PERHAPS my friend Pedro of Brazil told me the story of Rairu and the
Star Maiden for much the same reason that hungry men fall to talk of
meals that they have eaten. When I say hungry men I do not mean men with
an appetite, but men who have long been on the verge of
starvation—shipwrecked sailors, men lost in the desert, and such like.
The truth is that what the heart hungers for, the tongue talks of. So my
friend Pedro told me many tales of his own warm land where spice-laden
breezes blow gently soft, and at the time he told me his tales we two
were in the midst of the snows of Tierra del Fuego, when the winds
shrieked like a thousand demons and the frost-giant had bound river and
lake.
We were gold digging on the upper Santa Maria and there came without
warning a fierce blizzard, the snow falling for the best part of two
days and two nights, and in the morning we could not move from our tent,
though we had pitched it in a quiet nook of the hills. We had little to
eat, nothing to read, and no light but the fire-glow, and the world
seemed to narrow about us, the mountains to close in and the leaden sky
to drop. And all the while Pedro talked of his gentler land, telling me
the glory of hills all purple and green, of sunlit waters and
flower-crowned children. So, soon we forgot the black south wind and the
destroying cold. Pedro half forgot, I think, that hope which led him to
the Far South; it was a hope long cherished, that he might find gold
enough to enable him to live in quiet in his own land among the books
that he loved.
However, you may think this wearisome talk, judging it better that I
tell the tale told by Pedro. But I have felt it best to set it down as I
have, because Pedro never saw his own land again; so the writing of the
story is in some measure done in affection for my friend. As soon as the
snow ceased to fall he went away on foot, our horses having wandered
before the storm, and his intention was to win his way to a shack some
eight miles away where he might get some food which we needed sorely
enough. I in the meantime, we agreed, would take my rifle and try to
shoot a huanaco or some other thing. But another storm came on and it
was not until five days had passed in search that I found Pedro. And he
was frozen.
As I write I see the scene again—the snow-swept hills, the gray sky,
the white-laden bushes, and Pedro. I made what haste I could to bury him
in the ice-bound earth and put up a rough cross to mark the place, and I
had barely finished when a white storm swept up and hid both mound and
cross.
Here is the tale he told, one of many, and he said that he had heard it
often and often when he was a child.
_The Tale_
Of all things, nothing pleased Rairu more than to watch the ways of the
living things of the forest, to bend over a flower and drink in its
beauty, to lie by the side of a leaf-hidden pool and follow some shaft
of sunshine as it shot to the depth, or to stand breathless when a wild
bird broke into song. His father, very bitter against what he deemed
idleness, often said harsh things, telling Rairu that he would do well
to attend to matters more enduring. Still, Rairu was what he was. Before
the sunlight came over the world he would seek the forest deeps and
there, hidden in green thickets, would lose himself in the music of the
birds. And as time passed and Rairu grew into young manhood another joy
came to him, and the glory of the star-sprinkled sky filled him with
wonder. Night after night he would wait in a favourite place by a little
cascade, a place bare of trees, eagerly impatient for the soft light of
the first star in the violet sky.
Watching thus Rairu found a thought rise in his mind, a thought that the
world would be well only when that order was among men which was in the
skies. More, it seemed to him that of all living creatures that walked
the earth man was the most destructive, the most wasteful, and the most
untrustful. Then one night as he lay at the foot of a palm tree, his
heart was full of gladness because of the song of a night-bird, and it
came to him somehow to believe that the stars sang to the bird as the
bird sang to the stars, so he looked up to find, if possible, which star
heard that bird, and he saw one that hung low, one far more beautiful
than her fellows. Thereafter, when the sky grew soft and dark, his eyes
sought the Silver One and he waited until the night-bird sang. Like
jewels, like living sparks of sound, the music went up, and like a
maiden the Silver One listened. When the star dropped in the west and
the song-bird ceased, then Rairu was sad and alone, alone as one in a
seagirt land whom none may visit.
One day, it was a day of cloud-flecked sky and humming life, Rairu met
an old man, thin-haired and bearded, and the stranger hailed him,
calling him by name. After some talk, much of which seemed riddlesome to
the lad, the old man asked him what of all things, had he his wish,
would he choose.
After thinking awhile, Rairu said:
“If the Silver One would come from her place in the sky and go with me
so that I might admire her beauty both day and night, I would be the
happiest man on earth.”
Hearing that, the old man bade Rairu go to sleep that night on a high
hill which was not far away. “And,” said he, “if it be that you desire
the Silver One for her beauty alone and not that others may envy you in
your possession, then it may be that your wish shall be granted.” No
more he said, but walked away, singing to himself softly as he went.
All that day Rairu spent in the forest, eager for the night and the
stars, and in the noonday heat sat in the shade of the trees with eyes
fast closed, trying to make a song in which he might tell the world of
the Silver One and her great beauty, for it vexed him that so few looked
to her; but no words came to him to satisfy. Only this, which he thought
but a poor thing:
When men sorrow and rage,
When the hearts of men grieve,
When arrows of sharp words wound,
When there is none to pity pain,
In the order of heaven there is sweet delight.
In the night hushed and still,
When is neither weeping nor laughter,
In the night-time between two empty days,
The Silver One is riding in the sky
Singing hand in hand with her sister stars,
Singing, because the life of men is an empty dream.
When darkness was about to spread he went up the rocky path to the
hilltop, as the old man had bidden him, and lay there looking at the
opal fires in the western sky, watching the change to sea-green and
gold, from orange to pink, and waiting, waiting until the stars should
come forth. Now and then he sang the lines of the song he had made, the
last lines:
In the night-time between two empty days,
The Silver One riding in the sky
Singing hand in hand with her sister stars,
Singing, because the life of men is an empty dream.
When at last the stars pricked the dark, great was his grief to find
that the Silver One was not among them. He searched well, thinking that
she hid perhaps behind a leaf, but soon he knew that her sisters went
their way alone. Long and long he looked, and at last, wearied and sad
at heart, fell asleep, weeping that he had lost the thing to him most
dear.
As he slept he dreamed that the earth was bathed in a great white light,
a light that was both light and music, at which he became wonderfully
happy. He dreamed that he was lifted up as on a cloud, lifted up high
into the heavens and could see, far below him, countless sweetly turning
spheres of light; and across great dark spaces and gulfs of blackness
were other and new stars; and from the edge of nothingness to the edge
of nothingness all was a-tune. Still, for all that, his heart was heavy,
because in all that stardust there was no Silver One. What was most
strange was this: though his heart was heavy, yet a joy was in him, a
sad joy for that he felt himself as a tight-stretched golden string that
quivered in tune with the music all about. So he awoke and saw standing
by his side a maiden clothed in white, whose eyes looked into his heart
with deep love.
“Arise, Rairu,” said she, “for I have come to cheer and to comfort. I am
the Silver One and you may keep me with you.” So saying she became
small, small but none the less beautiful, so small indeed that she might
have stood in the palm of Rairu’s hand.
Then Rairu was the happiest of mortals. He cast about him for a casket
in which to keep his treasure, but finding none worthy, bethought him of
his gourd, a thing which he had carved and adorned with much excellent
skill. Having cleaned it well, so well that not a grain of dust was in
it, he set it on the ground on its side in a clean place and the Silver
One stepped into it, resting lightly on a bed of light-green moss. All
that day Rairu went about, now and then taking the cover from the gourd
to look within and gaze with delight at the eyes of the Silver One
looking up at him. Whenever he did that, from the gourd there came a
sound of melting music, so entrancing a sound that Rairu felt himself to
be a part of all things—a part of the very heavens and the stars and
the sun and the moon. Even of the forest with its animals and birds, its
trees and its pools, he was a part.
Day and night strange things the Silver One told Rairu, and of those
things that which he found most sad was her telling that when the day
came on which he took his eyes from her and thought of other things on
which she would not look, things which hid from her in dark places and
under roofs, then there would be a dividing and she would become to him
but as an aching memory. At that Rairu, after pondering awhile, always
laughed, telling her that no sword could sever the thread that bound
them.
There came a day when the Silver One told Rairu that it would be well if
they visited the sky-world for a season, and to do that Rairu was quite
willing. So at her bidding Rairu sat among the leaves of a palm tree and
the Silver One crept out of the gourd and took her place by his side.
With a little stick she touched the tree, and at that it grew rapidly,
grew until it carried them into a place all bare and treeless, without
birds or flowers. The Silver One told Rairu to wait a while and she
would return. She sped away and Rairu kept her in his sight, for her
light did not dim.
Soon, to his astonishment he saw, close at hand, a beautiful city with
shining towers and moving lights of many colours, and about it went a
joyful procession of young men and maidens, dancing and singing and
playing instruments. Many beckoned to him to follow them, which he did.
Soon he came to a great hall, and as he entered a great burst of music
sounded, whereupon all there fell to dancing, whirling wildly. Wilder
and more wild grew the music; it became a welter of sound, a boiling
flood of strange noise that set his brain on fire. From corners leaped
evil and ugly things, bats, swine, evil-eyed carrion-birds, blunt-tailed
and mud-coloured serpents and great white toads, soft and clammy. In the
wild dance they joined and the din grew louder, so that it seemed to
Rairu that his ears must crack. But more fearful things there were, so
that Rairu fled to the place where he had stood when the Silver One left
him.
She was there waiting for him, but her eyes, though still full of love,
were filled with sad tears. Very gently she chided him for his
disobedience, and Rairu hung his head in sorrow and shame, knowing that
he must leave the Silver One for a season. It needed no words to tell
that the thread was broken. Hand clasped hand then, the more
passionately because they knew that there would be a parting.
“Go then, Rairu,” said she. “But mind well that a little toil, a little
striving, and thou shalt find me again. In the darkness lean on me, the
more because thou knowest thyself to be weak. Under the shadow of death,
dear Rairu, a fainting love is revived.”
So Rairu returned to earth, but great was his desire to find again that
which he had lost. And he told his fellow-men of all that he had seen,
saying that he must again find his star. Soon, with searching, he found
his Silver One and the clear light led him, clothing all that he said
and did with beauty.
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