inthe
darkness
,
where
no
light
fell
amongst
the
thick
shroud
of
one
of
the
blossoming
boughs
of
pear
trees
,
and
now
and
then
she
looked
and
watched
their
laughter
and
companionship
,
and
their
gay
and
airy
buffoonery
,
together
there
within
the
winehouse
doors
.
“
All
fools
enjoy
!
”
she
thought
;
with
that
bitter
wonder
,
that
aching
disdain
,
that
involuntary
injustice
,
with
which
the
strong
sad
patience
of
a
great
nature
surveys
the
mindless
merriment
of
lighter
hearts
and
brains
more
easily
lulled
into
forgetfulness
and
content
.
They
came
to
her
and
pressed
on
her
a
draught
of
wine
,
a
share
of
the
food
,
a
handful
of
the
honeyed
cates
of
their
simple
banquet
;
even
a
portion
of
their
silver
and
copper
pieces
with
which
the
little
leathern
sack
of
their
receipts
was
full
,
—
for
once
,
—
to
the
mouth
.
She
refused
all
:
the
money
she
threw
passionately
away
.
“
Am
I
a
beggar
?
”
she
said
,
in
her
wrath
.
She
remained
without
in
the
gloom
amongst
the
cool
blossoming
branches
that
swayed
above‐head
in
the
still
night
,
while
the
carousal
broke
up
and
the
peasants
went
on
their
way
to
their
homes
,
singing
along
the
dark
streets
,
and
the
lights
were
put
out
in
the
wine‐house
,
and
the
trill
of
the
grasshopper
chirped
in
the
fields
around
.
“
You
will
die
of
damp
,
roofless
in
the
open
air
this
moonless
night
,
”
men
,
as
they
passed
away
,
said
to
her
in
wonder
.
“
The
leaves
are
roof
enough
for
me
,
”
she
answered
them
:
and
stayed
there
with
her
head
resting
on
the
roll
of
her
sheepskin
;
wide‐awake
through
the
calm
dark
hours
;
for
a
bed
within
she
knew
that
she
could
not
pay
,
and
she
would
not
let
any
charity
purchase
one
for
her
.
At
daybreak
when
the
others
rose
she
would
only
take
from
them
the
crust
that
was
absolutely
needful
to
keep
life
in
her
.
Food
seemed
to
choke
her
as
it
passed
her
lips
,
—
since
how
could
she
tell
but
what
his
lips
were
parched
dry
with
hunger
or
were
blue
and
cold
in
death
?
That
morning
,
as
they
started
,
one
of
the
two
youths
who
bore
their
travelling
gear
and
the
rude
appliances
of
their
little
stage
upon
his
shoulders
from
village
to
village
when
they
journeyed
thus
—
being
oftentimes
too
poor
to
permit
themselves
any
other
mode
of
transit
and
of
porterage
—
fell
lame
and
grew
faint
and
was
forced
to
lay
down
his
burden
by
the
roadside
.
She
raised
the
weight
upon
her
back
and
head
as
she
had
been
wont
to
do
the
weights
of
timber
and
of
corn
for
the
mill‐house
and
bore
it
onward
.
In
vain
they
remonstrated
with
her
;
she
would
not
yield
,
but
carried
the
wooden
framework
and
the
folded
canvasses
all
through
the
heat
and
weariness
of
the
noonday
.
“
You
would
have
me
eat
of
your
supper
last
night
.
I
will
have
you
accept
of
my
payment
to‐day
,
”
she
said
,
stubbornly
.
For
this
seemed
to
her
a
labour
innocent
and
just
,
and
even
full
of
honour
whatever
men
might
say
:
had
not
Helios
himself
been
bound
as
a
slave
in
Thessaly
?
They
journeyed
far
that
day
,
along
straight
sunlit
highways
,
and
under
the
shadows
of
green
trees
.
The
fields
were
green
with
the
young
corn
and
the
young
vines
;
the
delicate
plumes
of
the
first
blossoming
lilacs
nodded
in
their
footsteps
;
the
skies
were
blue
;
the
earth
was
fragrant
.
At
noonday
the
players
halted
and
threw
themselves
down
beneath
a
poplar
tree
,
in
a
wild
rose
thicket
,
to
eat
their
noonday
meal
of
bread
and
a
green
cress
salad
.
The
shelter
they
had
chosen
was
full
of
fragrance
from
rain
drops
still
wet
upon
the
grasses
,
and
the
budding
rose
vines
.
The
hedge
was
full
of
honeysuckle
and
tufts
of
cowslips
;
the
sun
was
warmer
;
the
mild‐eyed
cattle
came
and
looked
at
them
;
little
redstarts
picked
up
their
crumbs
;
from
a
white
vine‐hung
cottage
an
old
woman
brought
them
salt
and
wished
them
a
fair
travel
.
But
her
heart
was
sick
and
her
feet
weary
,
and
she
asked
always
,
—
“
Where
is
Paris
?
”
At
last
they
showed
it
her
,
that
gleaming
golden
cloud
upon
the
purple
haze
of
the
horizon
.
She
crossed
her
hands
upon
her
beating
breast
,
and
thanked
the
gods
that
they
had
thus
given
her
to
behold
the
city
of
her
dreams
.
The
chief
of
the
mimes
watched
her
keenly
.
“
You
look
at
Paris
,
”
he
said
after
a
time
.
“
There
you
may
be
great
if
you
will
.
”
“
Great
?
I
?
”
She
echoed
the
word
with
weary
incredulity
.
She
knew
he
could
but
mock
at
her
.
“
Aye
,
”
he
made
answer
seriously
.
“
Even
you
!
Why
not
?
There
is
no
dynasty
that
endures
in
that
golden
city
save
only
one
—
the
sovereignty
of
a
woman’s
beauty
.
”
She
started
and
shuddered
a
little
;
she
thought
that
she
saw
the
Red
Mouse
stir
amidst
the
grasses
.
“
I
want
no
greatness
,
”
she
said
slowly
.
“
What
should
I
do
with
it
?
”
For
in
her
heart
she
thought
:
“
What
would
it
serve
me
to
be
known
to
all
the
world
and
remembered
by
all
the
ages
of
men
if
he
forget
—
forget
quite
?
”
CHAPTER
VI
.
THAT
night
they
halted
in
a
little
bright
village
of
the
leafy
and
fruitful
zone
of
the
city
—
one
of
the
fragrant
and
joyous
pleasure‐places
amongst
the
woods
where
the
students
and
the
young
girls
came
for
draughts
of
milk
and
plunder
of
primroses
,
and
dances
by
the
light
of
the
spring
moon
,
and
love‐words
murmured
as
they
fastened
violets
in
each
other’s
breasts
.
The
next
day
she
entered
Paris
with
them
as
one
of
their
own
people
.
“
You
may
be
great
here
,
if
you
choose
,
”
they
said
to
her
,
and
laughed
.
She
scarcely
heard
.
She
only
knew
that
here
it
was
that
Arslàn
had
declared
that
fame
—
or
death
—
should
come
to
him
.
The
golden
cloud
dissolved
as
she
drew
near
to
it
.
A
great
city
might
be
beautiful
to
others
;
to
her
it
was
only
as
its
gilded
cage
is
to
a
mountain
bird
.
The
wilderness
of
roofs
,
the
labyrinth
of
streets
,
the
endless
walls
of
stone
,
the
ceaseless
noises
of
the
living
multitude
,
these
were
horrible
to
the
free‐born
blood
of
her
;
she
felt
blinded
,
caged
,
pent
,
deafened
.
Its
magnificence
failed
to
daunt
,
its
colour
to
charm
,
its
pageantry
to
beguile
her
.
Through
the
glad
and
gorgeous
ways
she
went
,
wearily
and
sick
of
heart
,
for
the
rush
of
free
winds
and
the
width
of
free
skies
,
as
a
desert‐born
captive
,
with
limbs
of
bronze
and
the
eyes
of
the
lion
,
went
fettered
past
the
palaces
of
Rome
in
the
triumphal
train
of
Africanus
or
Pompeius
.
The
little
band
with
which
she
travelled
wondered
what
her
eyes
so
incessantly
looked
for
,
in
that
perpetual
intentness
with
which
they
searched
every
knot
of
faces
that
was
gathered
together
as
a
swarm
of
bees
clusters
in
the
sunshine
.
They
could
not
tell
;
they
only
saw
that
her
eyes
never
lost
that
look
.
“
Is
it
the
Past
or
the
Future
that
you
search
for
always
?
”
the
shrewdest
of
them
asked
her
.
She
shuddered
a
little
,
and
made
him
no
answer
.
How
could
she
tell
which
it
was
?
—
whether
it
would
be
a
public
fame
or
a
nameless
grave
that
she
would
light
on
at
the
last
?
She
was
a
mystery
to
them
.
She
minded
poverty
so
little
.
She
was
as
content
on
a
draught
of
water
and
a
bunch
of
cress
as
others
are
on
rarest
meats
and
wines
.
She
bore
bodily
fatigue
with
an
Arab’s
endurance
and
indifference
.
She
seemed
to
care
little
whether
suns
beat
on
her
,
or
storms
drenched
her
to
the
bone
;
whether
she
slept
under
a
roof
,
or
the
boughs
of
a
tree
;
whether
the
people
hissed
her
for
a
foreign
thing
of
foul
omen
,
of
clamoured
aloud
in
the
streets
praise
of
her
perfect
face
.
She
cared
nothing
.
She
was
silent
always
,
and
she
never
smiled
.
“
I
must
keep
my
liberty
!
”
she
had
said
;
and
she
kept
it
.
By
night
she
toiled
ceaselessly
for
her
new
masters
;
docile
,
patient
,
enduring
,
laborious
,
bearing
the
yoke
of
this
labour
as
she
had
borne
that
of
her
former
slavery
,
rather
than
owe
a
crust
to
alms
,
a
coin
to
the
gaze
of
a
crowd
.
But
by
the
day
she
searched
the
city
ceaselessly
and
alone
,
wandering
,
wandering
,
always
on
a
quest
that
was
never
ended
.
For
amidst
the
millions
of
faces
that
met
her
gaze
,
Arslàn’s
was
not
;
and
she
was
too
solitary
,
too
ignorant
,
and
locked
her
secret
too
tenaciously
in
her
heart
,
to
be
able
to
learn
tidings
of
his
name
.
So
the
months
of
the
spring
and
the
summer
time
went
by
;
it
was
very
strange
and
wondrous
to
her
.
The
human
world
seemed
suddenly
all
about
her
;
the
quiet
earth
,
on
which
the
cattle
grazed
,
and
the
women
threshed
and
ploughed
,
and
the
sheep
browsed
the
thyme
,
and
the
mists
swept
from
stream
to
sea
,
this
was
all
gone
;
and
in
its
stead
there
was
a
world
of
tumult
,
colour
,
noise
,
change
,
riot
,
roofs
piled
on
roofs
,
clouds
of
dust
yellow
in
the
sun
,
walls
peopled
with
countless
heads
of
flowers
and
of
women
;
throngs
,
various
of
hue
as
garden‐beds
of
blown
anemones
;
endless
harmonies
and
discords
always
rung
together
from
silver
bells
,
and
brazen
trumpets
,
and
the
clash
of
arms
,
and
the
spray
of
waters
,
and
the
screams
of
anguish
,
and
the
laughs
of
mirth
,
and
the
shrill
pipes
of
an
endless
revelry
,
and
the
hollow
sighs
of
a
woe
that
had
no
rest
.
For
the
world
of
a
great
city
,
of
“
the
world
as
it
is
man’s
,
”
was
all
about
her
;
and
she
loathed
it
,
and
sickened
in
it
,
and
hid
her
face
from
it
whenever
she
could
,
and
dreamed
,
as
poets
dream
in
fever
of
pathless
seas
and
tawny
fields
of
weeds
,
and
dim
woods
filled
with
the
song
of
birds
,
and
cool
skies
brooding
over
a
purple
moor
,
and
all
the
silence
and
the
loveliness
and
the
freedom
of
“
the
world
as
it
is
God’s
.
”
“
You
are
not
happy
?
”
one
man
said
to
her
.
“
Happy
!
”
She
said
no
more
;
but
he
thought
,
just
so
had
he
seen
a
rose‐crested
golden‐eyed
bird
of
the
great
savannahs
look
,
shut
in
a
cage
in
a
showman’s
caravan
,
and
dying
slowly
,
with
dulled
plumage
and
drooped
head
,
while
the
street
mob
of
a
town
thrust
their
fingers
through
the
bars
and
mocked
it
,
and
called
to
it
to
chatter
and
be
gay
.
“
Show
your
beauty
once
—
just
once
amidst
us
on
the
stage
,
and
on
the
morrow
you
can
choose
your
riches
and
your
jewels
from
the
four
winds
of
heaven
as
you
will
,
”
the
players
urged
on
her
a
hundred
times
.
But
she
refused
always
.
Her
beauty
—
it
was
given
to
the
gods
,
to
take
or
to
leave
,
in
life
or
death
,
for
him
.
The
months
went
on
;
she
searched
for
him
always
.
A
horrible
unending
vigil
that
never
seemed
nearer
its
end
.
Vainly
,
day
by
day
,
she
searched
the
crowds
and
the
solitudes
,
the
gates
of
the
palaces
and
the
vaults
of
the
cellars
.
She
thought
she
saw
him
a
thousand
times
;
but
she
could
never
tell
whether
it
were
truth
or
fancy
.
She
never
met
him
face
to
face
;
she
never
heard
his
name
.
There
is
no
desert
wider
,
no
maze
more
unending
,
than
a
great
city
.
She
ran
hideous
peril
with
every
moment
that
she
lived
;
but
by
the
strength
and
the
love
that
dwelt
together
in
her
she
escaped
them
.
Her
sad
,
wide
,
open
,
pathetic
eyes
ever
searched
only
for
his
face
and
saw
no
other
;
her
ear
,
ever
strained
to
listen
for
one
voice
,
was
dead
to
every
accent
of
persuasion
or
of
passion
.
When
men
tried
to
tell
her
she
was
beautiful
,
she
looked
them
full
in
the
eyes
and
laughed
,
a
terrible
dreary
laugh
of
scorn
that
chilled
them
to
the
bone
.
When
the
gay
groups
on
balconies
,
that
glanced
golden
in
the
sun
,
flung
sweetmeats
at
her
,
and
dashed
wine
on
the
ground
,
and
called
to
her
for
her
beauty’s
sake
to
join
them
,
she
looked
at
them
with
a
look
that
had
neither
envy
nor
repugnance
in
it
,
but
only
a
cold
mute
weariness
of
contempt
.
One
day
a
great
sculptor
waylaid
her
,
and
showed
her
a
pouch
full
of
money
and
precious
stones
.
“
All
that
,
and
more
,
you
shall
have
,
if
you
will
let
me
make
a
cast
of
your
face
and
your
body
once
.
”
In
answer
,
she
showed
him
the
edge
of
her
hidden
knife
.
One
day
a
young
man
,
unlike
to
all
the
ragged
and
toil‐worn
crowds
that
alone
beheld
her
,
came
in
those
crowded
quarters
of
the
poor
,
and
watched
her
with
eyes
aglow
like
those
of
the
youth
in
the
old
market‐square
about
the
cathedral
,
and
waylaid
her
,
later
,
in
solitude
,
and
slid
in
her
palm
a
chain
studded
with
precious
stones
of
many
colours
.
“
I
am
rich
,
”
he
murmured
to
her
.
“
I
am
a
prince
.
I
can
make
your
name
a
name
of
power
,
if
only
you
will
come
.
”
“
Come
whither
?
”
she
asked
him
.
“
Come
with
me
—
only
to
my
supper‐table
—
for
one
hour
;
my
horses
wait
.
”
She
threw
the
chain
of
stones
at
her
feet
.
“
I
have
no
hunger
,
”
she
said
,
carelessly
.
“
Go
,
ask
those
that
have
to
your
feast
.
”
And
she
gave
no
other
phrase
in
answer
to
all
the
many
honeyed
and
persuasive
words
with
which
in
vain
he
urged
her
,
that
night
and
many
other
night
,
until
he
wearied
.
One
day
,
in
the
green
outskirts
of
the
city
,
passing
by
under
a
gilded
gallery
,
and
a
wide
window
full
of
flowers
,
and
hung
with
delicate
draperies
,
there
looked
out
the
fair
head
of
a
woman
,
with
diamonds
in
the
ears
,
and
a
shroud
of
lace
about
it
,
while
against
the
smiling
scornful
mouth
a
jewelled
hand
held
a
rose
;
and
a
woman’s
voice
called
to
her
,
mockingly
:
“
Has
the
devil
not
heard
you
yet
,
that
you
still
walk
barefoot
in
the
dust
on
the
stones
,
and
let
the
sun
beat
on
your
head
?
O
fool
!
there
is
gold
in
the
air
,
and
gold
in
the
dust
,
and
gold
in
the
very
gutter
here
,
for
a
woman
!
”
And
the
face
was
the
face
,
and
the
voice
the
voice
,
of
the
gardener’s
wife
of
the
old
town
by
the
sea
.
She
raised
,
to
the
gilded
balcony
above
,
her
great
sorrowful
musing
eyes
,
full
of
startled
courage
:
soon
she
comprehended
;
and
then
her
gaze
gave
back
scorn
for
scorn
.
“
Does
that
brazen
scroll
shade
you
better
than
did
the
trellised
vine
?
”
she
said
,
with
her
voice
ascending
clear
in
its
disdain
.
“
And
are
those
stones
in
your
breast
any
brighter
than
the
blue
was
in
the
eyes
of
your
child
?
”
The
woman
above
cast
the
rose
at
her
and
laughed
,
and
withdrew
from
the
casement
.
She
set
her
heel
on
the
rose
,
and
trod
its
leaves
down
in
the
dust
.
It
was
a
yellow
rose
,
scentless
and
comely
—
an
emblem
of
pleasure
and
wealth
.
She
left
it
where
it
lay
,
and
went
onward
.
The
sweet
sins
,
and
all
their
rich
profits
,
that
she
might
take
as
easily
as
she
could
have
taken
the
rose
from
the
dust
,
had
no
power
to
allure
her
.
The
gilded
balcony
,
the
velvet
couch
,
the
jewels
in
the
ears
,
the
purple
draperies
,
the
ease
and
the
affluence
and
the
joys
of
the
sights
and
the
senses
,
these
to
her
were
as
powerless
to
move
her
envy
,
these
to
her
seemed
as
idle
as
the
blow‐balls
that
a
child’s
breath
floated
down
the
current
of
a
summer
breeze
.
When
once
a
human
ear
has
heard
the
whispers
of
the
gods
by
night
steal
through
the
reeds
by
the
river
,
never
again
to
it
can
there
sound
anything
but
discord
and
empty
sound
in
the
tinkling
cymbals
of
brass
,
and
the
fools’
bells
of
silver
,
in
which
the
crowds
in
their
deafness
imagine
the
songs
of
the
heroes
and
the
music
of
the
spheres
.
“
There
are
only
two
trades
in
a
city
,
”
said
the
actors
to
her
,
with
a
smile
as
bitter
as
her
own
,
“
only
two
trades
—
to
buy
souls
and
to
sell
them
.
What
business
have
you
here
,
who
do
neither
the
one
nor
the
other
?
”
There
was
music
still
in
this
trampled
reed
of
the
river
,
into
which
the
gods
had
once
bidden
the
stray
winds
and
the
wandering
waters
breathe
their
melody
;
but
there
,
in
the
press
,
the
buyers
and
the
sellers
only
saw
in
it
a
frail
thing
of
the
sand
and
the
stream
,
only
made
to
be
woven
for
barter
,
or
bind
together
the
sheaves
of
the
roses
of
pleasure
.
By‐and‐by
they
grew
so
impatient
of
this
soul
which
knew
its
right
errand
so
little
that
it
would
neither
accept
temptation
itself
nor
deal
it
to
others
,
they
grew
so
impatient
to
receive
that
golden
guerdon
from
passion
and
evil
which
they
had
foreseen
as
their
sure
wage
for
her
when
they
had
drawn
her
with
them
to
the
meshes
of
the
city
,
that
they
betrayed
her
,
stung
and
driven
into
treachery
by
the
intolerable
reproach
of
her
continual
strength
,
her
continual
silence
.
They
took
a
heavy
price
,
and
betrayed
her
to
the
man
who
had
set
his
soul
upon
her
beauty
,
to
make
it
live
naked
and
vile
and
perfect
for
all
time
in
marble
.
She
saved
herself
by
such
madness
of
rage
,
such
fury
of
resistance
,
as
the
native
tigress
knows
in
the
glare
of
the
torches
or
the
bonds
of
the
cords
.
She
smote
the
sculptor
with
her
knife
;
a
tumult
rose
round
;
voices
shouted
that
he
was
stabbed
;
the
men
who
had
betrayed
her
raised
loudest
the
outcry
.
In
the
darkness
of
a
narrow
street
,
and
of
a
night
of
tempest
,
she
fled
from
them
,
and
buried
herself
in
the
dense
obscurity
which
is
one
of
the
few
privileges
of
the
outcasts
.
It
was
very
poor
,
this
quarter
where
she
found
refuge
;
men
and
women
at
the
lowest
ebb
of
life
gathered
there
together
.
There
was
not
much
crime
;
it
was
too
poor
even
for
that
.
It
was
all
that
piteous
,
hopeless
class
that
is
honest
,
and
suffers
and
keeps
silent
—
so
silent
that
no
one
notices
when
death
replaces
life
.
Here
she
got
leave
to
dwell
a
little
while
in
the
topmost
corner
of
a
high
tower
,
which
rose
so
high
,
so
high
,
that
the
roof
of
it
seemed
almost
like
the
very
country
itself
.
It
was
so
still
there
,
and
so
fresh
,
and
the
clouds
seemed
so
near
,
and
the
pigeons
flew
so
close
about
it
all
day
long
,
and
at
night
so
trustfully
sought
their
roost
there
.
In
a
nook
of
it
she
made
her
home
:
it
was
very
old
,
very
desolate
,
very
barren
;
yet
she
could
bear
it
better
than
she
could
any
lower
range
of
dwelling
.
She
could
see
the
sunrise
and
the
sunset
;
she
could
see
the
rain‐mists
and
the
planets
;
she
could
look
down
on
all
the
white
curl
of
the
smoke
;
and
she
could
hear
the
bells
ring
with
a
strange
peculiar
sweetness
striking
straight
to
her
ear
across
the
wilderness
of
roofs
.
And
then
she
had
the
pigeons
:
they
were
not
much
,
but
they
were
something
of
the
old
fresh
country
life
;
and
now
and
then
they
brought
a
head
of
clover
or
a
spray
of
grass
in
their
beaks
;
and
at
sight
of
it
the
tears
would
rush
into
her
eyes
,
and
though
it
was
pain
,
it
yet
a
sweeter
one
than
any
pleasure
that
she
had
.
She
maintained
herself
still
without
alms
,
buying
her
right
to
live
there
,
and
the
little
food
that
sufficed
for
her
,
by
one
of
those
offices
in
which
the
very
poor
contrive
to
employ
those
still
poorer
than
themselves
.
They
slept
so
heavily
,
those
people
who
the
weight
of
twenty
hours’
toil
,
the
pangs
of
hunger
,
and
the
chills
of
cold
upon
them
,
whenever
they
laid
down
,
and
who
would
so
willingly
have
slept
for
ever
with
any
night
they
laid
their
heads
upon
their
sacks
of
rags
.
But
,
so
long
as
they
woke
at
all
,
they
needed
to
wake
with
the
first
note
of
the
sparrows
in
the
dark
.
She
,
so
long
used
to
rise
ere
ever
the
first
streaks
of
the
day
were
seen
,
roused
scores
of
them
;
and
in
payment
they
gave
her
the
right
to
warm
herself
at
their
stove
,
a
handful
of
their
chestnuts
,
a
fragment
of
their
crust
,
a
little
copper
piece
—
anything
that
they
could
afford
or
she
would
consent
to
take
.
A
woman
,
who
had
been
the
reveilleuse
of
the
quarter
many
years
,
had
died
;
and
they
were
glad
of
her
;
—
“
Her
eyes
have
no
seep
in
them
,
”
they
said
;
and
they
found
that
she
never
failed
.
It
was
a
strange
trade
—
to
rise
whilst
yet
for
the
world
it
was
night
,
and
go
to
and
fro
the
dreary
courts
,
up
and
down
the
gloom
of
the
staircases
,
and
in
and
out
the
silent
chambers
,
and
call
all
those
sons
and
daughters
of
wretchedness
from
the
only
peace
that
their
lives
knew
.
So
often
she
felt
loath
to
wake
them
;
so
often
she
stood
beside
the
bundle
of
straw
on
which
some
dreaming
creature
,
sighing
and
smiling
in
her
sleep
,
murmured
of
her
home
,
and
had
not
the
heart
rudely
to
shatter
those
mercies
of
the
night
.
It
was
a
strange
sad
office
,
to
go
alone
amongst
all
those
sleepers
in
the
stillness
that
came
before
the
dawn
,
and
move
from
house
to
house
,
from
door
to
door
,
from
bed
to
bed
,
with
the
one
little
star
of
her
lamp
lone
burning
.
They
were
all
so
poor
,
so
poor
,
it
seemed
more
cruel
than
murder
only
to
call
them
from
their
rest
to
work
,
and
keep
alive
in
them
that
faculty
of
suffering
which
was
all
they
gained
from
their
humanity
.
Her
pity
for
them
grew
so
great
that
her
heart
perforce
softened
to
them
also
.
Those
strong
men
gaunt
with
famine
,
those
white
women
with
their
starved
children
on
their
breasts
,
those
young
maidens
worn
blind
over
the
needle
or
the
potter’s
clay
,
those
little
children
who
staggered
up
in
the
dark
to
go
to
the
furnace
,
or
the
wheel
,
or
the
powder‐mill
,
or
the
potato‐fields
outside
the
walls
,
—
she
could
neither
fear
them
nor
hate
them
,
nor
do
aught
save
sorrow
for
them
with
a
dumb
,
passionate
,
wondering
grief
.
She
saw
these
people
despised
for
no
shame
,
wretched
for
no
sin
,
suffering
eternally
,
though
guilty
of
no
other
fault
than
that
of
being
in
too
large
numbers
on
an
earth
too
small
for
the
enormous
burden
of
its
endless
woe
.
She
found
that
she
had
companions
in
her
misery
,
and
that
she
was
not
alone
under
that
bitter
scorn
which
had
been
poured
on
her
.
In
a
manner
she
grew
to
care
for
these
human
creatures
,
all
strangers
,
yet
whose
solitude
she
entered
,
and
whose
rest
she
roused
.
It
was
a
human
interest
,
a
human
sympathy
.
It
drew
her
from
the
despair
that
had
closed
around
her
.
And
some
of
these
in
turn
loved
her
.
Neither
poverty
nor
wretchedness
could
dull
the
lustrous
,
deep‐hued
,
flowerlike
beauty
that
was
hers
by
nature
.
As
she
ascended
the
dark
stone
stairs
with
the
little
candle
raised
above
her
head
,
and
knocking
low
entered
the
place
where
they
slept
,
the
men
and
the
children
alike
dreamed
of
strange
shapes
of
paradise
and
things
of
sorcery
.
“
When
she
wakes
us
the
children
never
cry
,
”
said
a
woman
whom
she
always
summoned
an
hour
before
dawn
to
rise
and
walk
two
leagues
to
a
distant
factory
.
It
was
new
to
her
to
be
welcomed
,
it
was
new
to
see
the
children
smile
because
she
touched
them
.
It
lifted
a
little
the
ice
that
had
closed
about
her
heart
.
It
had
become
the
height
of
the
summer
.
The
burning
days
and
the
sultry
nights
poured
down
on
her
bare
head
and
blinded
her
,
and
filled
her
throat
with
the
dust
of
the
public
ways
,
and
parched
her
mouth
with
the
thirst
of
over‐driven
cattle
.
All
the
while
in
the
hard
hot
glare
she
searched
for
one
voice
.
All
the
while
in
the
hard
brazen
din
she
listened
for
one
voice
.
She
wandered
all
the
day
,
half
the
night
.
They
wondered
that
she
woke
so
surely
with
every
dawn
;
they
did
not
know
that
seldom
did
she
ever
sleep
.
She
sought
for
him
always
;
—
sought
the
busy
crowds
of
the
living
;
sought
the
burial
grounds
of
the
dead
.
As
she
passed
through
the
endless
ways
in
the
wondrous
city
;
as
she
passed
by
the
vast
temples
of
art
;
as
she
passed
by
the
open
doors
of
the
sacred
places
which
the
country
had
raised
to
the
great
memories
that
it
treasured
;
it
became
clearer
to
her
—
this
thing
of
his
desires
,
—
this
deathless
name
amidst
a
nation
,
this
throne
on
the
awed
homage
of
a
world
for
which
his
life
had
laboured
and
striven
,
and
sickened
for
and
endlessly
desired
.
The
great
purpose
,
the
great
end
,
to
which
he
had
lived
grew
tangible
and
present
to
her
;
and
in
her
heart
,
as
she
went
,
she
said
ever
,
“
Let
me
only
die
as
the
reed
died
;
—
what
matter
,
—
so
that
only
the
world
speak
his
name
?
”
One
night
she
stood
on
the
height
of
the
leads
of
the
tower
.
The
pigeons
had
gone
to
roost
;
the
bells
had
swung
themselves
into
stillness
;
far
below
the
changing
crowds
were
moving
ceaselessly
,
but
to
that
calm
altitude
no
sound
arose
from
them
.
The
stars
were
out
,
and
a
great
silver
moon
bathed
half
the
skies
in
its
white
glory
.
In
the
stones
of
the
parapet
wind‐sown
blossoms
blew
to
and
fro
heavy
with
dew
.
The
day
had
been
one
of
oppressive
heat
.
She
had
toiled
all
through
it
,
seeking
—
seeking
—
seeking
—
what
she
never
found
.
She
was
covered
with
dust
;
parched
with
thirst
;
foot‐weary
;
sick
at
heart
.
She
looked
down
on
the
mighty
maze
of
the
city
,
and
thought
—
“
how
long
—
how
long
?
”
Suddenly
a
cool
hand
touched
her
,
a
soft
voice
murmured
at
her
ear
.
Turning
in
the
gloom
she
faced
Sartorian
.
A
great
terror
held
her
mute
and
breathless
there
;
gazing
in
the
paralysis
of
horror
at
this
frail
life
,
which
was
for
her
the
incarnation
of
the
world
,
and
by
whose
lips
the
world
said
to
her
,
—
“
Come
,
eat
and
drink
,
and
sow
your
garments
with
gems
,
and
kiss
men
on
the
mouth
whilst
you
slay
them
,
and
plunder
and
poison
,
and
laugh
and
be
wise
.
For
all
your
gods
are
dead
;
and
there
is
but
one
god
now
—
that
god
is
gold
.
”
“
You
must
be
tired
,
surely
,
”
the
old
man
said
,
with
soft
insistence
.
“
You
never
find
what
you
seek
;
you
are
always
alone
,
always
hungered
and
poor
;
always
wretched
,
—
Folle‐Farine
.
Ah
!
you
would
not
eat
my
golden
pear
.
It
was
not
wise
.
”
He
said
so
little
;
and
yet
—
these
slow
subtle
brief
phrases
pierced
her
heart
with
the
full
force
of
their
odious
meaning
.
She
leaned
against
the
wall
,
breathing
hard
and
fast
,
mute
,
for
the
moment
paralysed
.
“
You
fled
away
from
me
that
night
.
It
was
heroic
,
foolish
,
mad
.
Yet
I
bear
no
anger
against
it
.
You
have
not
loved
the
old
dead
gods
for
nought
.
You
have
the
temper
of
their
times
.
You
obey
them
;
though
they
betray
you
and
forget
you
,
—
Folle‐Farine
.
”
She
gazed
at
him
,
fascinated
by
her
very
loathing
of
him
,
as
the
bird
by
the
snake
.
“
Who
told
you
?
”
she
muttered
.
“
Who
told
me
,
that
you
dwell
here
?
The
sun
has
a
million
rays
;
so
has
gold
a
million
eyes
;
do
you
not
know
?
There
is
nothing
you
have
not
done
that
has
not
been
known
to
me
.
But
I
can
always
wait
;
—
Folle‐Farine
.
You
are
very
strong
;
you
are
very
weak
,
of
course
;
—
you
have
a
faith
;
and
you
follow
it
;
and
it
leads
you
on
and
on
,
on
and
on
,
and
one
day
it
will
disappear
—
and
you
will
plunge
after
it
,
—
and
it
will
drown
you
.
You
seek
for
this
man
and
you
cannot
find
even
his
grave
.
You
are
like
a
woman
who
seeks
for
her
lover
on
a
battle‐fields
.
But
the
world
is
a
carnage
where
the
vultures
soon
pick
bare
the
bones
of
the
slain
,
and
all
skeletons
look
alike
,
and
are
most
unlovely
—
Folle‐
Farine
.
”
“
You
came
—
to
say
this
?
”
she
said
,
through
her
locked
teeth
.
“
Nay
—
I
came
to
see
your
beauty
,
your
ice‐god
tired
soon
;
but
I
—
.
My
golden
pear
would
have
been
better
vengeance
for
a
slighted
passion
than
this
beggar’s
quarter
,
and
these
wretched
rags
—
.
”
She
held
her
misery
and
her
shame
,
and
her
hatred
alike
down
under
enforced
composure
.
“
There
is
no
shame
here
,
”
she
said
,
between
her
teeth
.
“
A
beggar’s
quarters
,
perhaps
;
but
there
poor
copper
coins
and
these
rags
I
earn
with
clean
hands
.
”
He
smiled
with
that
benignant
pity
,
with
that
malign
mockery
,
which
stung
her
so
ruthlessly
.
“
No
shame
?
Oh
,
Folle‐Farine
,
did
I
not
tell
you
,
that
,
live
as
you
may
,
shame
will
always
be
your
garment
in
life
and
in
death
?
You
—
a
thing
beautiful
,
nameless
,
homeless
,
accursed
,
who
dares
to
dream
to
be
innocent
likewise
!
The
world
will
clothe
you
with
shame
,
whether
you
choose
it
or
not
.
But
the
world
,
as
I
say
,
will
give
you
one
choice
.
Take
its
red
robe
boldly
from
it
,
and
weight
it
with
gold
and
encrust
it
with
jewels
.
Believe
me
,
the
women
who
wear
the
white
garments
of
virtue
will
envy
you
the
red
robe
bitterly
,
then
.
”
Her
arms
were
crossed
upon
her
breast
;
her
eyes
gazed
at
him
with
the
look
he
had
seen
in
the
gloom
of
the
evening
,
under
the
orchards
by
the
side
of
the
rushing
mill‐water
.
“
You
came
—
to
say
this
?
”
“
Nay
;
I
came
to
see
your
beauty
,
Folle‐Farine
.
Your
northern
god
soon
tired
,
I
say
;
but
I
—
.
Look
yonder
a
moment
,
”
he
pursued
;
and
he
motioned
downward
to
where
the
long
lines
of
light
gleamed
in
the
wondrous
city
which
was
stretched
at
their
feet
;
and
the
endless
murmur
of
its
eternal
sea
of
pleasure
floated
dimly
to
them
on
the
soft
night
air
.
“
See
here
,
Folle‐Farine
:
you
dwell
with
the
lowest
;
you
are
the
slave
of
the
street
mobs
;
no
eyes
see
you
except
those
of
the
harlot
,
the
beggar
,
the
thief
,
the
outcast
;
your
wage
is
a
crust
and
a
copper
coin
;
you
have
the
fate
of
your
namesake
,
the
dust
,
to
wander
a
little
while
,
and
then
sink
on
the
stones
of
the
streets
.
Yet
that
you
think
worthy
and
faithful
,
because
it
is
pure
,
alike
,
of
alms
and
of
vice
.
Oh
,
beautiful
fool
!
what
would
your
lost
lover
say
if
beholding
you
here
,
amidst
the
reek
of
the
mob
and
the
homage
of
thieves
?
He
would
say
of
you
the
most
bitter
thing
that
a
man
can
say
of
a
woman
:
‘She
has
sunk
into
sin
,
but
she
has
been
powerless
to
gild
her
sin
,
or
make
it
of
more
profit
than
her
innocence.’
And
a
man
has
no
scorn
like
the
scorn
which
he
feels
for
a
woman
who
sells
her
soul
—
at
a
loss
.
You
see
?
—
ah
!
surely
you
see
,
Folle‐Farine
?
”
She
shook
like
a
leaf
where
she
stood
,
with
the
yellow
and
lustrous
moonlight
about
her
.
She
saw
—
she
saw
now
!
And
she
had
been
mad
enough
to
dream
that
if
she
lived
in
honesty
,
and
by
labour
that
she
loathed
won
back
,
with
hands
clean
of
crime
as
of
alms
,
the
gold
which
he
had
left
as
the
wages
of
her
beauty
,
and
found
him
and
gave
it
to
him
without
a
word
,
he
would
at
least
believe
—
believe
so
much
as
this
,
that
her
hunger
had
been
famine
,
and
her
need
misery
,
and
her
homelessness
that
of
the
stray
dog
which
is
kicked
from
even
a
ditch
,
and
hunted
from
even
a
graveyard
:
but
that
through
it
all
she
had
never
touched
one
coin
of
that
cruel
and
merciless
gift
.
“
You
see
?
”
pursued
the
low
,
flute‐like
moaning
mockery
of
her
tormentor’s
voice
.
“
You
see
?
You
have
all
the
shame
:
it
is
your
birthright
;
and
you
have
nothing
of
the
sweetness
which
may
go
with
shame
for
a
woman
who
has
beauty
.
Now
,
look
yonder
.
There
lies
the
world
,
which
when
I
saw
you
last
was
to
you
only
an
empty
name
.
Now
you
know
it
—
know
it
,
at
least
,
enough
to
be
aware
of
all
you
have
not
,
all
you
might
have
in
it
,
if
you
took
my
golden
pear
.
You
must
be
tired
,
Folle‐Farine
,
—
to
stand
homeless
under
the
gilded
balconies
;
to
be
footsore
in
the
summer
dust
amongst
the
rolling
carriages
;
to
stand
outcast
and
famished
before
the
palace
gates
;
to
see
the
smiles
upon
a
million
mouths
,
and
on
them
all
not
one
smile
upon
you
;
to
show
yourself
hourly
amongst
a
mob
,
that
you
may
buy
a
little
bread
to
eat
,
a
little
straw
to
rest
on
!
You
must
be
tired
,
Folle‐Farine
!
”
She
was
silent
where
she
stood
in
the
moonlight
,
with
the
clouds
seeming
to
lean
and
touch
her
,
and
far
beneath
the
blaze
of
the
myriad
of
lights
shining
through
the
soft
darkness
of
the
summer
night
.
Tired
!
—
ah
,
God
!
—
tired
,
indeed
.
But
not
for
any
cause
of
which
he
spake
.
“
You
must
be
tired
.
Now
,
eat
of
my
golden
pear
;
and
there
,
where
the
world
lies
yonder
at
our
feet
,
no
name
shall
be
on
the
mouths
of
men
as
your
name
shall
be
in
a
day
.
Through
the
crowds
you
shall
be
borne
by
horses
fleet
as
the
winds
;
or
you
shall
lean
above
them
from
a
gilded
gallery
,
and
mock
them
at
your
fancy
there
on
high
in
a
cloud
of
flowers
.
Great
jewels
shall
beam
on
you
like
planets
;
and
the
only
chains
that
you
shall
wear
shall
be
links
of
gold
,
like
the
chains
of
a
priestess
of
old
.
Your
mere
wish
shall
be
as
a
sorcerer’s
wand
,
to
bring
you
the
thing
of
our
idlest
desire
.
You
have
been
despised
!
—
what
vengeance
sweeter
than
to
see
men
grovel
to
win
your
glance
,
as
the
swine
at
the
feet
of
Circe
?
You
have
been
scorned
and
accursed
!
—
what
retribution
fuller
than
for
women
to
behold
in
you
the
sweetness
and
magnificence
of
shame
,
and
through
you
,
envy
,
and
fall
,
and
worship
the
Evil
which
begot
you
?
Has
humanity
been
so
fair
a
friend
to
you
that
you
can
hesitate
to
strike
at
its
heart
with
such
a
vengeance
—
so
symmetrical
in
justice
,
so
cynical
in
irony
?
Humanity
cast
you
out
to
wither
at
your
birth
,
—
a
thing
rootless
,
nameless
,
only
meet
for
the
snake
and
the
worm
.
If
you
bear
poison
in
your
fruit
,
is
that
your
fault
,
or
the
fault
of
the
human
hands
that
cast
the
chance‐sown
weed
out
on
the
dunghill
to
perish
?
I
do
not
speak
of
passion
.
I
use
no
amorous
phrase
.
I
am
old
and
ill‐favoured
;
and
I
know
that
,
any
way
,
you
will
for
ever
hate
me
.
But
the
rage
of
the
desert‐beast
is
more
beautiful
than
the
meek
submission
of
the
animal
timid
and
tame
.
It
is
the
lioness
in
you
that
I
care
to
chain
;
but
your
chains
shall
be
of
gold
,
Folle‐Farine
;
and
all
women
will
envy
.
Name
your
price
,
set
it
high
as
you
will
;
there
is
nothing
that
I
will
refuse
.
Nay
,
even
I
will
find
your
lover
,
who
loves
not
you
;
and
I
will
let
you
have
your
fullest
vengeance
on
him
.
A
noble
vengeance
,
for
no
other
would
be
worthy
of
your
strength
.
Living
or
dead
,
his
genius
shall
be
made
known
to
men
;
and
,
before
another
summer
comes
,
all
the
world
shall
toss
aloft
in
triumph
the
name
that
is
now
nothing
as
the
dust
is
;
—
nothing
as
you
are
,
Folle‐Farine
!
”
She
heard
in
silence
to
the
end
.
On
the
height
of
the
roof‐tops
all
was
still
;
the
stars
seemed
to
beam
close
against
her
sight
;
below
was
the
infinite
space
of
the
darkness
,
in
which
lines
of
light
glittered
where
the
haunts
of
pleasure
lay
;
all
creatures
near
her
slept
;
the
wind‐sown
plants
blew
to
and
fro
,
rooted
in
the
spaces
of
the
stones
.
As
the
last
words
died
softly
on
the
quiet
of
the
air
,
in
answer
,
she
reached
her
hand
upward
,
broke
off
a
tuft
of
the
yellow
wall‐blossom
,
and
cast
it
out
with
one
turn
of
her
wrist
down
into
the
void
of
the
darkness
.
“
What
do
I
say
?
”
she
said
,
slowly
.
“
What
?
Well
,
this
:
I
could
seize
you
,
and
cast
you
down
into
the
dark
below
there
,
as
easily
as
I
cast
that
tuft
of
weed
.
And
why
I
hold
my
hand
I
cannot
tell
;
it
would
be
just
.
”
And
she
turned
away
and
walked
from
him
in
the
gloom
,
slowly
,
as
though
the
deed
she
spake
of
tempted
her
.
CHAPTER
VII
.
THE
poverties
of
the
city
devoured
her
incessantly
,
like
wolves
;
the
temptations
of
the
city
crouched
in
wait
for
her
incessantly
,
like
tigers
.
She
was
always
hungry
,
always
heartsick
,
always
alone
;
and
there
was
always
at
her
ear
some
tempting
voice
,
telling
her
that
she
was
beautiful
and
was
a
fool
.
Yet
she
never
dreamed
once
of
listening
,
of
yielding
,
of
taking
any
pity
on
herself
.
Was
this
virtue
?
She
never
thought
of
it
as
such
;
it
was
simply
instinct
;
the
instinct
of
a
supreme
fidelity
,
in
which
all
slighter
and
meaner
passions
were
absorbed
and
slain
.
Once
or
twice
,
through
some
lighted
casement
in
some
lamp‐lit
wood
,
where
the
little
gay
boats
flashed
on
fairy
lakes
,
she
would
coldly
watch
that
luxury
,
that
indolence
,
that
rest
of
the
senses
,
with
a
curl
on
her
lips
,
where
she
sat
or
stood
,
in
the
shadow
of
the
trees
.
“
To
wear
soft
stuffs
and
rich
colours
,
to
have
jewels
in
their
breasts
,
to
sleep
in
satin
,
to
hear
fools
laugh
,
to
have
both
hands
full
of
gold
,
that
is
what
women
love
,
”
she
thought
;
and
laughed
a
little
in
her
cold
wonder
,
and
went
back
to
her
high
cage
in
the
tower
,
and
called
the
pigeons
in
from
the
rooftops
at
sunset
,
and
kissed
their
purple
throats
,
and
broke
amongst
them
her
one
dry
crust
,
and
,
supperless
herself
,
sat
on
the
parapet
and
watched
the
round
white
moon
rise
over
the
shining
roofs
of
Paris
.
She
was
ignorant
,
she
was
friendless
,
she
was
savage
,
she
was
very
wretched
;
but
she
had
a
supreme
love
in
her
,
and
she
was
strong
.
A
hundred
times
the
Red
Mouse
tried
to
steal
through
the
lips
which
hunger
,
his
servile
and
unfailing
minister
,
would
surely
,
the
Red
Mouse
thought
,
disbar
and
unclose
to
him
sooner
or
later
.
“
You
will
tire
,
and
I
can
wait
,
Folle‐Farine
,
”
the
Red
Mouse
had
said
to
her
,
by
the
tongue
of
the
old
man
Sartorian
;
and
he
kept
his
word
very
patiently
.
He
was
patient
,
he
was
wise
;
he
believed
in
the
power
of
gold
,
and
had
no
faith
in
the
strength
of
a
woman
.
He
knew
how
to
wait
—
unseen
,
so
that
this
rare
bird
should
not
perceive
the
net
spread
for
it
in
its
wildness
and
wariness
.
He
did
not
pursue
,
nor
too
quickly
incense
her
.
Only
in
the
dark
cheerless
mists
,
when
she
rose
to
go
amongst
the
world
of
the
sleeping
poor
at
her
threshold
,
she
would
step
on
some
gift
worthy
of
a
queen’s
acceptance
,
without
date
or
word
,
gleaming
there
against
the
stone
of
the
stairs
.
When
she
climbed
to
her
hole
in
the
roof
at
the
close
of
a
day
,
all
pain
,
all
fatigue
,
all
vain
endeavour
,
all
bootless
labour
to
and
fro
the
labyrinth
of
streets
,
there
would
be
on
her
bare
bench
such
fruit
and
flowers
as
Dorothea
might
have
sent
from
Paradise
,
and
curled
amidst
them
some
thin
leaf
that
would
have
bought
the
weight
of
the
pines
and
of
the
grapes
in
gold
.
When
in
the
dusk
of
the
night
she
went
,
wearily
and
footsore
,
through
the
byways
and
over
the
sharp
set
flints
of
the
quarters
of
the
outcasts
and
the
beggars
,
sick
with
the
tumult
and
the
stench
and
the
squalor
,
parched
with
dust
,
worn
with
hunger
,
blind
with
the
endless
search
for
one
face
amidst
the
millions
,
going
home
—
oh
,
mockery
of
the
word
!
—
to
a
bed
of
straw
,
to
a
cage
among
the
roofs
,
to
a
handful
of
rice
as
a
meal
,
to
a
night
of
loneliness
and
cold
and
misery
;
at
such
a
moment
now
and
then
through
the
gloom
a
voice
would
steal
to
her
,
saying
:
“
Are
you
not
tired
yet
,
Folle‐Farine
?
”
But
she
never
paused
to
hear
the
voice
,
nor
gave
it
any
answer
.
The
mill
dust
;
the
reed
by
the
river
;
the
nameless
,
friendless
,
rootless
thing
that
her
fate
made
her
,
should
have
been
so
weak
,
and
so
lightly
blown
by
every
chance
breeze
—
so
the
Red
Mouse
told
her
;
should
have
asked
no
better
ending
than
to
be
wafted
up
a
little
while
upon
the
winds
of
praise
,
or
woven
with
a
golden
braid
into
a
crown
of
pleasure
.
Yet
she
was
so
stubborn
and
would
not
;
yet
she
dared
deride
her
tempters
,
and
defy
her
destiny
,
and
be
strong
.
For
Love
was
with
her
.
And
though
the
Red
Mouse
lies
often
in
Love’s
breast
,
and
is
cradled
there
a
welcome
guest
,
yet
when
Love
,
once
in
a
million
times
,
shakes
off
his
sloth
,
and
flings
the
Red
Mouse
with
it
from
him
,
he
flings
with
a
hand
of
force
;
and
the
beast
crouches
and
flees
,
and
dares
meddle
with
Love
no
more
.
In
one
of
the
first
weeks
of
the
wilder
weather
,
weather
that
had
the
purple
glow
of
the
autumnal
storms
and
the
chills
of
coming
winter
on
it
,
she
arose
,
as
her
habit
was
,
ere
the
night
was
altogether
spent
,
and
lit
her
little
taper
,
and
went
out
upon
the
rounds
to
rouse
the
sleepers
.
She
had
barely
tasted
food
for
many
hours
.
All
the
means
of
subsistence
that
she
had
were
the
few
coins
earned
from
those
as
poor
almost
as
herself
.
Often
these
went
in
dept
to
her
,
and
begged
for
a
little
time
to
get
the
piece
or
two
of
base
metal
that
they
owed
her
;
and
she
forgave
them
such
debts
always
,
not
having
the
heart
to
take
the
last
miserable
pittance
from
some
trembling
withered
hand
which
had
worked
through
fourscore
years
of
toil
,
and
found
no
payment
but
its
wrinkles
on
its
palm
;
not
having
the
force
to
fill
her
own
plate
with
crusts
which
could
only
be
purchased
by
the
hunger
cries
of
some
starveling
infant
,
or
by
the
barter
of
some
little
value‐
less
cross
of
ivory
or
rosary
of
berries
long
cherished
in
some
aching
breast
after
all
else
was
lost
or
spent
.
She
had
barely
tasted
food
that
day
,
worst
of
all
she
had
not
even
a
few
grains
to
scatter
to
the
hungry
pigeons
as
they
had
fluttered
to
her
on
the
house‐top
in
the
stormy
twilights
as
the
evening
fell
.
She
had
lain
awake
all
the
night
hearing
the
strokes
of
the
bells
sound
the
hours
,
and
seeming
to
say
to
her
as
they
beat
on
the
silence
—
“
Dost
thou
dare
to
be
strong
,
thou
?
a
grain
of
dust
,
a
reed
of
the
river
,
a
Nothing
?
”
When
she
rose
,
and
drew
back
the
iron
staple
that
fastened
her
door
,
and
went
out
on
the
crazy
stairway
,
she
struck
her
foot
against
a
thing
of
metal
.
It
glitter
in
the
feeble
beams
from
her
lamp
.
She
took
it
up
;
it
was
a
little
precious
casket
,
such
as
of
old
the
Red
Mouse
lurked
in
,
amongst
the
pearls
,
to
spring
out
from
their
whiteness
into
the
purer
snow
of
Gretchen’s
breast
.
With
it
was
only
one
written
line
.
“
When
you
are
tired
,
—
Folle‐Farine
?
”
She
was
already
tired
,
tired
with
the
horrible
thirsty
weariness
of
the
young
lioness
starved
and
cramped
in
a
cage
in
a
city
.
An
old
crone
sat
on
a
niche
on
the
wall
.
She
thrust
her
lean
bony
face
,
lit
with
wolf’s
eyes
through
the
gloom
.
“
Are
you
not
tired
?
”
she
muttered
in
the
formula
taught
her
.
“
Are
you
not
tired
,
Folle‐Farine
?
”
“
If
I
be
,
what
of
that
?
”
she
answered
,
and
she
thrust
the
case
away
to
the
feet
of
the
woman
,
still
shut
,
and
went
on
with
her
little
dim
taper
down
round
the
twist
of
the
stairs
.
She
knew
what
she
did
,
what
she
put
away
.
She
had
come
to
know
,
too
,
what
share
the
sex
of
her
mother
takes
in
the
bringing
to
the
lips
of
their
kind
the
golden
pear
that
to
most
needs
no
pressing
.
“
If
I
had
only
your
face
,
and
your
chances
,
”
had
said
to
her
that
day
a
serving‐girl
,
young
,
with
sallow
cheeks
,
and
a
hollow
voice
,
and
eyes
of
fever
,
who
lived
in
a
den
lower
down
on
the
stair‐way
.
“
Are
you
mad
that
you
hunger
here
when
you
might
hang
yourself
with
diamonds
like
our
Lady
of
Atocha
?
”
cried
a
dancing‐woman
with
sullen
eyes
and
a
yellow
skin
from
the
hither
side
of
the
mountains
,
who
begged
in
the
streets
all
day
.
So
,
many
tongues
hissed
to
her
in
different
fashions
.
It
seemed
to
many
of
them
impious
in
one
like
her
to
dare
to
be
stronger
than
the
gold
was
that
assailed
her
,
to
dare
to
live
up
there
among
the
clouds
;
and
hunger
,
and
thirst
,
and
keep
her
silence
,
and
strike
dumb
all
the
mouths
that
tried
to
woo
her
down
,
and
shake
aside
all
the
hands
that
strove
softly
to
slide
their
purchase‐monies
into
hers
.
For
they
chimed
in
chorus
as
the
bells
did
:
“
Strength
in
the
dust
—
in
a
reed
—
in
a
Nothing
?
”
It
was
a
bitter
windy
morning
;
the
rain
fell
heavily
;
there
were
no
stars
out
,
and
the
air
was
sharp
and
raw
.
She
was
too
used
to
all
changes
of
weather
to
take
heed
of
it
,
but
her
thin
clothes
were
soaked
through
,
and
her
hair
was
drenched
as
she
crossed
the
courts
and
traversed
the
passages
to
reach
her
various
employers
.
The
first
she
roused
was
a
poor
sickly
woman
sleeping
feverishly
on
an
old
rope
mat
;
the
second
an
old
man
wrestling
with
nightmare
as
the
rain
poured
on
him
through
a
hole
in
the
roof
,
making
him
dream
that
he
was
drowning
.
The
third
was
a
woman
so
old
that
her
quarter
accredited
her
with
a
century
of
age
;
she
woke
mumbling
that
it
was
hard
at
her
years
to
have
to
go
and
pick
rags
for
a
crumb
of
bread
.
The
fourth
was
a
little
child
not
seven
;
he
was
an
orphan
,
and
the
people
who
kept
him
sent
him
out
to
get
herbs
in
the
outlying
villages
to
sell
in
the
streets
,
and
beat
him
if
he
let
other
children
be
beforehand
with
him
.
He
woke
sobbing
;
he
had
dreamed
of
his
dead
mother
,
and
cried
out
that
it
was
so
cold
,
so
cold
.
There
were
scores
like
them
at
whose
doors
she
knocked
,
or
whose
chambers
she
entered
.
The
brief
kind
night
was
over
,
and
they
had
to
arise
and
work
,
—
or
die
.
“
Why
do
they
not
die
?
”
she
wondered
;
and
she
thought
of
the
dear
gods
that
she
had
loved
,
the
gods
of
oblivion
.
Truly
there
were
no
gifts
like
their
gifts
;
and
yet
men
knew
their
worth
so
little
!
—
but
thrust
Hypnos
back
in
scorn
,
dashing
their
wine‐cups
in
his
eyes
;
and
mocked
Oneiros
,
calling
him
the
guest
of
love‐sick
fools
and
of
mad
poets
;
and
against
Thanatos
strove
always
in
hatred
and
terror
as
against
their
dreaded
foe
.
It
was
a
strange
melancholy
dreary
labour
this
into
which
she
had
entered
.
It
was
all
dark
.
The
little
light
she
bore
scarcely
shed
its
rays
beyond
her
feet
.
It
was
all
still
.
The
winds
sounded
infinitely
sad
amongst
those
vaulted
passages
and
the
deep
shafts
of
the
stairways
.
Now
and
then
a
woman’s
voice
in
prayer
or
a
man’s
in
blasphemy
echoed
dully
through
the
old
half‐ruined
buildings
.
Otherwise
an
intense
silence
reigned
there
,
where
all
save
herself
were
sleeping
.
She
used
to
think
it
was
a
city
of
the
dead
,
in
which
she
alone
was
living
.
And
sometimes
she
had
not
the
heart
to
waken
them
;
when
there
was
a
smile
on
some
wan
,
worn
face
that
never
knew
one
in
its
waking
hours
;
or
when
some
childless
mother
in
her
lonely
bed
in
sleeping
fancy
drew
young
arms
about
her
throat
.
This
morning
when
all
her
tasks
were
done
,
and
all
the
toilers
summoned
to
another
day
of
pain
,
she
retraced
her
steps
slowly
,
bearing
the
light
aloft
,
and
with
its
feeble
rays
shed
on
the
colourless
splendour
of
her
face
,
and
on
her
luminous
dilated
troubled
eyes
that
were
for
ever
seeking
what
they
never
found
.
A
long
vaulted
passage
stretched
between
her
and
the
foot
of
the
steps
that
led
to
the
tower
;
many
doors
opened
on
it
,
the
winds
wailed
through
it
,
and
the
ragged
clothes
of
the
tenants
blew
to
and
fro
upon
the
swaying
cords
.
She
traversed
it
,
and
slowly
mounted
her
own
staircase
,
which
was
spiral
and
narrow
,
with
little
loopholes
ever
and
again
that
looked
out
upon
the
walls
,
and
higher
on
the
roofs
,
and
higher
yet
upon
the
open
sky
.
By
one
of
these
she
paused
and
looked
out
wearily
.
It
was
dark
still
;
great
low
rain‐clouds
floated
by
;
a
little
caged
bird
stirred
with
a
sad
note
;
nightly
rains
swept
by
from
the
westward
,
sweet
with
the
smell
of
the
distant
fields
.
Her
heart
ached
for
the
country
.
It
was
so
still
there
in
the
dusk
she
knew
,
even
in
this
wild
autumn
night
,
which
there
would
be
so
purple
with
leaf
shadow
,
so
brown
with
embracing
branches
,
so
grey
with
silvery
faint
mists
,
so
lily
white
with
virgin
snows
.
Ah
,
God
!
to
reach
it
once
again
,
she
thought
,
if
only
to
die
in
it
.
And
yet
she
stayed
on
in
this
,
which
was
to
her
the
deepest
hell
,
stayed
on
because
he
—
in
life
or
death
,
—
was
here
.
She
started
as
a
hand
touched
her
softly
,
where
she
stood
looking
through
the
narrow
space
.
The
eyes
of
Sartorian
smiled
on
her
through
the
twilight
.
“
Do
you
shrink
still
?
”
he
said
,
gently
.
“
Put
back
your
knife
;
look
at
me
quietly
;
you
will
not
have
the
casket
?
—
very
well
.
Your
strength
is
folly
;
yet
it
is
noble
.
It
becomes
you
.
I
do
you
good
for
ill.
I
have
had
search
made
for
your
lover
,
who
loves
not
you
.
I
have
found
him
.
”
“
Living
?
”
She
quivered
from
head
to
foot
;
the
grey
walls
reeled
round
her
;
she
feared
,
she
hoped
,
she
doubted
,
she
believed
.
Was
it
hell
?
Was
it
heaven
?
She
could
not
tell
.
She
cared
not
which
,
so
that
only
she
could
look
once
more
upon
the
face
of
Arslàn
.
“
Living
,
”
he
answered
her
,
and
still
he
smiled
.
“
Living
.
Come
with
me
,
and
see
how
he
has
used
the
liberty
you
gave
.
Come
.
”
She
staggered
to
her
feet
and
rose
,
and
held
her
knife
close
in
the
bosom
of
her
dress
,
and
with
passionate
eyes
of
hope
and
dread
searched
the
face
of
the
old
man
through
the
shadows
.
“
Is
it
the
truth
?
”
she
muttered
.
“
If
you
mock
me
—
if
you
lie
—
”
“
Your
knife
will
sheathe
itself
in
my
body
,
I
know
.
Nay
,
I
have
never
lied
to
you
.
One
cannot
wear
a
velvet
glove
to
tame
a
lioness
.
Come
with
me
;
fear
nothing
,
Folle‐Farine
.
Come
with
me
,
and
see
with
your
own
