordial days. No one remembers to-day. Why
should they? But I ache for a little love. Thirty-two,
— that is young to die! I am too fair, too rich, for
death! — not his fit spoil! Is there no one to save me?
no help? can I not escape? Ah, what a vain eagerness!
what an idle hope! Fall back again, heart! Escape?
I do not desire to. Come, come, kind rest! I
am tired.
That cap-string has loosened now, and all this golden
cataract of hair has rushed out over the piled pillows. It
oppresses and terrifies me. If I could speak, it seems to
me that I would ask Louise to come and bind it up.
Won't she turn and see?...
Have I been asleep? What is this in my hands? The
amber gods? Oh, yes! I asked to see them again; I like
their smell, I think. It is ten years I have had them.
I rubbed a little yellow smoke out of them, — a cloud that
hung between him and the world, so that he saw only
me, — at least — What am I dreaming of? All manner
of illusions haunt me. Who said anything about ten
years? I have been married ten years. Happy, then,
ten years? Oh, no! One day he woke. — How close the
room is! I want some air. Why don't they do something
—
Once, in the pride of a fool, I fear having made some
confidence, some recital of my joy to ears that never had
any. Did I say I would not lose him? Did I say I could
live just on the memory of that summer? I lash myself
that I must remember it! that I ever loved him! When
he stirred, when the mist left him, when he found a mere
passion had blinded him, when he spread his easel, when
he abandoned love, — was I wretched? I, too, abandoned
love! — more, — I hated! All who hate are wretched.
But he was bound to me! Yes, he might move restlessly,
— it only clanked his chains. Did he wound me? I was
cruel. He never spoke. He became artist, — ceased to
be man, — was more indifferent than the cloud. He could
paint me then, — and, revealed and bare, all our histories
written in me, he hung me up beside my ancestors.
There I hang. Come from thy frame, thou substance,
and let this troubled phantom go! Come! for he gave
my life to thee. In thee he shut and sealed it all, and left
me as the empty husk. — Did she — that other — join us
then? No! I sent for her. I meant to teach him that he
was yet a man, — to open before him a gulf of anguish;
but I slipped down it. Then I dogged them; they never
spoke alone; I intercepted the eye's language; I withered
their wintry smiles to frowns; I stifled their sighs;
our lips; we three lived in a real world of silence, agonized
mutes. She went. Summer by summer my father
brought her to us. Always memory was kindled afresh,
always sorrow kept smouldering. Once she came; I lay
here; she has not left me since. He, — he also comes;
he has soothed pain with that loveless eye, carried me in
untender arms, watched calmly beside my delirious nights.
He who loved beauty has learned disgust. Why should
I care? I, from the slave of bald form, enlarged him to
the master of gorgeous color; his blaze is my ashes. He
studies me. I owe him nothing....
Is it near morning? Have I dozed again? Night is
long. The great hall-clock is striking, — throb after throb
on the darkness. I remember, when I was a child,
watching its lengthened pendulum swing as if time were
its own and it measured the thread slowly, loath to part,
— remember streaking its great ebony case with a little
finger, misting it with a warm breath. Throb after throb,
— is it going to peal forever? Stop, solemn clangor!
hearts stop. Midnight.
The nurses have gone down; she sits there alone.
Her bent side-face is full of pity. Now and then her
head turns; the great brown eyes lift heavily, and lie on
me, — heavily, — as if the sight of me pained her. Ah,
in me perishes her youth! death enters her world! Besides,
she loves me. I do not want her love, — I would
fling it off; but I am faint, — I am impotent, — I am so
cold! Not that she lives, and I die, — not that she has
peace, and I tumult, — not for her voice's music, — not for
her eye's lustre, — not for any charm of her womanly
presence, — neither for her clear, fair soul, — nor that
when the storm and winter pass and I am stiff and frozen,
I hate her; but because my going gives her what I lost,
— because, I stepped aside, the light falls on her, —
because from my despair springs her happiness. Poor
fool! let her be happy, if she can! Her mother was
a Willoughby! And what is a flower that blows on a
grave?...
Why do I remember so distinctly one night alone of
all my life, — one night, when we dance in the low room
of a seaside cottage, — dance to Lu's singing? He leads
me to her when the dance is through, brushing with his
head the festooned nets that swing from the rafters, — and
in at the open casement is blown a butterfly, a dead butterfly,
from off the sea. She holds it compassionately, till
I pin it on my dress, — the wings, twin magnificences,
freckled and barred and powdered with gold, fluttering at
my breath. Some one speaks with me; she strays to the
window, he follows, and they are silent. He looks far
away over the gray loneliness stretching beyond. At
length he murmurs: “A brief madness makes my long
misery. Louise, if the earth were dazzled aside from her
constant pole-star to worship some bewildering comet,
would she be more forlorn than I?”
“Dear Rose! your art remains,” I hear her say.
He bends lower, that his breath may scorch her brow.
“Was I wrong? Am I right?” he whispers, hurriedly.
“You loved me once; you love me now, Louise, if I
were free?”
“But you are not free.”
She does not recoil, yet her very atmosphere repels
him, while looking up with those woful eyes blanching her
cheek by their gathering darkness. “And, Rose —”
she sighs, then ceases abruptly, while a quiver of sudden
pains the whole face.
He erects himself, then reaches his hand for the rose
in her belt, glances at me, — the dead thing in my bosom
rising and falling with my turbulent heart, — holds the
rose to his lips, leaves her. How keen are my ears!
how flushed my cheek! how eager and fierce my eyes!
He approaches; I snatch the rose and tear its petals in
an angry shower, and then a dim east-wind pours in and
scatters my dream like flakes of foam. All dreams go;
youth and hope desert me; the dark claims me. O
room, surrender me! O sickness and sorrow, loose your
weary hold!
It maddens me to know that the sun will shine again,
the tender grass grow green, the veery sing, the crocus
come. She will walk in the light and re-gather youth,
and I moulder, a forgotten heap. Oh, why not all things
crash to ruin with me? —
Pain, pain, pain! Where is my father? Why is he
away, when they know I die? He used to hold me
once; he ought to hear me when I call. He would rest
me, and stroke the grief aside, — he is so strong. Where
is he?
These amulets stumbling round again? Amber, amber
gods, you did mischief in your day! If I clutched you
hard, as Lu did once, all your spells would be broken.
— It is colder than it was. I think I will go to sleep. —
What was that? How loud and resonant! It stuns
me. It is too sonorous. Does sound flash? Ah! the
hour. Another? How long the silver toll swims on the
silent air! It is one o'clock, — a passing bell, a knell.
If I were at home by the river, the tide would be turning
down, down, and out to the broad, broad sea. Is it worth
while to have lived?
Have I spoken? She looks at me, rises, and touches
that bell-rope that always brings him. How softly he
opens the door! Waiting, perhaps. Well. Ten years
have not altered him much. The face is brighter, finer,
— shines with the eternal youth of genius. They pause
a moment; I suppose they are coming to me; but their
eyes are on each other.
Why must the long, silent look with which he met
her the day I got my amber strike back on me now so
vindictively? I remember three looks: that, and this,
and one other, — one fervid noon, a look that drank my
soul, that culminated my existence. Oh, I remember!
I lost it a little while ago. I have it now. You are
coming? Can't you hear me? See! these costly liqueurs,
these precious perfumes beside me here, if I can reach
them, I will drench the coverlet in them; it shall be
white and sweet as a little child's. I wish they were the
great rich lilies of that day; it is too late for the baby
May-flowers. You do not like amber? There the
thread breaks again! the little cruel gods go tumbling
down the floor! Come, lay my head on your breast!
kiss my life off my lips! I am your Yone! I forgot a
little while, — but I love you, Rose! Rose!
Why! I thought arms held me. How clear the space
is! The wind from outdoors, rising again, must have
rushed in. There is the quarter striking. How free I
am! No one here? No, swarm of souls about me?
Oh, those two faces looked from a great mist, a moment
since; I scarcely see them now. Drop, mask! I will
not pick you up! Out, out into the gale! back to my
elements!
So I passed out of the room, down the staircase.
crouched and whined. I paused before the great ebony
clock; again the fountain broke, and it chimed the half-hour;
it was half past one; another quarter, and the
next time its ponderous silver hammers woke the house,
it would be two. Half past one? Why, then, did not
the hands move? Why cling fixed on a point five
minutes before the first quarter struck? To and fro,
soundless and purposeless, swung the long pendulum.
And, ah! what was this thing I had become? I had
done with time. Not for me the hands moved on their
recurrent circle any more.
I must have died at ten minutes past one.
| The amber gods, and other stories | |