"RESURGAM!"
"Resurgam!"
Had his senses deceived him? They must have deceived him. And yet that
music at least had seemed startlingly near, sudden, and sweet, as though
one should tread upon a harp in the grass. For the next day or two
Antony could not get it out of his ears, and often, like a sweet wail
through the wood, he seemed to hear the word "Resurgam."
Was Silencieux a living spirit, after all,--no mere illusion, but one of
those beautiful demons of evil that do possess the souls of men?
He went and stood by Silencieux's grave. It was just as he had left it.
Only an early yellow butterfly stood fanning itself on the freshly
turned earth.
Was it the soul of Silencieux?
Cursing himself for a madman, he turned away, but had not gone many
yards, when once more--there was that sudden strain of music and the
word "Resurgam" somewhere on the wind.
This time he knew he was not mistaken, but to believe it true--O God, he
must not believe it true. Reality or fancy, it was an evil thing which
he had cast out of his life--and he closed his ears and fled.
Yet, though he loyally strove to quench that music in the sound of
Beatrice's voice, deep in his heart he knew that the night would come
when he would take his lantern and spade, wearily, as one who at length
after hopeless striving obeys once more some imperious weakness--and
look on the face of Silencieux again.
Too surely that night came, and, as in a dream, Antony found himself in
the dark spring night hastening with lantern and spade to Silencieux's
grave. It was only just to look on her face again, to see if she really
lived like a vampire in the earth; and were she to be alive, he vowed to
kill her where she lay--for into his life again he knew she must not
come.
As he neared the whitebeam, a gust of wind blew out his lantern, and he
stood in the profound darkness of the trees. While he attempted to
relight it, he thought he saw a faint light at the foot of the
whitebeam, as of a radiance welling out of the earth; but he dismissed
it as fancy.
Then, having relit the lantern, he set the spade into the ground, and
speedily removed the soil from the white face below. As he uncovered it,
the wind again extinguished the lantern, and there, to his amazement and
terror, was the face of Silencieux shining radiantly in the darkness.
The hole in which she lay brimmed over with light, as a spring wells
out of the hillside. Her face was almost transparent with brightness,
and presently she spoke low, with a voice sweeter than Antony had ever
heard before. It was the voice of that magic harp at the bottom of the
sea, it was the voice that had told him of her lovers, the voice of
hidden music that had cried "Resurgam" through the wood.
"Antony," she said, "sing me songs of little Wonder."
And, forgetting all but the magic of her voice, the ecstasy of being
hers again, Antony carried her with him to the châlet, and setting her
in her accustomed place, gazed at her with his whole soul.
"Sing me songs of little Wonder," she repeated.
"You bid me sing of little Wonder!" cried Antony, half in terror of this
beautiful evil face that drew him irresistibly as the moon, "you, who
took her from me!"
"Who but I should bid you sing of Wonder?" answered Silencieux. "I
loved her. That was why I took her from you, that by your grief she
should live for ever. There is no one but I who can give you back your
little Wonder--no one but I who can give you back anything you have
lost. If you love me faithfully, Antony--there is nothing you can lose
but in me you will find it again."
Antony bowed his head, his heart breaking for Beatrice--but who is not
powerless against his own soul?
"Listen," said Silencieux again. "Once on a time there was a beautiful
girl who died, and from her grave grew a wonderful flower, which all the
world came to see. 'Yet it seems a pity,' said one, 'that so beautiful a
girl should have died.' 'Ah,' said a poet standing by, 'there was no
other way of making the flower!'"
And again, as Antony still kept silence in his agony, Silencieux said,
"Listen."
"Listen, Antony. You have hidden yourself away from me, you have put
seas and lands between us, you have denied me with bitter curses, you
have vowed to thrust me from your life, you have given your allegiance
to the warm and pretty humanity of a day, and reviled the august cold
marble of immortality. But it is all in vain. In your heart of hearts
you love no human thing, you love not even yourself, you love only the
eternal spirit of beauty in all things, you love only me. Me you may
sacrifice, your own heart you may deny, in the weakness of human pity
for human love; but, should this be, your life will be in secret broken,
purposeless, and haunted, and to me at last you will come, at the
end--at the end and too late. This is your own heart's voice; you know
if it be true."
"It is true," moaned Antony.
"Many men and many loves are there in this world," continued
Silencieux, "and each knows the way of his own love, nor shall anything
turn him from it in the end. Here he may go and thither he may turn, but
in the end there is only one way of joy for each, and in that way must
he go or perish. Many faces are fair upon the earth, but for each man is
a face fairest of all, for which, unless he win it, each must go
desolate forever--"
"Face of Eternal Beauty," said Antony, "there is but one face for me for
ever. It is yours."
* * * * *
On the morrow Beatrice saw once more that light in Antony's face which
made her afraid. He had brought with him some sheets of paper on which
were written the songs of little Wonder Silencieux had bidden him sing.
They were songs of grief so poignant and beautiful one grew happy in
listening to them, and Antony forgot all in the joy of having made
them. He read them to Beatrice in an ecstasy. Her face grew sadder and
sadder as he read. When he had finished she said:--
"Antony!--Silencieux has risen again."
"O Beatrice, Beatrice--I would do anything in the world for you--but I
cannot live without her."