Theprison
door
once
flung
open
,
the
sunshine
once
streaming
across
the
darkness
,
the
fetters
once
struck
off
,
the
captive
once
free
to
go
out
again
amongst
his
fellows
,
then
—
the
spider
is
left
to
miss
the
human
love
that
it
has
learnt
,
the
mouse
is
left
to
die
of
thirst
,
the
little
blue
flower
is
left
to
fade
out
as
it
may
in
the
stillness
and
the
gloom
alone
.
Then
they
are
nothing
:
but
while
the
prison
doors
are
still
locked
they
are
much
.
Here
the
gaoler
was
poverty
,
and
the
prison
was
the
world’s
neglect
,
and
they
who
lay
bound
were
high
hopes
,
great
aspirations
,
impossible
dreams
,
immeasurable
ambitions
,
all
swathed
and
fettered
,
and
straining
to
be
free
with
dumb
,
mad
force
against
bonds
that
would
not
break
.
And
in
these
,
in
their
bondage
,
there
were
little
patience
,
or
sympathy
,
or
softness
,
and
to
them
,
even
nature
itself
at
times
looked
horrible
,
though
never
so
horrible
,
because
never
so
despicable
as
humanity
.
Yet
,
still
even
in
these
an
instinct
of
companionship
abided
;
and
this
creature
,
with
a
woman’s
beauty
,
and
an
animal’s
fierceness
and
innocence
,
was
in
a
manner
welcome
.
“
Why
were
women
ever
made
then
?
”
she
said
,
after
awhile
,
following
,
though
imperfectly
,
the
drift
of
his
last
words
,
where
she
lay
stretched
,
obedient
to
his
will
,
under
the
shadow
of
the
wall
.
He
smiled
the
smile
of
one
who
recalls
some
story
he
has
heard
from
the
raving
lips
of
some
friend
fever‐stricken
.
“
Once
,
long
ago
,
in
the
far
East
,
there
dwelt
a
saint
in
the
desert
.
He
was
content
in
his
solitude
:
he
was
holy
and
at
peace
:
the
honey
of
the
wild
bee
and
the
fruit
of
the
wild
tamarisk
tree
sufficed
to
feed
him
;
the
lions
were
his
ministers
,
and
the
hyenas
were
his
slaves
;
the
eagle
flew
down
for
his
blessing
,
and
the
winds
and
the
storms
were
his
messengers
;
he
had
killed
the
beast
in
him
,
and
the
soul
alone
had
dominion
;
and
day
and
night
,
upon
the
lonely
air
,
he
breathed
the
praise
of
God
.
“
Years
went
with
him
thus
,
and
he
grew
old
,
and
he
said
to
himself
,
‘I
have
lived
content
;
so
shall
I
die
purified
,
and
ready
for
the
kingdom
of
heaven.’
For
it
was
in
the
day
when
that
wooden
god
,
who
hangs
on
the
black
cross
yonder
,
was
not
a
lifeless
effigy
as
now
,
but
a
name
of
power
and
of
might
,
adjuring
,
while
his
people
smiled
under
torture
,
and
died
in
the
flame
,
dreaming
of
a
land
where
the
sun
never
set
,
and
the
song
never
ceased
,
and
the
faithful
for
ever
were
at
rest
.
So
the
years
,
I
say
,
went
by
with
him
,
and
he
was
glad
and
at
peace
.
“
One
night
,
when
the
thunder
rolled
and
the
rain‐torrents
fell
to
the
door
of
his
cave
there
came
a
wayfarer
,
fainting
,
sickly
,
lame
,
trembling
with
terror
of
the
desert
,
and
beseeching
him
to
save
her
from
the
panthers
.
“
He
was
loth
,
and
dreaded
to
accede
to
her
prayer
,
for
he
said
,
‘Wheresoever
a
woman
enters
,
there
the
content
of
man
is
dead.’
But
she
was
in
dire
distress
,
and
entreated
him
with
tears
and
supplications
not
to
turn
her
adrift
for
the
lightning
and
the
lions
to
devour
:
and
he
felt
the
old
human
pity
steal
on
him
,
and
he
opened
the
door
to
her
,
and
bade
her
enter
and
take
sanctuary
there
in
God’s
name
.
“
But
when
she
had
entered
,
age
,
and
sickness
,
and
want
fell
from
off
her
,
her
eyes
grew
as
two
stars
,
her
lips
were
sweet
as
the
rose
of
the
desert
,
her
limbs
had
the
grace
of
the
cheetah
,
her
body
had
the
radiance
and
the
fragrance
of
frankincense
on
an
altar
of
gold
.
“
And
she
laughed
in
his
beard
,
and
cried
,
saying
‘Thou
thinkest
thou
hast
lived
,
and
yet
thou
hast
not
loved
?
Oh
sage
!
oh
saint
!
oh
fool
,
fool
,
fool
!
’
then
into
his
veins
there
rushed
youth
,
and
into
his
brain
there
came
madness
;
the
life
he
had
led
seemed
but
death
,
and
eternity
loathsome
since
passionless
;
and
he
stretched
his
arms
to
her
and
sought
to
embrace
her
,
crying
,
‘Stay
with
me
,
though
I
buy
thee
with
hell.’
And
she
stayed
.
“
But
when
the
morning
broke
she
left
him
,
laughing
,
gliding
like
a
phantom
from
his
arms
,
and
out
into
the
red
sunlight
,
and
across
the
desert
sand
,
laughing
,
laughing
,
always
,
and
mocking
him
whilst
she
beckoned
.
He
pursued
her
,
chasing
her
through
the
dawn
,
through
the
noon
,
through
the
night
.
He
never
found
her
;
she
had
vanished
as
the
rose
of
the
rainbow
fades
out
of
the
sky
.
“
He
searched
for
her
in
every
city
,
and
in
every
land
.
Some
say
he
searches
still
,
doomed
to
live
on
through
every
age
,
and
powerless
to
die
.
”
Arslàn
had
a
certain
power
over
words
as
over
colour
.
Like
all
true
painters
,
the
fibre
of
his
mind
was
sensuous
and
poetic
,
though
the
quality
of
passionate
imagination
was
in
him
welded
with
a
coldness
and
a
stillness
of
temper
born
in
him
with
his
northern
blood
.
He
had
dwelt
much
in
Asiatic
countries
,
and
much
of
the
philosophies
and
much
of
the
phraseology
of
the
East
remained
with
him
.
Something
even
there
seemed
in
him
of
the
mingled
asceticism
and
sensualism
,
the
severe
self‐denial
,
with
the
voluptuous
fancy
of
the
saints
who
once
had
peopled
the
deserts
in
which
he
had
in
his
turn
delighted
to
dwell
,
free
and
lonely
,
scorning
women
and
deserting
man
.
He
spoke
seldom
,
being
by
nature
silent
;
but
when
he
did
speak
his
language
was
unconsciously
varied
into
picture‐like
formations
.
She
listened
breathless
,
with
the
colour
in
her
cheeks
and
the
fire
brooding
in
her
eyes
,
her
unformed
mind
catching
the
swift
shadowy
allegories
of
his
tale
by
force
of
the
poetic
instincts
in
her
.
No
one
had
ever
talked
to
her
thus
;
and
yet
it
seemed
clear
to
her
and
beautiful
,
like
the
story
which
the
great
sunflowers
told
as
they
swayed
to
and
fro
in
the
light
,
like
the
song
that
the
bright
brook
water
sung
as
it
purled
and
sparkled
under
the
boughs
.
“
That
is
true
!
”
she
said
,
suddenly
,
at
length
.
“
It
is
a
saint’s
story
in
substance
;
it
is
true
in
spirit
for
all
time
.
”
Her
breath
came
with
a
sharp
,
swift
,
panting
sound
.
She
was
blinded
with
the
new
light
that
broke
in
on
her
.
“
If
I
be
a
woman
,
shall
I
then
be
such
a
woman
as
that
?
”
Arslàn
rested
his
eyes
on
her
with
a
grave
,
half
sad
,
half
sardonic
smile
.
“
Why
not
?
You
are
the
devil’s
daughter
,
you
say
.
Of
such
are
men’s
kingdom
of
heaven
!
”
She
pondered
long
upon
his
answer
;
she
could
not
comprehend
it
;
she
had
understood
the
parable
of
his
narrative
,
yet
the
passion
of
it
had
passed
her
by
,
and
the
evil
shut
in
it
had
escaped
her
.
“
Do
,
then
,
men
love
what
destroys
them
?
”
she
asked
,
slowly
.
“
Always
!
”
he
made
answer
,
still
with
that
same
smile
as
of
one
who
remembers
hearkening
to
the
delirious
ravings
round
him
in
a
madhouse
through
which
he
has
walked
—
himself
sane
—
in
a
bygone
time
.
“
I
do
not
want
love
,
”
she
said
,
suddenly
,
while
her
brain
,
half
strong
,
half
feeble
,
struggled
to
fit
her
thoughts
to
words
.
“
I
want
,
I
want
,
to
have
power
as
the
priest
has
on
the
people
when
he
says
,
‘pray
!
’
and
they
pray
.
”
“
Power
!
”
he
echoed
,
as
the
devotee
echoes
the
name
of
his
god
.
“
Who
does
not
?
But
do
you
think
the
woman
that
tempted
the
saint
had
none
?
If
ever
you
reach
that
kingdom
such
power
will
become
yours
.
”
A
proud
glad
exultation
swept
over
her
face
for
a
moment
.
It
quickly
faded
.
She
did
not
believe
in
a
future
.
How
many
times
had
she
not
,
since
the
hand
of
Claudis
Flamma
first
struck
her
,
prayed
with
all
the
passion
of
a
child’s
dumb
agony
that
the
dominion
of
her
Father’s
power
might
come
to
her
.
And
the
great
Evil
had
never
hearkened
.
He
,
whom
all
men
around
her
feared
,
had
made
her
no
sign
that
he
heard
,
but
left
her
to
blows
,
to
solitude
,
to
continual
hunger
,
to
perpetual
toil
.
“
I
have
prayed
to
the
devil
again
and
again
and
he
will
not
hear
,
”
she
muttered
.
“
Marcellin
says
that
he
has
ears
for
all
.
But
for
me
he
has
none
.
”
“
He
has
too
much
to
do
to
hear
all
.
All
the
nations
of
the
earth
beseech
him
.
Yonder
man
on
the
cross
they
adjure
with
their
mouths
indeed
;
but
it
is
your
god
only
whom
in
their
hearts
they
worship
.
See
how
the
Christ
hangs
his
head
:
he
is
so
weary
of
lip‐service
.
”
“
But
since
they
give
the
Christ
so
many
temples
,
why
do
they
raise
none
to
the
devil
?
”
“
Chut
!
No
man
builds
altars
to
his
secret
god
.
Look
you
:
I
will
tell
you
another
story
.
Once
,
in
an
Eastern
land
,
there
was
a
temple
dedicated
to
all
the
deities
of
all
the
peoples
that
worshipped
under
the
sun
.
There
were
many
statues
and
rare
ones
;
statues
of
silver
and
gold
,
of
ivory
,
and
agate
,
and
chalcedony
,
and
there
were
altars
raised
before
all
,
on
which
every
nation
offered
up
sacrifice
and
burned
incense
before
its
divinity
.
“
Now
,
no
nation
would
look
at
the
god
of
another
;
and
each
people
clustered
about
the
feet
of
its
own
fetish
,
and
glorified
it
,
crying
out
,
‘There
is
no
god
but
this
god.’
“
The
noise
was
fearful
,
and
the
feuds
were
many
,
and
the
poor
king
,
whose
thought
it
had
been
to
erect
such
a
temple
,
was
confounded
,
and
very
sorrowful
,
and
murmured
,
saying
—
‘I
dreamed
to
beget
universal
peace
and
tolerance
and
harmony
;
and
lo
!
there
come
of
my
thoughts
nothing
but
discord
and
war.’
“
Then
to
him
there
came
a
stranger
,
veiled
,
and
claiming
no
country
,
and
he
said
,
‘You
were
mad
to
dream
religion
could
ever
be
peace
,
yet
,
be
not
disquieted
;
give
me
but
a
little
space
and
I
will
erect
an
altar
whereat
all
men
shall
worship
,
leaving
their
own
gods.’
“
The
king
gave
him
permission
;
and
he
raised
up
a
simple
stone
,
and
on
it
he
wrote
,
‘To
the
Secret
Sin
!
’
and
,
being
a
sorcerer
,
he
wrote
with
such
a
curious
power
,
that
showed
the
inscription
to
the
sight
of
each
man
,
but
blinded
him
whilst
he
gazed
on
it
to
all
sight
of
his
fellows
.
“
And
each
man
forsook
his
god
,
and
came
and
kneeled
before
this
nameless
altar
,
each
bowing
down
before
it
,
and
each
believing
himself
in
solitude
.
The
poor
forsaken
gods
stood
naked
and
alone
;
there
was
not
one
man
left
to
worship
one
of
them
.
”
She
listened
;
her
eloquent
eyes
fixed
on
him
,
her
lips
parted
,
her
fancy
fantastic
and
full
of
dreams
,
strengthened
by
loneliness
,
and
unbridled
through
ignorance
,
steeping
itself
in
every
irony
and
every
phantasy
,
and
every
shred
of
knowledge
that
Chance
,
her
only
teacher
,
cast
to
her
.
She
sat
thinking
,
full
of
a
vague
sad
pity
for
that
denied
and
forsaken
God
on
the
cross
,
by
the
river
,
such
as
she
had
never
felt
before
;
since
she
had
always
regarded
him
as
the
symbol
of
cruelty
,
of
famine
and
of
hatred
;
not
knowing
that
these
are
only
the
colours
which
all
deities
alike
reflect
from
the
hearts
of
the
peoples
that
worship
them
.
“
If
I
had
a
god
,
”
she
said
,
suddenly
.
“
If
a
god
cared
to
claim
me
—
I
would
be
proud
of
his
worship
everywhere
.
”
Arslàn
smiled
.
“
All
women
have
a
god
;
that
is
why
they
are
at
once
so
much
weaker
and
so
much
happier
than
men
.
”
“
Who
are
their
gods
?
”
“
Their
name
is
legion
.
Innocent
women
make
gods
of
their
offspring
,
of
their
homes
,
of
their
housework
,
of
their
duties
;
and
are
as
cruel
as
tigresses
meanwhile
to
all
outside
the
pale
of
their
temples
.
Others
—
less
innocent
—
make
gods
of
their
own
forms
and
faces
;
of
bright
stones
dug
from
the
earth
,
of
vessels
of
gold
and
silver
,
of
purple
and
fine
linen
,
of
passions
,
and
vanities
,
and
desires
;
gods
that
they
consume
themselves
for
in
their
youth
,
and
that
they
curse
,
and
beat
,
and
upbraid
in
the
days
of
their
age
.
Which
of
these
gods
will
be
yours
?
”
She
thought
a
while
,
steadily
and
wearily
.
“
None
of
them
,
”
she
said
at
last
.
“
None
?
What
will
you
put
in
their
stead
,
then
?
”
She
thought
gravely
some
moments
again
.
Although
a
certain
terse
and
even
poetic
utterance
was
the
shape
which
her
spoken
imagination
naturally
took
at
all
times
,
ignorance
and
solitude
had
made
it
hard
for
her
aptly
to
marry
her
thoughts
to
words
.
“
I
do
not
know
,
”
she
said
,
wearily
afresh
.
“
Marcellin
says
that
every
God
is
deaf
.
He
must
be
deaf
—
or
very
cruel
.
Look
;
everything
lives
in
pain
;
and
yet
no
God
pities
and
makes
an
end
of
earth
.
I
would
—
if
I
were
He
.
Look
;
at
dawn
,
the
other
day
,
I
was
out
in
the
wood
.
I
came
upon
a
little
rabbit
in
a
trap
;
a
little
,
pretty
,
soft
,
black‐and‐white
thing
,
quite
young
.
It
was
screaming
in
its
horrible
misery’
;
it
had
been
screaming
all
night
.
Its
thighs
were
broken
in
the
iron
teeth
;
the
trap
held
it
tight
;
it
could
not
escape
,
it
could
only
scream
—
scream
—
scream
.
All
in
vain
.
When
I
had
set
it
free
it
was
mangled
as
if
a
wolf
had
gnawed
it
:
the
iron
teeth
had
bitten
through
the
fur
,
and
the
flesh
,
and
the
bone
;
it
had
lost
so
much
blood
and
it
was
in
so
much
pain
,
that
it
could
not
live
.
I
laid
it
down
in
the
braken
,
and
put
water
to
its
mouth
,
and
did
what
I
could
;
but
it
was
of
no
use
.
It
had
been
too
much
hurt
.
It
died
as
the
sun
rose
;
a
little
,
harmless
,
shy
creature
,
and
only
asked
to
nibble
a
leaf
or
two
,
or
sleep
in
a
little
round
hole
,
and
run
about
merry
and
free
.
How
can
one
care
for
a
God
since
he
lets
these
things
be
?
”
Arslàn
smiled
as
he
heard
.
“
Child
,
—
men
care
for
a
god
only
as
a
god
means
good
to
them
.
Men
are
heirs
of
heaven
,
they
say
;
and
,
in
right
of
their
heritage
,
they
make
life
hell
to
every
living
thing
that
dares
dispute
the
world
with
them
.
You
do
not
understand
that
,
—
tut
!
You
are
not
human
then
.
If
you
were
human
,
you
would
begrudge
a
blade
of
grass
to
a
rabbit
,
and
arrogate
to
yourself
a
lease
of
immortality
.
”
She
did
not
understand
him
;
but
she
felt
that
she
was
honoured
by
him
,
and
not
scorned
as
others
scorned
her
,
for
being
thus
unlike
humanity
.
It
was
a
bitter
perplexity
to
her
,
this
earth
on
which
she
had
been
flung
amidst
an
alien
people
;
that
she
should
suffer
herself
seemed
little
to
her
,
it
had
become
as
a
second
nature
;
but
the
sufferings
of
all
the
innumerable
tribes
of
creation
,
things
of
the
woods
,
and
the
field
,
and
the
waters
,
and
the
sky
,
that
toiled
and
sweated
and
were
hunted
,
and
persecuted
and
wrenched
in
torment
,
and
finally
perished
to
gratify
the
appetites
or
the
avarice
of
humanity
,
these
sufferings
were
horrible
to
her
always
:
inexplicable
,
hideous
,
unpardonable
,
—
a
crime
for
which
she
hated
God
and
Man
.
“
There
is
no
god
pitiful
then
?
”
she
said
,
at
length
,
“
no
god
—
not
one
?
”
“
Only
those
Three
,
”
he
answered
her
,
as
he
motioned
towards
the
three
brethren
that
watched
above
her
.
“
Are
they
your
gods
?
”
A
smile
that
moved
her
to
a
certain
fear
of
him
passed
a
moment
over
his
mouth
.
“
My
gods
?
—
No
.
They
are
the
gods
of
youth
and
of
age
—
not
of
manhood
.
”
“
What
is
yours
then
?
”
“
Mine
?
—
a
Moloch
who
consumes
my
offspring
,
yet
in
whose
burning
brazen
hands
I
have
put
them
and
myself
—
for
ever
.
”
She
looked
at
him
in
awe
and
in
reverence
.
She
imagined
him
the
priest
of
some
dark
and
terrible
religion
,
for
whose
sake
he
lapsed
his
years
in
solitude
and
deprivation
,
and
by
whose
powers
he
created
the
wondrous
shapes
that
rose
and
bloomed
around
him
.
“
Those
are
gentler
gods
?
”
she
said
timidly
,
raising
her
eyes
to
the
brethren
above
her
.
“
Do
you
never
—
will
you
never
—
worship
them
?
”
“
I
have
ceased
to
worship
them
.
In
time
—
when
the
world
has
utterly
beaten
me
—
no
doubt
I
shall
pray
to
one
at
least
of
them
.
To
that
one
,
see
,
the
eldest
of
the
brethren
,
who
holds
his
torch
turned
downwards
.
”
“
And
that
god
is
—
?
”
“
Death
!
”
She
was
silent
.
Was
this
god
not
her
god
also
?
Had
she
not
chosen
him
,
and
laid
her
life
down
at
his
feet
for
this
man’s
sake
?
“
He
must
never
know
;
—
he
must
never
know
,
”
she
said
again
in
her
heart
.
And
Thanatos
she
knew
would
not
betray
her
;
for
Thanatos
keeps
all
the
secrets
of
men
—
he
,
who
alone
of
the
gods
reads
the
truths
of
men’s
souls
,
and
smiles
,
and
shuts
them
in
the
hollow
of
his
hand
,
and
lets
the
braggart
Time
fly
on
with
careless
feet
,
telling
what
lies
he
will
to
please
the
world
a
little
space
.
Thanatos
holds
silence
and
can
wait
;
—
for
him
must
all
things
ripen
,
and
,
at
last
,
to
him
must
all
things
fall
.
CHAPTER
V.
WHEN
she
left
him
that
night
,
and
went
homeward
,
he
trimmed
his
lamp
and
returned
to
his
labours
of
casting
and
modelling
from
the
body
of
the
rag‐picker’s
daughter
.
The
work
soon
absorbed
him
too
entirely
to
leave
any
memory
with
him
of
the
living
woman
.
He
did
not
know
—
and
had
he
known
would
not
have
heeded
—
that
instead
of
going
on
her
straight
path
back
to
Yprès
she
turned
again
,
and
,
hidden
amongst
the
rushes
upon
the
bank
,
crouched
half
sitting
and
half
kneeling
,
to
watch
him
from
the
river‐side
.
It
was
all
dark
and
still
,
without
;
nothing
came
near
,
except
now
and
then
some
hobbled
mule
turned
out
to
forage
for
his
evening
meal
,
or
some
night‐browsing
cattle
straying
out
of
bounds
.
Once
or
twice
a
barge
went
slowly
and
sullenly
by
,
its
single
light
twinkling
across
the
breadth
of
the
stream
,
and
the
voice
of
its
steersman
calling
huskily
through
the
fog
.
A
drunken
peasant
staggered
across
the
fields
singing
snatches
of
a
republican
march
that
broke
roughly
on
the
silence
of
the
night
.
The
young
lambs
bleated
to
their
mothers
in
the
meadows
,
and
the
bells
of
the
old
clock
towers
in
the
town
chimed
the
quarters
with
a
Laus
Deo
in
which
all
their
metal
tongues
joined
musically
.
She
remained
there
undisturbed
amongst
the
long
grasses
and
the
tufts
of
the
reeds
,
gazing
always
into
the
dimly‐lighted
interior
where
the
pale
rays
of
the
oil
flame
lit
up
the
white
forms
of
the
gods
,
the
black
shadows
of
the
columns
,
the
shapes
of
the
wrestling
lion
and
the
strangled
gladiator
,
the
grey
stiff
frame
and
hanging
hair
of
the
dead
body
,
and
the
bending
figure
of
Arslàn
as
he
stooped
above
the
corpse
and
pursued
the
secret
powers
of
his
art
into
the
hidden
things
of
death
.
To
her
there
seemed
nothing
terrible
in
a
night
thus
spent
,
in
a
vigil
thus
ghastly
;
it
seemed
to
her
only
a
part
of
his
strength
thus
to
make
death
,
—
men’s
conqueror
,
—
his
servant
and
his
slave
;
she
only
begrudged
every
passionless
touch
that
his
grasp
gave
to
those
frozen
and
rigid
limbs
which
he
moved
to
and
fro
like
so
much
clay
;
she
only
envied
with
a
jealous
thirst
every
cold
caress
that
his
hand
lent
to
that
loose
and
lifeless
hair
which
he
swept
aside
like
so
much
flax
.
He
did
not
see
;
he
did
not
know
.
To
him
she
was
no
more
than
any
bronze‐winged
,
golden‐eyed
insect
that
should
have
floated
in
on
a
night
breeze
and
been
painted
by
him
and
been
cast
out
again
upon
the
darkness
.
He
worked
more
than
half
the
night
—
worked
until
the
small
store
of
oil
he
possessed
burned
itself
out
,
and
left
the
hall
to
the
feeble
light
of
a
young
moon
shining
through
dense
vapours
.
He
dropped
his
tools
,
and
rose
and
walked
to
and
fro
on
the
width
of
the
stone
floor
.
His
hands
felt
chilled
to
the
bone
with
the
contact
of
the
dead
flesh
;
his
breathing
felt
oppressed
with
the
heavy
humid
air
that
lay
like
ice
upon
his
lungs
.
The
dead
woman
was
nothing
to
him
.
He
had
not
once
thought
of
the
youth
that
had
perished
in
her
;
of
the
laughter
that
hunger
had
hushed
for
ever
on
the
colourless
lips
;
of
the
passion
blushes
that
had
died
out
for
ever
on
the
ashen
cheeks
;
of
the
caressing
hands
of
mother
and
of
lover
that
must
have
wandered
amongst
that
curling
hair
;
of
the
children
that
should
have
slept
on
that
white
breast
so
smooth
and
cold
beneath
his
hand
.
For
these
he
cared
nothing
,
and
thought
as
little
.
The
dead
girl
for
him
had
neither
sex
nor
story
;
and
he
had
studied
all
phases
and
forms
of
death
too
long
to
be
otherwise
than
familiar
with
them
all
.
Yet
a
certain
glacial
despair
froze
his
heart
as
he
left
her
body
,
lying
there
in
the
flicker
of
the
struggling
moonbeams
,
and
,
himself
,
pacing
to
and
fro
in
his
solitude
,
suffered
a
greater
bitterness
than
death
in
his
doom
of
poverty
and
of
obscurity
.
The
years
of
his
youth
had
gone
in
fruitless
labour
,
and
the
years
of
his
manhood
were
gliding
after
them
,
and
yet
he
had
failed
so
utterly
to
make
his
mark
upon
his
generation
that
he
could
only
maintain
his
life
by
the
common
toil
of
the
common
hand‐labourer
,
and
,
if
he
died
on
the
morrow
,
there
would
not
be
one
hand
stretched
out
to
save
any
one
work
of
his
creation
from
the
housewife’s
fires
or
the
lime‐burner’s
furnace
.
Cold
to
himself
as
to
all
others
,
he
said
bitterly
in
his
soul
,
“
What
is
Failure
except
Feebleness
?
And
what
is
it
to
miss
one’s
mark
except
to
aim
wildly
and
weakly
?
”
He
told
himself
that
harsh
and
inexorable
truth
a
score
of
times
,
again
and
again
,
as
he
walked
backward
and
forward
in
the
solitude
which
only
that
one
dead
woman
shared
.
He
told
himself
that
he
was
a
madman
,
a
fool
,
who
spent
his
lifetime
in
search
and
worship
of
a
vain
eidolon
.
He
told
himself
that
there
must
be
in
him
some
radical
weaknesses
,
some
inalienable
fault
,
that
he
could
not
in
all
these
years
find
strength
enough
to
compel
the
world
of
men
to
honour
him
.
Agony
overcame
him
as
he
thought
and
thought
and
thought
,
until
he
scorned
himself
;
the
supreme
agony
of
a
strong
nature
that
for
once
mistrusts
itself
as
feebleness
,
of
a
great
genius
that
for
once
despairs
of
itself
as
self‐deception
.
Had
he
been
the
fool
of
his
vanities
all
his
youth
upward
;
and
had
his
fellow‐men
been
only
wise
and
clear
of
sight
when
they
had
denied
him
and
refused
to
see
excellence
in
any
work
of
his
hand
?
Almost
,
he
told
himself
,
it
must
be
so
.
He
paused
by
the
open
casement
,
and
looked
outward
,
scarcely
knowing
what
he
did
.
The
mists
were
heavy
;
the
air
was
loaded
with
damp
exhalations
;
the
country
was
profoundly
still
;
above‐head
only
a
few
stars
glimmered
here
and
there
through
the
haze
.
The
peace
,
the
silence
,
the
obscurity
were
abhorrent
to
him
;
they
seemed
to
close
upon
him
,
and
imprison
him
;
far
away
were
all
the
colour
and
the
strength
and
the
strain
and
the
glory
of
living
;
it
seemed
to
him
as
though
he
were
dead
also
,
like
the
woman
on
the
tressel
yonder
;
dead
in
some
deep
sea
grave
where
the
weight
of
the
waters
kept
him
down
and
held
his
hands
powerless
,
and
shut
his
eyelids
from
all
sight
,
while
the
living
voices
and
the
living
footsteps
of
men
came
dimly
on
his
ear
from
the
world
above
;
voices
not
one
of
which
uttered
his
name
;
footsteps
,
not
one
of
which
paused
by
his
tomb
.
It
grew
horrible
to
him
—
this
death‐in‐life
,
to
which
in
the
freshness
of
manhood
he
often
himself
condemned
.
“
Oh
,
God
!
”
he
,
who
believed
in
no
God
,
muttered
half
aloud
,
“
Let
me
be
without
love
,
wealth
,
peace
,
health
,
gladness
,
all
my
life
long
—
let
me
be
crippled
,
childless
,
beggared
,
hastened
to
the
latest
end
of
my
days
,
—
give
me
only
to
be
honoured
in
my
works
;
give
me
only
a
name
that
men
cannot
,
if
they
wish
,
let
die
.
Whether
any
ear
greater
than
man
heard
the
prayer
,
who
shall
say
?
Daily
and
nightly
,
through
all
the
generations
of
the
world
,
the
human
creature
implores
from
his
Creator
the
secrets
of
his
existence
,
and
asks
in
vain
.
There
is
one
answer
indeed
;
but
it
is
the
answer
of
all
the
million
races
of
the
universe
,
which
only
cry
,
“
We
are
born
but
to
perish
;
is
Humanity
a
thing
so
high
or
pure
that
it
should
not
claim
exemption
for
the
universal
and
inexorable
law
?
”
One
mortal
listener
heard
,
hidden
amongst
the
hollow
sighing
rushes
,
bathed
in
moonlight
and
the
mists
;
and
the
impersonal
passion
which
absorbed
him
found
echo
in
this
inarticulate
imperfect
soul
,
just
wakened
in
its
obscurity
to
the
first
faint
meanings
of
its
mortal
life
,
as
a
nest‐bird
rouses
in
the
dawn
to
the
first
faint
pipe
of
its
involuntary
cry
.
She
barely
knew
what
he
sought
,
what
he
asked
,
and
yet
her
heart
ached
with
his
desire
,
and
shared
the
bitterness
of
his
denial
.
What
kind
of
life
he
craved
in
the
ages
to
come
;
what
manner
of
remembrance
he
yearned
for
from
the
unborn
races
of
men
;
what
thing
it
was
which
he
besought
should
be
given
to
him
in
the
stead
of
all
love
,
all
peace
,
all
personal
woes
and
physical
delights
,
she
did
not
know
;
the
future
to
her
had
no
meaning
;
and
the
immortal
fame
which
he
craved
was
an
unknown
god
,
of
whose
worship
she
had
no
comprehension
;
and
yet
she
vaguely
felt
that
what
he
sought
was
that
his
genius
still
should
live
when
his
body
should
be
destroyed
,
and
that
those
mute
,
motionless
,
majestic
shapes
which
arose
at
his
bidding
should
become
characters
and
speak
for
him
to
all
the
generations
of
men
when
his
own
mouth
should
be
sealed
dumb
in
death
.
This
hunger
of
the
soul
which
unmanned
and
tortured
him
,
though
the
famine
of
the
flesh
had
had
no
power
to
move
him
,
thrilled
her
with
the
instinct
of
its
greatness
.
This
thirst
of
the
mind
,
which
could
not
slake
itself
in
common
desires
or
sensual
satiety
,
or
any
peace
and
pleasure
of
the
ordinary
life
of
man
,
had
likeness
in
it
to
that
dim
instinct
which
had
made
her
nerves
throb
at
the
glories
of
the
changing
skies
,
and
her
eyes
fill
with
tears
at
the
sound
of
a
bird’s
singing
in
the
darkness
of
dawn
,
and
her
heart
yearn
with
vain
nameless
longing
as
for
some
lost
land
,
for
some
forgotten
home
,
in
the
radiant
hush
of
earth
and
air
at
sunrise
.
He
suffered
as
she
suffered
;
and
a
sweet
new‐born
sense
of
unity
and
of
likeness
stirred
in
her
amidst
the
bitter
pity
of
her
soul
.
To
her
he
was
as
a
king
:
and
yet
he
was
powerless
.
To
give
him
power
she
would
have
died
a
thousand
deaths
.
“
The
gods
gave
me
life
for
him
,
”
she
thought
.
“
His
life
instead
of
mine
?
Will
they
forget
?
—
Will
they
forget
?
”
And
where
she
crouched
in
the
gloom
beneath
the
bulrushes
she
flung
herself
down
prostrate
in
supplication
,
her
face
buried
in
the
long
damp
river‐grass
.
“
Oh
,
Immortals
!
”
she
implored
in
benighted
,
wistful
,
passionate
faith
,
“
remember
to
give
me
his
life
and
take
mine
.
Do
what
you
choose
with
me
;
forsake
me
,
kill
me
;
cast
my
body
to
fire
,
and
my
ashes
to
the
wind
;
let
me
be
trampled
like
the
dust
,
and
despised
as
the
chaff
;
let
me
be
bruised
,
beaten
,
nameless
,
hated
always
;
let
me
always
suffer
and
always
be
scorned
;
but
grant
me
this
one
thing
—
to
give
him
his
desire
!
”
For
unless
the
gods
gave
him
greatness
,
she
knew
that
vain
would
be
the
gift
of
life
—
the
gift
of
mere
length
of
years
—
which
she
had
bought
for
him
.
Her
mind
had
been
left
blank
as
a
desert
,
whilst
in
its
solitude
dreams
had
sprung
forth
wind‐sown
like
wayside
grasses
,
and
vague
desires
wandered
like
wild
doves
;
but
although
blank
the
soil
was
rich
and
deep
and
virgin
.
Because
she
had
dwelt
sundered
from
her
kind
,
she
had
learned
no
evil
;
a
stainless
though
savage
innocence
had
remained
with
her
.
She
had
been
reared
in
hardship
and
inured
to
hunger
until
such
pangs
seemed
to
her
scarce
worth
the
counting
,
save
perhaps
to
see
if
they
had
been
borne
with
courage
and
without
murmur
.
On
her
,
profoundly
unconscious
of
the
meaning
of
any
common
luxury
or
any
common
comfort
,
the
passions
of
natures
more
worldly‐wise
,
and
better
aware
of
the
empire
of
gold
,
had
no
hold
at
any
moment
.
To
toil
dully
and
be
hungry
and
thirsty
,
and
fatigued
and
footsore
,
had
been
her
daily
portion
.
She
knew
nothing
of
the
innumerable
pleasures
and
powers
that
the
rich
command
.
She
knew
scarcely
of
the
existence
of
the
simplest
forms
of
civilization
:
therefore
she
knew
nothing
of
all
that
he
missed
through
poverty
;
she
only
perceived
,
by
an
unerring
instinct
of
apprehension
,
all
that
he
gained
through
genius
.
Her
mind
was
profoundly
ignorant
;
her
character
trained
by
cruelty
only
to
endurance
:
yet
the
soil
was
not
rank
,
but
only
unfilled
,
not
barren
,
but
only
unsown
;
nature
had
made
it
generous
,
though
fate
had
left
it
untilled
;
it
grasped
the
seed
of
the
first
great
idea
cast
to
it
and
held
it
firm
,
until
it
multiplied
tenfold
.
The
imagined
danger
to
them
which
the
peasants
had
believed
to
exist
in
her
had
been
as
a
strong
buckler
between
the
true
danger
to
her
from
the
defilement
of
their
companionship
and
example
;
they
had
cursed
her
as
they
had
passed
,
and
their
curses
had
been
her
blessing
.
Blind
instincts
had
always
moved
in
her
to
the
great
and
the
good
things
of
which
no
man
had
taught
her
in
any
wise
.
Left
to
herself
,
and
uncontaminated
by
humanity
,
because
proscribed
by
it
,
she
had
known
no
teachers
of
any
sort
save
the
winds
and
the
waters
,
the
sun
and
the
moon
,
the
daybreak
and
the
night
,
and
these
had
breathed
into
her
an
unconscious
heroism
,
a
changeless
patience
,
a
fearless
freedom
,
a
strange
tenderness
and
callousness
united
.
Ignorant
though
she
was
,
and
abandoned
to
the
darkness
of
all
the
superstitious
and
the
sullen
stupor
amidst
which
her
lot
was
cast
,
there
was
yet
that
in
her
which
led
her
to
veneration
of
the
purpose
of
his
life
.
He
desired
not
happiness
,
nor
tenderness
,
nor
bodily
ease
,
nor
sensual
delight
,
but
only
this
one
thing
—
a
name
that
should
not
perish
from
amongst
the
memories
of
men
.
And
this
desire
seemed
to
her
sublime
,
divine
;
not
comprehending
it
,
she
yet
revered
it
.
She
,
who
had
seen
he
souls
of
the
men
around
her
set
on
a
handful
of
copper
coin
,
a
fleece
of
wool
,
a
load
of
fruit
,
a
petty
pilfering
,
a
low
gain
in
commerce
,
saw
the
greatness
of
a
hero’s
sacrifice
in
this
supreme
self‐negation
which
was
willing
to
live
unloved
,
and
die
forsaken
by
his
kind
,
so
that
only
the
works
of
his
hand
might
endure
,
and
his
thoughts
be
uttered
in
them
when
his
body
should
be
destroyed
.
It
is
true
that
the
great
artist
is
as
a
fallen
god
who
remembers
a
time
when
worlds
arose
at
his
breath
,
and
at
his
bidding
the
barren
lands
blossomed
into
fruitfulness
;
the
sorcery
of
the
thyrsus
is
still
his
,
though
weakened
.
The
powers
of
lost
dominion
haunt
his
memory
;
the
remembered
glory
of
an
eternal
sun
is
in
his
eyes
,
and
makes
the
light
of
common
day
seem
darkness
;
the
heart‐sickness
of
a
long
exile
weighs
on
him
;
incessantly
he
labours
to
overtake
the
mirage
of
a
loveliness
which
fades
as
he
pursues
it
.
In
the
poetic
creation
by
which
the
bondage
of
his
material
life
is
redeemed
,
he
finds
at
once
ecstasy
and
disgust
,
because
he
feels
at
once
his
strength
and
weakness
.
For
him
all
things
of
earth
and
air
,
and
sea
and
cloud
,
have
beauty
;
and
to
his
ear
all
voices
of
the
forest
land
and
water
world
are
audible
.
He
is
as
a
god
,
since
he
can
call
into
palpable
shape
dreams
born
of
impalpable
thought
;
as
a
god
,
since
he
has
known
the
truth
divested
of
lies
,
and
has
stood
face
to
face
with
it
,
and
been
not
afraid
;
a
god
thus
.
But
a
cripple
,
inasmuch
as
his
hand
can
never
fashion
the
shapes
that
his
vision
beholds
;
an
alien
,
because
he
has
lost
what
he
never
will
find
upon
earth
;
a
beast
,
since
ever
and
again
his
passions
will
drag
him
to
wallow
in
the
filth
of
sensual
indulgence
;
a
slave
,
since
oftentimes
the
divinity
that
is
in
him
breaks
and
bends
under
the
devilry
that
also
is
in
him
,
and
he
obeys
the
instincts
of
vileness
,
and
when
he
would
fain
bless
the
nations
he
curses
them
.
Some
vague
perception
of
this
dawned
on
her
;
the
sense
was
in
her
to
feel
the
beauty
of
art
,
and
to
be
awed
by
it
though
she
could
not
have
told
what
it
was
,
nor
why
she
cared
for
it
.
And
to
the
man
who
ministered
to
it
,
who
ruled
it
,
and
yet
obeyed
it
,
seemed
to
her
ennobled
with
a
greatness
that
was
the
grandest
thing
her
blank
and
bitter
fate
had
known
.
This
was
all
wonderful
,
dreamful
,
awful
to
her
,
and
in
a
half
savage
,
half
poetic
way
,
she
comprehended
the
one
object
of
his
life
,
and
honoured
it
without
doubt
or
question
.
No
day
from
that
time
passed
without
her
spending
the
evening
hours
under
the
roof
of
the
haunted
corn‐tower
.
She
toiled
all
the
other
hours
through
,
from
the
earliest
time
that
the
first
flush
of
day
lightened
the
starlit
skies
;
did
not
he
toil
too
?
But
when
the
sun
set
she
claimed
her
freedom
;
and
her
rulers
did
not
dare
to
say
her
nay
.
A
new
and
wondrous
and
exquisite
life
slowly
opened
to
her
;
the
life
of
the
imagination
.
All
these
many
years
since
the
last
song
of
Phratos
had
died
off
her
ear
,
had
been
spent
by
her
with
no
more
culture
and
with
no
more
pleasure
than
the
mule
had
that
she
led
with
his
load
along
the
miry
ways
in
the
sharp
winter‐time
.
Yet
even
through
that
utter
neglect
,
and
that
torpor
of
thought
and
feeling
,
some
wild
natural
fancy
had
been
astir
in
her
,
some
vague
sense
wakened
that
brought
to
her
in
the
rustle
of
leaves
,
in
the
sound
of
waters
,
in
the
curling
breath
of
mists
,
in
the
white
birth
of
lilies
,
in
all
the
notes
and
hues
of
the
open‐air
world
,
a
mystery
and
a
loveliness
that
they
did
not
bear
for
any
of
those
around
her
.
Now
,
in
the
words
that
Arslàn
cast
to
her
—
often
as
idly
and
indifferently
as
a
man
casts
bread
to
frozen
birds
on
snow
,
birds
that
he
pities
and
yet
cares
nothing
for
—
the
old
religions
,
the
old
beliefs
,
became
to
her
living
truths
and
divine
companions
.
The
perplexities
of
the
world
grew
little
clearer
to
her
,
indeed
;
and
the
miseries
of
the
animal
creation
no
less
hideous
a
mystery
.
The
confusion
of
all
things
was
in
no
wise
clearer
to
her
;
even
,
it
seemed
,
it
deepened
and
grew
more
entangled
.
He
could
imbue
her
with
neither
credulity
nor
contentment
;
for
he
possessed
neither
,
and
despised
both
,
as
the
fool’s
paradise
of
those
who
,
having
climbed
a
sand‐hill
,
fancy
that
they
have
ascended
Zion
.
The
weariness
,
the
unrest
,
the
desire
,
the
contempt
of
such
a
life
as
his
can
furnish
anodyne
neither
to
itself
nor
any
other
.
But
such
consolations
and
possessions
—
and
these
are
limitless
—
as
the
imagination
can
create
,
he
placed
within
her
reach
.
Before
,
she
had
dreamed
—
dreamed
all
through
the
heaviness
of
toil
and
the
gall
of
tyranny
;
but
she
had
dreamed
as
a
goatherd
may
upon
a
mist‐swept
hill
by
the
western
seas
,
while
all
the
earth
is
dark
,
and
only
its
dim
fugitive
waking
sounds
steal
dully
on
the
drowsy
ear
.
But
now
,
through
the
myths
and
parables
which
grew
familiar
to
her
,
she
dreamed
almost
as
poets
dream
,
bathed
in
the
full
flood
of
a
setting
sun
on
the
wild
edge
of
the
Campagna
;
a
light
in
which
all
common
things
of
daily
life
grow
glorious
,
and
through
whose
rosy
hues
the
only
sound
that
comes
is
some
rich
dulcet
bell
which
slowly
swings
in
all
the
majesty
and
melody
of
prayer
.
The
land
was
no
more
mute
to
her
,
no
more
only
a
hard
and
cruel
place
of
labour
and
of
butchery
,
in
which
all
creatures
suffered
and
were
cursed
.
All
things
rose
to
have
their
story
and
their
symbol
for
her
;
Nature
,
remaining
to
her
that
one
sure
solace
and
immeasurable
mystery
which
she
had
feebly
felt
it
even
in
her
childhood
,
was
brought
closer
to
her
,
and
seemed
fuller
of
compassion
.
All
the
forms
and
vices
of
the
fair
dead
years
of
the
world
seemed
to
grow
visible
and
audible
to
her
,
with
those
marvelous
tales
of
the
old
heroic
age
which
little
by
little
he
unfolded
to
her
.
In
the
people
around
her
,
and
in
their
faiths
,
she
had
no
belief
;
she
wanted
a
faith
,
and
found
one
in
all
these
strange
sweet
stories
of
a
perished
time
.
She
had
never
thought
that
there
had
been
any
other
generation
before
that
which
was
present
on
earth
with
herself
;
any
other
existence
than
this
narrow
and
sordid
one
which
encircled
her
home
.
That
men
had
lived
who
had
fashioned
those
aërial
wonders
of
the
cathedral
spires
,
and
stained
those
vivid
hues
in
its
ancient
casements
,
had
been
a
fact
too
remote
to
be
known
to
her
,
though
for
twelve
years
her
eyes
had
gazed
at
them
in
reverence
of
their
loveliness
.
Through
Arslàn
the
exhaustless
annals
of
the
world’s
history
opened
before
her
,
the
present
ceased
to
matter
to
her
in
its
penury
and
pain
;
for
the
treasury‐houses
of
the
golden
past
were
opened
to
her
sight
.
Most
of
all
she
loved
the
myths
of
the
Homeric
and
Hesiodic
ages
;
and
every
humble
and
homely
thing
became
ennobled
to
her
and
enriched
,
beholding
it
through
the
halo
of
poetry
and
of
tradition
.
When
,
aloft
in
the
red
and
white
apple‐blossoms
sparrows
pecked
and
screamed
,
and
spent
the
pleasant
summer
hours
above
in
the
flower‐scented
air
in
shrill
dispute
and
sharp
contention
,
she
thought
that
she
heard
in
their
noisy
notes
the
arrogant
voice
of
Alcyone
.
When
the
wild
hyacinths
made
the
ground
purple
beneath
the
poplars
and
the
pines
,
she
saw
in
them
the
transformed
loveliness
of
one
who
had
died
in
the
fulness
of
youth
,
at
play
,
in
a
summer’s
noon
,
and
died
content
,
because
stricken
by
the
hand
of
the
greatest
and
goodliest
of
all
the
gods
,
the
god
that
loved
him
best
.
As
the
cattle
,
with
their
sleek
red
hides
and
curling
horns
,
came
through
the
fogs
of
the
daybreak
,
across
the
level
meadows
,
and
through
the
deep
dock‐leaves
they
seemed
to
her
no
more
the
mere
beasts
of
stall
and
share
,
but
even
as
the
milk‐white
herds
that
grazed
of
yore
in
the
blest
pastures
.
All
night
,
int
he
heart
of
the
orchards
,
when
the
song
of
the
nightingales
rose
on
the
stillness
,
it
was
no
longer
for
her
a
little
brown
bird
that
sang
to
the
budding
fruit
and
her
closed
daisies
,
but
was
the
voice
of
Ædon
bewailing
her
son
through
the
ages
,
or
the
woe
of
Philomela
crying
through
the
wilderness
.
When
through
the
white
hard
brilliancy
of
noonday
the
swift
swallow
darted
down
the
beams
of
light
,
she
saw
no
longer
in
it
an
insect‐hunter
,
a
house‐nesting
creature
,
but
saw
the
shape
of
Procne
,
slaughter‐haunted
,
seeking
rest
and
finding
none
.
And
when
she
went
about
her
labours
,
hewing
wood
,
drawing
water
,
bearing
the
corn
to
the
grindstones
,
leading
the
mules
to
the
mill‐stream
,
she
ceased
to
despair
.
For
she
had
heard
the
old
glad
story
of
the
children
of
Zeus
who
dwelt
so
long
within
a
herdsman’s
hut
,
nameless
and
dishonoured
,
yet
lived
to
go
back
crowned
to
Thebes
and
see
the
beasts
of
the
desert
and
the
stones
of
the
streets
rise
up
and
obey
the
magic
of
their
song
.
Arslàn
in
his
day
had
given
many
evil
gifts
,
but
this
one
gift
that
he
gave
was
pure
and
full
of
solace
;
this
gift
of
the
beauty
of
the
past
.
Imperfect
,
obscure
,
broken
in
fragments
,
obscured
by
her
own
ignorance
,
it
was
indeed
when
it
reached
her
;
yet
it
came
with
a
glory
that
time
could
not
dim
,
and
a
consolation
that
ignorance
could
not
impair
.
CHAPTER
VI
.
“
WHAT
has
come
to
that
evil
one
?
She
walks
the
land
as
though
she
were
a
queen
,
”
the
people
of
Yprès
said
to
one
another
,
watching
the
creature
they
abhorred
as
she
went
through
the
town
to
the
river‐stair
or
to
the
market‐stall
.
She
seemed
to
them
transfigured
.
A
perpetual
radiance
shone
in
the
dark
depths
of
her
eyes
;
a
proud
elasticity
replaced
the
old
sullen
defiance
of
her
carriage
;
her
face
had
a
sweet
musing
mystery
and
dreaminess
on
it
;
and
when
she
smiled
,
her
smile
was
soft
,
and
sudden
,
like
the
smile
of
one
who
bears
fair
tidings
in
her
heart
unspoken
.
Even
those
people
,
dull
and
plodding
and
taciturn
,
absorbed
in
their
small
trades
or
in
their
continual
field
labour
,
were
struck
by
the
change
in
her
,
and
looked
after
her
,
and
listened
in
a
stupid
wonder
to
the
sonorous
songs
in
an
unknown
tongue
that
rose
so
often
to
her
lips
as
she
strode
amongst
the
summer
grasses
or
led
the
laden
mules
through
the
fords
.
They
saw
,
even
with
their
eyes
purblind
from
hate
,
that
she
had
thrown
off
their
yoke
,
and
had
escaped
from
their
narrow
world
,
and
was
happy
with
some
rich
,
mute
,
nameless
happiness
that
they
could
neither
evade
nor
understand
.
The
fall
of
evening
always
brought
her
to
him
;
he
let
her
come
,
finding
a
certain
charm
in
that
savage
temper
which
grew
so
tame
to
him
;
in
that
fierce
courage
which
to
him
was
so
humble
;
in
that
absolute
ignorance
which
was
yet
so
curiously
blended
with
so
strong
a
power
of
fancy
and
so
quick
an
instinct
of
beauty
.
But
he
let
her
go
again
with
indifference
,
and
never
tried
by
any
word
to
keep
her
an
hour
later
than
she
chose
to
stay
.
She
was
to
him
like
some
handsome
,
dangerous
beast
that
flew
at
all
others
and
crouched
to
himself
.
He
had
a
certain
pleasure
in
her
colour
and
her
grace
;
in
making
her
great
eyes
glow
,
and
seeing
the
light
of
a
wakening
intelligence
break
over
all
her
beautiful
,
clouded
,
fierce
face
.
As
she
learned
to
hear
more
often
the
sound
of
her
own
voice
,
and
to
use
a
more
varied
and
copious
language
,
a
rude
eloquence
came
naturally
to
her
;
and
,
when
her
silence
was
broken
,
it
was
usually
for
some
terse
,
vivid
,
picturesque
utterance
which
had
an
artistic
interest
for
him
.
In
this
simple
and
monotonous
province
,
with
its
tedious
sameness
of
life
and
its
green
arable
country
that
tired
a
sight
fed
in
youth
on
the
grandeur
of
cloud‐reaching
mountains
and
the
tumults
of
ice‐tossing
seas
,
this
creature
so
utterly
unlike
her
kind
,
so
golden
with
the
glow
of
tawny
desert
suns
,
and
so
strong
with
the
liberty
and
the
ferocity
and
the
dormant
passion
and
the
silent
force
of
some
free
forest
animal
,
was
in
a
way
welcome
.
All
things
were
so
new
and
strange
to
her
;
all
the
common
knowledge
was
so
utterly
unknown
to
her
;
all
other
kinds
of
life
were
so
unintelligible
to
her
;
and
yet
with
all
her
ignorance
,
she
had
so
swift
a
fancy
,
so
keen
an
irony
,
so
poetic
an
instinct
,
that
it
seemed
to
him
when
he
spoke
with
her
that
he
talked
to
some
creature
from
another
planet
than
his
own
.
He
like
to
make
her
smile
;
he
liked
to
make
her
suffer
;
he
liked
to
inflame
,
to
wound
,
to
charm
,
to
tame
her
;
he
liked
all
these
without
passion
,
rather
with
curiosity
than
with
interest
,
much
as
he
had
liked
in
the
season
of
his
boyhood
to
ruffle
the
plumage
of
a
captured
sea‐bird
;
to
see
its
eye
sparkle
,
and
then
grow
dull
and
flash
again
with
pain
,
and
then
at
the
last
turn
soft
with
weary
,
wistful
tenderness
,
having
been
taught
at
once
the
misery
of
bondage
and
the
tyranny
of
human
love
.
She
was
a
bronzed
,
bare‐footed
,
fleet‐limbed
young
outcast
,
so
he
told
himself
,
with
the
scowl
of
an
habitual
defiance
on
her
straight
brows
,
and
the
curl
of
an
untamable
scorn
upon
her
rich
red
lips
,
and
a
curious
sovereignty
and
savageness
in
her
dauntless
carriage
;
and
yet
there
was
a
certain
nobility
and
melancholy
in
her
that
made
her
seem
like
one
of
a
great
and
fallen
race
;
and
in
her
eyes
there
was
a
look
repellant
yet
appealing
,
and
lustrous
with
sleeping
passion
,
that
tempted
him
to
wake
what
slumbered
there
.
But
in
these
early
spring‐tide
days
he
suffered
her
to
come
and
go
as
she
listed
,
without
either
persuasion
or
forbiddance
on
his
own
part
.
The
impassioned
reverence
which
she
had
for
the
things
he
had
created
was
only
the
untutored
,
unreasoning
reverence
of
the
savage
or
of
the
peasant
;
but
it
had
a
sweetness
for
him
.
He
had
been
alone
so
long
;
and
so
long
had
passed
since
any
cheek
had
flushed
and
any
breast
had
heaved
under
the
influence
of
any
one
of
those
strange
fancies
and
noble
stories
which
he
had
pictured
on
the
walls
of
his
lonely
chamber
.
He
had
despaired
of
and
had
despised
himself
;
despised
his
continual
failure
,
despaired
of
all
power
to
sway
the
souls
and
gain
the
eyes
of
his
fellow‐men
.
It
was
a
little
thing
—
a
thing
so
little
that
he
called
himself
a
fool
for
taking
any
count
of
it
;
yet
the
hot
tears
that
dimmed
the
sight
of
this
young
barbarian
who
was
herself
of
no
more
value
than
the
mill‐dust
that
drifted
on
the
breeze
,
the
soft
vague
breathless
awe
that
stole
upon
her
as
she
gazed
at
the
colourless
shadows
in
which
his
genius
spent
itself
,
these
were
sweet
to
him
with
a
sweetness
that
made
him
ashamed
of
his
own
weakness
.
She
had
given
the
breath
of
life
back
to
his
body
by
an
act
of
which
he
was
ignorant
;
and
now
she
gave
back
the
breath
of
hope
to
his
mind
by
a
worship
which
he
contemned
even
whilst
he
was
glad
of
it
.
Meanwhile
the
foul
tongues
of
her
enemies
rang
with
loud
glee
over
this
new
shame
which
they
could
cast
at
her
.
“
She
has
found
a
lover
,
—
oh
ho
!
—
that
brown
wicked
thing
.
A
lover
meet
for
her
;
—
a
man
who
walks
abroad
in
the
moonless
nights
,
and
plucks
the
mandrake
,
and
worships
the
devil
,
and
paints
people
in
their
own
likeness
,
so
that
as
the
colour
dries
the
life
wastes
!
”
So
the
women
screamed
after
her
often
as
she
went
;
she
nothing
understanding
or
heeding
,
but
lost
in
the
dreams
of
her
own
waking
imagination
.
At
times
such
words
as
these
reached
Claudis
Flamma
,
but
he
turned
a
deaf
ear
to
them
:
he
had
the
wisdom
of
the
world
in
him
,
though
he
was
only
an
old
miller
who
had
never
stirred
ten
leagues
from
his
home
;
and
whilst
the
devil
served
him
well
,
he
quarrelled
not
with
the
devil
.
In
a
grim
way
,
it
was
a
pleasure
to
him
to
think
that
the
thing
he
hated
might
be
accursed
body
and
soul
:
he
had
never
cared
either
for
her
body
or
her
soul
;
so
that
the
first
worked
for
him
,
the
last
might
destroy
itself
in
its
own
darkness
:
—
he
had
never
stretched
a
finger
to
hold
it
back
.
The
pride
and
the
honesty
and
the
rude
candour
and
instinctive
purity
of
this
young
life
of
hers
had
been
a
perpetual
hindrance
and
canker
to
him
:
begotten
of
evil
,
by
all
the
laws
of
justice
,
in
evil
she
should
live
and
die
.
So
Flamma
reasoned
;
and
to
the
sayings
of
his
country‐side
he
gave
a
stony
ear
and
a
stony
glance
.
She
never
once
,
after
the
first
day
,
breathed
a
word
to
Arslàn
about
the
treatment
that
she
received
at
Yprès
.
It
was
not
in
her
nature
to
complain
;
and
she
abhorred
even
his
pity
.
Whatever
she
endured
,
she
kept
silence
on
it
;
when
he
asked
her
how
her
grandsire
dealt
with
her
,
she
always
answered
him
—
“
it
is
well
enough
with
me
now
.
”
He
cared
not
enough
to
doubt
her
.
And
in
a
manner
she
had
learned
how
to
keep
her
tyrant
at
bay
.
He
did
not
dare
to
lay
hands
on
her
now
that
her
eyes
had
got
that
new
fire
,
and
her
voice
that
serene
contempt
.
His
wolf‐cub
had
shown
her
teeth
,
at
last
,
at
his
lash
;
and
he
did
not
venture
to
sting
her
to
revolt
with
too
long
use
of
scourge
and
chain
.
So
she
obtained
more
leisure
;
and
what
she
did
not
spend
in
Arslàn’s
tower
she
spent
in
acquiring
another
art
—
she
learned
to
read
.
There
was
an
old
herb‐seller
in
the
market‐place
who
was
not
so
harsh
to
her
as
the
others
were
,
but
who
had
now
and
then
for
her
a
rough
kindly
word
out
of
gentleness
to
the
memory
of
Reine
Flamma
.
This
woman
was
better
educated
than
most
,
and
could
even
write
a
little
.
To
her
Folle‐Farine
went
.
“
See
here
,
”
she
said
:
“
you
are
feeble
and
I
am
strong
.
I
know
every
nook
and
corner
in
the
woods
.
I
know
a
hundred
rare
herbs
that
you
never
find
.
I
will
bring
you
a
basketful
of
them
twice
in
each
week
,
if
you
will
show
me
how
to
read
those
signs
that
the
people
call
letters
.
”
The
old
woman
hesitated
.
“
It
were
as
much
as
my
life
is
worth
to
have
you
seen
with
me
.
The
lads
will
stone
my
window
.
Still
—
.
”
The
wish
for
the
rare
herbs
and
,
and
the
remembrance
of
the
fatigue
that
would
be
spared
to
her
rheumatic
body
by
compliance
,
prevailed
over
her
fears
.
She
consented
.
Three
times
a
week
Folle‐Farine
rose
while
it
was
still
dark
,
and
scoured
the
wooded
lands
and
the
moss‐green
orchards
and
the
little
brooks
in
the
meadows
in
search
of
every
herb
that
grew
.
She
knew
those
green
places
which
had
been
her
only
kingdom
and
her
only
solace
as
no
one
else
knew
them
;
and
the
old
dame’s
herb‐stall
was
the
envy
and
despair
of
the
market‐place
.
Now
and
then
a
labourer
earlier
than
the
rest
,
or
as
a
vagrant
sleeping
under
a
hedge‐row
,
saw
her
going
through
the
darkness
with
her
green
bundle
on
her
head
,
or
stooping
amongst
the
water‐courses
ankle
deep
in
rushes
,
and
he
crossed
himself
and
went
and
told
how
he
had
seen
the
Evil
Spirit
of
Yprès
gathering
the
poison‐weeds
that
made
ships
founder
,
and
strong
men
droop
and
die
,
and
women
love
unnatural
and
horrible
things
,
and
all
manner
of
woe
and
sickness
overtake
those
whom
she
hated
.
Often
,
too
,
at
this
lonely
time
,
before
the
day
broke
,
she
met
Arslàn
.
It
was
his
habit
to
be
abroad
when
others
slept
:
studies
of
the
night
and
its
peculiar
loveliness
entered
largely
into
many
of
his
paintings
;
the
beauty
of
water
rippling
in
the
moonbeam
,
of
grey
weeds
blowing
against
the
first
faint
red
of
dawn
,
of
dark
fields
with
sleeping
cattle
and
folded
sheep
,
of
pools
made
visible
by
the
shine
of
their
folded
white
lilies
,
these
were
all
things
he
cared
to
study
.
The
earth
has
always
most
charm
,
and
least
pain
,
to
the
poet
or
the
artist
when
men
