WHEN LOVE WAS BORN
The streets of St. Petersburg, the city itself, nihilism, Russia, the
czar had ceased to exist for me, however. Whatever she may have seen
upon the street that had brought that startled cry to her lips, and had
made her turn about and grasp my arm, had also brought into her
countenance an expression of such overwhelming and overpowering concern
for me, that I knew with a perfect knowledge in that instant, that Zara
loved me.
Have you ever been swayed by an impulse that is utterly beyond your
control, and before which all other considerations degenerate to such
utter insignificance as not to exist at all?
It was such an one that controlled me then.
As she drew me toward the window, and would have directed my gaze
through it, her own eyes held unflinchingly to mine, and mine held hers
with a compelling power which she did not seek to resist, and could not
have controlled, even if she had made the effort.
Whatever it may have been, out there in the street, that had alarmed
her, she forgot it, and my arms were around her, her lithe, sinuous,
pulsing body was crushed madly against my own, and our lips had met
before either of us realized it. We had mutually recognized the strange
and overwhelming instinct of love, that had asserted its control over
both at the self-same instant. I forgot the world, the flesh and the
devil, the czar, Russia, and nihilism, and she forgot even that
uppermost terror that was tearing at her heart, in that supreme moment
of the rapturous recognition of love.
We were unconscious of the fact that we were standing directly before
the window, where we must have been for the moment in full view of
persons passing in the street; we had forgotten everything, save each
other.
We were both silent; there was no occasion for words; our souls were
speaking to each other in a language of their own, God-given and
complete, which leaves nothing to be understood, which comprehends all
things.
In such supreme moments as that one was, heart speaks to heart with a
complete understanding which passeth all human knowledge, and which can
be understood only by the two who are most concerned, and by God, who
created such impulses.
Presently we were back again beside the low divan. She was seated upon
the edge of it, and I was beside her, with one knee on the floor,
clasping both her hands in one of mine, while the other still encircled
her body, holding her tightly against me in that rhapsody of love which
overawes all sense of understanding.
Her head rested lightly upon my shoulder; stray tresses of her hair
brushed against my temple and my cheek; her half-parted lips, glowing
like newly opened rose-buds, never attained a distance of more than an
inch from mine, and for the most part they were together, as lightning
conductors of every thrill that pulsed through her being and mine.
When our lips were not in contact, our eyes were; they were gazing into
the utmost depths of each other's soul, reading and understanding all
that was mutually expressed, charmed and fascinated by the beauteous
panoramic scenes which flittered in love-phantoms past our prophetic
vision.
"My love! my love!" she murmured over and over again, as if it were all
she could utter, and as if with the use of that expression all things
were said and done; and I replied as inevitably and comprehensively.
It sounds inane enough in the telling of it, but meaningless phrases
and abrupt expressions may, at certain moments in our lives, express
everything.
Time became a blank; the world was blotted out; existence was only an
incident; we, ourselves, with our bodies, our energies, our
capabilities, had become mere atoms in the immensity of that greatest
of all God's creations, Love.
There were murderers waiting in the street to do me to death; I thanked
God for their presence, since because of it, Zara had been brought to
the confession and expression of her love for me. She was a nihilist
queen and she had played with the affections of men in order to stupefy
them to her purposes, as demanded by the cause she served; but I also
thanked God for that, because its consideration and my deep resentment
had made plain to me the real power and passion of this abundantly
glorious woman, now swayed by only one impulse, love for me.
But, however enthralling they may be, all impulses must have an end.
However complete may be love's expression, there is a limit to its
continuance; I mean that silent form of expression which proclaims
itself only in soul communion.
It was a period of almost utter unconsciousness, since we were both
conscious of only one thing while it lasted; but the reaction came at
last while she was still relaxed in my embrace, and while yet the
mystifying magic induced by contact with her, enveloped me, body and
soul.
"Zara," I said, half whispering the word now so unutterably sweet to
me, "you will leave Russia now--with me?"
The question brought us both to our senses, with a start, and my
princess drew away from me a little, and said, with a whimsical smile:
"A little while ago, my love, you ordered me to leave Russia, alone;
now you order me away again, but under guard. I think I will obey you
in this last order you have given me. Whenever you will it, I will go."
"And leave behind you all that you have hitherto thought so much about,
Zara?" I asked, brought back by her statement to a realization of the
conditions by which we were surrounded. She replied without hesitation,
and with a finality that was complete:
"Yes."
Ah, what maps of the world have been changed by that word yes. What
histories have been written because of its utterance, even in a
whispered tone, as hers was then.
"And your nihilists?" I asked her, still intent upon an even more
complete capitulation on her part.
"Yes," she repeated.
"And your brother? The cause you have served so intently? The purpose
of your life? Everything, Zara?"
"Yes," she said a third time, and still with that same emphasis of
finality which could not be misunderstood, and for which there was no
qualification.
I was silent and so was she; but after a little I heard her murmuring
in a tone so low that it seemed as if I scarcely heard it,
notwithstanding the fact that every word was quite distinct.
"I will leave everything for you, my love, for you are all the world to
me. There is nothing else now, but you. Nihilism and the cause it
upholds, has sunk into utter insignificance, and has become a mere
point in the history of my life, like a punctuating period that is
placed at the end of a written sentence. Nihilists, great and small,
have become mere atoms in the mystery of creation, and they can have no
further influence upon my life. The czar of all the Russias is no more
a personage to me now, than the merest black dwarf of central Africa,
and Russia itself has diminuated to a mere island in the sea of
eternity, a speck on the map of the infinite creation. You,
Dubravnik----" She paused there and smiled into my eyes with an
inimitable gesture of tenderness as she reached upward with her right
hand and brushed back the hair from my temples--"I think I shall always
call you Dubravnik. The name is yours, as I have known you, and as
Dubravnik you are mine, as I am yours."
My reply to this was not a spoken word, and it needs no explanation.
"You, Dubravnik," she continued from the point where she so sweetly
interrupted herself, "have become the universe to me, now. You are the
infinite space which comprehends all."
It was sweet to hear her express herself so; sweeter still to know,
that comprehensive as it was, it went but a little way toward
explaining all that she would have liked to say; and sweetest of all to
realize that she also exactly expressed my thought toward her, and that
she knew she did so.
There was a long silence after that, broken only by her breathing, by a
murmured word of caress, by a gesture of endearment or an occasional
sigh; but I brought it to an end presently by asking a question which
brought her out of her reverie with a start of affright.
"What was it, Zara, that you saw through the window when----" I did not
complete the sentence. It was not necessary. She understood me
instantly and with the understanding there returned to her a
realization of all the terrors by which we were at that moment
surrounded. We could love each other with a rhapsodical completeness,
in perfect security, so long as we remained together inside that room;
but beyond the walls of Zara's palatial home death stalked grimly,
waiting, waiting, waiting, for the moment to strike.
She withdrew from my embrace, slowly and tentatively, but surely, until
we no longer touched each other, and she gazed appealingly into my eyes
while the flush of love forsook her cheeks and brow, giving place to a
pallor of uncertainty and dread for me.
"I had forgotten," she murmured.
"Then continue to forget, my Zara," I whispered.
"No, we must not forget; we must remember." She raised her hand and
pointed toward the window. "Out there, Dubravnik, death waits for you.
I had forgotten. I had forgotten."
With a start she gained her feet and stood for a moment palpitatingly
uncertain, clasping and unclasping her hands, while her bosom rose and
fell in this stress of an utterly new emotion.
One whom she loved was threatened, now. The maternal instinct of
womankind is never more prominent than when it is exercised in the
protection of the man she loves, and who is destined to be the father
of her offspring. It is a grand and a noble sentiment, and no man lives
who will ever comprehend it; but when a man loves as I loved then, he
can appreciate its fullness, even though he may not understand it; he
can recognize its existence and presence, even though it would be
impossible for him to define it.
And it was the maternal instinct that governed her in that moment of
terrorized realization of the dangers which threatened me.
I had suddenly become her charge and care. She saw herself as
responsible for the conditions that menaced me, and she was like a wild
partridge sheltering its brood, and which will not hesitate to face any
peril for their protection.
I was always more or less indifferent, if not insensible, to danger. It
may not necessarily be bravery that refuses to recognize perils; it may
be an instinctive quality of dominance, and self-confidence which is
convinced of its power to overcome them.
I rose and stood beside her, putting my arm around her as we faced the
window from the opposite side of the room.
"Out there lies danger, Zara," I said smiling, "but here, in this room,
dwells happiness."
"There can be no happiness with death waiting for you outside," she
said, with sharp decision.
"Zara, my love!"
She wheeled upon me and clasped her hands together behind my neck,
looking up at me with trouble-shrouded eyes, and with brows that were
slightly corrugated by the perplexities of the moment.
"Listen to me, sweetheart," she said, with her face so close to mine
that I had all I could do to refrain from interrupting her. "We must
not belittle the perils that lie yonder. There are two lives in danger
now, for if anything should happen to you, it would kill me also. I am
selfish now, Dubravnik, in my concern for you, for after all it is
myself whom I would protect, through you. But we must not belittle the
danger. I know that you are brave and daring; that you have no fear. I
realize that you view with contempt the perils that beset you, but oh,
my love, suppose that you should not escape."
"Why suppose it, Zara? I am here; the danger is there. We need not
anticipate it. Let us leave it to be met at the proper moment,
forgetting for this once, that it exists."
"No, no, we must control ourselves. We have been children for an hour
or more, forgetful of all things save love; but now let us be what we
are, a man and a woman who have perils to face."
"And who, I trust, have the courage to meet them, Zara."
"Ay, courage; but courage alone does not always accomplish the sought
for end. Courage alone is not inevitably competent to meet and overcome
conditions. And we need more than courage, Dubravnik; we need
resource."
"Resource is something with which we are both moderately well
provided," I suggested, smiling, and still refusing to accept her words
as seriously as she intended them.
She stamped her foot impatiently upon the rug, and frowned a little,
with a touch of petulance in her manner that was the most bewitching
thing I had yet seen about her.
"Do be your own self for a moment," she commanded me, withdrawing from
my restraining arm and stepping away out of my reach.
"How can I be myself, when I see and realize only you?" I bantered her.
Then came another transition almost as startling as it was complete.
She threw herself bodily forward into my embrace, clasping her clinging
arms about me, while she buried her beautiful face between my chin and
shoulder and burst into a passion of sobs which convulsed her so
utterly that I was alarmed.
I had tried her too far with my bantering attitude, and my apparent
indifference to a threatening and terrible fate.
"Zara!" I said. "My love!"
But she only sobbed on and on, and I held her crushed against me until
the storm should pass, knowing that a great calm would succeed it, and
that her present expression of emotion was only the safety valve for
all that had passed between us since the incident when our lips met for
the first time.