The twilight had passed away in the dazzling white light.
But yonder, in the big, dark, chilly house, the old woman sat waiting.
She had sent the maids to bed and told them to put out all the lights,
but she herself did not go to bed; she waited. She sat in her big, dark
room, with just a candle flickering on the table beside her.
It seemed to her that she was waiting a long time. She felt very cold,
though she had put her little black shawl round her shoulders. And she
peered into the frowning shadow, which quivered with dancing black
ghosts and with the flickering of the candle. It was a dance of ghosts,
hovering silently round the room, and they seemed to have come from the
distant past to haunt her, to have come out of the things of long ago,
of very long ago: far-off, forgotten years of childhood and girlhood;
the young man whom she had married; their long life together; their
children, young around them.... Then the rise of their greatness; the
rise of the white palaces in tropical climes; the glitter around them
and their children of all the glittering vanity of the world.... Then
the children growing up and moving farther and farther away from her....
And she saw it all looming so darkly and so menacingly in the long, dark
rooms, while she sat waiting and watching by the flickering flame of the
candle.
Then her old head nodded very slowly up and down, as if to say that she
recognized all the things of long ago which loomed so darkly and
threateningly, that there was not a ghost which she did not recognize,
but that she did not understand why they all thronged round her
to-night, like a vision of menace, a dance of death.... And, while she
sat and wondered, it was as if each dancing phantom blacked out
something of the room and the present that she still saw faintly
gleaming, blacked out one outline after the other with dancing phantom
after dancing phantom, until at last all was black around her ... and
not only the room and the present had become black, but also the pale
visions of the past: the years of childhood and girlhood; the young man
whom she had married; and the children; and all the life, yonder, in the
white palaces amid the tropical scenery: black, everything became black,
until everything was blotted out, until the dance of all those phantoms
was obliterated in shadow and the old woman, nodding her head, still sat
peering into the dark, with the flickering candle beside her.
Thus she sat and waited; and, with the darkness before her, it was as if
she did not see the candle, now that everything had become black. Thus
she sat and waited and wondered whether many and many nights would still
drag their blackness over her: how many black hours, how many black
nights could the black future still drag along?... Until at last she
heard a bell, clanging like a shrill alarm through the livid darkness.
And mechanically--because she was waiting--she rose painfully and took
her candle. Through the dark room and the dim passage she went; and the
faint light went with her, so faint that she did not see it, that she
just groped her way painfully through the passage and down the stairs,
still holding high the candle.... The stairs seemed steep to her and she
went cautiously, waiting on each step; at each step the faint light of
the candle descended with her; and behind her the night accumulated with
each step that she left behind her.... She had now reached the foot of
the stairs; and, slowly and painfully, with the dragging tread of age,
she went through the hall to the front door, whence the alarm had rung.
And her trembling hand opened the door. Addie entered:
"Granny, is that you yourself?..."
"Yes, child."
"I came, Granny dear, because Mamma said that you expected us."
"Yes."
"Were you waiting up for us, Granny?"
"Yes."