 | The amber gods, and other stories |  |
Desert Sands.
IT is one of my bad habits to paint so long as
the mask of Proteus, which hangs just under
my ceiling, smiles; with the darkness the angles
fall differently, and it frowns. But always
when the day fails, when the gold has reddened and
deepened and vanished in purple, when the air is interfused
with a soft voluptuous sense that I feel as I might
a new tint, be it mauve or fuchsine, when this coolness
streams over my burning lids, when I scent the sweetbrier's
ineffable fragrance wantoning through the place,
always when this moment comes — for which the world
was made — I throw down my brushes, and without pausing
to clean my palette, go out.
I speak in the present — sad wretch! I, who live only
in the days that are gone. It is all past, all past, with me
now. Alas! and yet again alas! I paint no more.
Why am I less omnipotent than those demigods? When
the curse fell for one and heaven was blank, did numbers
cease to flow? When all sound was hushed on the ear of
the other, did harmonies any the less build up their great
vaults in air and melodies cease to blow through them?
And I —
It should be that hour now; this sweet-brier that pranks
it is that which steals memory, and makes the lost mine
once more. Always, at this hour, when I went out, it was
to see her that I went. Eos, I called her, because I liked
then to deck her in all fancies, to think of her as a bright
and morning star. But loveliness like hers needed no
phrases of mine, — that skin, where the delicate dyes
mingled as on the apple-blossom; those eyes, bluer than
the violet planet! All that, indeed, was much, but when
it withered, her power would be the same; she was like
the lilies of eternal peace.
I did not know I loved her, if, certainly, I ever loved
her, — too selfish, even, to know myself. But there are
seasons when all youth's blood riots in the frame and blossoms
on the cheek, when the heaven-given instincts stir in
the veins, — and the spring that sends the sap along the
bough, sent me restlessness and longing for my part.
That night then, as many a night before, I went to Eos.
She was singing in some upper room, but came down at
my demand, and sang to me. Then her sister brought in
lights; and Charley had a ship to rig. How gay we
were, with what names we christened her, how she served
as a skeleton on which to hang all sea legends, how we enriched
her with lore of the Armada and the flags of old
heroic battle-ships, how perfectly we equipped her, and
how we ran her little pennon at half-mast when her skipper
was sent to his pillow! At last her father rose and
folded up his paper.
“Eos,” said he, “it is time to go to bed.”
“Eos,” said I, “good-night.”
She came out with me, and down the little garden. We
waited at the gate a moment, perhaps to penetrate ourselves
with the sweet-brier's perfume, the night, and the
shortly.
“For long?” she had asked.
“Forever,” I had answered.
Then a pause; in it I listened to the crickets singing,
the leaves rustling.
“I shall walk,” I added, “that is the way to surprise
Nature in her hiding-places. I shall camp one night on
hemlock boughs, and the next on a ledge above the clouds.
I shall learn the cipher that hides the inner spell of forests
and hills and sheets of falling rivers; see much, and
take as I go. It will be a life almost new, as cheery as
those bas-reliefs where, at every breath, you expect the
pipes to blow, the flowers to fall.”
“Yes,” I continued, after a while, “all my pictures have
sold. I have earned too much money this year. Now I
shall not begin another till November, and to this old
country town I shall return no more.”
She did not reply. Indeed, to my speeches she frequently
made no answer, but now I felt her silence like a
reproach.
“And what have you to say to that?” I asked at length.
“Nothing but good-by,” she said.
“Good-by? good-by?” I repeated. “I have not
thought of that. I cannot say good-by to you, Eos. I
will not travel to a region without sunshine, blue sky,
and universal air; without darkness and stillness and
fragrance and you. You must go with me, Eos.”
So Eos went with me.
I am one of those who have no right to marriage-vows,
in whom self-love excludes love, who find home so thoroughly
in all the wide beauty of the world that they do
not need one hearth, and a woman sitting by it. I said
that in serving Eos I served God.
Of what use is regret? will it restore? Let me only
remember, remember those passionate seasons when I
absorbed another life into mine, and remember with savage
joy and celerity.
That summer we journeyed as I had intended, except
that when I walked she rode by my side. Sometimes
when I climbed a crag, she waited for me at its base;
again, I sketched some bold play of cloud shadows over
wide intervals, and then fleeing forward to become part
of the scene —
Than she whose elfin courser springs
By night to eery warblings,
When all the glimmering moorland rings
To jingling bridle-reins.”
to its flame. She was blithe as birds at dawn, airier than
glancing foam-flakes are; she took like a prism all the
white rays of happiness into her bosom, and sparkled
them out in rainbows on those about her. When the
autumn came, we went into a country ripe with color,
while the year set like the sun. All this time my art
had been in abeyance, I had found that life was something
different from my thought; Eos was my wife, this
summer I was a bridegroom, for a brief three months,
at least, I loved as I was loved. One day I opened
my easel, chalked my sketch, and then went out alone.
Returning, I held clearly the thing that I would paint,
the fine, keen drawing, the clarity of tint, the strength of
color; I took my brushes and worked. The next day
and another I did the same; nothing came of it; the old
my fancy dead. I said, Life has been too rich, it has impoverished
art; that shall cease. That did cease.
In the evening, as I stood at the window, silent and
resolved, Eos came and crept again into my arms; I suffered
her to remain, but I did not tighten my clasp, give
her kiss or caress, or call her by any new endearing name.
It was hard at first, that once it was hard, afterwards it
cost me no such effort, and became habit. It is true that
now and then, when south winds blew, when some divine
day melted in heaven, youth and love returned to me, my
heart expanded in their warmth, passion wrapped me in
its cloud, and I sought Eos. She was always there, she
never swerved from following me. Before the close, such
days only plunged me deeper in the intoxication of their
own beauty, only bent me more earnestly to my purpose.
It may be that I should have suffered her to help me, that
she should have mounted with me step for step; but she
could not, she kept me at her level. I was right, I knew
that I was right; when I had attained, I should have
turned to her again. She was not strong enough to wait,
and so the game was lost.
In November, we went to the city. I said to her,
“One must not be niggardly. You shall go home awhile
now, they have never been so long parted from you
before. I can spare you.”
Perhaps, but for that last sentence she would not have
gone. As it was, she hesitated, and seemed to forebode
evil. Then I lost no time in putting myself at work.
But before the third week of her absence I found that all
was useless without her. I needed her, she must be
about me, she must, in fact, give all and receive nothing.
I brought her back.
On arriving at her father's house that evening, I could
not but contrast the cheer with the forlorn place I had
left, — for then I was not rich, — the crimson shadows,
the sparkling firelight; they had a warm welcome for me,
for they knew nothing of my conduct, and, indeed, what
was there to know, I asked myself; Eos was not unhappy,
she had a woman's quick perception, saw its necessity,
and adapted herself to it. Once in the evening, when we
were alone a moment, she came and said:
“I did not expect you. I am surprised. I thought
you could spare me.”
“No,” I replied, “I cannot have you away. Eos, you
are my sun, the light in which I live. How did I live
before I knew you, love?”
She laid her cheek upon my arm, the dumb caress
touched me, and I stroked her hair; so rare had any
expression on my part become, that the least now thrilled
her with a timid joy, I think.
“Do you know,” said she, “I had begun to feel as if it
were all a dream, to fancy that the little glimpse of different
life, this summer's snatch of delight, was something I
had slept through, that I was not your wife, at all, but just
Eos here at home.”
I started; that must not be; least of all, now that her
cousin Alain was here again, he whose relationship allowed
a brother's freedom with her, and who, by his
quick eye and traveller-instinct, would tell at a glance
how things lay.
“Ah?” I said lightly, “has it reached that, — Eos at
home away from me? But you are my wife, you know,
and to-morrow we will go.”
“No,” she said, lifting her head, “to-morrow I shall
not go. I wish to stay a day longer.”
“Eos with a will of her own?” I replied now, amused
at the phenomenon. “I have half the mind to indulge it,
and see where the caprice ends.”
Just then Alain entered. I kept my arm round Eos
till she withdrew and took her work. Alain found some
charts and began to examine them; he would shortly
leave for Algiers, to join his father's regiment there, for
on one side he was of French extraction, and the knowledge
of the dangers and monotonies in the life he was
henceforward to lead caused every one's manners to
wear an additional air of kindness in his regard. As
I looked at him now, I acknowledged that his was the
most faultless face I had ever seen; had I been a figure
painter, I could have asked no greater boon than perpetual
companionship with such beauty; as it was, to have
seen him once was to have seen him too often. He had
that air of easy command, that gracious coolness which
carries everything before it. I saw at once that through
my error all was in train for a catastrophe. We would
go to-morrow, I thought; not an instant would we delay;
no wonder she wished to stay; this man, with his seducing
graces, could win a saint from heaven, — and it was
not heaven from which Eos was to be won. Then I became
aware that I was possessed of jealousy. I had
hoped such a possibility was over, and could scarcely
remember the time in which I had been so utterly displeased
with myself. In revenge, I was on the point of
allowing her the desired day; the wounded fiend turned
in my heart at the thought, and whispered, In that day,
watch! I strangled it with a death-grip.
“Eos,” I said, “I have business in the next town, and
you have two days more at home.”
But had my life depended thereon, I could not hinder
Still, however, I did not immediately seek the house, but
returned there only after a long walk undertaken to subdue
this last spark of the heart's rebellion. It wanted yet
an hour to sunset; I turned the handle of the parlor-door
and entered noiselessly. An easel stood beside the window,
before it, with stick and palette, sat my wife; Alain
was by her side.
“Will he be pleased?” asked she. “It is finished, but
is it fine?”
I stole behind them, and looked at the canvas: a cliff,
yet blue in heavy night-shadows, was rent apart, and in
the rift a brook — a thread of limpid water — crept down
and curled from reach to reach to lose itself in dimness; a
tuft of long bearded grass, half-guessed, bent forward and
shook its awns in a wind; a young birch shivered with
the tremors of its perpetual joy, half-way up on the other
side; and in a sky of dark and tender twilight, the morning
star hung, and tricked her beams in the stream below.
For an instant I could not detect the faults; nothing that
I had done equalled it.
“It is perfect!” I exclaimed.
Eos started, sprang to her feet, and hid her face in my
cloak. Alain grasped my hand.
“You are noble, Ruy Diaz!” said he (for so they often
travestied the first syllable of my name), “I beg your forgiveness
for having feared your surprise would not be so
agreeable. You humble me!”
I bent back Eos's head and kissed the blushing forehead
for reply. Nevertheless, he was wrong. I was not pleased.
I did not love Art well enough to give my wife to it; I did
not want a rival in her; above all, I could not have her sacred
name on everybody's lips. She was mine, not theirs.
went out, always accompanying her, scarcely suffering
her existence to be known, now to hear other men discuss
her merits and demerits and slime her with their praise?
What an enigma I present to my own understanding! I
loved her only as a part of myself. I allowed her no integral
life.
“No fault to find?” asked Eos at length.
“Oh, yes,” I answered, “doubtless there are plenty. I
could tell you there is no composition, color crude, sentiment
too intense. But to what use?”
“To improve me.”
“Well, and if I do not wish to improve you, sweet?
Whose picture is this?”
“It is mine,” said Alain, entrenched in his former suspicion.
“She has given it to me.”
“And what do you design to do with it, may I ask?”
“Certainly. I shall exhibit it at Dash and Blank's.”
“I shall be extremely displeased at any such course.”
“So I thought,” said Alain, dryly.
“But you are mistaken. Nothing can give me greater
pleasure than this discovery. I am rejoiced to find in my
wife a kindred soul; genius gives her new links to me, art
seals her mine indeed, she is nearer and dearer because
of this immortal flame in her spirit. I am glad, darling,”
I said, folding her closer, “and is not my joy enough?”
“It is enough!” said Eos fervently, clinging to me.
And so the picture was never shown.
That evening, as Eos busied herself with her needles
and her skeins of brilliant worsteds, and Alain was intent
upon his charts again, I drew near the table and took up
a little book of French sentiment, that bore his pencillings.
“What balderdash!” I exclaimed; “any woman could
best in a man?”
“His selfishness,” said Alain, without looking up.
“No,” replied Eos, “not exactly, not at all. But a
certain self-poise, something that convicts her of the fact
that he can do without her.”
“And is that what you find in me?” I asked.
“Could you do without me?” she replied, archly, and
with the smile that, when she was happy enough to shed
it, always brought me to her feet. I could reply only
with my gaze; never had I been so conscious of my love
as at that moment, of my need of her, of her grace, her
sweetness, her perfection; my whole soul trembled in my
eyes to meet her own. She must have been aware, and
yet she refused to look up, and bent but the lower over
her needles. Alain rose and left the room for dividers.
I resolved to lift those mutinous lids and gain the glance
that was surely beneath. For a moment she remained
motionless, then slowly raised her head and suffered me
to see that tears streamed over the face. Instantly I was
beside her.
“Eos,” I exclaimed, “what is it?”
She dropped the work and threw her arms about me.
“Oh, I fear that you could do without me, I know that
you could! I already oppress you! I wish I were dead!”
she cried, sobbing convulsively.
“Darling,” I murmured, “in the day you died, I, too,
should cease to live.”
Still she clasped me, still wept.
“What shall I do, Eos,” I asked, “to convince you how
dear you are?”
“Only forgive me now,” she murmured, with fresh grief.
I heard Alain's step. “You are weak and nervous,” I
“You have applied too closely of late. And, Eos, —
I do not wish to grieve you, but you must control yourself.
Such outbursts, such vehemence, are not at all to
my taste.”
At the word, she rebounded like a steel spring, and
hardly was she in her seat before Alain re-entered.
The next day, remembrance of the last evening's disturbance
effaced, we returned to the city. For four
months I worked breathlessly; every day when Eos had
finished her little household cares, she came and sat near
me; is it strange that the work was beautiful, when so
constantly she sent her soul into it? In the evenings we
went out, down the damp streets — snow or rain or whistling
east — shooting along the slippery pavements, she
and I together, in the light of flaring gas and the great
squares of color, amethyst, ruby, and emerald, spread from
the chemists' windows. Sometimes I left her for a club,
or a play, sometimes we both needed music. I had my
aim in the world; I was reaching it. Whether I were
happy or not did not occur to me, whether Eos were
happy or not I did not pause to ask. It was then that I
first saw Vespasia.
One February morning Eos had not yet come in, some
one mounted the stair and knocked: it was a footman with
the card of Mrs. Dean Vivian. Immediately on his departure,
another step followed, and Mrs. Dean Vivian herself
entered.
She was an imposing woman, not so much through
height as proportion, neither in the splendor of her array
— though that was considerable, and was necessary
to such a face — so completely as in the grace which rendered
it, unlike that of so many women, merely an accessory.
“If I may command your time, Mr. Sydney,” said a
voice that I could compare to nothing but the mellow
sweetness of a too-ripe pear, as her skin to the soft and
smooth gold-brown of the beurré, illumined as it was by
the sinister contrast of eyes wearing the lustre and almost
the tint of emeralds. “If I may command your time, Mr.
Sydney,” and the smile that always accompanied her words
broke up the face into vivid beauty, “I wish to examine
your portfolios and to order a pendant for your `Mist on
the Meadows,' which I lately purchased.”
“My time is at Mrs. Vivian's service for an hour, after
that I regret an engagement,” I stated, for it is always
best to meet such imperious dames on their own ground.
The manner had the desired effect.
“Perhaps, then, another day would be more opportune,”
she said.
“Not at all,” I replied, wheeling a rack toward her.
“Be seated, and allow me.” She sank into a chair,
sweeping her violet draperies about her, and turned the
sheets.
“An effect of Kearsarge in cloud,” I said rapidly.
“Rainbows in Pemigewasset valley, — Spray at Appledore,
— Montmorenci seen from —”
“Yes,” said she, detaining it, “that is well arrested;
curled in foam, a fleece upon the azure. Why do you
not elaborate it?”
“Some day I may.” I opened another portfolio.
“These are studies,” I added, “attempts at sentiment
rather than scenery. I have fused and inwrought them
with the spirit of the line which they illustrate. God's
own profound: the melancholy main: Ariel fetching dew
by midnight from the still-vexed Bermoothes.”
Mrs. Vivian surveyed each with the swift eye of a connoisseur,
she leaned back in her chair, and folded her hands. “Ah,
well,” said she, “you would certainly play the showman
till I went, if permitted.”
“Excuse me. I am merely condensing your time,
madam,” I responded.
“Oh, I thank you there; but I knew the artist well
enough before, and in his works. It seemed to me that I
should like to make acquaintance with the individual.
Am I too presuming?”
“I can assure Mrs. Vivian that only as the artist should
I repay her trouble,” I answered, sincerely enough, for my
experience taught me that I had already, in theory, abjured
my human side.
“We shall see,” she replied, so coolly that I was
nettled.
“And it is only as the artist that I care to be known,”
I added.
“Making headway famously,” she exclaimed, with a
low laugh. “Ah, Mr. Sydney, I always succeed! If
portraiture were your branch, I should sit to you for a
child of the sun, — I am East Indian by birth — as it is,
I shall be your guest continually while my picture proceeds,
and you must be mine when it is hung. Are such
orders, such visitors, unwarrantable?”
“Such orders are frequent enough, such visitors rare.”
“I see you can be genial, on occasion. That gives me
heart to beg your company at dinner next week; some
beautiful women, some sparkling wits, some poets and
men of your sib.”
“It is impossible, thank you. I cannot infringe upon
my rule even for such enticement.”
Here Mrs. Vivian rose and sailed slowly about the
of gold brocade that hung from the arm of an
antique and swept the floor, she extended her long arm,
brought out an object from its screen, and inspected it.
It was a spot of swamp where the rhodora grows in
leafless bloom, and the purple blossoms crowding the
place danced on the tips of their long stems like a swarm
of brilliant insects late lit from southern gales, waving
their antennæ, rustling their wings, eager and tremulous
for fresh flight. It bore as motto, written in delicate
characters beneath, the line:
“In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes.”
“I must have it!” she exclaimed. “It is dainty and
matchless, — quite out of your style. Is the price fixed,
Mr. Sydney?”
“It has no price, madam.”
“But you will arrange one? Pray don't hesitate.”
And she named enormous sums.
“The thing is a trifle,” I replied, “not worth a fraction
of what you mention. Nevertheless, I cannot part with
it.”
“But my heart is set upon it. Pardon me — I am
rich.”
“You are not rich enough to buy it.”
“Then it is of value to you, — not your handiwork,
perhaps? Whose then? May I ask the artist's name?
Who painted this exquisite bit?”
I was more annoyed than I could express, dropped my
palette and pencils with a clang, stooped to collect them,
and then, as she still paused for a reply, gave one:
“My wife.”
“Ah! — I had heard — I was scarcely aware —” and
here she ceased, in order to examine the picture anew.
Mrs. Vivian owed her usual success, as many others
do, to a want of delicacy.
“Well, sir,” said she, “your wife can paint you another;
as for me —” and she held it arm's length while gazing.
I took the picture from her hand, as if she had wished
to relinquish it, and restored it to its former place. She
shrugged her shoulders slightly.
“I shall see that wife, Mr. Sydney, never fear, and
engage her good services on my own behalf. In what
seclusion she is cloistered. Is she from Stamboul? Do
you keep a seraglio?.... Then you will not dine with
me?” she added, rising, and fixing the glittering eyes
upon me.
“I deplore my inability.”
“Which means that you could if you chose.” She
paused a moment before my easel, and adventurously
raised the curtain. “Shall I tell you what satisfaction I
find in your work?” she said. “If one must link Emerson's
sentences with chains of their own logic, and if
Shakespeare leaves always room for your imagination,
some painters possess the same great quality. In wondering
at the boldness of your effects, I remember how
Beethoven `permitted' consecutive fifths.”
She dropped the curtain and moved on.
“I shall do myself the honor of calling upon Mrs.
Sydney, shortly,” she continued, as a work-basket caught
her eye.
“I thank you, but Mrs. Sydney does not receive calls,”
I replied.
She laughed, and the flash of white teeth completed
her extremes of color. At the door she paused to disturb
a pile of pencil-drawings.
“Wood-scenes? Illustrations?” she said. “Ah, Byron's
from fresco to missal! Have you ever seen a
missal, by the way?”
“Never.”
“No? I have one, a gorgeous little thing, the work
of Attavante, the Florentine. I shall have pleasure in
placing it at your disposal.” And resting her perfectly
gloved hand in mine a moment, she bowed, smiled, and
was gone.”
In the afternoon I received a parcel with Mrs. Dean
Vivian's compliments. It was the missal, in a case of
carved sandal-wood. Within was written, in faded ink:
Vespasia — Rome, — and a date of some ten years before.
She was then probably far my senior, and while looking
at it, it seemed to me that my morning's guest had been
some creature of the old Latin reign, and that the seal
dropped from her chatelain had its device — Væ Victis —
in her native tongue.
To the surprise of Eos, I left everything for the examination
of this treasure — its arabesques, its floral wealth,
its grotesque and brilliant fancies, its colors that defied
time. At length I put it in my pocket and went out. I
walked far; it was impossible to return till the mood that
was on me should be past. I could not keep my thoughts
away from the superb thing that had that morning filled
my vision — from the serpentine grace, the splendid
hues, the daring, dazzling manner; it was new, and fascinated
like a vision of Lamia. I might have thought
that my over-wrought fancy had belied me, but the casket
of spicy wood that enclosed the precious fardel lay under
my hand, and was actual. This woman seemed to me
some Oriental creature of fire and strength, and not in
herself so much as in her suggestion, I was charmed. All
and desert — wrapped me at remembrance of her.
When I returned home, at twilight, Eos was sleeping in
a chair by the grate; a book had slipped from her hand
to the floor; it was the Arabian Nights. I took it;
and as I read by the flickering flame awhile, the spell
grew deeper; I saw Damascus's gardens of delight, Cairo's
streets of grottoed shadow, the stainless sky of Philoë,
the Nile, mystery of mysteries. I wondered how I had
endured life with this pale phantom of a woman; I
cursed the dense and crowded air. The sting was upon
me; henceforth though I lingered, my tent was struck.
Day followed day now, and yet I achieved nothing.
Eos saw that some trouble oppressed me; she could not
become sweeter than before, but she made me feel her
sweetness more, and she lavished such vital force as she
possessed in counteracting the fatal influence; but what
spell, what magnetism, could so feeble a nature exercise
against the all-potent one of that jewel-eyed enchantress?
She endeavored to soothe me with her quiet, to cheer
me with her sunshine; she sang to me almost constantly,
since frequently, when my sense of color became involved,
fine tints, clear contrasts, rich combinations, unrolled themselves
to my thought at her singing-voice. She twined
fresh vines about the casts; she brought in her camelliabush,
mooned and cresseted with spotless blossom; she
heaped vase and shell with mounds of snowy bloom: the
only odor, that faintly distilled from some pure and dewycool
moss-rose. It was all in vain. The first time I went
to Vespasia's, the house reeked with the insidious perfume
of a daphné-tree......
Vespasia came also to me. She begged me not to
cease work, and found herself a seat. I obeyed; for
my fingers and enrich my canvas. While I worked, I
recognized her will, her magic, as she reclined in the low
chair behind me; I submitted to her ordination, to the
influx of foreign force; my creations grew instinct with
loveliness, the color spilled ripe and profuse from my
pencil. A door opened, and Eos, unaware, stepped down.
I hesitated, looked at her, and thought of St. Lucia bearing
light to the blind; my line faltered, my hand remained
palsied, as it were: so might a Madonna confront the
Venus of Titian. She welcomed the other in distant
courtesy, but continued standing by the easel, firm, mild,
and with, so to say, a gentle diffusive influence; they were
antagonists, and Vespasia retreated.
Vespasia came to my studio no more, but not once or
twice only did I seek her, it became a constant custom.
Every evening I was her guest, by her side I heard all
choice music, her lips persuaded with honeyed eloquence,
her presence was a cup of intoxication, she was an adept
in all ravishing arts. Did I then love her? No; I loved
Eos as far as I could love at all; but Vespasia's boundless
beauty, with its strange tone, her luxurious habit,
her sumptuous surroundings, her prodigality of spirit and
person and array, were like some rich oil that fed the
flame of my genius till nothing seemed impossible to me.
But for the other — did she keep watch and wait? did
her cheek grow pale, her eye restless? did she gather
greater quiet and more enduring patience? In all this
weary while, what became of Eos?
One night I was with Vespasia at the opera. She was
magnificent; she was very gay, I fancy, also; but though
I kept my gaze fixed on her, I listened only to the music.
As the curtain fell on the first act of Der Freyschütz, her
the house, and then I saw that she was exerting all her
charms to retain my attention. Following a furtive
glance thrown again at the same point, I met that of
Eos. She was white and radiant, her eyes darkened and
glittering. Beside her sat Alain. I excused myself for
a few moments, and joined her.
“Eos?” I said. “And here? I left you at home, I
thought.”
“Certainly you did,” said Alain, in a low tone, before
she could reply. “I arrived in your absence, and saw
that the first thing she needed was diversion; and the
next, a journey, which I hope to be able to persuade her
to take, and to take in the direction of her old home.”
I bent across Eos, so that none but he could hear me:
“M. Duchênecœur knows, perhaps, the price of such
interference?” I murmured.
“And always meets his obligations,” was the reply,
with an indignant glance.
I offered Eos my hand, she rose, and we stepped into a
coach at the vestibule. I did not suffer her to sit aloof,
but held her in my arms, cheek to cheek. Perhaps I
thought she understood me, perhaps I did not care. I
left her in the studio, re-entered the coach, drove furiously
back, and rejoined Vespasia as the curtain rose
again. I was more disturbed than I wished should appear.
I was half aware that some dream was broken,
but turned and composed myself anew, like one who
wished to continue it. Perhaps nothing could have
aroused my attention, and therefore calmed me, sooner
than the terrible diablerie of this drama, while its music
was like a soothing hand on weary eyelids. I was again
in the atmosphere of this regal woman, again breathing
horn and flute, with the chord of braided harmony — all
soft and grateful color swathed me. I went home with
Vespasia; others were there, the rooms were ringing, I
stood shrouded in a curtain and looking out. There were
the pavements wet with spring rain and shining in the
light. There was a woman with her shawl wrapped
closely about her, leaning against the lamp-post, her
white face bent upoward and covering the window with
such a gaze as that with which a tigress protects her
young; she had no significance for me, — I was wrapped,
remotely, in a mist of bewilderment and sense. Then
the others went, the lights fell, there was only a luminous
blush in the place from behind rosy transparencies.
Vespasia floated on toward me; I left the curtain, and
sat at her feet.
“Do you remember,” said she, “how the Fay Vivien
bound Merlin?”
I did not reply, too involved in the enjoyment of delicious
fancy. Her arm was upon my shoulder; I was
conscious of her form bending above me, of the bunch of
geraniums and lemon-leaves that blazed upon her bosom
and loaded the air with superabundant sweetness, of her
breath sweeping my cheek. I heard a voice that seemed
to issue from a cloud in one swift murmur:
“Sydney, do you love me?”
A thorn of the sweetbrier bud which I had taken from
Eos stung my hand. I did not look at Vespasia, but
rose and walked from the room, from the house, out into
cool night air, sleet, and wind, and freedom.
Reaching home, I sought Eos. She was neither in the
studio nor elsewhere; she was not to be found. A wild
suspicion crossed me, — I leaped down the stairs to the
head drooping, arm outflung; it was she. I carried her
in and summoned assistance. She was in a heavy stupor;
with the morning, in high fever. Standing by her
bedside, I did not remember our words of the evening
before, when Alain entered.
“Too late, as I feared,” he said impetuously. “You
succeed beyond my anticipations. I thought you had
only broken her heart, and it seems you have taken her
life!”
I could not care, just then, for anything he might say
“Hush!” was all I answered.
He looked about the room; its appointments were
chaste and costly enough. “Yes,” he murmured, “you
become opulent, or hold the talisman to be so. Your
work commands enormous amounts; one stroke of the
brush fills the purse — but all your gold is coined from
her heart's blood!”
“It has not been at my option to do other than I have
done,” I replied, somewhat moved.
He laughed in his low-mocking way. “They are all
alike,” he muttered; “from Attila to Sydney, they are all
the scourge of God, the instruments.”
I put my hand upon his shoulder and pointed at the
door. I was roused, and my eyes must have flamed.
He glanced back at Eos, and turned. “No,” he said,
“I shall remain; she is almost my sister, she will need
me, too.”
“She needs no one,” I exclaimed in the same suppressed
tone; “she has me.”
“She will not have you long, the fit will pass, and
revert to your oil-tubes and pencils,” he replied coolly.
“Well, — I will stoop so much and ask it: let me stay.”
So he stayed. She was ill long; so soon as delirium
and danger were past, I resumed my painting; I had
orders to fill, and ideas to elaborate. I was fortunate
beyond thought; I had never so nearly brought my
performance to the level of my conception. Weeks
passed swiftly, the night went, the summer was upon
us. Alain, who, it may be, began to see that any other
than the course which I had pursued was impossible
with me, remitted his hostility. More faithful and
careful than a watch-dog, he followed Eos, wheeled her
sofa into the studio, lifted and held her that she might
see me work, recounted to her incidents of my fame,
sang to her, read to her, ransacked the markets for dainty
fruits — pomegranates from Florida, granadillas, all glowing
and gorgeous infiltrations of tropical sweetness and
wealth. When the twilight came, at close of our wedding-day,
I took her in my arms and walked with her
till she slept. Alain, meanwhile, neglected none of his
studies; he read us his father's letters, and his conversation,
when best pleased, was chiefly of his future home
in the East. At the word, all the old fire flashed up in
my veins, again the desert-mania, the pyramids, the eternal
sands.
At last Alain bade us farewell for years; he was to
take the Arabia. Eos was restored, and on the day of
his departure, we went into the country by the sea-shore
Worn with watching and close application, my eyes
troubled me, and Eos, in the hours when sketching was
abandoned, read aloud; the book she happened on was
Eothen; as she proceeded, the fascination became like
the eye of the basilisk, drawing me eastward; I bade
her exchange it, and she found Vathek; she repeated
to me Fatima, and she sang to me a strange German
imperious longing seized me; my fancy travelled along
this vast level of calm seas to find the loneliness it coveted,
but not the fertilizing heat, the languor, the wild strange
life; — bitter salt and cold was the sea. The desire
rose unbidden perpetually, it lingered against my wish,
it became morbid, and goaded me like the gadfly of
Io. I was not ready for extended travel yet. America
I recognized as the prime school of landscape; I had a
principle in the thing, and wished to drain the cup at my
lips ere turning to the lees of that drained centuries ago;
moreover, I feared lest originality should vanish before
the overpowering vitality of that old land, and I fall into
mere worship. So, after a time, we went back to the city,
and so for three years I plodded on. It was not like the
weary plodding of others, there was never failure, always
satisfaction, always an interior and intense joy, a joy over
the beauty that was in the universe, and my mastery
thereof, that was a perennial intoxication of triumph.
Thus these three years were a season of ideal revelry;
at their close I possessed myself in more strength than
ever heretofore, and yet the earth revealed to me her
secrets. Still, while I wore deeper and deeper the
grooves of my orbit, Eos waited on me pale and patient
as a satellite, — other than so, she saw I did not need her;
she spoke little, she smiled only on me, at my day and
night absences she made no word of remonstrance, she
allowed me to find pleasure where I might, convinced that
all was but the nutritive compost required to bring the
germs of thought into blossom on my canvas; she became
impervious to jealousy; once, capable of anger —
albeit, angry as a dove's wing makes lightning — such a
thing could no longer strike a spark from her sensation;
complaint, all suffering had found its ebullition in the
night preceding her illness: she was Eos still, but without
the spirit. There grew in her eyes that look of
desolation to be found in those of so many a tutelary
saint; I remembered when they were bluer than snow-shadows,
and sparkled with perpetual sunshine.
It was the third summer since Alain had left us; we
went to the mountains this year, and with Eos at my
hand, I ranged them again. There was hardly a crevice
in their old seamed sides which I did not know. I knew
where the black bear kept his den, and where the snakes
coiled, and hissed, and bred; in the clouds upon their
summits I had been wrapped, in their valleys stifled. It
was a different life that I wanted, a different race of men
from these stolid mountaineers; I wearied of the pastoral
— the shining armaments of war, the spear, and the bit,
were flashing ever before me — my mind made pictures
that this cold North could never realize.
One day, at dinner, there were some fresh arrivals,
and, in the course of making acquaintance, the conversation
became personal.
“That reminds me,” said one. “Do you know Mrs.
Vivian?”
“Dean Vivian's widow?”
“I suppose so, somebody's widow; wealthy, superb,
eyes like broken bottle-glass.”
“Oh, — very well.”
“You know, then, that she has left Europe?”
“I was not aware that she had been there. When
will she arrive?”
“I believe the passage is not long from Marseilles to
Alexandria. She will never arrive in America, she has
forsworn it, and returns to the East.”
“Indeed! That is a great loss.”
“Yes, in some respects. It is better, on the other
hand, to have every object fulfil its destiny; hers was
not in civilization. She always appeared, in my objectglass,
like some savage thing panting with restraint: one
of those desert-creatures, full of wary, feline instincts,
ready to throw off mask and sheathe claws in the desired
prey. Ah, sir?” turning to me.
“Not at all,” I replied, “she seemed to me eminently
human. I fancied there had been Roman women like
her.”
“Impossible! That is because you misapprehend, and
are led astray by her name. I remembered, when I used
to see her, the beautiful Ghoul whom the Arabian prince
married unawares, the genie and great fairy with woman-faces
and ophidian extremities. Yes, her very gait, if
you ever noticed, was not like that of most stately females,
it was sinuous or sidelong, never attaining any mark by a
straight line; and, upon my soul! it would not be hard
to take the rustle of her silks for hissing. Just imagine
the transformation as Keats has done. See the
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue,
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barred
And full of silver moons, that as she breathes
Dissolve, or brighter shine.'
wastes of sand; I expect yet to see some of her victims
set their heel upon her head. Well, it is gratifying
to have any substance acknowledge its magnet, and
Mrs. Vivian takes to the sun rarely. It allows hope that,
by and by, all the extraneous will filter off, and leave
you and I, sir, and little madam here!” With which he
bowed to his wife, and built a ditch and glacis in her salt-cellar,
while waiting for dessert.
“After such a harangue, my dear,” said the lady,
“your auditory will suspect you of being one of the
victims.”
“I shall disown the `soft impeachment.' My auditory
know my specialty; I do not paint pictures, I paint characters.”
“It is not Mrs. Vivian's character so much as her
personal suggestions, that you have sketched,” I interposed.
“And they are her character precisely, taking the
parallax into account. You know, sir, that the way to
see a star best is not to look at it directly.”
Here Eos rose, and I was glad to follow. We wandered
all the afternoon, and came at length upon a wet spot
where the scarlet cardinals grew. As I plucked and Eos
twined them in her hat, I looked up the great rock that
towered behind, and put my hand upon its stained face,
unheated by all the August sun. I surveyed the narrow
valley, the unyielding barrier of mountains that enclosed
me, the pale sky that stretched cold and thin above me;
I gathered another handful of the cardinals, and thought
of great African lilies, of skies brimmed with inexhaustible
azure that contrast with the angles of a tent gives violet
tinges deep as the lees of claret. I felt oppressed by the
great dumb life crowding upon me, I wished to push the
gigantic flanks aside, I longed for a sparkle, a rush; solid
and heavy and immobile, I desired the slight and capricious
and rapid; shut so that my very thoughts met with rebound
and struck again my own breast, I would have given
with its hints of the Orient, had fanned the embers
to a flame; my blood seemed to pour like some fierce
torrent against my pulse; at each glance that sought to
reach a distance, the hills opposed their opaque wall;
included and restrained, I felt myself in prison with all
their weight on my soul. My heart beat in my throat,
I drew my breath like fire.
“Eos,” I said, “I shall go to the East.”
“I thought you would,” was all she replied, gathering
up the reins.
“There is nothing left me here,” I continued; “the
great rivers, prairies, everglades, I have sucked them all
dry. I may go on with endless repetitions till we die.
Besides, they have no storied sanctity, the pyramids do
not begin nor the blameless Ethiops end them. My eye
craves leagues of interminable extent and stillness, distant
air tremulous above burning lands, where vast stretches
are compressed in one indefinable line as sky and earth
meet, light intense and overflowing with positive vitality,
— strong enough to sting faint eyes to death. I am
weary of undulations, heights that I can overtop, intervals
whose boundaries I know, — I long for level immeasurability.
It cannot be a thought of Elephantine caverns
or ruined lauras, temple, or sphinx; it is the wide horizon,
the fathomless azure, the limitless sand, — heat, and languor,
and life. I am in fetters!” I exclaimed. “Invention
smothered, expression checked, I cannot breathe
this air; I must go, Eos, I must go!”
“Yes,” said Eos; “but it is so long.”
“So long! What lengthens our time there more than
here?”
“Then I, also — can I go?”
“Can? Must! After all, Eos, it is to paint that I go
to the East — and without you? I might as well paint
without daylight.”
“But your heats, your languors, — I shall die, — I am
not strong; I nearly dissolved in Florida, you know.”
When had Eos objected to any project so urged by me,
before, and objected on such grounds? I turned and took
her bridle.
“You were thinking of Vespasia,” I said. “I was not.
I never cared for the woman, but for her influences. Her
East is far beyond, moreover; swarthier skies are there,
and its shores are laved by more southern seas. It is
unlikely that we shall meet. Yet fancy, Eos! if we
should, how splendid the picture: white dromedaries, and
red saddle-cloths, and the face of Vespasia, from her airy
throne, flashing by us in the wilderness. So the Enchantress
Queen Labe might journey from the secret Nile
Source to the city of great Magiana!”
Eos touched her little mountain pony with the switch,
and then bent her head as she subdued his curvetting.
That was not effected at once, and we proceeded home in
silence.
Swift and deft beyond all other women, she completed
our preparations in season for the next steamer; and
suddenly, one day, all my dreams were accomplished, for
we touched the shores of Africa.
We remained, during the winter, for purposes of research
and acclimation, within the precincts of the old
historic town — alien and fantastic — that received us. I
wished, also, to take the plains in their utmost ardor;
meanwhile, I was not idle. With the spring, we obtained
a convoy and began our Arab life. When my foot
my heel, when some city — whose strange, sweet name
savored of dates, and palm-wine, and `lucent syrops tinct
with cinnamon' — veiled itself behind us, and leagues
and leagues away and around spread the glimmering
sheets, when I beheld that deep line of perpetual flight
whose profound color amassed that of so many horizons,
when for the first time I found the life I had sought, —
the bivouac, the siesta, the journeying by early stars, —
far from experiencing the exhilaration I had foreseen, I
felt myself utterly satisfied and at rest. But, in truth, so
far from rest, the state in which I was resembled that
swift revolution of bodies where they appear to be
motionless: it was the very acme of unrest. Nothing
surprised me in all that was so new; my very array
occasioned me no hinderance, it seemed as if I had never
worn another, picturesque and varied in all gay shades,
effeminate and light as wrappings of air; accustomed to
and demanding luxury, the simplicity of this life became
at once mine, the primitive manners charmed me, the
coarse fare contented me. In the night, the Arabs
circled round the dying fire made groups where chiarooscuro
could do no more; in the day we crossed the track
of some kindred party, or exchanged salutes with a
parcel of French chasseurs, or encountered the great
half-yearly caravan, defiling straight along the pathless
waste, resplendent in arms, gorgeous in color, fluttering
in fringe and scarf and banner, and snatching the breath
from the lips with its clamor, and swiftness, and grace.
Sometimes many successive halts were made near wells
of fresh sweet water, or at other times the provision,
tepid and rank, carried in the skins, sufficed us for days;
to me, even this was almost welcome, and joyfully remembered
pillowed and canopied aloft on her mattress, uttered no
complaint when perishing of thirst, never murmured at
the heat or the jolting gait of her camel; she retreated farther
under her coverings, and when the cry ran along the
line, leaned forth feebly in the hot quiet to draw strength
from the yet distant oasis whose palm-plume was cut upon
the azure like a gem. Later, with the softness, the sudden
nights that fell without twilight, the stars that hung great
and glowing from their vaults of crystalline darkness, in
the gloom, the coolness, the shelter of tamarisk-thicket
and breath of rose-laurel, she became refreshed and
enlivened, and appeared, once more, airy and light-hearted
as when in youth. How should I have known that in
that dreadful sun, those scorching winds, she suffered so?
She never told me, and my own keen enjoyment flushed
me too fully to allow perception of any pain in the world.
Thus we journeyed. We halted in strange cities of
the desert, till then unguessed; we took up our march
again from ruins over which the restless sand had blown
for centuries; all the way began to assume a new aspect,
vague, unnatural, almost demoniacal. As we went, the
great monumental camels, lost from wandering tribes,
strange sad beasts that seem the relics of some primeval
era, came and surveyed us, standing gaunt and stolid and
stony and starved between us and the sky; the little salamanders
twisted and slipped among the burning sands;
hot exhalations rose and maddened the animals; the sirocco
played fearful fantasies in our brains; the flying
lines, the alluring distances, buried themselves in mocking
mirage, the watercourses became dry, the sun
withered the eye that looked abroad, the summer heats
beset us.
Our guides, who regarded everything as a matter of
course, sought shelter and sleep. Eos, every limb flaccid,
every nerve unstrung, drooped weaker and fainter, with
no word, at last, even for me, — with imperceptible breath,
and nothing but a fluttering pulse to tell the life within
her. When the night came, all retook courage. As for
me, I did not need it: I was in a state of inexhaustible
well-being, I was bathed in the lustre of these overflowing
heavens, I drank the divine melancholy of infinite
distance, I was penetrated with warmth and satiated
with light.
One day, just before the noon halt, there suddenly rose
upon our vision a small caravan, rose from no one knew
where, since in the desert, owing perhaps to space, such
sights come and go like ephemera. It consisted of a
pack-camel whose driver urged it along at intervals with
a peculiarly shrill song, and following, an Arab horseman,
the trappings of purple and burnished silver glowing in
the sun, and a dun-colored dromedary. From a seat of
sumptuous cushions high embossed on the latter, a figure,
all in white, bent, lifted aside its veil, and a face, golden
in the noonlight, and with the sinister contrast of emerald
eyes, flashed upon me. It was the face of Vespasia.
The whole passed at a rapid pace, and became lost in the
depths of the desert. Shortly afterward, we paused, and
the little bivouac slept silent in siesta. While they rested,
I had been sketching, for I allowed nothing to escape me,
neither the hooded viper with his angry hue, in the patch
of grass, nor the scorpion writhing from sight, nor an
ostrich flying before the wind of his speed with all his
plumes spread and dancing. At last I entered the tent
and lay down. For a moment I pressed my hand upon
my eyes, a sudden darkness, edged with splendor, followed,
I opened them in the soft demi-shade of the tent; the
light was intolerable. I was alarmed.
“Eos,” I said, “I can scarcely see, I am dazzled.
We must remain encamped here till I recover; it would
not be pleasant to be left in the dark, you know,” and I
laughed as I spoke.
Eos lifted her languid head, put back the hair, brought
her dressing-case nearer after an effort, and wetting a
handkerchief in some cool ointment there, crept toward
me and bound it about my eyes. Then she drew my
head upon her bosom, and I fell asleep. When I awoke,
it was with a sharp exclamation and then a laugh. My
difficulty had vanished with rest. I saw Eos near the
lifted hangings, and Alain bending over me. He had
been with us in the winter, and had counted upon meeting
us frequently during our travel. He was out with
skirmishers, in pursuit of fragments of certain rebellious
tribes. They lingered and took the evening meal with us.
Alain was no longer genial; on the contrary, as sardonic
as I had ever at any time seen him, and now and
then giving way to a biting sentence. At length his
companions gave notice of departure. Alain rose and
bade Eos good-night; I stepped outside with him.
“You are at your old tricks again!” said he abruptly,
as we stood alone a moment. I did not understand him.
“Eos is dying now in good earnest.”
I was startled, and then remembered his habit. “Eos
experiences lassitude from the heat,” I replied, “nothing
more. I have nearly finished my studies; we shall
return, and all will be well.”
Slightly soothed by my calmness, “Heaven grant it!”
said he. “She is thinner than a shadow, in this accursed
have not seen such pallor in a living countenance. Her
eyes are more luminous, with the trace of those great blue
half-circles below them, than these porcelain heavens.
Yes, she is dying, I say!” he continued with more vehemence,
“not only of heat and weariness, but of suppression!
This aptitude, this power, this whatever you choose
to call it, genius or inspiration, for which you refuse her
utterance, this has produced a spiritual asphyxia. She
had better be an Arab woman and live her life! You
have killed her, but no one can hang you for it!” Before
I could reply, he strode to his horse, mounted, and fled
like an arrow to rejoin his fellows.
At the tent-door stood Eos; I took her in my arms
and wandered up and down the place, once a green island
in the sea of sand, now parched and withered. I told her
of my success, I talked of what swayed my thoughts, I
bade her have yet a few days' patience. Perhaps the
sight of Alain had reanimated her, perhaps my unusual
treatment; she slipped, at length, from my grasp and
walked beside me and grew gay; now she ran a few
paces in advance, now came back and hung over my
hand; she sang broken tunes, bits of homesick airs,
twittering and chirping, as I said, like a bird at dawn.
“Alain has teased you,” said she at length. “He
thinks me ill, I know; but I am perfectly well, only
tired. And seeing Alain was like going home.”
“We will go soon, Eos; you shall be there before the
last harebells are faded, for what would the year be unless
I saw their blue deepen the blue of your eyes? The
grapes over your mother's arbor will just have purpled
to your gathering, — do you remember once when you
rubbed the bloom off the bunches that their skins might
south window is dead yet; its berries should be the color
of chalcedony by this time; your mother used —”
“Don't speak of home!” cried Eos, bursting into a
sudden passion of tears, clinging to me and speaking
through her sobs. “Don't speak of home! Of those
days! It breaks my heart to think of them!”
“Eos!” I said in surprise, “do you regret it so unhappily?”
“No, no, I am not unhappy! I am most blest, because
you love me better than you ever did before; but once in
a while all that rises, and I perish with longing.”
“Dear child,” I said, smoothing the fair, flying hair
from her forehead, “you shall go to-morrow, if you will.
I can easily find you escort, and then remain till my work
is done, without you.”
“Could you?” asked Eos, drying her tears. “But I
could not; where you are is my home always. I am
sorry I have been so naughty, — a hindering little thing,
a weak and silly little wife!”
We lingered in silence a moment, to breathe the soft
warm night, to feel the gentle air sighing in the tamarisks,
to see the great jewelry of heaven that every night spread
its brilliant net above the desert, — sapphire and chrysolite
and ruby and beryl. As we went in, Eos pointed
with her white finger at one star, just above the horizon,
red as a drop of blood ready to fall.
Early, under the awfully white sheen of a desert moon,
the tents were struck, and we were on our way again.
There was all the awakening cheer of the morning, — the
neighing horses, protesting camels, the stir of equipage,
tintinnabulation of bells, and cries of Arabs. The heavens
bleached, a stain like that from some ruddy and enormous
light welled up and filled the great hollow of the sky;
there were no clouds, no pomp, nothing but intense lustre
and overpowering heat.
I had gradually fallen behind the others, as here and
there appeared subjects for my pencil, and had lost them
entirely from view, since I liked much to find myself so
unimpeded and utterly alone, trusting the instinct of my
horse to recover the train on occasion. Nothing could
equal the profound hush; it seemed as if the vast extent
of stillness swallowed every noise into itself, as the sea
closes over dross.
While this thought passed through my mind, my horse
suddenly pricked his ears and quivered under my hand,
throwing back his head with swollen nostril and clustered
veins, and rolling a fiery eyeball about; he appeared to
listen intently, standing crisp-maned, and with the stiffened
muscular action of a bronze. In a moment, I heard
a long low note winding from the right — a signal of
alarm. I touched him with the spur, folded my implements
as we went, and galloped in its direction.
The train had already ceased progress, and had encircled
the women in a hollow square. Sheik Ibrahim,
meeting me, assured me that there were indisputable
signs of an enemy, that he had suspected it for two or
three days, but judged that the presence of the French,
within such short distance, would be a sufficient safeguard,
and therefore had said nothing. I remonstrated
with him on his posture of defence, urging that it invited
attack. He replied it was well known that bands hostile
to his own tribe patrolled the desert, and it was singular
we had already met none of sufficient force to assail us,
and that I should soon see if his precautions were vain.
Far from terror, I found Eos exhilarated and trembling
with excitement; her hand lay in mine like ice, and her
eyes were fixed on a distant and increasing point. My
glance followed hers, and before long I could plainly detect
the glitter of spear-heads, the flash of sunshine on
mounted weapons, floating pennons, and a mingled splendor
of color, while a strangely discordant yet thrilling
music announced no peaceful errand. Our horsemen
pranced up and down the line, their eyes sparkling, their
scarfs streaming, with difficulty restraining themselves
from hurling a shower of spears at their assailants.
An hour's waiting, and they were near enough to exchange
defiance; a lance leaped out and fell at my feet;
then, without a word's warning, a volley of musketry, and
the impetuous charge. For a moment, all thought of
defence abandoned me, as I found myself in the midst of
the mêlée, with its great, leaping steeds, its tossing kaftans,
its purple and scarlet and gold, its irate motion and
gesture and shrilling trumpet-peals, its flaming eyes, and
the one lithe figure that flashed to and fro, mercurial and
savage, among the swords, ever insinuating nearer, — in
the next, a blind instinct seized me, and the warlike fury.
I do not know how the little battle fell; our enemy
exceeded us thrice; I can easily imagine that their certainty
of victory already dashed us with defeat. I shook
a hand from my shoulder, felt it again, turned and saw
Eos, who had slipped from her nest, grasping a rusty old
yataghan, and replete with spirit.
“Alain!” she cried, “Alain!”
And deliverance, with the French tirailleurs, was upon
us. The hostile party swerved, broke precipitately and
fled; the lithe figure, which I had remarked before, alone
wheeled back upon us in a wide detour, poised suddenly
dashed aside white burnous and violet turban-scarf, and,
under the meteor of the uplifted sword-blade, I caught
again that sinister dazzle of blazing leopard eyes. I had
but time to fling Eos behind me when the blow descended
and sheared a portion of her dress. As instantly the
balance was restored, and the figure swept on, but not
before I saw the long gleam of a tirailleur's polished barrel
raised in the sun, and swiftly as it fled a swifter foe
fled after. I shut my eyes, but I must have felt the
bound, the reel, the headlong plunge, the dragging stirrup,
till a second shot felled the horse with its rider.
“Yes,” said Alain, a little later, when he joined us,
“the very tribe we hunt! Well routed, too.”
“Among them, effendi,” said Ibrahim, “was an adventuress,
who certainly purchased their favor with immense
treasure. Their defeat is no less than a miracle of God,
a blow for charging in mad noon at command of a
woman! Dogs, and sons of dogs! God willed it; she
lies there dead!”
Tender to the friend, inexorable to the enemy, with the
one savage trait of his nature, Alain extended his hand
to Eos.
“You can set your heel upon her head!” he said.
Eos flung him a glance like the blue light shed from
the swallow's wing, and clung unreasonably to me.
I wonder now why she loved me, why, rather, she did
not hate me! I had occasioned her only distress, I gave
her no joy, no rest. Too sure it is that human attractions
and repulsions are as invisible as potent.
This affair in nowise hurried our movements; we felt,
henceforth, much safer, like those who have suffered a
farther from the camp, prolonged our stages, wrought up
the hints afforded me, tried my effects in the face of what
they sought to accomplish, imbibed the warmth and radiance
like a fruit of the tropics, and felt myself constantly
more affluent. But while I made such revelry of
every day, to Eos they brought torture; the reaction from
the enthusiasm and shocks of the fray prostrated her, the
heats still wrung away her vitality, the very sands became
loathsome in her eyes; lifted from one arm to
another, she had that horror of touching them with her
foot that one has of treading on a grave; she seemed to
fear, perpetually, the sight of those jewel-eyes, that trailing
viscous length, those splendid dyes, sliding among the
golden grains, — frequently she seemed fascinated and
forced to seek for them; the skirmish was every night
re-enacted in her dreams; she woke with the curve of the
descending weapon and the glare of that envenomed gaze
before her face, her sleep was a shivering nightmare, —
finally, she ceased to sleep at all. But all these things I
never thought of then, — blinder than now. And so my
slow murder was accomplishing.
At length the summer was over, the term of Sheik
Ibrahim's service expired, I turned my back upon the
desert, — not forever, as I hoped, — bade farewell to these
fierce rays that had ravished me from myself, to this feast
of lustre, to these long lines that shared the grandeur of
infinity; I awoke from my debauch of light, I left the
great solace of sun and solitude and space and silence. I
threaded again the dark, narrow bazaars, and again, with
Eos, found myself on level calms of blue water; and
thus, as it were, by gentle gradations came back to my
old life.
At sea, Eos lay upon the deck, placid and peaceful, yet
motionless; but people were always sick at sea, I said.
Once at home, and reinstated in our old ways, I looked
for her recovery, and looked in vain; it became necessary
to regard her as a confirmed invalid. That is the case
with all American women, I said. I found her attendance,
then missed her unfailing services that I had never
recognized, and wondered if I could not anticipate my own
wants. She lay, during the greater portion of the day, on
a couch at the lower window of the room where I painted,
and now I worked with a will and energy I had never
known before. I rose at daybreak to contemplate my
progress; I scarcely allowed myself time for my daily
food; I took no recreation: it was recreation enough, it
was complete joy, thus to reproduce the only summer, I
declared, in which I had ever lived. I combined, and
eliminated, and heightened, there was no strength possible
to my palette which I did not demand, I exhausted the
secrets of my art, my eyes grew heated with fixed labor,
my breath, itself, paused on my lips. Eos, as intent as I,
watched its growth with a fever in her cheek, and, in her
feeble way, grew blithe at any powerful success. She
used to follow me with her glance; now and then, yet
seldom, she beckoned me to leave all and kiss her, she
was so weak that she scarcely ever attempted to walk;
except to carry her from room to room, to obey her rare
requests, I was too absorbed to be more than remotely
sensible of her existence. But she — she seemed to concentrate
the love of long life into those few months. Once,
when my sight was fatigued, I sat and shaded it with my
hand; she thought me confused in color, and remembered
her old remedy, rose, reached the piano, and slowly unwound
a chain of clear, fine chords, a rill of melody stealing
sweeter, the rich sediment that had remained in her memory
from some imposing Mass. The sound, so unusual
now, startled me.
“Eos!” I exclaimed, “what has happened? Are you
well?”
“You know the wick flashes up when the flame is extinguished,
if the day is to be fine to-morrow,” she said,
and laughed.
Then her face grew still, her eye wistful, she staggered
and fell, and I bore her to the couch again.
So the winter skimmed away, it grew to be late in the
spring, and I could look forward to the completion of my
work. I did not think, then, of its pompous parade, its
triumphal march from town to town, of its throng of lovers,
of its world-wide fame; I saw and felt only its beauty,
and needed no other recompense. There lay the desert
before me again, its one moment of dawn, when the sands
blanched, the skies blenched, and the opposite quarter
dreamed of rosy suffusion to cast it again yet more faintly
on the white dromedary and the white-wrapped Arab
beside him. They, and their long pallid shadows falling
from the east, alone taught me the ineffable solitude and
hush; beyond them, I found again the lengthening lines,
the hints of fuller light, slow and fine detail, desert compressed
within desert, space and immensity daringly shut
on a canvas. There was the sparkle of the sterile stretch,
the wide air emptied of its torrid stings, the eternal calm
and peace — the melancholy for one, the rapture for another.
There was the soul of summer shed, older and
more mysterious and sadder than the sea, fresh made with
every morn in vigor and hope, — the work was worth its
price!
One day I waited merely for the artisans with the frame.
I went gayly and sat down on Eos's couch. I took her in
my arms, — she was lighter than any child, — laid her
head on my shoulder, and talked to her a few moments
of my hopes and certainties. Then we were silent. She
lifted her hand and placed it on my forehead.
“How glad I am that you love me as you do,” she said.
“Other love might regard me as a separate thing, seek
my ease or pleasure aside, but you have made and felt me
a part of yourself. I am glad, darling, and I thank God
for you!”
She lifted her still beautiful head and pressed her lips
to mine, long, fervently, and as if she wished I should
drink the last drops of her life, — then sank back.
I heard the men on the stairs. I dropped her among
her cushions, drew the screen, and admitted them. That
was soon done. Then there were a few touches yet
to be given, some delicate strokes, a shadow to deepen,
a light to intensify, and the radiant thing stood perfect
before me.
“Eos, my work is ended!” I cried. “There is nothing
more to do!”
I stepped back; I scanned it intently; I turned, bewildered;
and, at a sharp sting, drew my fingers down my
lids. At the touch, a spear, as of some Northern Light,
leapt across my vision, then murk darkness, and creeping
over that, my picture, the sands of the desert, forever and
forever stretched before my eyes.
“Who has drawn the shades?” I asked. “Have I
worked till night? Eos, are you here?”
I moved forward, the bell from a neighboring churchtower
struck the hour of noon, my hand passed through
again and lay on features bathed in vapid chill.
Truly, there was nothing more to do, — in all my life
long, nothing more to do! Night had fallen at noon. I
was blind, and Eos was dead.
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