Испытание жены солдата

_INTRODUCTION_


Some time ago I was dining with four distinguished writers. Needless to
say where two or three authors are gathered together with a sympathetic
editor in their midst, the flood-gates of fancy are opened wide.
вступление_


Некоторое время назад я обедал с четырьмя выдающимися писателями. Излишне
говорить, что там, где два или три автора собираются вместе с сочувствующим
редактором среди них, ворота фантазии широко открываются.

В момент вдохновения доктор Минс бросил эту "потрясающую мелочь" в
центр стола: "Какую умственную и эмоциональную реакцию испытали бы мужчина
и женщина, связанные вместе десятифутовой цепью в течение трех дней
и ночей?" Этот вопрос вызвал бурю негодования.

Капитан Абдулла сразу же вышел на арену, и с этим; лан
сердца, который разводят только на Востоке, заявил, что если мужчина и
женщина действительно любят друг друга, никакая цепь не может быть скована слишком крепко или
слишком прочно, чтобы сделать ее существование обременительным. Ибо в этом мире и
в следующем любовь будет держать этих двоих в еще более глубоких и нежных
объятиях.

Затем доктор, который утверждает, что он ближе к реальности, настаивал на том, что никакая
эмоция не выдержит такого физического воздействия.
In an inspired moment, Dr. Means tossed this "tremendous trifle" into
the center of the table: "What mental and emotional reaction would a man
and a woman undergo, linked together by a ten-foot chain, for three days
and nights?" The query precipitated an uproar.

Captain Abdullah stepped into the arena at once, and with that ;lan of
the heart, which is bred only in the Orient, declared if the man and the
woman really loved one another, no chain could be riveted too close or
too enduring to render onerous its existence. For through this world and
the next, love would hold these twain in ever deeper and tenderer
embrace.

Then the doctor, who claims he cuts nearer to the realities, insisted no
emotion could bear such a physical impact. The reaction from such an
imposed contact would leave love bereft of life, strangled in its own
golden mesh. Max Brand begged to differ with both of his fellow
craftsmen. With the cold detachment of a mind prepared to see all four
sides of an object and with no personal animus of either prejudice or
prepossession, Mr. Brand averred no blanker conclusion covered the case
in question but in any given instance, the multiple factors of heredity,
environment, habit, and temperament, would largely determine the final
state of both the man and the woman.

Hereupon, Perley Poore Sheehan, the fourth member of the writing
fraternity present, insisted on a hearing. Mr. Sheehan, nothing daunted
by the naturally polygamous instincts of the male heart, insisted a good
man, once in love, would and could discount the handicap of a ten-foot
chain, since love was after all, as others have contended, not the whole
of a man's life. To be sure it was an integral need, a recurrent
appetite; the glamour and the glory, if you like, enfolding with its
overshadowing wings his house of happiness. As for the woman--well, we
will let Mr. Sheehan report, in person, his conviction as to the
stability of her attachment.

The editor, whose business it is to keep an open mind, scarcely felt
equal to the responsibility of passing judgment, where experts differed.
But the discussion presented an opportunity which he felt called upon to
develop. Therefore, each of the four authors was invited to present his
conclusions in fiction form, the four stories to be published under the
general caption "The Ten-Foot Chain." Herewith we are printing this
unique symposium, one of the most original series ever presented.

Naturally, the stories are bound to provoke opinion and raise
discussion. The thesis in the form presented by Dr. Means is quite
novel, but the underlying problem of the stability of human affections,
is as old as the heart of man. Wasn't it that prosaic but wise old poet,
Alexander Pope, who compared our minds to our watches? "No two go just
alike, yet each believes his own."




FIRST TALE

AN INDIAN JATAKA

BY ACHMED ABDULLAH

    _This is the tale which Jehan Tugluk Khan, a wise man in
    Tartary, and milk brother to Ghengiz Khan, Emperor of the East
    and the North, and Captain General of the Golden Horde,
    whispered to the Foolish Virgin who came to him, bringing the
    purple, spiked flower of the Kadam-tree as an offering, and
    begging him for a love potion with which to hold Haydar Khan, a
    young, red-faced warrior from the west who had ridden into camp,
    a song on his lips, a woman's breast scarf tied to his tufted
    bamboo lance, a necklace of his slain foes' skulls strung about
    his massive chest, and sitting astride a white stallion whose
    mane was dyed crimson in sign of strife and whose dainty,
    dancing feet rang on the rose-red marble pavement of the
    emperor's courtyard like crystal bells in the wind of spring._

    _This is a tale of passion, and, by the same token, a tale of
    wisdom. For, in the yellow, placid lands east of the Urals and
    west of harsh, sneering Pekin, it is babbled by the toothless
    old women who know life, that wisdom and desire are twin sisters
    rocked in the same cradle: one speaks while the other sings.
    They say that it is the wisdom of passion which makes eternal
    the instinct of love._

    _This is the tale of Vasantasena, the slave who was free in her
    own heart, and of Madusadan, a captain of horse, who plucked the
    white rose without fearing the thorns._

   _This, finally, is the tale of Vikramavati, King of Hindustan in
   the days of the Golden Age, when Surya, the Sun, warmed the
   fields without scorching; when Vanyu, the Wind, filled the air
   with the pollen of the many flowers without stripping the trees
   bare of leaves; when Varuna, Regent of Water, sang through the
   land without destroying the dykes or drowning the lowing cattle
   and the little naked children who played at the river's bank;
   when Prithwi, the Earth, sustained all and starved none; when
   Chandra, the Moon, was as bright and ripening as his elder
   brother, the Sun._

    _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_


Vasantasena was the girl's name, and she came to young King
Vikramavati's court on the tenth day of the dark half of the month
Bhadra. She came as befitted a slave captured in war, with her
henna-stained feet bound together by a thin, golden chain, her white
hands tied behind her back with ropes of pearls, her slim young body
covered with a silken robe of the sad hue of the tamala flower, in sign
of mourning for Dharma, her father, the king of the south, who had
fallen in battle beneath the steel-shod tusks of the war elephants.

She knelt before the peacock throne, and Vikramavati saw that her face
was as beautiful as the moon on the fourteenth day, that her black locks
were like female snakes, her waist like the waist of a she-lion, her
arms like twin marble columns blue-veined, her skin like the sweetly
scented champaka flower, and her breasts as the young tinduka fruit.

He looked into her eyes and saw that they were of a deep bronze color,
gold flecked, and with pupils that were black and opaque--eyes that
seemed to hold all the wisdom, all the secret mockery, the secret
knowledge of womanhood--and his hand trembled, and he thought in his
soul that the bountiful hand of Sravanna, the God of Plenty, had been
raised high in the western heaven at the hour of her birth.

"Remember the words of the Brahmin," grumbled Deo Singh, his old prime
minister who had served his father before him and who was watching him
anxiously, jealously. "'Woman is the greatest robber of all. For other
robbers steal property which is spiritually worthless, such as gold and
diamonds; while woman steals the best--a man's heart, and soul, and
ambition, and strength.' Remember, furthermore, the words of--"

"Enough croakings for the day, Leaky-Tongue!" cut in Vikramavati, with
the insolent rashness of his twenty-four years. "Go home to your
withered beldame of a wife and pray with her before the altar of unborn
children, and help her clean the household pots. This is the season when
I speak of love!"

"Whose love--yours or the girl's?" smilingly asked Madusadan, captain of
horse, a man ten years the king's senior, with a mocking, bitter eye, a
great, crimson mouth, a crunching chest, massive, hairy arms, the honey
of eloquence on his tongue, and a mind that was a deer in leaping, a cat
in climbing. Men disliked him because they could not beat him in joust
or tournament; and women feared him because the purity of his life,
which was an open book, gave the lie to his red lips and the
slow-eddying flame in his hooded, brown eyes. "Whose love, wise king?"

But the latter did not hear.

He dismissed the soldiers and ministers and courtiers with an impatient
gesture, and stepped down from his peacock throne.

"Fool!" said Madusadan, as he looked through a slit in the curtain from
an inner room and saw that the king was raising Vasantasena to her feet;
saw, too, the derisive patience in her golden eyes.

"A fool--though a king versed in statecraft!" he whispered into the ear
of Shivadevi, Vasantasena's shriveled, gnarled hill nurse who had
followed her mistress into captivity.

"Thee! A fool indeed!" cackled the old nurse as, side by side with the
captain of horse, she listened to the tale of love the king was
spreading before the slave girl's narrow, white feet, as Kama-Deva, the
young God of Passion, spread the tale of his longing before Rati, his
wife, with the voice of the cuckoo, the humming-bee in mating time, and
the southern breeze laden with lotus.

"You came to me a slave captured among the crackling spears of battle,"
said Vikramavati, "and behold, it is I who am the slave. For your sake I
would sin the many sins. For the sake of one of your precious eyelashes
I would spit on the names of the gods and slaughter the holy cow. You
are a light shining in a dark house. Your body is a garden of strange
and glorious flowers which I gather in the gloom. I feel the savor and
shade of your dim tresses, and think of the home land where the hill
winds sweep.

"My love for you is as the soft sweetness of wild honey which the bees
of the forest have gathered among the perfumed asoka flowers--sweet and
warm, but with a sharp after-taste to prick the tongue and set the body
eternally longing. To hold you I would throw a noose around the far
stars. I give you all I have, all I am, all I shall ever be, and it
would not be the thousandth part of my love for you. See! My heart is a
carpet for your little lisping feet. Step gently, child!"

Vasantasena replied never a word. With unwinking, opaque eyes, she
stared beyond the king, at a slit in the curtain which separated the
throne-room from the inner apartment. For through the embroidered folds
of the brocade, a great, hairy, brown, high-veined hand was thrust, the
broad thumb wagging mockingly, meaningly, like a shadow of fate.

And she remembered the huge star sapphire set in hammered silver that
twinkled on the thumb like a cresset of passion. She remembered how that
hand had plucked her from amidst the horse's trampling feet and the
sword-rimmed wheels of the war-chariots as she crouched low above her
father's body. She remembered the voice that had come to her, clear
through the clamor and din of battle, the braying of the conches, the
neighing of the stallions, the shrill, angry trumpeting of the
elephants--

A voice sharp, compelling, bitter--

"Captive to my bow and spear, little flower, but a slave for the king,
my master. For such is the law of Hind. He will love you--not being
altogether a fool. But perhaps you will not love him. Being but a
stammering virgin boy, perhaps he will heap your lap with all the
treasures in the world. Being an honest gentleman, perhaps he will treat
you with respect and tenderness, with the sweet fairness of the blessed
gods. And perhaps--even then--you will not love him, little flower.

"Perhaps you will turn to the captain of horse as the moon rises like a
bubble of passion from the deep red of the sunset. Perhaps you will read
the meaning of the koel-bird's love-cry, the secret of the jessamine's
scent, the sweet, throbbing, winglike call of all the unborn children in
the heart and body and soul of Madusadan, captain of horse."

"A bold man, this captain of horse!" Vasantasena had smiled through her
tears, through the savage clang of battle.

"A reckless man--yet a humble man, little flower. Reckless and humble as
the moist spring monsoon that sweeps over the young shoots of
bluish-white rice. For"--here he had put her in front of him, on the
curve of the peaked, bossed saddle--"will the rice ripen to the touch of
the savage, clamoring monsoon?"

And he had drawn slightly away from her. He had not even kissed her,
though they were shielded from all the world by the folds of the great
battle flag that was stiff with gold, stiffer with darkening gore. In
the fluttering heart of Vasantasena rose a great longing for this
insolent warrior who spoke of love--and touched her not.

    _This is the tale of the grape that is never pressed, that never
    loses its sweetness, though white hands squeeze its pulp, day
    after day, night after night._

    _This is the tale of the book that is never read to the end,
    though eyes, moist and smarting with longing, read its pages
    till the candles gutter out in the gray dawn wind and the young
    sun sings its cosmic song out of the East, purple and golden._

    _This is the tale of love which rises like a mist of ineffable
    calm, then sweeps along on the red wings of eternal desire--the
    tale of love that is a chain forged of steel and scent, a chain
    of unbreakable steel mated to the pollen of the glistening
    areka-flower._

    _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_

"See!" said Shivadevi, the old nurse, to Vasantasena, who shimmered
among the green, silken cushions of her couch like a tiger-beetle in a
nest of fresh leaves. "Vikramavati, the king, has bowed low before you.
He has removed from your hands and ankles the pearl and gold fetters. He
has taken off your robe of mourning and has thrown about your shoulders
a sari woven of moonbeams and running water. He has seated you beside
him on the peacock throne, as a free woman--not a slave."

"Yes," replied Vasantasena. "He has placed his head and his heart on the
sill of the door of love. He brought me his soul as an offering. And
I"--she yawned--"I love him not."

"He has heaped your lap with many treasures," went on the old woman.
"Jasper from the Punjab has he brought to you, rubies from Burma,
turquoises from Thibet, star-sapphires and alexandrites from Ceylon,
flawless emeralds from Afghanistan, white crystal from Malwa, onyx from
Persia, amethyst from Tartary, green jade and white jade from Amoy,
garnets from Bundelkhand, red corals from Socotra, chalcedon from Syria,
malachite from Kafiristan, pearls from Ramesvaram, lapis lazuli from
Jaffra, yellow diamonds from Poonah, black agate from Dynbhulpoor!"

Vasantasena shrugged her slim shoulders disdainfully.

"Yes," she said. "He put the nightingale in a cage of gold and
exclaimed: 'Behold, this is thy native land!' Then he opened the
door--and the nightingale flew away to the green land, the free land,
never regretting the golden cage."

"He grovels before you in the dust of humility. He says that his life is
a blackened crucible of sin and vanity and regret, but that his love
for you is the golden bead at the bottom of the crucible. He has given
you freedom. He has given you friendship. He has given you tenderness
and affection and respect."

"Yes," smiled Vasantasena. "He has given me his everything, his all.
Without cavil, without stint. Freedom he has given me, keeping the
bitter water of humility as his own portion. But all his generosity, his
fairness, his humility, his decency--all his love has not opened the
inner door to the shrine of my heart. In the night he comes, with the
flaming torches of his passion; but my heart is as cold as clay, as cold
as freezing water when the snow wind booms down from the Himalayas. The
madness of the storm and the waves is upon him, but there is no
answering surge in the tide of my soul. In my heart he sees the world
golden and white and flashing with laughter. In his heart I see the
world grim and drab and haggard and seamed with tears. For--generous,
fair, unstinting--he is also selfish and foolish, being a man unwise in
the tortuous, glorious ways of love. Daily he tells me that I am the
well of his love. But never does he ask me if his love is the stone of
my contentment."

"Perhaps he does not dare," cackled the old nurse.

"Being modest?"

"Yes."

"Only the selfish are modest, caring naught for the answering spark in
the heart of the loved one. And the love of woman is destroyed by humble
selfishness as the religion of a Brahmin by serving kings, the milk of a
cow by distant pasturage, and wealth by committing injustice. There is
no worth in such wealth--nor in such love. This is Veda-truth."

And in a high, proud voice she added:

"I love Madusadan, captain of horse. I will kiss his red, mocking lips
and bend to the thrill of his strong body. Pure he is to all the world,
to all women--so the bazaar gossip says--but I, and I alone, shall light
the lamp of passion in his heart. Free am I! But the unsung music in his
heart shall be a loved fetter around mine. Clasped in his arms, life and
death shall unite in me in an unbreakable chain.

"I will bury my hands deep in the savage, tangled forest that is his
soul and follow therein the many trails. I will read the message of his
hooded, brown eyes, the trembling message of his great, hairy hands. His
heart is a crimson malati-flower, and mine the tawny orchid spotted with
purple that winds around its roots."

"Gray is the hair on his temples. He is the king's senior by ten years."

"Years of wisdom," laughed Vasantasena. "Years of waiting. Years of
garnering strength."

"He is not as kindly as Vikramavati, nor as great, nor as generous."

"But he is wise--wise! He knows the heart of woman--the essence, the
innermost secret of woman."

"And that is--"

"Patience in achieving. Strength in holding. Wisdom in--_not_ demanding
unless the woman offers and gives sign."

And she went out into the garden that stretched back of the palace in
wild, scented profusion, bunching its majestic, columnar aisles of
banyan figs as a foil for the dainty, pale green tracery of the
nim-trees, the quivering, crimson domes of the peepals bearded to the
waist with gray and orange moss, where the little, bold-eye gekko
lizards slipped like narrow, green flags through the golden, perfumed
fretwork of the chandela bushes and wild parrots screeched overhead with
burnished wings; and there she met Madusadan, captain of horse, whom she
had summoned by a scribbled note earlier in the day, and her veil
slipped, and her white feet were like trembling flowers, and she pressed
her red mouth on his and rested in his arms like a tired child.

    _The road of desire runs beneath the feet all day and all night,
    says the tale. There is no beginning to this road, nor end. Out
    of the nowhere it comes, vanishing, yet never vanishing in the
    nowhere; renewing each morning, after nights of love, the
    eternal miracle, the never-ending virginity of passion._

    _You cannot end the endless chain of it, says the tale. You
    cannot hush the murmur of the sea which fills the air, rising
    to the white, beckoning finger of Chandra, the Moon._

    _Love's play is worship._

    _Love's achievement is a rite._

    _Love's secret is never read._

    _Always around the corner is another light, a new light--golden,
    twinkling, mocking, like the will-o'-the-wisp._

    _Reach to it--as you never will--and there is the end of the
    chain, the end of the tale._

    _LET ALL THE WISE CHILDREN LISTEN TO MY JATAKA!_

"You broke your faith, faithless woman!" said Vikramavati as he saw
Vasantasena in the arms of Madusadan, captain of horse.

The girl smiled.

"It was you who spoke of love," she replied, "not I."

"I tried to conquer your love by the greatness of my own love."

"As a fool tries to take out a thorn in his foot by a thorn in his
hand."

"I gave you freedom. I gave you the wealth of all Hindustan, the wealth
of the outer lands. I gave you my soul, my heart, my body, my strength,
my ambition, my faith, my secret self."

"You gave me everything--because you love me. I gave you
nothing--because I do not love you."

"Love can do the impossible," gravely said the captain of horse, while
Vasantasena nestled more closely to his arms. "It was because of love
that Vishnu, the Creator, changed into a dwarf and descended to the
lowermost regions, and there captured Bali, the Raja of Heaven and of
Earth. It was because of love that, as Ramachandra, helped by the monkey
folk, he built a bridge between India and Ceylon, and that, as Krishna,
he lifted up the great mountain Golonddhan in the palm of his hand as an
umbrella with which to shield his loved one against the splintering,
merciless rays of Surya, the Sun, the jealous, yellow god.

"Love can do all things--except one. For love can never create love,
wise king. Love can force the stream to flow up-hill, but it cannot
create the stream when there is no water."

Silence dropped like a shadow of fate, and Vikramavati turned slowly
and walked toward the palace.

"To-morrow," he said over his shoulder, in an even, passionless voice,
"you shall die a death of lingering agony."

Madusadan laughed lightly.

"There is neither to-day nor to-morrow nor yesterday for those who
love," he replied. "There is only the pigeon-blue of the sunlit sky, the
crimson and gold of the harvest-fields, the laughter of the far waters.
Love fills the cup of infinity."

"To-morrow you will be dead," the king repeated dully.

And again Madusadan laughed lightly.

"And what then, O wise king, trained in the rigid logic of Brahmin and
Parohitas?" he asked. "Will our death do away with the fact that once we
lived and, living, loved each other? Will the scarlet of our death wipe
out the streaked gray of your jealousy? Will our death give you the love
of Vasantasena, which never was yours in life? Will our death rob our
souls of the memory of the great sweetness which was ours, the beauty,
the glory, the never-ending thrill of fulfillment?"

"Love ceases with death."

"Love, wise king, is unswayed by the rhythm of either life--or death.
Love--that surges day after day, night after night, as year after year
the breast of the earth heaves to the spring song of the ripening rice,
to the golden fruit of the mango groves.

"Death? A fig for it, wise king!

"Let me but live until to-morrow in the arms of my loved one, and the
sweetness of our love shall be an unbreakable chain--on through a
thousand deaths, a thousand new births, straight into Nirvana--into
Brahm's silver soul!"

"Ahee!" echoed Vasantasena. "Let death come and the wind of life lull;
let the light fail and the flowers wilt and droop; let the stars gutter
out one by one and the cosmos crumble in the gray storm of final
oblivion--yet will our love be an unbreakable chain, defying you, O
king--defying the world--defying the very gods--"

"But not defying the laws of nature, as interpreted by a wise Brahmin!"
a shrill, age-cracked voice broke in, and Deo Singh, the old prime
minister who had come down the garden trail on silent, slippered feet,
stepped into the open.

"No! By Shiva and by Shiva! Not the laws of nature, the eternal laws of
logic, as interpreted by a priest well versed in Sruti and Smriti--in
revelation and tradition. Not the laws of nature, rational and
evidential, physical and metaphysical, analytical and synthetical,
philosophical, and philological, as expounded by a Parohita familiar
with the Vedas and the blessed wisdom of the ancient Upanishads of
Hind!"

He salaamed low before Vikramavati.

"It is written in the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Books, the Lay of Brahm
the Lord, that each crime shall find condign punishment, be it committed
by high caste or low caste, by prince or peasant, by raja or ryot. To
each his punishment, says the Karma, which is fate!"

"And--these two?" demanded Vikramavati. "What punishment shall be meted
out to the faithless woman and the faithless captain of horse, Brahmin?"

Deo Singh spread out his fingers like the sticks of a fan.

"They have chosen their own sentence, these worshipers of Kartikeya, God
of Rogues and Rascals," he chuckled. "Of a chain they spoke. An
unbreakable chain that defies all laws, except belike"--again he laughed
deep in his throat--"the wise laws of nature. Weld them together with
such a chain, forged by a master smith, made so strong that not even a
tough-thewed captain of horse may break it with the clouting muscles of
his arms and back. A chain, ten feet long, so that they may never be far
away from each other, so that they may always be able to slake the hot,
turbulent thirst of love, so that they may never have to wait for the
thrill of fulfillment as a beggar waits at life's feast, so that day and
night, each hour, each minute, each second they may revel in the
sunshine of their love, so that never they may have to stand helpless
before the flood-tide of their desire.

"Grant them their wish, O king, being wise and merciful; and then lock
them into a room containing the choicest food, the sweetest drinks, the
whitest flowers, the softest, silkenest couch draped with purple and
gold. A room such as lovers dream of--and fools! Leave them there
together for three days, three nights, three sobbing, crunching, killing
eternities! With no sound, no touch, no scent, no taste, but their own
voices, their own hearts and souls and minds and bodies! And at the end
of the three days----"

"Yes?" asked Vikramavati.

"They will have suffered the worst punishment, the worst agony on earth.
Slowly, slowly for three days, three nights, three eternities, they will
have watched the honey of their love turn, drop by drop, into gall.
Their passion--slowly, slowly--will turn into loathing; their desire
into disgust. For no love in the world can survive the chain of
monotony!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Thus it was done.

A chain of unbreakable steel, ten feet long, was welded to the girl's
right wrist and the man's left, and they were locked into a house--a
house such as lovers dream of--that was guarded day and night by armed
warriors, who let none within hailing distance, whose windows were
shuttered and curtained so that not even the golden eye of the sun might
look in, and around which a vast circular clearing had been made with
torch and spade and scimitar so that neither bird nor insect nor beast
of forest and jungle might live there and no sound drift into the
lovers' room except, perhaps, the crooning sob of the dawn wind; and at
the end of the third night carefully, stealthily, silently the king and
the Brahmin walked up to the house and pressed their ears against the
keyhole, and they heard the man's voice saying:

"I love you, little flower of my happiness! I love you--you who are all
my dreams come true! When I look into your face the sun rises, and the
waters bring the call of the deep, and the boat of my life rocks on the
dancing waves of passion!"

And then the girl's answer, clear, serene:

"And I love _you_, Madusadan, captain of horse! You have broken the
fetters of my loneliness, the shackles of my longing! I waited, waited,
waited--but you came, and I shall never let you go again! You have
banished all the drab, sad dreams of the past! You have made your heart
a prison for my love, and you have tossed away the key into the
turbulent whirlpool of my eternal desire!"

    _"Did the chain gall them?" asked the Foolish Virgin, who had
    come to Jehan Tugluk Khan, a wise man in Tartary and milk
    brother to Ghengiz Khan, Emperor of the East and the North and
    Captain General of the Golden Horde._

    _"No, Foolish Virgin," replied Jehan Tugluk Khan. "Their love
    could not have lived without the chain. It was their love which
    WAS the chain--made it, held it, welded it, eternal, unbreaking,
    unbreakable. Ten feet long was the chain. Each foot of
    steel--eternal, unbreaking, unbreakable--was a link of their
    love, and these links were: Passion, patience, completion,
    friendship, tolerance, understanding, tenderness, forgiveness,
    service, humor."_

    _This is the end of the tale of Vasantasena, the slave who was
    free in her own heart, and of Madusadan, a captain of horse, who
    plucked the white rose without fearing the thorns._

    _And, says the tale, if you would make your chain doubly
    unbreakable, add another foot to it, another link. There is no
    word for it. But, by the strength and sense of it, you must
    never lull your love to sleep in the soft cradle of too great
    security._

    _For love demands eternal vigilance._

    _LISTEN, O AZZIA, O BELOVED, TO MY JATAKA!_




SECOND TALE

OUT OF THE DARK

BY MAX BRAND


The principality of Pornia is not a large country and in the ordinary
course of history it should have been swallowed entire, centuries ago,
by one of the kingdoms which surround it. Its situation has saved it
from this fate, for it is the buffer state between two great monarchies
whose jealousy has preserved for Pornia an independent existence.

Despite its independence, Pornia has never received much consideration
from the rest of Europe, and the aim of its princes for many generations
has been to foist it into the great councils by a strong alliance with
one of the two kingdoms to which it serves as a buffer.

The long-desired opportunity came at last in the reign of Alexander VI,
who, one morning, commanded Rudolph of Herzvina to appear at the palace.
As soon as the worthy old baron appeared, Alexander spoke to him as
follows: "Rudolph, you are an old and respected counselor, a devoted
servant of the State, and therefore I am delighted to announce that the
greatest honor is about to descend upon your family, an honor so great
that the entire State of Pornia will be elevated thereby. The Crown
Prince Charles wishes to make your daughter his wife!"

At this he stepped back, the better to note the joy with which old
Rudolph would receive this announcement, but, to his astonishment, the
baron merely bowed his head and sighed.

"Your highness," said Rudolph of Herzvina, "I have long known of the
attachment which the crown prince has for my daughter, Bertha, but I
fear that the marriage can never be consummated."

"Come, come!" said the prince genially. "It is a far leap indeed from
Baron of Herzvina to father-in-law to Prince Charles, but there have
been stranger things in history than this, though never anything that
could so effectually elevate Pornia. Have no fear of Charles. He loves
your daughter; he is strong-minded as the very devil; he will override
any opposition from his father. As a matter of fact, it is no secret
that Charles is already practically the ruler over his kingdom. So
rejoice, Herzvina, and I will rejoice with you!"

But the baron merely shook his head sadly and repeated: "I fear the
marriage can never be consummated."

"Why not?" said the prince in some heat. "I tell you, his royal highness
loves the girl. I could read passion even in the stilted language of his
ambassador's message. Why not?"

"I was not thinking of his royal highness, but of the girl. She will not
marry him."

The prince dropped into a chair with jarring suddenness.

Rudolph continued hastily: "I have talked with Bertha many times and
seriously of the matter; I have tried to convince her of her duty; but
she will not hear me. The foolish girl says she does not love his
highness."

The prince smote his hands together in an ecstasy of impatience.

"Love! Love! In the name of God, Herzvina, what has love to do with
this? This is the thing for which Pornia has waited during centuries.
Through this alliance I can make a treaty that will place Pornia once
and forever upon the map of the diplomatic powers. Love!"

"I have said all this to her, but she is obdurate."

"Does she expect some fairy prince? She is not a child; she is not
even--forgive me--beautiful."

"True. She is not even pretty, but even homely women, your highness,
will sometimes think of love. It is a weakness of the sex."

He was not satirical; he was very earnest indeed. He continued: "I have
tried every persuasion. She only says in reply: 'He is too old. I cannot
love him.'"

An inspiration came to Alexander of Pornia. Under the stress of it he
rose and so far forgot himself as to clap a hand upon the shoulder of
Herzvina. In so doing he had to reach up almost as high as his head, for
the princes of Pornia have been small men, time out of mind.

"Baron," he said, "will you let me try my hand at persuasion?"

"It would be an honor, sire. My family is ever at the disposal of my
prince."

He answered with a touch of emotion: "I know it, Rudolph; but will you
trust the girl in my hands for a number of days? A thought has come to
me. I know I can convince her that this love of which she dreams is a
thing of the flesh alone, a physical necessity. Come, send her to me,
and I shall tear away her illusions. She will not thank me for it, but
she will marry the crown prince."

"I will send her to the palace to-day."

"Very good; and first tell her why I wish to speak with her. It may be
that of herself she will change her mind when she learns the wishes of
her prince. Farewell."

And the prince rode off to a review of the troops of the city guard. So
it was that Bertha of Herzvina sat for a long time in a lonely room,
after her arrival at the palace before the door opened, a man in livery
bowed for the entrance of the prince, and she found herself alone with
her sovereign.

Automatically she curtsied, and he let her remain bowed while he slowly
drew off his white gloves. He still wore his general's uniform with the
stiff padding which would not allow his body to grow old, for a prince
of Pornia must always look the soldier.

"Sit down," he ordered, and as she obeyed he commenced to walk the room.

He never sat quietly through an interview if he could avoid it; a
constitutional weakness of the nerves made it almost impossible for him
to meet another person's eyes. The pacing up and down gave a plausible
reason for the continual shifting of his glance.

"A good day, a very good day," he said. "The hussars were wonderful."

His shoulders strained further back. The prince himself always rode at
the head of the hussars; in her childhood she had admired him. He
stopped at a window and hummed a marching air. That was a planned
maneuver, for his back was far more royal than his face, with its tall
forehead and diminutive mouth and chin. She felt as if she were in the
presence of a uniformed automaton.

He broke off his humming and spoke without turning.

"Well?"

"My decision is unchanged."

"Impossible! In the length of a whole day even a woman must think
twice."

"Yes, many times."

"You will not marry him?"

"I cannot love him."

He whirled, and the pale blue eyes flashed at her a brief glance which
made her cringe. It was as if an X-ray had been turned on her heart.

"Love!" he said softly, and she shuddered again. "Because he is old?
Bertha, you are no longer a child. Other women marry for what they may
term love. It is your privilege to marry for the State. That is the
nobler thing."

He smiled and nodded, repeating for his own ear: "The nobler thing! What
is greater than such service--what is more glorious than to forget self
and marry for the good of the thousands?"

"I have an obligation to myself."

"Who has filled you with so many childish ideas?"

"They have grown of themselves, sire."

The pacing up and down the room recommenced. "Child, have you no desire
to serve me? I mean, your country?"

She answered slowly, as if feeling for her words: "It is impossible that
I should be able to serve you through my dishonor. If I should marry
the crown prince, my life would be one long sleep, sire. I would not
dare awaken to the reality."

His head tilted and he laughed noiselessly. A weakness of the throat
prevented him from raising his voice even in times of the greatest
excitement.

"A soul that sleeps, eh? The kiss of love will awaken it?"

He surveyed her with brief disdain.

"My dear, you scorn titles, and yet as an untitled woman you are not a
match for the first red-faced tradesman's daughter. Stand up!"

She rose and he led her in front of a pier glass. Solemnly he studied
her pale image.

"A sleeping soul!" he repeated.

She covered her face.

"Will that bait catch the errant lover, Bertha?"

"God will make up the difference."

He cursed softly. She had not known he could be so moved.

"Poor child, let me talk with you."

He led her back to a chair almost with kindness and sat somewhat behind
her so that he need not meet her eyes.

"This love you wait for--it is not a full-grown god, dear girl, but a
blind child. Given a man and a woman and a certain propinquity, and
nature does the rest. We put a mask on nature and call it love, we name
an abstraction and call it God. Love! Love! Love! It is a pretty
disguise--no more. Do you understand?"

"I will not."

She listened to his quick breathing.

"Bertha, if I were to chain you with a ten-foot chain to the first man
off the streets and leave you alone with him for three days, what would
happen?"

Her hand closed on the arm of the chair. He rose and paced the room as
his idea grew.

"Your eyes would criticize him and your shame would fight in behalf of
your--soul? And the sight of your shame would keep the man in check. But
suppose the room were dark--suppose you could not see his face and
merely knew that a man was there--suppose _he_ could not see and merely
knew that a woman was there? What would happen? Would it be love? Pah!
Love is no more deified than hunger. If it is satisfied, it goes to
sleep; if it is satiated, it turns to loathing. Aye, at the end of the
three days you would be glad enough to have the ten-foot chain cut. But
first what would happen?"

The vague terror grew coldly in her, for she could see the idea taking
hold of him like a hand.

"If I were to do this, the world might term it a shameful thing, but I
act for Pornia--not for myself. I consider only the good of the State.
By this experiment I prove to you that love is not God, but blind
nature. Yes, and if you knew it as it is, would you oppose me longer?
The thought grows upon me! Speak!"

Her smile made her almost beautiful.

"Sire, in all the world there is only one man for every woman."

"Book talk."

He set his teeth because he could not meet her eyes.

"And who will bring you this one man?"

"God."

Once more the soundless laugh.

"Then I shall play the part of God. Bertha, you must now make your
decision: a marriage for the good of the State, or the ten-foot chain,
the dark room--and love!"

"Even you will not dare this, sire."

"Bertha, there is nothing I do not dare. What would be known? I give
orders that this room be utterly darkened; I send secret police to seize
a man from the city at random and fetter him to a chain in that room;
then I bring you to the room and fasten you to the other end of the
chain, and for three days I have food introduced into the room. Results?
For the man, death; for you, a knowledge first of yourself and,
secondly, of love. The State will benefit."

"It is bestial--incredible."

"Bestial? Tut! I play the part of God and even surpass Him. I put you
face to face with a temptation through which you shall come to know
yourself. You lose a dream; you gain a fact. It is well. Shame will
guard the secret in your heart--and the State will benefit. Still you
see that I am paternal--merciful. I do not punish you for your past
obstinacy. I still give you a choice. Bertha, will you marry as I wish,
or will you force me to play the part of God?"

"I shall not marry."

"Ah, you will wait for God to make up the difference. It is well--very
well; _le Dieu c'est moi_. Ha! That is greater than the phrase of Louis
XIV. You shall have still more time, but the moment the sun goes down,
if I do not hear from you, I shall ring a bell that will send my secret
police out to seize a man indiscriminately from the masses of the city.
I shall not even stipulate that he be young. My trust in nature
is--absolute. _Adieu!_"

She made up her mind the moment he left the room. She drew on her cloak.
Before the pier glass she paused.

"Aye," she murmured, "I could not match the first farmer's daughter. But
still there must be one man in the world--and God will make up the
difference!"

She threw open the door which gave on a passage leading to a side
entrance. A grenadier of the palace guard jumped to attention and
presented arms.

"Pardon," he said.

He completely blocked the hall; the prince had left nothing to chance.
She started to turn back and then hesitated and regarded the man
carefully.

"Fritz!" she said at last, for she recognized the peasant who had been a
stable-boy on her father's estate before he took service in the
grenadiers. "You are Fritz Barr!"

He flushed with pleasure.

"_Madame_ remembers me?"

"And my little black pony you used to take care of?"

"Yes, yes!"

He grinned and nodded; and then she noted a revolver in the holster at
his side.

"What are your orders, Fritz?"

"To let no one pass down this hall. I am sorry, _madame_."

"But if I were to ask you for your revolver?"

He stirred uneasily and she took money from her purse and gave it to
him.

"With this you could procure another weapon?"

He drew a long breath; the temptation was great.

"I could, _madame_."

"Then do so. It will never be known from whom I received the gun--and my
need is desperate--desperate!"

He unbuckled the weapon without a word, and with it in her hand she
returned to the room.

There was a tall western window, and before this she drew up a chair to
watch the setting of the sun.

"Will he ring the bell when the edge of the sun touches the hills or
when it is completely set?" she thought.

The white circle grew yellow; then it took on a taint of orange, bulging
oddly at the sides into a clumsy oval. From the gardens below came a
stir of voices and then the thrill of a girl's laughter. She smiled as
she listened, and, leaning from the window, the west wind blew to her
the scent of flowers. She sat there for a long time, breathing deeply of
the fragrance and noting all the curves of the lawn with a still, sad
pleasure. The green changed from bright to dark; when she looked up the
sun had set.

As she turned from the gay western sky, the room was doubly dim and the
breeze of the evening set the curtains rustling and whispering. Silence
she was prepared for, but not those ghostly voices, not the shift and
sweep of the shadows. She turned the electric switch, closing her eyes
to blur the shock of the sudden deluge of light. The switch clicked, but
when she opened her eyes the room was still dark; they had cut the
connecting wires.

Thereafter her mind went mercifully blank, for what she faced was, like
birth and death, beyond comprehension. Noise at the windows roused her
from the daze at last and she found that a number of workmen were
sealing the room so that neither light nor sound could enter or escape.
The only air would be from the ventilator. And still she could not
realize what had happened, what was to happen, until the last sounds of
the workmen ceased and the deep, dread silence began; silence that had a
pulse in it--the beating of her heart.

She was standing in the middle of the room when the first shapes formed
in the black night, and terror hovered about her suddenly, touching her
as with cold fingers. She felt her way back to a corner and crouched
there against the wall, waiting, waiting. They had seized the doomed
man long before this. They must have bound and gagged him and carried
him to the palace.

A thousand types of men passed before her inward eye--thin-faced clerks,
men as pale as the belly of a dead fish; bearded monsters, gross and
thick-lipped, with thunderous laughter; laborers, stamped with patient
weariness--and all whom she saw carried the sign of the beast in their
eyes. She tried to pray, but the voice of the prince rang in her ears:
"_Le Dieu, c'est moi!_" and when she named God in her prayers, she
visualized Alexander's face, the pale, small eyes, the colorless hair,
the lofty brow, the mouth whose tight lips could not be disguised by
even the careful mustache. When a key turned in a door, she sprang to
her feet with a cry of horror.

"It is I," said the prince.

"I am dying; I cannot stay here; I will marry whom and when you will."

"Ah, my dear, you should have spoken before sunset. I warned you, and I
never change my mind. It is only for three days, remember. Also, it is
in the interest of science. Beyond that, I have quite taken a fancy to
playing God for you for three days. Do you understand?"

The even, mocking tones guided her to him. She fell at his feet and
strained his thin knees against her breast.

"Come! Be reasonable, Bertha. This is justice."

"Sire, I want no justice. For God's sake, be merciful."

She heard the shaken breath of his soundless laughter.

"Is it so? You should be grateful to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing
you the love of which you have dreamed. Ha! Ha! _Le Dieu, c'est moi!_"

The clanking of the chain which he carried stilled her voice. It hushed
even the thunder of her heart. She rose and waited patiently while the
manacle was affixed to her wrist. The prince crossed the room and tapped
on the door, which opened, and by a faint light from without Bertha
discovered two men carrying a third into the room. She strained her
eyes, but could make out no faces. The burden was laid on the floor; a
metallic sound told her that she was fettered to the unknown.

The prince said: "You are a brave girl. All may yet be well. Then human
nature is finer than I think. We shall see. As for your lover, your gift
from God, he is sleeping soundly now. It may be an hour before the
effects of the drug wear away. During that time you can think of love.
Food will be placed three times a day within the door yonder. You can
readily find it by feeling your way around the wall. Farewell."

When the door closed she started to retreat to her corner, but the chain
instantly drew taut with a rattle. Strangely enough, much of her fear
left her now that she was face to face with the danger; temptation, the
prince had called it. She smiled as she remembered. When the man awoke
and learned their situation, she had no doubt as to how he would act.
She had seen the sign of the beast in the eyes of many men, great and
small; she had seen it and understood. The revolver might save her for a
time, but what if she slept? She knew it would be almost impossible to
remain awake during three days and nights.

The moment her eyes closed the end would come. It seemed better that she
should fire the bullet now.

When he recovered his senses, it would be difficult to shoot effectively
in the dark, for this was not the gloom of night--it was an absolute
void, black, thick, impenetrable. She could not make out her hand at the
slightest distance from her eyes. He might even attack her from behind
and knock the revolver from her hand before she could shoot. Sooner or
later the man must die. Even if she did not kill him it would be
accomplished by the command of the prince at the end of the three days.

Far better that it should be done at once--that he should never awaken
from his sleep. She reached the decision calmly and crept forward to
him. Very lightly she passed her hand over his clothes. She had to move
his arm to uncover the breast over his heart; the arm was a limp weight,
but the muscles were firm, round, and solid. The first qualm troubled
her as she realized that this must be a young man, at least a man in the
prime of his physical strength.

Then it occurred to her that often bullets fired into the breast are
deflected from the heart by bones; it would be far more certain to lay
the muzzle against the temple--press the trigger--the soul would depart.

The soul! She paused with a thrill of wonder. A little touch would loose
the swift spirit. The soul! For the first time she saw the tragedy from
the viewpoint of the unknown man. His life was cut in the middle; truly
a blind fate had reached out and chosen him from a whole city. Yet she
was merely hastening the inevitable. She reached out and found his
forehead.

It was broad and high. Tracing it lightly with the tips of her fingers
she discovered two rather prominent lumps of bony structure over the
eyes. Some one had told her that this represented a strong power of
memory. She tried to visualize that feature alone, and very suddenly, as
a face shows when a man lights his cigarette on the street at night, she
saw in memory the figure of Rembrandt's "Portrait of a Young Painter."
He sits at his drawing board, his pencil poised, ready for the stroke
which shall give vital character to his sketch. There is only one high
light, falling on the lower part of the face. Inspiration has tightened
the sensitive mouth; the questing eyes peer out from the shadow of the
soft cap. She broke off from her vision to realize with a start that
when she touched the trigger she would be stepping back through the
centuries and killing her dream of the original of Rembrandt's picture.
A foolish fancy, truly, but in the dark a dream may be as true, as vivid
as reality.

The unconscious man sighed. She leaned close and listened to his
breathing, soft, hurried, irregular as if he struggled in his sleep, as
if the subconscious mind were calling to the conscious: "Awake! Death is
here!"

At least there was plenty of time. She need not fire the shot until he
moved. She laid the revolver on her lap and absently allowed her hands
to wander over his face, lingering lightly on each feature. She grew
more alert after a moment. Every particle of her energy was concentrated
on seeing that face--on seeing it through her sense of touch. The blind,
she knew, grow so dextrous that the delicate nerves of their finger tips
record faces almost as accurately as the eyes of the normal person.

Ah, for one moment of that power! She tried her best. The nose, she told
herself, was straight and well modeled. The eyes, for she traced the
bony structure around them, must be large; the cheek bones high, a sign
of strength; the chin certainly square and prominent; the lips full and
the mouth rather large; the hair waving and thick; the throat large. One
by one she traced each detail and then, moving both hands rather swiftly
over the face, she strove to build the mental picture of the whole--and
she achieved one, but still it was always the young painter whom great
Rembrandt had drawn. The illusion would not go out of her mind.

An artist's hands, it is said, must be strong and sinewy. She took these
hands and felt the heavy bones of the wrist and strove to estimate the
length of the fingers. It seemed to her that this was an ideal hand for
a painter--it must be both strong and supple.

He sighed again and stirred; she caught up the weapon with feverish
haste and poised it.

"Ah, it is well," said the sleeper in his dream.

She made sure that he was indeed unconscious and then leaned low,
whispering: "Adieu, my dear."

At some happy vision he laughed softly. His breath touched her face.
Surely he could never know; he had so short a moment left for living;
perhaps this would pass into his latest dream on earth and make it
happy.

"Adieu!" she whispered again, and her lips pressed on his.

She laid the muzzle of the revolver against his temple, and, summoning
all her will power, she pressed the trigger. It seemed as if she were
pulling against it with her full strength, and yet there was no report.
Then she realized that all her might was going into an inward struggle.
She summoned to her aid the voice of the prince as he had said: "We put
a mask on nature and call it love; we name an abstraction and call it
God. _Le Dieu, c'est moi!_" She placed the revolver against the temple
of the sleeper; he stirred and disturbed the surety of her direction.
She adjusted the weapon again.

Up sprang the man, shouting: "Treason! Help!"

Then he stood silent a long moment; perhaps he was rehearsing the scene
of his seizure.

"This is death," he muttered at last, "and I am in hell. I have always
known what it would be--dark--utter and bitter loss of light."

As his hand moved, the chain rattled. He sprang back with such violence
that his lunging weight jerked her to her feet.

"It is useless to struggle," she cried.

"A woman! Where am I?"

"You are lost."

"But what has happened? In God's name, _madame_, are we chained
together?"

"We are."

"By whose power? By whose right and command?"

"By one against whom we cannot appeal."

"My crime?"

"None."

"For how long--"

"Three days."

He heaved a great sigh of relief.

"It is merely some practical joke, I see. That infernal Franz, I knew he
was meditating mischief! Three days--and then free?"

"Yes, for then you die."

Once more he was silent.

Then: "This is a hideous dream. I will waken from it at once--at once.
My dear lady--"

She heard him advancing.

"Keep the chain taut, sir, I am armed; I will fire at the slightest
provocation."

He stopped and laughed.

"Come, come! This is not so bad. You have been smiling in your sleep at
me. Up with the lights, my dear. If Franz has engaged you for this
business, let me tell you that I'm a far better fellow than he must have
advertised me. But what a devil he is to rig up such an elaborate hoax!
By Jove, this chain--this darkness--it's enough to turn a fellow's hair
white! The black night gets on my nerves. Lights! Lights! I yearn to see
you; I prophesy your beauty by your voice! Still coy? Then we'll try
persuasion!"

His breast struck the muzzle of the revolver.

She said quietly: "If I move my finger a fraction of an inch you die,
sir. And every word I have spoken to you is the truth."

"Well, well! You do this finely. I shall compliment Franz on rehearsing
you so thoroughly. Is this the fair Daphne of whom he told me--"

And his hand touched her shoulder.

"By everything that is sacred, I will fire unless you stand back--back
to the end of the chain."

"Is it possible? The Middle Ages have returned!"

He moved back until the light chain was taut.

"My mind whirls. I try to laugh, but your voice convinces me. _Madame_,
will you explain my situation in words of one syllable?"

"I have explained it already. You are imprisoned in a place from which
you cannot escape. You will be confined here, held to me by this chain,
for three days. At the end of that time you die."

"Will you swear this is the truth?"

"Name any oath and I will repeat it."

"There's no need," he said. "No, it cannot be a jest. Franz would never
risk the use of a drug, wild as he is. Some other power has taken me.
What reason lies behind my arrest?"

"Think of it as a blind and brutal hand which required a victim and
reached out over the city to find one. The hand fell upon you. There is
no more to say. You can only resign yourself to die an unknown death."

He said at last: "Not unknown, thank God. I have something which will
live after me."

Her heart leaped, for she was seeing once more the artist from
Rembrandt's brush.

"Yes, your paintings will not be forgotten."

"I feel that they will not, and the name of--"

"Do not speak of it!"

"Why?"

"I must not hear your name."

"But you know it already. You spoke of my painting."

"I have never seen your face; I have never heard your name; you were
brought to me in this room darkened as you find it now."

"Yet you knew--"

Her voice was marvelously low: "I touched your face, sir, and in some
way I knew."

After a time he said: "I believe you. This miracle is no greater than
the others. But why do you not wish to know my name?"

"I may live after you, and when I see your pictures I do not wish to
say: 'This is his work; this is his power; this is his limitation.' Can
you understand?"

"I will try to."

"I sat beside you while you were unconscious, and I pictured your face
and your mind for myself. I will not have that picture reduced to
reality."

"It is a delicate fancy. You are blind? You see by the touch of your
hands?"

"I am not blind, but I think I have seen your face through the touch."

"Here! I have stumbled against two chairs. Let us sit down and talk. I
will slide this chair farther away if you wish. Do you fear me?"

"No, I think I am not afraid. I am only very sad for you. Listen: I have
laid down the revolver. Is that rash?"

"_Madame_, my life has been clean. Would I stain it now? No, no! Sit
here--so! My hand touches yours--you are not afraid?--and a thrill leaps
through me. Is it the dark that changes all things and gives eyes to
your imagination, or are you really very beautiful?"

"How shall I say?"

"Be very frank, for I am a dying man, am I not? And I should hear the
truth."

"You are a profound lover of the beautiful?"

"I am a painter, _madame_."

She called up the image of her face--the dingy brown hair, long and
silken, to be sure; the colorless, small eyes; the common features which
the first red-skinned farmer's daughter could overmatch.

"Describe me as you imagine me. I will tell you when you are wrong."

"May I touch you, _madame_, as you touched me? Or would that trouble
you?"

She hesitated, but it seemed to her that the questing eyes of
Rembrandt's portrait looked upon her through the dark--eyes reverent and
eager at once.

She said: "You may do as you will."

His unmanacled hand went up, found her hair, passed slowly over its
folds.

"It is like silk to the touch, but far more delicate, for there is life
in every thread of it. It is abundant and long. Ah, it must shine when
the sun strikes upon it! It is golden hair, _madame_, no pale-yellow
like sea-sand, but glorious gold, and when it hangs across the
whiteness of your throat and bosom the hearts of men stir. Speak! Tell
me I have named it!"

She waited till the sob grew smaller in her throat.

"Yes, it is golden hair," she said.

"I could not be wrong."

His hand passed down her face, fluttering lightly, and she sensed the
eagerness of every touch. Cold fear took hold of her lest those
searching fingers should discover the truth.

"Your eyes are blue. Yes, yes! Deep-blue for golden hair. It cannot be
otherwise. Speak."

"God help me!"

"_Madame?_"

"I have been too vain of my eyes, sir. Yes, they are blue."

The fingers were on her cheeks, trembling on her lips, touching chin and
throat.

"You are divine. It was foredoomed that this should be! Yes, my life has
been one long succession of miracles, but the greatest was reserved
until the end. I have followed my heart through the world in search of
perfect beauty and now I am about to die, I find it. Oh, God! For one
moment with canvas, brush, and the blessed light of the sun! It cannot
be! No miracle is complete; but I carry out into the eternal night one
perfect picture. Canvas and paint? No, no! Your picture must be drawn in
the soul and colored with love. The last miracle and the greatest! Three
days? No, three ages, three centuries of happiness, for are you not
here?"

Who will say that there is not an eye with which we pierce the night? To
each of these two sitting in the utter dark there came a vision.
Imagination became more real than reality. He saw his ideal of the
woman, that picture which every man carries in his heart to think of in
the times of silence, to see in every void. And she saw her ideal of
manly power. The dark pressed them together as if with the force of
physical hands. For a moment they waited, and in that moment each knew
the heart of the other, for in that utter void of light and sound, they
saw with the eyes of the soul and they heard the music of the spheres.

Then she seemed to hear the voice of the prince: "You should be grateful
to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing you that love of which you
dreamed. _Le Dieu, c'est moi!_"

Yes, it was the voice of doom which had spoken from those sardonic lips.
The dark which annihilates time made their love a century old.

"In all the world," she whispered, "there is one man for every woman. It
is the hand of Heaven which gives me to you."

"Come closer--so! And here I have your head beside mine as God
foredoomed. Listen! I have power to look through the dark and to see
your eyes--how blue they are!--and to read your soul beneath them. We
have scarcely spoken a hundred words and yet I see it all. Through a
thousand centuries our souls have been born a thousand times and in
every life we have met, and known--"

And through the utter dark, the merciful dark, the deep, strong music of
his voice went on, and she listened, and forgot the truth and closed her
eyes against herself.

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